Best buddy

All foreigners at KGU are leaving on Friday which is really depressing for me. Before they leave, I would like to introduce my best foreign friend whoes name is Steve. He's from America and he will not come back to Japan for at least a year. His father is Japanese and mother is American. Although his father doesn't speak Japanese, Steve was really interested in learning Japanese language and also a culture.

In today's blog, I'd like to write about the days I spent with him here.

This is the purikura we took few days ago. I took Steve to Mos burger which I think is the best fast food shop in Japan, and we went to Torikizoku to get some beer.

We talked about the first day we met and those silly things we have done (drinking mostly).

He was really sweet and everytime when I had problems, he gave me advice and cheered me up. But in terms of friendship, Mari was closer to him so I'm sure she's more upset than me. I hate it when I have to say goodbye to my friends especially when they were really close to me.

I wish him luck with everything he does in the future.

My owesome 20th Birthday

Yesterday was my 20th birthday which was the greatest & happiest day of my life.

Last Saturday, Takuji organised my birthday party at his bar in Umeda.

Approximetly 13 came over to the party and we had so much fun!! Before I got there, I went shopping with Hitomi Tsuchida in Umeda and bought loads of clothes for my birthday present.lol

My dad came to Osaka for his business trip so I went to Namba to meet him up with Hitomi to have dinner together.

After dinner, he paid for a taxi and we got to Umeda at around 10pm. We waited for Mari, Ryoko and Hiotmi Takeuchi to come and when they got to the bar, the party kicked off!!

Takuji's bar manager gave us a champaign as a birthday present so I opened it. Ryoko brought me a birthday cake which she made with Mari, Takuji, Keiko and Hiromitsu!!

I put cream on practically everyone's faces which was hilarious!lol

These are some pictures from the party!

Ok. Some of us were pretty drunk and quite a few people passed out in the bar.lol Better not to mentions their names.....

Also, yesterday, the last day of my birthday, my boyfriend came to my place at around 10pm and took me to driving. We went to Ikoma skyline to watch a night view which was so beautiful....we could see the whole view of Osaka!! Unfortunately, it was clowdy so we couldn't see the starts but still, it was exquistic!!

In his car, he gave me a surprise birthday present which was a Vivienne Westwood cigarette case and a doll of Jack from Nightmare before Christmas!!

Got so much stuff of Jack from him...lol

Anyway, I had a great birthday with my friends and my boyfriend. You guys have been great and so kind to me and I will never forget my 20th birthday for the rest of my life.

Maybe.

Christmas illuminations!!

Today, I'd like to introduce some exquisite Christmas illuminations in Tokyo!!

Every December, you see new wonderful illuminations on TV. I went to see an illumination in Odaiba and Yokohama with my best friend last year which was....kinda sad. Because seems like those illuminations are for couples. But hopefully this year, I can go to see those illuminations with my boyfriend in Osaka!

Anyway, what makes good illuminations? Size of the buildings? Number of light bulbs? Locations?

Take a look at this illumination.

This is an illumination in Roppongi Hills. My friend has been there with her boyfriend and she said she really liked the view and the streets with beautiful lights. It seems like lluminations have a big impact on people to feel romantic.

There are 47 illuminations in Tokyo and one of the most popular illumination is the one in Odaiba. This is because Odaiba has a big shopping centre called 'Venus Fort' and also 'Fuji TV'.

This is the illumination in Odaiba. Odaiba has a city called 'Aqua City' and there are a few illuminations in different places in city but this is one of the main illuminations in the city. Not only they gave a decorated Christmas tree, but they also have a big illumination of a heart too.

So, if you have time or interested to go and see those illuminations, you should go to this link;

http://www.rurubu.com/season/winter/illumination/

You can also search for illuminations in Kansai area as well.

Have a Happy Christmas!

Not so welcome to Japan anymore

The use of fingerprints can be a powerful solution for preventing your country from terrorists. This solution is used in America since the horrible attacked that happened on 9/11th. However, Kevin Rafferty complains that fingerprints are useless. This is because it is hard to identify terrorists with the use of fingerprints. Also, he mentions about the attack by Japanese terrorists in Japan and even if fingerprints help to prevent from foreign terrorists, it won't prevent from Japanese terrorists. Moreover, to make this solution sufficient, Japan's immigration would have to take 7 million sets of finger prints every year. This seems almost impossible and a waste of time.

This new system will definitely affect foreigners. They feel they are suspected from Japanese people, which make them feel uncomfortable to visit Japan.

Discrimination

Response to Mike Dewood;
Discrimination;
Since I am Japanese, honestly I do not understand the discrimination against foreigners in Japan. However, I was in England for 6 years and from my experience, I was discriminated by minority of British people around me. They called me 'Jap' or 'retard' because I could not speak any English and so I was frightened to speak a word. Although discrimination happens in any countries, it doesn't apply to everyone. Majority of people were nice to me in England and so supportive. Since then, I grew my confidence and now, I have no problems speaking English. Mike Dewood experienced outrageous discrimination by Japanese people in Nagasaki, and it might be true because Japanese people are not used to foreign people (especially old people). Discrimination should not happen and no one should suffer or experience from this. However, I just want Mike and other people who have been victimized from discrimination to know that there are people who are nice,and not racists against you. It is frightening and pathetic, but once you are able to ignore this situation, you will grow your confidence and at the same time, enjoy yourself. Japanese people who behaved towards Mike were so inappropriate,and unnecessary things to do. Therefore everyone should learn and try to support foreigners in order to prevent discrimination and foreigners should not be afraid of living in other countries because for sure, majority of people in other countries are nice and friendly to foreigners.
Yuri Yoshida

Response to Japan Times

Response to:'Don't judge marines too fast.'



Police would not suspect the marines if they did not have an ulterior motive or evidence to show that they committed this incident. MANUEL SANDOVAL made a criticizable comment on women saying; 'She must have known what kind of situation she was in from the get-go.'

Of course, some women may notice or realize what kind of situation they are in and expect what they will experience from the situation.

However, this is not always the case and majority of women do not expect this kind of situation. Manuel Sandoval's comment on this article points out 'sex discrimination' where women are always victimized by men. Men do not get victimize, no matter what they do, whereas women are always criticized by men and society if they do something inappropriate.

As Kevin Egan made a comment on the Sandoval's article that US soldiers and US military have nothing to do with this problem. Can US soldiers do whatever they want just because they are so important in terms of protecting Japan from North Korea and China? This is not true.

Rape happnes in any countries and women are always their victims. Rape is an unforgivable crime and should not happen but unfortunately, because of these crazy men, it happens. In order to prevent this problem, society and everyone should think and care about women who have been victimized more instead or criticizing them.

Why am I in IES?

Frankly, maybe because I wanted to work real hard when I came to KGU. I went to school in England and it was a great experience for me. However, as you can imagine easily, I didn't study at all. Instead, I spent my whole school life playing tennis, athletics and swimming. It was fun too but I wish I could study more. I was a really good athlete (not trying to be arrogant by the way) out of all students in my Jr. high and high school. I was in a top team of tennis and swimming too so I had to go away and practice everyday. I have no idea how I passed my exams to graduate from high school to be honest.

Because of this I promised myself to work hard at university in Japan. This is the main reason why I chose IES since I had an advantage to speak English better than a lot of Japanese students here. I still don't think it was a wrong choice, but teachers give me a lot of assignments to do and my friends here are too fun to hang out with. I'm not saying that my friends made me lazy but I am getting lazy more than ever. But in order to achieve my goal after university, I need to stick with IES.

Although staying in IES is hard, I think IES is good for people like me. Since I came back to Japan, I have difficulty speaking in English and so IES keeps me reminding of how to speak or to write English which is good.

This is a link to my high school.

http://www.brandestonhall.co.uk/college/

Birthday Party

Last Wednesday, I went to my friend's party who's name is Mike from America. He is a good frind of mine and he is gay. He loves going Karaoke and he goes there literally everyday. Last Wednesday was his 19th birthday, so me, Takuji, Hitomi and Mari went to a park near the Katahoko library to celebrate him. He was really looking forward to enjoy his party.

However, when Takuji and I got there, there was hardly anyone there and Mike was looking really depressed. He looked like he was about to cry because he was expecting everyone to come but there were only 3-4 people with him. He was drinking alcohol by himself and even worse, he crushed when he was riding on his bike and nearly broke his elbow (apparently his phone broke as well).

When I talked him, he kept complaining about his friends and he was so desperate to go back to America. Me and Takuji just sat next to him and tried to cheer him up but sadly, didn't work at all. As he gets down, me and Takuji got depressed as well. Takuji kept making a fake smile on his face and I started to laughing so loud for no reason and ended up running around in the park and texting my friends sitting on a catapillar toy.

When I was about to commit suicide from depression (just joking), Mari called me so I went to her bar and had a shot of vodka to make myself better. I dragged Mari down to the park and when we got there, there were about 10 people celebrating for Mike and he was giving lap dances to everyone. He gave me one as well by the way. He was holding his bottle of vodka and looked so happy. I was happy for him too, but when I was about to leave the park with Hitomi, everyone'd gone already and left Mike alone who was completely drunk and almost passed out. We woke up Mike but he didn't want to get up so we left him in the bush.

What a birthday party.

I don't think I'll have a birthday party for myself in December.

Japanese modern language

Since I was born and brought up in Japan, I can feel that Japanese language is in a state of flux. The most interesting about Japanese language is that we create new words almost everyday. These new words may come from TV shows or even in our daily conversations. Japanese language has a trend that is, in my opinion, not acceptable to foreigners.

Since Japanese people use Katakana, Kanji and Hiragana as a combination of reading and writing, I can imagine that it’s hard to learn for foreigners and to tell the truth, I think some foreigners, especially from English based countries, may get offended by us using Gairaigo incorrectly.

However, our modern Japanese language can not be expressed only by Kanji or Hiragana. Although we use Kanji (Japanese) as a part of our language, it’s hard to express the meanings correctly. Since I had lived in England for few years, I had a lot of conflicts in terms of the difference between Japanese expressions and English expressions and I finally came to the conclusion that only Japanese people understand their language.

A staff writer from the Japan Times article, says that often Japanese people don’t understand some of the ‘unknown’ or ‘new’ Gairaigo. She states that Japanese people want to show off their Gairaigo knowledge to show their cleverness and this may happen quite a lot.
Japanese language is one of the hardest languages to learn and even Japanese people can’t use their language correctly which is a shame.

Summer vacation!!

I had the best summer vacation ever this year!! As soon as I finished my last exam, I went home straight away. It was a real pitty that I had to come back here!lol

So today, I would like to talk about my favourite summer vacation in Tokyo.

First of all, on the first day in Tokyo, I met up with my greatest, funniest, cutest friend Satoeri. I nearly cried when I saw her at the station. We went to Karaoke straight away to sing Shiina Ringo and went to an Izakaya I always go to and had a long chat with her.

This is how my summer vacation had started and it just got better and better.

Her name is Maria-san. She works at the Izakaya I have mentioned. This Izakaya is called 'Hana-hana' and I must say that I went there for about 5 times a week. I spent most of my free time there. I have known her for a year now. She is really sweet and nice to talk to. How old does she look like? Maybe I shouldn't mention about her age.....or she will kill me.

This is another picture of me, Maria-san andChizuru!! Maria-san and Chizuru work at Hana-hana together and Chizuru was a new worker. Her main job is an actress and I have seen her play before but I didn't know she works for Hana-hana until I went back there. She is probably one of the funniest person I have met in my life and she works really hard. She works for Hana-hana 6 times a week and when she is off duty, she practices for her new play. Maria-san is also a hard worker too. She is also an actress but a pro jazz dancer. So, she teaches dancing during the day and work at Hana-hana at night. Their average sleeping time is apparently only 4-5 hours a day. Amazing.

This is Hitomi Tsuchida. She came to Tokyo to see a live of her favourite band '12012'.
This is another Izakara called 'Ren'. Hana-hana and Ren are run by the same company called 'Yamatono-Kaze'. Wokers at Ren sometimes work for Hana-hana and I took her to Ren and Hana-hana while she was in Tokyo. Look at her smile. She was about to drink a cocktail made by Taro-san. He is a (very handsome but sometimes childish) bartender at Ren and his cocktails are really nice. This is one of his original cocktails with chocolate and a strawberry. I tasted it but it was to sweet so I didn't really like it. Sorry Taro-san!

Wow!! Loot at his afro wig!! His name is Atsushi and he also works at Ren. He used to work for Hana-hana but now he works at Ren because Ren is a new Izakaya and they have less workers than Hana-hana. He still works at Hana-hana sometimes. Although he is 25 already, he still works hard to achieve his dream. His dream is to make the company bigger and he is a boss of the company 'Yamatono-Kaze'. He cherishes his friends and his workers and customers. He respects Japanese history and his favourite guy is Sakamoto Ryoma who is also my favourite too. This is the only thing I like about him.lol
Apparently he is having an affair with Taro-san but never know and I don't want to know.......

She is one of my best friend Azusa. I have known her since we met in England. Although she was born in Tokyo, her family moved to Sweden because her father was transferred from his office in Tokyo to Sweden. That time she was only 6 and she only came back to Japan permanentely last year. She lives in Hamamatsu but she comes to Tokyo to visit me every summer holiday. This is the picture we took in Hana-hana. I bring all my friends there.....lol

This is Yoyo-gi Park. My friend is a photographer and he asked me to do a punk fashion model so we took photos there. We were going to go to Yokohama to take pictures but he didn't have a car that day so we had to go to Yoyo-gi Park by his motorbike.

He is the photographer and he is on his knees because when he went to the Yoyogi-station to pick up my best friend, he got lost and I had to wait for 40 mins with his camera bags. He is also my clubbing friend and we went clubbing in Shibuya called 'WOMB' for literally every week to have fun!

This is a cat I took at a cafe in Shibuya. Look at this saucy cat on his master's knee. Everyone was taking this cat like me.

This is another Izakaya in Shibuya called Hanbei. Drinks are only around 200 yen and food are really cheap as well. Drinks sometimes taste weird but food are good. My friend called Ryuji works there so I went there with my friends. This guy with a smiling face is the same age as me but he always looks old. A guy behind him is the photographer I talked about.

So, basically, all I did over the summer vacation was to either go out to get drunk or go to clubbing to have fun. My mum was once mad at me because I was barely staying at home but finally she gave up and when I was about to leave the house to go back to Osaka, she didn't even look at me or talk to me......hehe....

Karaoke

Last night, me, Hitomi Takeuchi and Mari went to karaoke. At 10pm, they came over to my house with a few cans of drinks and obviously we got drunk. Not as much as Hitomi Takeuchi though.lol We hang around quite often these days. I wonder why I stay with them.....

Before karaoke, we went to Osho to get something to eat, because me and Hitomi were starving to death. She had gyoza & rice and I had ra-men, ryoza & rice. The best combinations ever.

By the time we got to karaoke, it was nearly 1 in the morning.

We sang a lot, had loads of drinks (non-alcohol) and danced (just me).

The best song we sang was 'TOUCH'.

♪ 呼吸を止めて一秒あなた真剣な目をしたから～♪
　♪タッチ！タッチ！そこにタッチ！あなたから～♪

I presume everyone in Japan including babies know this song.

BUT!! The queen of KY (MARI) didn't know this song at all.

The only anime song she knew was Chala-Head-Chala from Dragon Ball.

How sad is this girl.

But overall, it was a fun night and we only slept for two hours today. hehe.

Who cares.

Party night!!

Although I don't drink as much as Mari does, I'm still getting concerned about my health....Because seems to me that I drunk practically everyday last week!!!!!

I've already mentioned that I got drunk at Hitomi's place last Friay and on Saturday, me, Takuji and Hitomi Tsuchida had a party at Takuji's bar (the bar already is yours, Takuji).

The special thing about this party was that me, Takuji and Hitomi were going to perform dancing in front of strangers at the bar. We danced with a song 'I'm s slave for you' and it went pretty well (except from me...lol).

We had a shot of Vodka before the performance and though it was only 3 minutes long, I felt like dancing forever.

Ryosuke, Hiromitsu and Ryoko came to the party (thanks guys!xx) and apparently they went to Karaoke after the party but I went home.

It was a fun evening and I wanna go clubbing next time!

Drinking party

Me, Mari, Mitsuko and Hitomi Takeuchi had a drinking party at Hitomi's place on Friday.

Me and Mitsuko arriced at her place at 9 and we waited for Mari for approximately an hour.

We tried to reach Mari for ages but her phone was switched off. So, I decided to take a bus and pick her up.

Her house was 20 minutes away from the East gate but obviously the gate was closed by the time I got there, so I decided to take a walk to her place.

I walked for 40 minutes and I realized myself that I got lost in middle of nowhere. But I was urged to find her place on my own, so I tried my best trying to look for her apartment.

However, I got tired and frustrated so I ended up calling Mitsuko to give me the directions.

Finally I managed to find her apartment and when I got there, she was only awake from her nice, relaxing sleep.

She had a bike, so I rode the bike and she sat behind me.

My feet were killing me from the walk and the bike.

We had a couple of drinks and fell asleep.

It was an interesting Friday night but I don't think I'll drink with Mari ever again.

Tattoo

Today, I want to talk about tattoo.

Recently, tatoo bacame one of the fashion icon in Japan and I'm getting one in July as well.

However, unlike foreign countries like America, image of tattoo is considered to be bad in Japan.

For instance, those people who are against tatoos, they think you are a 'punk', no matter if you are not.

So in today's blog, I would like to change this kind of bad image to those of you who criticize tatoos

When people look at this tatoo, they would think this guy is Yakuza or hooligan.

However, he is actually just an ordinary person like us.

He is a friend of mine and he works as a photographer. He cares about his family a lot!! Because he lost his dad a long time ago, he always takes care his young brothers and his mum.

He got this tatoo three years ago which was two years after his dad had passed away.

He says that this tatoo is a memorial of his dad and it means a lot to him. Every time he looks at his tatoo on his back, it reminds him of the days he had spent with his dad and who he was like.

It is true that some people get tatoos as fashion icon. But it is not always the case. Like him, he wanted to get something that means to him for the rest of his life.

And myself, I want to get something that means a lot to me. Otherwise I will just regret of having one. Because I had a lot of problems in the past, I want to get something that reminds me of what I have been through and how I got through them.

As I have already said in the beginning of this blog, I'm getting a tatoo in July but I'm not going to get one until I decide what I really want to get.

Tatoos are permanent. They don't come off unless you have laser surgery. What's the point of having a tatoo if you think you will regret of having one?

I never want to regret what I have done or what I'm going to do.

People tend to regret what they have done in the past and they get depressed easily. Well, it's life. Since you are a human being, you have to regret about something at some point.

It is not why you regret about it, it's how you are going to deal with it.

Having said that, sometimes I don't know how to deal with my problems. lol

But once you figure out the problems, you feel happier than ever and I know this for a fact.

Baby Post (Baby hatch)

In today's blog, I would like to share a topic with you which is about 'Baby post'.

I presume everyone has heard about Baby Post before since this topic is most talked about on TV now.

The main concept of this Baby Post system is that 'Is this morally right or wrong to use this system?'

No one, at this point, know the answer to that.

Proposal argument:http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20070610a5.html

A person who wrote this comment, agrees with this system. He gave an example of abandoned baby who was given a birth by Junior High School girl and her boyfriend and unfortunately had died by being left in an open-air location.

He believes that with this epoch-making system, they can save numerous numbers of abandoned child.

As he added in his comment at the end, he said 'baby hatch is not the perfect answer, but at least it offers a chance of life to abandoned babies who otherwise may die hours after birth in dreadful circumstances.'

This comment convinces me that every human being should have given chances to live their lives. That's why we were born. That's why we should use this system.

Against:http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20070530a1.html

This comment is written by a person who is against this system.

She used to work for children and families and now, she works for disabled adults who were abandoned by their families.

She argues that, people will become even more irresponsible about their babies with this system. She believes that this system will encourage more people to abandone their babies since parents can choose to remain anonymous about their identities.

From her experience, she knows that what abandoned people are like and how they live their lives.

Her experience makes me believe that, abandoned people (no matter how old they are), are forced to live hard lives. It's worse when they are abandoned from their real families because they feel rejected from the closest people in their lives.


My opinion:
I am totally against this system. This is because I believe that this system will only encourage those irresponsible people who abandon their babies so easily. There are maybe some people who can't raise their babies because of their economic status and other sorts of problems. However, my point is that these people are so selfish. Babies didn't choose to be born. It was the parents' choice to give give birth to babies.

In Japan, they have a trend towards having fewer children which is a serious problem. However, on the other hand, more and more young teen age people get pregnent and to have either an abortion or fail to raise their babies so end up killing them.Therefore I strongly agree with the opposition idea.

Linkin Park!!

Do you like listening to music? Do you have any favourite bands? Do you go to their concerts?





In today's blog, I would like to introduce my favourite band 'Linkin Park'. Every time they release their new CDs, I rush into HMV or Tower Record to buy them.

Linking Park is a cool rock band from Agoura Hills, California. They achieved mainstream success in 2000 with their debut album Hybrid Theory, which has since sold over fifteen million copies. The band's following successful album, Meteora was also successful, topping the Billboard music charts in 2003.

Following Meteora's success, the band postponed working on a new studio album for the next several years. Instead, Linkin Park continued to tour and work on many side projects. They participated in numerous charitable events like other top artists do. They helped relief efforts for the 2004 Tsunami victims by staging several charity concerts and setting up an additional fund called 'Music for Relief'.

In 2004, the band begun to work with Jay-Z in order to produce anothe remix of album, enritled Collision Course. The album, which featured intermixed the lyrics and background tracks from both artists' backgrounds, was released in November 2004.

Now, I will show you one of my favourite song.




This song is called 'Somewhere I belong'.

I used to listen to this song when I was really down. This song really cheers me up!!

If you don't know much about Linkin Park or you are interested in Linkin Park now, please go to Youtube to find more of their songs and listen to them.

My favourite links!!

Today, I am going to introduce my favourite websites that I always go to.

I usually use Hotmail to check my e-mail and I also use MSN messenger to have a nice chat with my friends in England. These websites are commonly used by other people as well, so you should know those websites.

During my free time or when when I'm bored, I got to MIXI or Youtube.

Mixi is a Japanese social website where you can find variety of communities and maybe your friends if they have an account. You can publish your diaries to your friends so that they can comment on them. You can also check this website on your mobile phone. This is probably the most popular social website in Japan now.
However, I'm very concerned about this website since it' s a social website which means that strangers can also check your profile (personal details) and your friends in your account group.
When I first started using this website, I was honest with myself about my profile and everything but now I only publish my name on my profile. Most of my friends do that now which is safer to avoid those weird strangers.

Youtube is a popular video sharing website where users can upload, view, and share video clips. Videos can be rated, and the average rating and the number of times a video has been watched are both published. Since this website is popular internationaly, you can watch foreign videos as well. It is very useful, for instance, when you miss a TV show for some reason, you can go to YouTube to search the TV show you have missed and watch it. Even one of those new TV shows are often uploaded by other users. It is also enjoyable to watch music video clips to see your favourite artists' PV on YouTube!!

So, if you haven't visited these websites, please browse yourself to those websites!

IES A!!

Today, I'm going to introduce some of my friends from IES A! Unfortunately, I couldn't take some of other people's photos because of the luck of the memory capacity on my mobile...

Anyway, let's move on!!

This is me with a hidious smile and Asami on my right. She is one of my best mate in the class! She is cute, easy to talk to and funny. Somehow she doesn't know much Japanese. I think she should read more books!lol

She has a boyfriend who loves her very much and he always cares about her. They have been going out for a long time and I really wish I could find someone like him one day!!lol

Nice girl!!

Ah, here we go. Now, we have our mood maker in the class......a weird one. Yuji, wearing red trousers and Micchi- on the left. Please ignore the person behind them.

Yuji.....How could I ever possibly describe him? Well, he really cares about his family, especially his dad and also he loves his friends in Hagi. The ONLY thing I like about him is that he likes making people laugh by doing stupid things and most importantly, he was the one who asked everyone out for an IES A party. Good job!!

Hiromitsu....always smiling which heals my heart. He is great at basketball and he is a very hard working person. Very fun to talk to and he is the nicest person I have ever met in my life!! To be honest, he is the only guy I care about as a friend in this class.lol

There we go. Mitsuko and Hitomi.

Mitsuko is the one with closed eyes looking very pretty indeed and Hitomi is the one on the right.

Mitsuko: It's really fun to tease her. I can't understand what she says sometimes but it's her fault. Her Japanese is too weird to understand for normal people.

Hitomi: Another name for Miss Sexy IES A 2007.

She loves weraing sexy tights. Actually she ONLY wears sexy tights. It's her policy to wear them everyday. I wonder if she ever washes her tight at home.lol

YEAH!! This is Takuji and Akinori.

Takuji: He is absolutly great!! It's always fun to be with him and we always hang around. Every time when I'm down or in trouble, he helps me out. But when I ask him for home work, he is useless.

Akinori: My boyfriend.lol Every time he sees me, he tells me that he loves me. It's getting annoying now.

He is a captain of 'SWISH'. He works hard for his circle and he really cares about other people. Nice guy!

The last one.

Takuji with his cool silver helmet.

Nice smile!!

He looked gorgeous on his scooter with his helmet.lol

SWISH

Akinori recently made a basket ball circle called 'SWISH'. There are already about 40 players and managers including boys and girls in this circle. We had our second meeting last night and some boys played basketball and the others just started chatting to get to know each other better. Everyone seemed really nice and funny which was good. We are all going out for a drink on 31st and I can hardly wait for it!! From our class, there are Ryosuke, Yuhei, Akinori, HIromitsu, Saki and myself in this circle. The circle only has first grade students so that we can do whatever we want without worrying about people in the second or third grades.
Although I can't play basketball, I enjoy watching it and I used be a manager for a rugby team when I was at high school so shouldn't be that difficult for me to do my job for the players. I'll might also play basketball with other girls when we have practice.

Can't wait for it!!xx

Commercial for Nike

Today, I would like to introduce and share my favourite commercial for Nike to you.

WATCH IT!!!!

'Just Do It.'



Target Audience:

The commercial is mainly for athletes or people who enjoy sports. As you know, Nike is one of the most popular sports equipment company. The shops are in everywhere in the world!! Even those people who hate sports, they know what Nike is. Nike is just like a brand name.

Nike is especially popular to people 'who are cool' or 'who want to be cool'. This is because the designs of the outfits are often simple, the colour is dark, and moreover American rappers tend to wear Nike outfits. Therefore these images make people 'want to' buy Nike.

In addition, Nike outfits have great quality. They are comfortable and flexible, so they are suitable to people who play sports. The crucial point here, is that there are so many varieties of designs. No matter which sport you play, you will find the 'one' that you like from Nike.

Authority:

Ok. This commercial definitely has an authority. Obviously the main authority is Nike. You see the Nike marks everywhere in the commercial. All the athletes in the commercial wear Nike outfits and more importantly they are all are famous.

For example,
Roger Federer: No.1 tennis player in the world
Rafael Nadal: No.2 tennis player
Ronaldinho: The best football player
Wayne Rooney: A famous football player in England

Although they are only playing their sports for like ten seconds, once it's up on TV, it's incridibly appealing to the audience. (I wonder how much money the Nike have used to create this commercial....)

For those reasons above, people who love doing sports or people who are funs of one of these athletes will be willing to buy outfits from Nike. So that they can feel like they are one of those top athletes.

Emotion:

The commercial uses excitment. In the commercial, the audience can see the top athletes from different types of sports. For example, Ronaldinho, the best of the best of the best football player who plays for his team Barcelona in Spain is in the commercial. All the football players or funs know who he is and what he has achieved, so when they see him in the commercial playing football, they get excited.

Of course, there are more famous athletes in the commercial so that the audience can choose who to watch in the commercial which is fun.

Logic information:

It's quite hard to see the logic in this commercial. The most obvious logic you can see is the athletes. As I have mentioned already, all the athletes in this commercial are world class athletes. Therefore practically everyone around the world, including people who are not sporty, know who they are. Of course, Nike is an enormous sport facility industry. With all those reasons, you can tell that the quality of sport facilities from Nike are great.

Evaluation:

I give 10 to this commercial. It is not only because I like this commercial, but I think it's attractive to majority of people in Japan. Sound effect is interesting, players are famous, and the atmsophere in the commercial is cool. The only thing I concern about this commercial is logic behind it. I wonder how many people would actually see the logic behind it since the commercial is only 30 seconds long. However, overall, I hope everyone would enjoy this commercial as much as I do.

20 Questions with me

I'm gonig to answer 20 questions created by Ayaka.

1. Are you happy being yourself?

Absolutly

2. If you had to be something that is not a human tomorrow, which animal or a thing you would like to be?

Cat

3. If you could meet any person regardless of the person dead or alive, who would you want to meet?

Matthew Calbraith Perry

4. What would you do with the perswon you wrote for Q3?

I just want to ask him 'Why on earth did you come to Japan?'

5. If you had five million yen, what would you do with it?

Go shopping straight away to buy more Vivienne Westwood clothes

6. If you could invent anything you wanted, what would you want to make?

Doraemon

7. Are you interested in a space trip?

No

8. Why or why not?

Simply because I don't want to end my life yet

9. IF you could go either the moon or the top of a cloud, which would you prefer?

The top of a cloud

10. Do you have a dream?

Yes. My dream is to play Onigokko with all of my classmates.

11. What was the worst nightmare that you have ever had in your life?

Don't remember

12. Do you think you could live for a month without using your mobilephone?

No. Definitly not!

13. If you are a male, are you happy being so? And if you are a female, are you happy being so?

I'm a female and I'm not happy with it. I wish I were a male.

14. If you could master one languate completely perfectly, which language would you want?

Spanish

15. To what age do you want to work?

22

16. In what age is you want to get married?

Never wanna get married

17. If you could be a millionaire, what would to do everyday?

Go driving everyday with my lovely Ferrari.

18. Would you want to ride on a dolphine if you had the chance?

Absolutly

19. Are you scared of ghosts?

I don't believe in them.

20. IF you could live in either a Japanese styled castle or a western styled castle, which would you prefer?

Japanese styled castle

First blog!!

Hi! Don't really know what 2 write here but first, I'm going 2 introduce myself.

My name is Yuri Yoshida and I was born and brought up in Tokyo. I was born in 10th of December 1987. I wish I could say I keep myself busy studying all the time but obviously I'm lying.lol

As every1 in the class may have noticed, I love listening 2 music. Although I like Japanese music, I listen 2 English rock and punk music all the time. My favourite bands are Lostprophets, Sex Pistols, Nirvana, Fall out boy, Evanescence, Avril Lavigne and more!!!!! I respect anyone who is in the band. I enjoy myself going 2 karaoke with my friends, so if u r interested, you r always welcome 2 ask me out 2 go 2 karaoke.lol

I enjoy reading books 2 but I don't think any1 likes my favorite author whose name is Shiba Ryotaro. I've read all of his book apart from 1 or 2.... His books are great. U should read them no matter what!!! nyways, I don't really like writing about myself so if u want 2 get 2 know me better, come and talk 2 me.

yurixx