Moved to Wordpress
Thank you for reading my blog. I’ve moved this blog to WordPress.
The new address is: http://bomsai.org/
The new address is: http://bomsai.org/
Recently I tried to integrate Facebook and Wordpress (on another blog). Facebook became a bit more popular in Japan lately and I thought it's time to test making up a kind of community page with Wordpress, and Facebook.
# Actually I tried similar things one or two years ago, but at that time the number of people using Facebook was quite small, and the attempt did not seem to be attractive. I looked into Wordpress plugin database and tested some plugins. What I wanted to do was very simple. Publish the post excerpt to the Facebook wall or page / Retrieve comments from Facebook and push comments to Facebook.It's been quite a while since I last wrote here. During this fall and winter, I was working so hard, wondering why I should organise so many events mostly at the same time. Carefully planned schedule is really important...
During these event-rich months, I couldn't spare much time to study English. Fortunately, or at least, I could continue to have lessons at One's Word on regular basis, but other attempts - such as reading articles on magazines or listening to podcasts - were completely set aside.
Now I have some free time, I believe, so gradually I will try getting back to the former learning habit (takes a bit of time perhaps).
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このブログにも、だいぶご無沙汰をしてしまいました。秋口から冬にかけて、完全にイベントが団子になっていて、一体こんなスケジュールを組んだのは誰なのか、と毒づきながら仕事をしていました。
あまりに余裕のない進行で仕事をしていたため、この数ヶ月、ほとんど英語の勉強ができていません。かろうじて、ワンズワードさんのレッスンだけは継続して受けていましたが、それ以外の、例えば英文記事を読んでみるであるとか、ポッドキャストを聞いてみるであるだとかいう活動は完全にストップしていました。
2月も終わりが見えてきて、少し余裕がでてきたので（暖かくなったことでもあるし）、すこし気合いをいれて英語学習を復活させようと思います！
Last month I finished building up a website for an antique shop (designing and coding websites is my side business).
This time the owner of the shop requested me to construct the site using CMS (Content Management System), because there's no one in the
shop who knows how to write and read HTML, or CSS.
A full-featured shopping cart was needed, but of course it is rather expensive and the budget didn't allow it.
So, eventually we decided to use Wordpress and set a basic shopping cart feature with it.
Originally, Wordpress is a blog software, but thanks to it's powerful community, there are great many plugins (extension program), with which we can use Wordpress as a pseudo-CMS.
It's been a while since I last post here. I've been very busy editing several books and reports.
I wrote some texts in English on my notebook, but strangely, I didn't have time to type them.
When I do lots of work at office with PC, I feel too tired to use PC at home. (Perhaps because of the eye fatigue.)
But now, the hardest part of the editing work is over and I will try to type some of the texts and post them here!
I'm very bad at remembering words. When I was preparing for the entrance examination of the university, I struggled with many word books but I couldn't go through any of them.
After that, I haven't been very serious about remembering words for years.
But obviously, expanding one's vocabulary is essential for learning language. Recently I exert myself to remember at least one word a day!
When I was a student I used to create paper flashcards to remember words (in vain). To write with one's own hands is quite effective especially for those who have just begun to study.
As for me, I'm using digital flashcards on my Mac and iPhone to turn the writing time into the remembering time.
The attractive point of Quizlet is that the service is used by many students in the world.
Numbers of flashcards are shared on the website. There are not only the flashcards about learning language. There are cards about history, science, literature, art.. etc.
It's very interesting to see what kind of knowledge students in the world try to remember (even if it's just for examinations).
It seems that there are not so many Japanese people using Quizlet to remember things other than languages.
My current purpose is to create a personal word book with Quizlet, but after finishing it, I hope to create some flashcards about Japan so that people learning Japanese can use them for their study.
I decided to join the summer program for studying English at Virtual English Club this year.
My plan is:
- Read a book - A Flute in Mayferry Street ( http://amzn.to/bhX8TP )I really hope I can realise my plan, even though I only have one-week vacation. I miss the long vacation of the university.
夏に英語の勉強を進めるべく、ヴァーチャル英語部（http://happychoco.com/forum/）さんの「ヴァーチャル夏休み」に参加することにしました。
【目標】
- A Flute in Mayferry Street （http://amzn.to/bhX8TP）を読む子供の頃に、同じ作者の本「まぼろしの住む館」を読んだのですが、少しミステリアスな雰囲気でとても楽しかったのを覚えています。残念ながら、他の本は日本語に訳されていないようなので、この際英語で読んでみます。
- 英文記事を一日一記事読む
ガーディアンのオンラインニュースを読んでみる予定。
- 短い記事を週5つは音読する
やはり真似する音源があったほうがいいので、Breaking News English をターゲットに。
- 週に2回くらい、英語を話す
4月から受講している、ワンズワード・オンラインさんで出来れば週に2回くらい会話の練習をしたいです。復習もしつつ、が目標です！
The weather forecaster declared the end of the rainy season last week.
Since then, we have an extensive hot weather in Tokyo - or, everywhere in Japan.
The highest temperature sticked to 35-36 degrees, and it wouldn't be under 30 even in the mornings and evenings. Many people are in bad health because of the heat. I heard that over 40 people have died of heat stroke!
I don't feel very well either - I can say I'm really suffering from the heat.
Originally, I don't like summer and have no head for the heat. I could spend last summer without any problems, so I thought I had got enough strength to survive Japanese summer. But it seems I was too optimistic about that.
This year, I already went through three diseases. First, the heat rush, second, the swollen lymph and in the end, Otitis Externa (I really hope this is the end of my adventure in this summer).
Perhaps I'm too tired of the heat and my immune system raised a revolt. Definitely I have to go somewhere outside Tokyo to relax.... for example, going to 温泉（おんせん）sounds very pretty. 温泉 best works in winter of course, but I think 温泉 in summer is quite luxurious and lovely, for it gives me an extraordinary feeling a bit.
Last year, I was looking for a service that can record sounds, especially voices directly from iPhone or Macintosh, and publish them to the internet immediately.
I planned to record some Japanese texts for my language exchange friend at that time, and wanted to find a convenient tool to record my voice and share it.
I found several websites then, among which I was particularly interested in AudioBoo, although I decided to
use Posterous.
AudioBoo is a simple audio-sharing service. Here is their self-introduction: "Audioboo. Because sound is social. --We are a mobile & web platform that effortlessly allows you to record and upload audio for your friends, family or the rest of the world to hear."
I personally like the phrase "Because sound is social". But at the time when I found AudioBoo, most of the "sounds" uploaded there were kinds of short podcasts -short speeches, short comments, etc.
I felt it would be more interesting if the contents of AudioBoo became more social in the larger sense.
For example, very ordinary sounds from daily lives can fire our imagination, and perhaps help us to share our experience.
About a week ago, I came across an article on British Library's new project. I'm a bit surprised to find AudioBoo's name credited as a collaborator of the project.
I knew British Library ran a project to gather local sounds, but the interface of the website was not very good before. In the new project called "UK Sound Map", they are now using AudioBoo and Google Map. The interface has improved greatly.
I think this project is very good for AudioBoo because their statement "Because sound is social" can be very well described by the project.
I hope we will have such a kind of project in Japan too!
Two medium size companies in Japan, UNIQLO and RAKUTEN recently declared that they will use English as their official language. Since then, there seem to be many discussions about it.
It is a sort of a thorny issue. In this article, I will only write about using English in the business field.
(I personally think it’s better to separate the discussion on “English as a world / universal language” from this issue. How we should accept English as the de facto universal language is a quite important problem politically and socially. I find some interesting articles on the issue of making English a national official language. The discussion around “Lingua franca” might be also important.)*
