More Great Fruit - part 2-

  On the Grove Street, under the strong sun shine, I was walking with my cell phone which seemed to have no confidence.

“Where is Loria?” 

  Buildings, people, trees and even the sun, everything was strange. A big squirrel ran, stopped beside me and stared at me with its large glass eyes as if it talked to me, “Hey, Japanese Guy. You are losing your way? Don’t be negligent. This is America. This is New Haven!! ” Then, the squirrel ran away and left me in the miserable situation.

   “Ok, Mr. Squirrel, I understand what I have to do. I have to be more careful because I am new member of the Yale.”

  I restarted the walk looking for Loria feeling the nasty sweat. I knew I was already late for the first orientation of this program. I looked up at the sky. The sky was light blue and beautiful, but I felt loneliness in the sky. I sighed “How is the sky of Tokyo now?” That day was the first day of this program, the 30^th of Jun.

 

  From that day, my life in America started. I studied English, played table tennis, ate food in the dining hall, played soccer, ate in the Japanese restaurant, traveled to Boston, ate lobster and clam chowder, chatted with my friend in a Arabic restaurant, went to the mountain, watched “Lion King”, won the championship in the tournament of table tennis, traveled to New York and read poems in front of many friends and teachers.

 

  I really got many unforgettable memories. I also got many precious friends and I was often inspired by them.

  My Muslim friend astonished me by his belief and encouraged me to notice that there are different values in the world and I don’t have to obey any specific ones.

  My Chinese female friends surprised me by their politeness and kindness, and promoted me to have warm heart.

  My Chinese and Korean male friends were very friendly to me. I noticed that we have many similarities and so we can definitely make trustful relationships in the future, even though the relationship between our countries is bad now.

  My French friends were not only lovely friends but also good rivals. We played together a lot, such as table tennis, soccer and porkers. We won the championship in the tournament together.

 August 6th

  Now I am walking recalling my memories of the Yale on the same Grove Street under the same strong sun shine. This scenery looks similar to the first day’s, but they are totally different because I am now familiar with buildings, people, streets and the sun in Yale!

  Even the squirrels smile to me and speak to me, “Hey, Taka. Will you play soccer in this evening?”

 

So what is the great fruit? If you have read my article about my first impression of the Yale and compared this article with it, you may understand what I want to say. How different they are! My Writing & Reading class teacher Carrie told me how interesting and delightful it is to create something with my own imagination. This is another great fruit I got in the Yale. Thanks Carrie a lot.

 

Great Fruit part 1

  Time flies. The end of the Yale summer program is coming soon, so now I want to look back to my exotic experience and to think about what I learned. I can come up with two important things I learned here.

  First, pronunciation.

 

In this program, there were many students from different countries, so I could get many opportunities to talk with them. I decided to talk with foreigners as much as possible, but I didn’t notice that I had a big problem. In the first class of our pronunciation class, my friend pointed out.

“Your pronunciation of “R” is strange, but it is common because Japanese don’t have the pronunciation like “R”.”

  He was kind enough to teach me how to pronounce “R” and often pointed out my mistakes. My pronunciation teacher, Drew, also helped me.

  “Culture, culture, culture, culture, culture, culture, culture, culture……”

  “Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday………”

Drew demanded me to repeat same words showing correct examples himself. I looked extremely carefully at the movement of his mouth and tongue and struggled to reform mine. However, my mouth and tongue were as hard as my grandmother’s shoulder. Although I had trouble in many words and often repeated and repeated, he was tolerant enough to teach me again and again.

  Outside of the class, I also began to pay attention to my pronunciation

  ‘’I want to go to drink water because I am sarsty. No! I am thirsty.’

  Thanks to my friends and teachers, I could understand how to pronounce English correctly like natives. However, still not enough, so I will continue to study English in Japan paying attention to my pronunciation. This is the one of the greatest fruits in this program.  (to be continued....)

 

 

Technology Heaven

         

 

   This poem is based on an idea that we civilized human beings lose important things because of depending on technology a lot.

Technology Heaven

All houses don’t know darkness.

You can run away, and even fly to the universe.

You can stay in a refrigerator in summer.

You don’ have to worry about carrier pigeons.

That is a “Technology Heaven.”

 

But on a dark island occupied with many wasted memories,

How are seagulls feeling?

In a river polluted by unwelcome fatal guests,

How can killifish sing?

In a forest vanishing by cruel overwhelming steels,

How can monkeys have good dreams?

In a city covered with heavy rotten air,

How can children play soccer outside?

 

We are slaves.

The master is called “money”, who has no will and no emotion.

We are tightened with invisible chains and forced to work

for the master.

In the past, in America,

Slaves were tightened with visible chains.

People struggled against slavery with

furious blood and millions of tears.

Finally they saw the sun rise on the desert.

Visible chains are not here anymore.

Please tell us

What it means to live.

 

 

 

 

                          

                               

 

My Great Teacher

 

   Ms. Y was my elementary school teacher when I was a fourth-grade student. In Japan, elementary school teachers teach every subject by themselves, so she taught me math, Japanese, sociology and science.

 

  She was a small lady with short black hair. She wore the glasses with no frame and, behind them, she had gentle eyes. She usually smiled to us, and her smile was very cute and comfortable.

 

  One day, when we were drawing a picture for decollations of a ceremony, I was upset because I was not good at drawing. I failed to draw many times, so I decided to give up painting well. I finished my picture quickly, went to Ms. Y to submit it and said,

“Teacher, I finished. Can I go outside to play?”

As soon as she looked my picture, she must have noticed that I had given up doing my best. She asked,

  “What’s the matter with you? Your picture looks like a mistake. You feel bad?”

“No, I am ok. I am just bad at drawing. I cannot paint good pictures!”

I looked down on the floor and was about to cry. But she said, in warm voice,

  “Taka, I know you well. You are never bad at drawing. Show me your hands. You have long fingers. You can draw a good picture, try again.”

 

She also gave me some advice for pictures. So I got a confidence and tried again.

 

   I considered the idea of my picture well, and finally came up with a good idea and started to paint. While I was painting, I could really fulfill my curiosity and noticed that I liked drawing. After this episode, my picture was selected as an excellent work and exhibited in the art museum in our town for a short time.

 

   Like this, she helped us a lot. In my opinion, encouraging is an essential skill of teachers because children will learn and notice a lot of things like my episode when they are trying by themselves.

 

  Ms. Y was really good at encouraging students. She sometimes scolded and sometimes consoled students. She also could give us proper advice.

 

  That’s why I think she is the greatest teacher I have ever met.

 

 

 

Imagination

  Someone said, "Children had great creativity and imagination, and sometimes they cause miracle."
  I think that believing in miracles is similar to having imagination. They can encourage us to be creative. Do you remember some miracles you experienced in your childhood? The child in the poem below has one memory of a miacle.


Magic Jack

On Christmas Day,

my parents bought me a purple duck
with polka-dotted feathers                                         
and a yellow bill.

 

When I first saw it,
I didn’t like it because
it’s skin looked
like a poison snake.

 

I took a bath,
It looked in my eyes
and suddenly moved it's bill.
“Hi, I am Jack. Please let me take a bath with you. ”

 

On touching the bath,
Jack screamed with joy.
“I have longed for this!”
If he could move his wings, he would flutter happily.

 

“Why are you named Jack?”

“I was not named. I chose Jack myself
because I respect Christ . And look outside,
you can see many works of Jack Frost!”

 

I spent many hours talking with Jack
in the bath
He was familiar with everything like
a professor wearing glasses.

 

Just before going to sleep,
I said ”Good night, let’s talk tomorrow, again.”
He smiled to me and said,
“See you.”

 

The next morning, as soon as I woke up,
I went to the bath to see Jack.
But I couldn’t find him.
My parents didn’t remember they had given a duck toy to me.

 

Did I have a dream?
I looked outside with a gray cloudy mind.
And then, I saw, in the garden.
Many works of Jack Frost
The color of a purple poison snake.

                                                                 Works of Jack Frost

Tournament of Table Tennis!! -part 1-

 

 

 

  On the first day of the Yale program, I saw the basement of our dormitory with my heart hammering because there was a table-tennis table. I have liked playing table tennis since my childhood, but I didn’t have too much opportunity to play table tennis in Japan. Now I can enjoy playing table tennis every day!!

  I have played table tennis a lot with my friends, especially Edward, who is from France and is my neighbor here. Fortunately, almost all of my friends like playing table tennis, so it was not so difficult to find partners.

  On July 24th, the Yale students organized a tournament of table tennis, so I signed up it with Edward to win the championship.

The tournament was held in Trumbull College basement and the game style was doubles. We went there with great confidence; we were young guys who were not afraid of anything.

 

 

However, in the first match, we got very nervous because we were told that we had only one set, so were not allowed to make a mistake. The opponents were two boys who were from Latin America countries and they played well. What is worse, we made many errors because of nervousness, so the score became 10-10 and the game went into deuce. Finally we restored calmness and my serve finished the game at last. This first game was very difficult and severe especially for our frame of mind.

   In the second match, we met a team of two girls. This game was easier to win than the first game, so we developed self-confidence.

   Third game came and this game was the semi-final match. The opponents were a tall boy and an Italian girl who can play tennis. They played well, especially theItalian girl. She could control a ball and aimed at the places which we couldn’t reach. So we decided to shoot at the tall boy and cause him to make mistakes. Finally we won.

 

Tournament of Table Tennis!! -part 2-

  The final match came. The opponents were a Chinese boy and a Chinese girl. In the practice time, they looked extremely good at playing table tennis. They must have played table tennis quite often in China.

 

  The game started. At first, we were surprised by his serve. He made a ball spin and move randomly. “Impossible to return!!” Edward shouted. I also tried to return, but failed. So we almost gave up returning his serve and instead focused on our serves and returning the girl’s serve.

  Our point, their point, their point again, our point, their point…. The game proceeded like this. Even though we didn’t succeed in returning his serve at all, we managed to catch up with them. The score became 19-20 (this match was a 21 point match) and it was my service turn. I was concentrated on my serve, shot a sharp one and the Chinese girl failed to return. I got it!! I did a high-five with Edward, and the game went into deuce. But then we noticed that next service was the Chinese boy’s turn….

 

  “Oh, my God.” Edward shouted again. We didn’t have a choice, so we had to return his scary serve.   

His serve came spinning like a roaring devil sent to kill us. Edward made the ball spin strongly; the ball flew in the air and bounced on the edge of the opponent’s court. Miracle return!! I did a high-five with Edward again. The score became 21-20 and his serve again. At that crucial time, Edward also succeeded in returning and Chinese girl failed. We won the game and the championship!

 

 I and Edward hugged and admired each other. Our bodies were very hot like gladiators finishing their fight. We won honor and some prizes, a magcup with the Yale mark and a giftcard. I had been looking forward to getting the magcup, so I was so lucky. The tournament finished.

This is my unforgettable memory in the Yale.