Daylight Impact

It was January 17th and a perfectly normal Thursday. It was pretty cold but the sun came out. I send my host boy to the busstop and went to story time at Highland park library with my host girl. We had good fried rice from Taste of Thailand which was left-over from my birthday party the night before. See, it was a normal day.

After the girl's nap time, we decided to go to a library to pick up books and play at the children's area. Usually we choose Highland park one, but we already went there that day. Also that day was the last day for my ESL teacher Lisa to come to the Rondo library. I remembered that Lisa told me that she had never seen my host kids and wanted to meet them. So I asked the kids how about going to my school and they loved to go. We drove to Rondo.

I asked 'Can we say hi to my teacher?' to kids. They said 'No! I want to go to the kid's section right away!' 'Okay Okay (well, I can bring them even if they don't want to)' the conversation went so.

So, we arrived at the liberary and put the books into the box, headed to teacher's room (kids were asking where we were going and I said nothing) to say hi to Lisa and other teachers. We got to the room and Lisa was there. The kids were a little shy at first but I don't know why they got so excited that we stayed and talked maybe about 30 minutes. I was supposed to just say hi but the kids were just excited and wouldn't go, we stayed.

After Lisa got bored with my kids, I managed kids to say bye to her and headed to children's area. Then, we ran into my class mate Korse, we said hi to eachother and were having a small chat. Right when we were saying bye to each other, something boomed out and everyone in the library stopped motions. I didn't think it was a big thing, and I headed to the children's area with the host kids. The closer we went to the area, I noticed the more people went to the same dirction where we were heading and talking about something bad. But I still didn't get what had happened. When we got to the area, I realized at last.

Tons of people surrounded the childrens area. They were looking at something. I am so short that I couldn't see what was something. But we managed to squeeze our bodies and got to the front line. I lost my voice. So did my host kids. It was a car crash. The car crashed into the window on the children's area. Fragments of broken glass covered all of the children's area. A familiar peaceful sight changed into'accident scene'. The headlight on the car was sticking in the children's area. The driver was already carried out to somewhere. There was only a broken car and broken glass.

The people were talking, wondering what had happened and how this crash was crazy. Nobody knew what had happened because nobody was around there when the crash occured. Nobody got hurt. No children were there in children's area. But we were supposed to be there. If there wasn't Lisa in the teacher room, If my host kids were shy enough to leave Lisa little earlier, if I didn't see Korse...I could't stop thinking for a while.

We changed place to Highland park library and had a good time.
I couldn't see Lisa that day (suppose to be a party for Lisa) which is sad.

Kinda Funny Story?

I did it! I did it! I did it!
I finished reading 'English book' at last!

How I Decided to Hunt

I finished 'Firearm Safety' class, and after passing the exam this Sunday, I can get a hunting license. I started this class this month. Every time I told my friends that I'm taking a firearm safety class, everyone asked me that why I'm willing to hunt, because I am a almost vegetarian and I am studying animals. Also because I love living animals. Yes, I love animals, I 'm studying about animals, and I don't eat meat most of time. But I found out that hunting is a sport. Also not only hunting but every outdoor activities are parts of my life.

To tell the truth, when I started this class, I felt something uncomfortable in my stomach. I harbored reservation about 'gun' in the United States. Of course I was a anti-gun-society.
Even now, I can tell I don't like how the american people think of firearms.


“What it means to be my own referee?”

When I heard about the word “own referee” in this class, I felt familiar feeling to hunting as a sport. I started playing curling five years ago. The first thing my coach told me was “own referee”. He told me that we need to judge own behavior when I play any sports and that curling is a one of sports need more “own referee” than other sports. We don’t have referee most games except the big competition like national championship or Olympic games. And it is difficult for opponent team to find misplay. As I play curling for three years, I made some misplay. Most time nobody except me knows my misplays. But I knew. If I didn’t tell, nobody would know and we could continue a game with advantageous situation. But same time my conscience reminded me the coach told me that “curling is a sport of ladies and gentlemen. You have to play with pride. You always choose right way. You cannot do things you will be ashamed of later.” In fact, I broke the rule in early stage of the game and I didn’t tell anyone. My team could take advantage. But after that, my shot was wimble because I was nervous from hiding misplay. I made a lot of miss shots and my team lost that game. I was in bad feeling for a while. I’m sure if I told my misplay to the judge, I won’t feel that feeling and I could make good shots. I think I can say same thing about hunting. ‘Nobody’s watching’ is wrong. I’m watching what I do now. I would like to do the things I can proud myself but damage my own reputation when I hunt. I regard this is the spirit “to be my own referee”. I am not from a country which familiar with firearms or hunting. I was scared of firearms and hunting first time I saw them. Now I think hunting is a one of prestigious sports and I think I can enjoy this sport with pride.

New Year in New York

Fortunately, I could spent new year night in New York city! Who in the world doesn't know the countdown event at times square? world's most famous new year's event! I went there just to look how many people gathering the place around 2pm. It was mistake. It was messed up there, I couldn't find end of crowd. Everyone around me was trying to move somewhere, so I pushed away like a stone in big stream. Everybody had their destinations but nobody knows how to get there. Lots of police (wo)men surrounded us to tell directions and make barｒicade. I've never seen such a bunch of cops with guns, I was scared little. But somehow their face looked pleasant. Maybe They were excited to join the biggest event in whole year. It was lucky that my friend and I didn't lost from each other. After satisfied looking up the building the new year ball come down and taking pictures to proof I was there on new year's eve, we found burger king for the restroom and went to downtown to join different countdown event. Seeing polices occupying many seats at burger king was funny!







Where we went to count down is the restaurant-bar called 'Rodeo Bar'. Firsttime coming into the bar, we couldn't have a table so we had to wait standing for 30 minutes. After three bottles of beer we could have laptop-sized table for three perple. They have a space for bands to play. Several rockabilly bands played that night. I saw the balloons covered all ceiling on the bar to celebrate coming new year! It was so beautiful! And we had a lots of peanuts as a anack and I put shells back into the same basket they serve, then my friend told me 'You've gotta throw the shells away on the floor'. What? Do I need to make mess? But I looked around me and found the big mess! By hte end of the night the floor looked like chicken barn and I heard clacking sound everywhere.

Beauty in Numbers

I finished a book. I couldn't stop reading.

The title is "博士の愛した数式(Hakase no Aishita Susiki) which means "doctor's favorite formula".