a few more scary halloween stories that my students wrote!

the black cat

once upon a time, there was a black cat.
she was 30 years old.
she liked to eat tomatoes and cheese.
but she didnt like milk and fish.
so her bones were not strong.
one day , the cat jumped off of tokyo tower and broke her leg because her bones were not strong.
but she want to try again.
so she tried to drink milk and eat fish.
her bones became stronger and stronger.

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the pink skeleton

once upon a time, there was a pink skeleton.
they lived in a pink house and pink city.
they liked pink.
one day, the pink skeleton was very sad.
her body color changed to blue.
and city's color changed to blue too.
everyone in the city was sad-so they decided to play a game.
they played UNO and one person took a color change card.
so the color changed to green and they were sad again (so can you tell i play uno with my students often?)

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the smelly witch

once upon a time, there was a smelly witch.
she lived in kasugai, near ochiai park.
her best friend was jen.
she was smelly too.
the witch and jen went to geo to rent a video.
they rent kureyon shinchan and enjoyed to watch in witch's house.
they became hungry.
they decided to cook dinner.
the food was very bad and they died.



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the mean ghost

once upon a time, there was a mean ghost.
he didnt have any friends.
so he went outside to make friends.
but he was not able to be watched (seen)
so he cried "look at me!!!"
one dog heard the voice and approached.
he cursed (put a curse )the dog.
soon the dog died.
the mean ghost was happy.


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the horrible zombie

once upon a time, there was a horrible zombie.
he was hungry and wanted to eat humans.
there was a piece of cake which looked so delicious.
he always attacked people at night.
people were scared of the zombie's attack.
one night the zombie went to one man's house to attack and eat him.
but he saw the cake.
he was so happy.
he ate the cake after ate the man.
cake was more delicious than humans.
so he stopped eating humans.




well thats enough fear for now! hahah. more to come!

the marathon is coming up! today -friday, i am just taking it easy and getting some stuff, mostly cleaning, done that i havent had time for. i am a little nervous for the marathon. its been a year and a half since my last one. but ill just go try my best. it wont be fast, but i am happy just to finish. to be able to run again is great considering last year this time, i couldnt walk without horrible pain, let alone run! so ill take it!

Adult halloween

-- Post From My iPhone


What a guy!

Halloween at the English school

-- Post From My iPhone

more scary stories!

the smelly witch

once upon a time, there was a smelly witch.
she didn't like this smell.
she decided to take a shower.
and she went to a hair salon.
one day she took a shower.
but this smell didn't go away.
she went to the dry cleaner to smell better.
it didn't work, so she made a good smelling potion.

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the scary skeleton

once upon a time, there was a scary skeleton.
he was 20,000 years old.
he killed people.
he killed many people.
he killed people and ate them for dinner.
but he didn't become full
so he killed more.
he killing people because he don't become full.

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the old mummy

once upon a time, there was an old mummy.
he moved slowly.
he wanted to move fast.
he bought some nice running shoes.
he trained everyday with the shoes.
so he could run very fast.
he was very happy and he run after someone.

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the angry vampire

once upon a time, there was an angry vampire.
he was angry everyday.
one day he went to the village.
he wanted to drink blood.
so he killed one family and get a lot of blood.
the village was very angry at the vampire.
everyone in the village attacked the vampire.









today is the last day of halloween parties. its been a long week and i have a cold now. but happy for the weekend. halloween parties with adults.

well im off to the gym for a quick swim! only have 31 miles to go till the race (depending on my cold, i may run a little less to rest more.) its crazy how fast this race came up! my first full marathon since march 2008! wow!

One year of greatness

I forgot to put these pics up in September- but better late than never. Hiro took me to a nice French restaurant. It was a great and special day!


-- Post From My iPhone

Jr high and high students

-- Post From My iPhone

halloween stories

Its that time again! that wonderful time of the year when i have my jr high and high school students write stories about halloween. i come up with the title and they each write 1 sentence and pass is to the next person, until the paper fills up. its always fun to see how creative the students cant be!

enjoy!

The moldy monster

once upon a time there was a moldy monster.
he was sad because he didnt have any friends.
so he wanted to die.
but he couldnt die.
so he tried to make friends.
but he couldnt make friends.
he decided to find some friends on the internet.
he found another moldy friend and they were happy.
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the smelly cat

once upon a time there was a smelly cat.
he wanted friends.
he decided to go shopping for some perfume.
he bought a very strong perfume.
he became a good smelling cat.
but the perfume was very very strong so he couldnt make friends.
he went the trip to look for good smelling perfume.
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the scary witch

once upon a time, there was a scary witch.
she was 100 years old.
she liked to eat people.
sometimes, she went to a city to get people.
one day she came to kasugai to find some delicious high school students to eat.
and a person call kazuki was gotten. (kazuki is a boy in the class)
but kazuki won.
the world became peaceful.
--------------------------------



there are more to come.

weve been halloween partying this week at KIS. fun games, cute crafts and fun times. ill add some pics after i remember to take some.....

stinkbug

monday was finishing up like any normal day of teaching. I was in the last 15 minutes of a high school class of boys. i had the window open a bit to have some fresh air and not use the air conditioner. a little green bug flew in.. i quickly grabbed the fly swatter and prepared to swat, when my students yelled "STOP"!! i looked at them and asked why. they told me that it was a bug that smelled very bad.

well over the next few minutes, the bug flew around the room. a boy, who plays on the badminton team at his school, took the fly swatter and tried to hit the bug out of the window. it didnt work. the reactions of the other boys were great. they were screaming and running like little girls! hahah. at one point, my coworker came in to see what the noise was about. when we told her there was a bug, she screamed and ran into the other classroom.

finally i had the genius idea of turning off the light in the classroom, thus making the bug fly to the hallway, and eventually out of the front door. (my school is really small so the front door is about 2 feet away from my classroom. it worked. the bug few out into the hallway and landed on the ground. we put a box over it and put it outside in the box. then i made the students go back into the room or the last 5 minutes of class

and boy oh boy did it smell. it smelled bad. we spent the next 5 minutes talking about kamemushi-stinkbugs. looking at their faces, trying not to breathe in deeply, i started laughing and told them to get out of the smelly room and go home. we all felt a little nauseated. its amazing how a little bug can stink up a classroom so bad! one student told me that if someone were to put a stinkbug in a small box, it would die due to its own stink. and if you touch it, you cant wash the smell off for awhile. interesting.

anyways, we left it in the box overnight and i hurried to work on tuesday to see what became of the stinkbug-but it was gone! so i wonder what happened to the bug and to the person who found it!

tokyo marathon

last year was a big disappointment in not being able to run in tokyo marathon. its so hard to get in, and to waste my entry by not being able to run was disappointing. but i got another chance. in february, i can try again. it will be marathon number 8. and i am determined to stay as healthy as possible and train smart and efficiently! yay for another chance!

the next races are:

ibigawa full marathon 11/8
kasugai 10km 1/?
tokyo marathon 2/28
kanazawa marathon 5/?

and hopefully i can get into the triathlon again.

but i need to find a good marathon for my 10th full marathon. sometime next fall.

Obama, je ne suis pas d'accord

Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days).




I read this article on yahoo news. It is frustrating to me in a few ways:

First of all, American kids spend more hours in school than kids in asian countries. Since I live in Japan and teach here, I'm only going to say what I've seen. I know that most of my students go to juku- basically after school subject tutoring. Some of my students go 2 hours a week, some everyday for 2 hours. During vacation times, they can go all day. So, technically some kids in Japan spend a lot of time in "school"- all day in school then go to their club, then go to this tutoring, then go to english classes or other things. I'll admit, my students are good at math (maybe obama should make us take abacus classes as children, like lots of kids in japan do). But I'll tell you what, I have many many many students who are incapable of using their brain, learning abstract things or thinking for themselves.


I'd say the majority of my students are burnt out and just plain tired of studying by the time they are in junior high. Starting their day early and finishing at 9pm is not a great habit to get into. But I'm always surprised by how many students really have a day to day schedule like this.

Parents have to pay for school here. There are about 40 students in a class. Teachers work horrible hours. Kids clean the school.


So basically if Obama wants American kids to go to school longer, just to keep up with math and science scores, he's gonna have to change a lot more than just the hours. Who's going to pay for the extra time the teachers work? What about the kids who don't come from well off families and need to have a part time job? What if the above average kids keep staying above average and the below average students just stay below average? what was accomplished?


Sure, tests can be good, but do we really have to focus so much on state tests, nationwide tests, and worldwide standards? What about the things that cant be tested? What about kids who aren't good test takers? What about teaching kids real life things? Letting kids be kids. Once they get older, they won't have a summer vacation.



Just because kids get better math and science scores in other countries, doesn't mean that they don't have any weaknesses.