Rice in a Japanese cuisine

There is no rice cooker in my host family’s home. I hadn’t eaten boiled rice in a Japanese cuisine there. I’ve always had to eat rice in other cuisines.

I like Chinese fried rice (chaofan 炒飯) and long-grained indica rice. Though I always go to Chinatown's restaurant and eat street vendor's platters with indica rice as a lunch, I sometimes miss Japanese rice (short-grained japonica rice), so I tried to cook a rice without a rice cooker.

Although I thought it was difficult to cook with a pot, it was quite easy. Moreover, I can cook fast and better than using a rice cooker. Necessity is the Mother of Invention. I'm satisfied with the result; I can cook Japanese rice now.

I ate dinner with my host family's daughter. She cooked other dishes. It was really good.

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9/11's Eighth Memorial

Today was a rainy and windy day. It was very cold like when winter begins. The temperature styed low after Labor Day, which usually marks the end of Summer.

I went to Ground Zero after work today despite the coldness (in spite of the coldness). Today is the 8th memorial day of 9/11. I was a college student when 9/11 happened.

There were some people who prayed, and there were some flowers offered to the victims at Ground Zero. It has been 8 years, yet there were no buildings; only construction cranes stood there.

My workplace is very close to the area. One of my co-workers lost two friends. It was then I realizedthat 9/11 really happened here.

Japanese people who study Non-science fields.

Some Japanese people want to work in the US, yet it is difficult for Japanese who don't study science or engineering fields, to work in the US.

Non-science Japanese people usually work in Financial, trading, or manufacturer companies in the US which have a tie to Japanese business. It is quite rare that Japanese people who work in sales, accounting, or public relations in the US. While non native English, including Japanese, speaker can find some jobs easier in engineering or programming who are not proficient in English.

In my case, I studied Business Administration for my undergraduate, which was a non-science field. If I worked in Japan, I could earn higher salary than in the US because I am proficient in Japanese. My English is intermediate level and there is a low demand for Japanese in the US.

Internships versus Language schools

If you already know the basics of English, I recommend you go with an internship to study English instead of language schools.
There are few Americans in language schools, the only ones being teachers and clerks. The majority are non-Native English speakers. The reason I chose an internship to study English is because I thought that I couldn't talk a lot with American people in the US. I found this to be true.

Another reason is that you don't have to speak English a lot in classed; what you need to do is to concentrate on listening to the teacher's lecture. Of course, it's necessary things to read and listen to English, but only these passive studies aren't enough to learn English. You also have to speak and write a lot English.

You can't learn natural English only through language schools. I speak with a lot of American people daily, listening to their daily conversations. This kind of natural English sometimes includes dirty words which aren't taught in school. If I only studied in school, it would be difficult to learn these kind of dirty, but natural English.

On the one hand, a school is safe place for you. The staff usually don't get angry with you, and blame you for something, so you don't need to be serious. On the other hand, if you choose an internship, you have to talk with people who aren't nice to you. Now I have to talk with people who are in a bad mood; it's completely different from schools.

In Regards to Language Exchanges

I've been practicing English with language exchanges for 2 months in NYC, I now have three partners who are reliable.

One partner is studying Japanese to travel to Japan in this month; He'll stop studying Japanese soon. I would like to have three partners whom I can see regularly, thus I'm looking for a new partner.

It's difficult for me to find reliable partners for language exchange. I usually look for partners with websites. Using these websites, I can find candidates easily. But I found that sometimes, these kind of relationships suddenly finish.

Some people stop sending e-mails without saying a word, others change the date to a day before twice. These kind of things seems insincere. I couldn't continue to do language exchange with these passionless people.

You can find a lot of candidates, but they aren't always the ideal ones for you; patience is a key to finding a good partner.

Environment changes people

When I lived in Japan, I was only interested in things which are related to Japan. Even when I study English, I didn't like to see American movies and listen to music in the US, I preferred Japan video and music. I had studied English for practical reasons, and I had never felt too close to the US. The United States only had existed in my knowledge, not in my experience.

But since I came here, I'm surrounded by American people, always hearing NY1 (24 Hour Local News about NYC) in my room, reading Time magazine periodically, and now I feel a sense of closeness to the US. I'm interested in the US culture, politics, and economy. Taylor Swift is now one of my favorites, and I heard the name of “Ted Kennedy” every thirty minutes last week in my room.

I think the environment changed me.

Link
YouTube - Taylor Swift - Love Story:

the Lower House election in Japan

There was the lower house election in Japan on the August 30th. The ruling party, Liberal Democratic Party which has been a ruling party more than 50 years suffered a crushing defeat. An opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan will be a ruling party in September due to the result of election. This is an extraordinary event in Japanese politics.

This doesn't mean that Japanese people aren't agree with the Democratic Party's policies, they just disgusted with the Liberal Democratic Party, which cause people to vote to the Democratic Party.

A two-party system has started to work, but it is in its infancy.

LINK
Japan opposition takes on economy after landslide

PS
I bought Wall Street Journal which has big articles about this election.

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Every company has same goals.

Every company has common goal, “to increase profit and to decrease cost.”.

I am now doing easy clerical works. These works are necessary, but doesn't pay a lot. These works should be finished as fast as possible. There is not a good manual in the company, so one of the goals is to make a good manual, which will increase productivity.

Another goal is to increase profit. Most employee usually do only their daily work. If people want a company to become bigger and more profitable, higher reward generating projects has to be taken. I'm now interning at a Non-Profit-Organization, but the goal is common. We need new works which will make money continually.

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Internship at a glance

I'm interning at a US company, and am now doing easy clerical works. Through working these kind of odd-jobs, I'm getting used to the company.

I found that sometimes, easy work becomes difficult. For instance, It's difficult for me rent spaces for meetings in Jackson Heights, since I don't know what kind of institutions are good in this case. Doing this kind of thing was a piece of cake in Japan.

There are things in the company that I've noticed, like harder work that I'd like to do, but because of my limited knowledge of the U.S. and English compared to Japanese, I know I have to be patient until I improve and can contribute more to my company.

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