You are Tenacity

You are Tenacity
Originally uploaded by DavidGardinerGarcia

This is a great shot. I'd love to run in the NYC Marathon. I wish I could make this one into a poster.
これは本当にいい一枚ですね。女性は「You are Tenacity」と書いた看板（？）を持っています。tenacityという言葉は調べてみると「不屈不撓、 持久力、 スポ根」らしい。「頑張り」と言う意味もあります。つまりこれは「あなたは持久力です」みたいな応援のメッセージになります。こうした看板を持って応援している人はたくさんいたらしい。

running dogs

running dogs
Originally uploaded by mr_caffeine74.

なぜか今日は走る仲間が出来ました。普通は一人で走っているけど、今朝の霧の中から二匹の犬が静かに寄り添ってきて一緒に11キロほど走りました。帰宅するまでずっと一緒でしたけど、ちゃんと自分のうちに帰れたのかなぁ。for some reason I have running companions this morning. I usually run alone. But this morning out of the mist came these two running dogs. They silently came up beside me and kept me company for about 11 kilometers. They ran from the point they picked me up till I reached home, running beside me, behind me, in front of me and sometimes almost tripping me up. I wonder if they made it back home?

Quote of the Day!

A p.s. attatched to the end of a mail from a friend recently who is working in Japan as a "Instructor for International Understanding".

PS Does seem kinda funny that I spent all that time in a lab, mixing chemicals, cutting things open, memorizing formulas, analyzing data, and all sorts of other difficult and timeconsuming things, to earn a bachelor of science, which now allows me to do the hokey pokey with kids all day!

狩勝サマーロードレース

狩勝サマーロードレースの申込書が届きました。まだ届いていないなぁとサンタランドマラソンの参加者がささやいていた。皆は参加しますか？申込書がなければ送ります。締め切りは7月7日です。私はこの3年間も参加しました。参加料は手持ちで申し込む必要があるようですので、十勝に住んでいる方にお勧めします。

An athlete begins his run after the swim.

An athlete begins his run after the swim.
Originally uploaded by mr_caffeine74.

Photo of me in the local edition of the Hokkaido Newspaper. The captions reads, "an athlete begins his run after finishing the swim". I participated in the Obihiro no Mori Aquathalon for the second time. I bettered my time from last year by a few minutes. My swim was much faster but my run was slower. I haven't been able to exercise much. Don't know why my swim was faster??

Second Language Learning

I have started reading some articles about Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning by Greg Thomson. I have found them on a site called Language Impact's Language Learning Website. I have just finished reading Thomson's What? Me Worry About Language Learning? article. In it he talked about his experience and trails trying to learn new languages. In particular he talked about his experience and how he went about trying to learn Blackfoot. He also talks about why some people may be better at learning languages than others and why some languages may be more difficult for one person than another. It was very interesting for me and enlightening. The main gist of the article, other than being a primer for one who is thinking about starting to learn a new language, is that you have to have a good strategy. He says that a good strategy would include

• a time commitment,
  
• making yourself accountable,
  
• ways to keep improving your conversational ability, and
  
• a way to develop lots of relationships with speakers of the language you want to learn.

The first two should not be too difficult for most people to accomplish. The second and third strategies seem a bit more difficult. What if there are no or very few native speakers of the language you want to learn?

Well, anyways, I hope that this new insight into language learning will help me develop better activities and methods for teaching English. Although one of the things that he repeatedly stresses is that it is extremely difficult to learn a second language in a language class. 頑張るぞォ

It's a boy!

It's a boy!
Originally uploaded by mr_caffeine74.

Introducing Aspen Ross Lane. Born 12:54 in the afternoon. Weight 3594gm.
Ryo felt labor coming on at 6:30am and he was born that day at 12:54, just after noon. There were no complications. A few seconds after he came out he started to cry. I cut the umbilical cord. He started looking for a drink right away. Both mom and baby are doing great. They will be in the hospital until Friday.