Around the world

It's been hectically busy at work these days. I'm always tired when I come home almost every day. In fact, every single morning, the idea "I'm going to quit my job!!" pops up in mind, but then I reluctantly leave my home.

When I drive to the office, almost always I start to listen to some of Monkey Majik's songs, such as "Around The World", "all by myself", "turn" and "another day" on my iPod nano.

(NPR music picked up this band the last year in Febrary, ckeck it!)

turn

Monkey Majik another day

Then later as always switch to some of podcast programs I've been subscribing for English learning.

Yoshida Brothers and Monkey Majik -Change

Monkey Majik + m-flo - Picture Perfect

When I'm too tire and I feel like don't want to move a finger even, I listen "I was made for dancing" by Leif Garret, who is my idol when I was a kid, several times repeatedly, then fill up some energy.

Do you have any those songs? The songs cheer you up when you feel depressed or tired?

LEIF GARRET, I WAS MADE FOR DANCING.

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The end of last month, my husband and I went to a new curry restaurant in Koriyama. Their menu is so called Indian style curry - though I don't know it's truly Indian style or not because I've never been to India - mostly come with nan bread.

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Here are some pictures when I went to Fukujuji on April 28th.

There was an eventm called Daihannyasai on that day. More than 10 Buddhist priests from neibor temples of Rinzai sect gathered recite a sutra aloud at the main hall of the temple. They were surrounded by so many people, not only the temples supporters but also visitors (including me and my friends) during this event.

Daihannya-sai was quite sublime ceremony, so I couldn't take pictures or videos while I attended there. Instead, I took some pictures of Fukujuji. If you go there during a cherry blossoms season, you may enjoy beautiful willow cherry trees by the temple as well as so many lovely someiyoshino.

These are pictures I took last year at Fukujuji.

Incidentally, the chief priest of Fukujuji is an Actagawa prize novelist, Genyu Sokyu. He is such a nice person. Luckily, not only I saw him, I could attend thier other event (Zazen) this month, and had a chance to hear his sermon. I'll post about this experience sometime later.

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It's been a long time since last time I updated this blog. I've been doing okay. I just had a slight winter depression which is a kind of annual ritual to me past several years.
I almost made it through this gloomy feeling somehow. Not tried to dwell on (at least less than usual) things that I wanted to do or go but didn't or couldn't. Instead, I put myself into the situations to go out and meet people more often than usual years. I canceled one out of three events, usually, however, this year, one out of five or six events I let go. Not bad, huh.
Thanks to my wonderful friends, they keep me to go out.

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Shuubun

Today is the last day of a three days holiday for many people in Japan, though it's only two days holiday to me. Yesterday was one of national holidays called "shuubun no hi" or "the Autumnal equinox day" in English, and we had a Monday make-up holiday today.

It's getting cooler here in Fukushima day by day. Until just a couple of days ago, we had have hot and humid days, but like people in old times said, "Atsusa samusa mo higan made" means "summer heat or winter cold doesn't last after the equinox", it's surely getting cooling down around higan season, means right now.

Higan

Higan is one of the Buddhist festivals or events. We have two higan, one is in Spring, three days around the Vernal equinox day (shunbun no hi), called "haru higan". Haru is Spring. The other is also three days around the Autumnal equinox day, called "aki higan". Aki means Autumn.

On ohigan (with a prefix "o" in front of nouns becomes polite expression), many people visit to their family graveyard to offer a bouquet of flowers and senko (incense sticks, you can also say "osenko" to be polite) to pray respect to their ancestors.
My husband and I visited to his family graveyard and then my family's one which was only my father is sleeping.

According to "Hiragana lesson through Japanese culture",

"The word "higan" means "the other shore." In Buddhism it refers to nirvana. During higan, people visit family graves (ohaka-mairi) to comfort the spirits of ancestors."

今日はお彼岸の終日で、三連休の最終日でもありました。
わたしの会社は土曜日がおやすみではなかったので、日月の二連休でしたが、土曜から三連休だったという方達も多かったのではないでしょうか。

2～3日前まではあんなに蒸し暑かった福島も、「暑さ寒さも彼岸まで」という慣用句にもあるように、すっかり涼しく秋らしい季節になってきました。

「彼岸」とは仏教行事の一つで、春と秋の二回あります。
春彼岸は春分の日の前後三日間、秋彼岸は秋分の日の前後三日間です。

お彼岸（名詞の前に「お」をつけると丁寧な表現になります）には、多くの日本人が、家族や親戚のお墓（墓）に彼岸用の花束とお線香（線香）を持って墓参りに行きます。

"Hiragana lesson through Japanese culture"によると、

「彼岸」とは「向こう岸」という意味で、仏教で涅槃（ねはん）のことを指す。

・・・とのことです。

上記文章をLang-8に書き込んでみました。
果たして反応はあるかなぁ～？

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (UK) (Paper) (3)

I started to read "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" written by JK Rowling. This is her third books of Harry Potter series.

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As I wrote previously, there was the Saturday regular discussion with my sincere friends from LingQ last night. Every week I record our conversation for my language learning reviewing purpose. As same as some of LingQ members I guess, I use "PowerGramo" 1.1.0.58 which is a freeware version. Using this, you can record your conversation as long as you'd like. However, every single time when you start this software, it keeps asking you to update the latest version.

The latest version, however, you can only record a 15 min conversation each time you call, unless you purchase $24.95 as a user license fee.

Anyhow, as a stingy (or an economical) person I am, I've been using the old (and free) version of PG last several month, and has resisted or ignored nagging messages.
However, because of my disloyalty demeanor for this great software, it didn't work last couple of times while our convivial conversation with Tomies (which is a nickname of our Saturday regular discussion group on LingQ ). Therefore, I begged Marianne to send me an audio data she recorded right after our discussion was over last week. Thank you so much Marianne!

Unfortunately, PG didn't work last night again. I assume it possibly will not work next time either.
Finally, I took this fact as a cue to buy a license fee, and decided to proceed to click a PayPal button at PG's website. Right before I was doing that, I thought that I might better to search on Google with some keywords as "skype record" to find out which software is more easy to use, just to make sure.

In the end, I found another software called "Pamela" and it offers a 30 days free trial. I guess it's worth a try before I purchase any of them. What a thrifty girl I am! :-P

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It's been a while. I haven't written anything here for, how long? Anyway, it's Saturday today, and as always on the weekend mornings, I spent several hours siting in front of my PC, to visited some blogs I like, and post some comments here and there.

Then, after my hubby came back from tennis, we went out for lunch. This time it was a curry restraint called 'ラグパティ' (I don't know how to spell it, so sorry it's written in Japanese).
This is our first time, however, as you can see the Google link I put above, this place seems very popular among people around Koriyama I guess.

After I came back home, I started to read aloud 'The Ultimate Gift' chapter five. Our Saturday group on LingQ is using this book as our reading material for past several weeks. Each chapter hasn't so much volume, but we can learn pretty lively expressions along with some teachings every time. I use this book as one of my vocabulary building guidbook. Every week, when I encounter words and expressions I have not known, I input them into PSS (P-Study System) software, and reviewing them when I have time. I haven't done any asiginements on LingQ these days, but instead I use PSS.

While I'm writing above, I've been feeling of guilt to LingQ where I always enjoy learning with, so, I've checked their store, and imported an interesting subject from there. It's one of ELLO's materials. Have a look.

ELLO
http://www.elllo.org/english/home.htm

I have never listened their contents, but it seems very interesting. They provide not only audio files but also transcripts. I've listened a couple of them, but I guess most of their contents are short, but it's pretty enough length if you'd like to listen over and over.

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