Salmonella infection and Bathroom

I took a day off today because I have a stomachache since last night. I felt a little scared when I felt a stomachache since I continue to eat raw eggs in NYC. Though a salmonella infection is an exceptional thing, I cannot exclude the possibility of it.

If I try to go to the work, I can. But the inconvenience of finding a bathroom in NYC prevents me from going out. When I went to the Franklin station's bathroom (3 train), I couldn't put up with the dirtiness of the subway public bathroom. I felt the same way when I when to the bathroom next to the Statue of Liberty and a Halloween's temporary bathroom. Though I like almost all things in the U.S., I detest three things, the uncleanliness, the foods, and not observing punctuality.

111609

American Museum of Natural History

 

I went to American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) last Sunday. The museum is one of the famous tourist spots in NYC. There were many people, especially parents and their children there.

The planetarium is excellent, powerful, and dynamic! I highly recommend it to people who visit the museum. It looks like a genuine starlit sky. The sky is filled with stars. It's hard to see stars in NYC at night, so I yearn to look at stars.

Another special exhibition is fossils of dinosaurs. You can see famous fossils there. I finally saw Tyrannosaurus rex! Now, I understand why dinosaurs are so popular; I think their huge size attract many people. There are also other famous fossils for example Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and Pteranodon, but I couldn't find Velociraptor which is not big but quick and cunning. There are a lot of attractive exhibitions in the museum, you can't enjoy them in only a day! I think I will definitely visit there again.

PS
The official Guide is very expensive, it costs $15, but it is thin. If you compare the AMNH guide and The MET, you will be disappointed with it.


111609

Statue of Liberty

Though I've lived in NYC for 4 months, I hadn’t been there yet. So I decided to go to the Statue of Liberty on November 5th. I tried to buy a crown ticket which will allow me climb to the crown, but the crown tickets were sold out.

Even though I couldn't go inside the Statue, in other words I only walked around the Statue, I was satisfied with this sightseeing. The Statue of Liberty isn't as small as I had thought when I saw it from Manhattan. My impression turned out to be wrong. I have visited one of the iconic places of New York City.

I went there with a Swiss lady. We spoke in English. I found that it's difficult for non-native English speakers to speak informally. We've studied English in schools where teachers usually only teach formal English. Our English is intermediate, but sometimes we can't use simple English because of this reason.

After the visit to the statue, we went to the Immigration museum on Ellis Island. We learned about immigrant history there. I learned that the US is made up of immigrants. All Americans except Native American were originally immigrants.

PS
I found that the audio tour isn't appropriate for tourists in a group because people can't communicate while they are listening to the audio guide.

A Soul Food

I ate a soul food tonight. It tastes good, but it's very different from my country's cuisine. I think Japanese people need to get used to it.

chocolate pretzels

I love chocolate pretzels. It's salty like a pretzel, and yet it's covered in chocolate. These are rarely found in Japan. So I must eat them now.

Halloween in the U.S.

There were many people who dressed up for Halloween. I could see funny looking people on the street. I was surprised at the bloody people and skeletons walking the streets. What I was surprised at was that even grown-ups disguised themselves as Halloween characters.

I really love American's way of thinking; even grown-up Americans can enjoy the festival. This kind of thing is rarely found in Japan. I hope that the same way of thinking would spread to Japan.

Times Square at midnight

I went to Times Square at midnight on the 25th of October. There were many tourists even at midnight, and they were buying many souvenirs. Though many Japanese people believe that to go out at night in the U.S. is more dangerous than in Japan, Times Square isn't a very dangerous place. I saw that there were two policemen standing around so I felt very safe.

One of my favorite sci-fi novels is “Flowers for Algernon”. Two of the novel's characters, Charley and Alice, went to the movies at a Times Square theater. I went to the same place where they went and enjoyed experiencing the atmosphere of the place. I was really satisfied with this experience.

A review of “Lost in Translation”

My host family father lent me a movie, “Lost in Translation”. This movie is about two American people visiting Japan and they experienced culture shock.
In the movie, they looked confused; the characters couldn’t speak any Japanese; they couldn’t understand what Japanese people talked about; they couldn’t do what they can do easily in the US. The characters spent a lot of money to stay in Japan, but couldn’t enjoy their stay because they lack the knowledge of Japan.
I could understand what they felt because I had experienced same things in the US. When I came here, everything seemed different and difficult to do. I thought it’s a good to understand culture shock which people experience when they visit unknown countries.

PS
This movie interprets Japanese well. I saw many misinterpretation of Japan in the US. I saw a movie in the past. This movie’s actor is a Korean or Chinese and he acted Japanese, so it was quite odd for me.

Vendy Awards

There was a street vendor festival on September 26th. This eventwas a competition of street food vendors in New York City. I took partin this event as a volunteer; I was able to eat delicious street vendor’sfood there.

Street vendors’ food prices are very reasonable, which is why I alwaysgo to vendor stands to have lunch. Many Americans also eat streetvendors’ food. This event, the Vendy Awards, is a festival for thesevendors.
I thought that the participants were very different from most vendors;they looked rich and educated. They could pay 80 dollars for the entry fee.On one hand, most vendors are mainly immigrants, poor, and can't speakgood English.The founder of this event, Sean Basinski, aimed to linkvendors, who lived harshly, with New York citizens. “Vendy Award is oneway to do that to put vendors in the limelight for one day and it'salso just a lot of fun.” He said.

All tickets were sold out. SVP could raise money through the festival.This year’s Vendy Awards was a success.

Japanese Food in NY

I ate Ramen for lunch today. I spent 7 dollars for it. The ramen turnedout to be instant noodles; I was very disappointed with it.

Japanese food is very expensive in NY. Moreover, it's difficult tofind authentic ones. Most Japanese food have been cooked using Americancuisine.

091609

Bronx Zoo

I'm interested in Zoos, especially the breeding methods used there. I've read some books about zoos. Most Japanese zoos have copied the ideas of the US zoos. I wanted to go to Bronx zoo when I
lived in Japan. I recently went on the 20th, and had a valuable experience there.

One of my interests is “Enrichment”. I noticed some “Environmental Enrichment” there. The Bronx zoo is huge. The facilities try to keep a comfortable environment for the animals. Some animals here seem to live more comfortably than the ones in Japan. Another interesting note is that Bronx zoo has an emphasis on educating people. There are strong messages for visitors. You can learn about animal extinction because of environmental destruction.

Zoos used to be a show tent, and animals had to live in cages. It's completely different from present zoos. Zoos have progressed in this respect. I'd like to introduce my favorite message, learned from the Bronx zoo.

“In the end,
we will conserve only what we love,
we will love only what we understand,
we will understand only what we are taught
-Baba Dioum”

Link
Behavioral_enrichment

EVANGELION: 1.0 You are (not) alone.

I went to a movie with my host family's daughter on the 19th, and saw “EVANGELION: 1.0 You are (not) alone.” The movie is a Japanese film, yet voice actors were American. We saw the movie in English.

Their acting was good. My host family's daughter usually doesn't like American voice actors, but she liked this movie's acting. I thought that American actors seem older than Japanese actors. The reason is American voices aren't as high as Japanese ones, so it seems more mature.

The movie's translation was interesting; it was interpreted for the American audience. As you know, Japanese culture is completely different from U.S. culture; it was amusing for me. Even though I already watched this movie in Japan, it was really interesting because of the American actors and the translation.

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.

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.

090831

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.

090826

English on the phone

Speaking in English on the phone is most difficult for me, because the other person's voice sometimes cut off, so I have to interpret sounds I'm unable to hear. Though it's something I can do in Japanese easily, I struggle to do it in English.

I think there are two reasons for this. The first reason is that I've only listened to clear English which used in text book, so I'm not used to listening to obscure English. The other reason is that my vocabulary is still limited, so I can't guess at what they're saying.

I have to get used to English used on the phone, something they don't teach you in textbook.

Summer Streets 2009

I joined NYC's Summer Streets 2009 on the 15th, cycled through Lafayette Street and Park Avenue, and from Canal Street to East 72nd Street.

Cars could not drive on the street during this event. The streets becamse exclusive pedestrians and bikes only. The participants were able to enjoy car-free streets in Manhattan. I've never joined this kind of event, so was very fun for me.

Through this event, NYC and the DOT (Department of Transportation) are trying to make people realize the benefits of cycling. A lot of people don't know what that bikes have the potential to make people healthier and, in the process, improve the city's environment.

I only joined for an hour on the 15th, and I'd lilke to experience this event even more, so I'll also join the Summer Streets the 22nd.

Volunteers game me pinwheel and a book about biking rules on the way. I'll read the book and learn the law of cycling in the US. The pinwheel is in in Totoro's head.