━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
** English E-mail Magazine **
GUNMA-in-the-box "High School Edition" Vol.21
== September 7th, 2005 ==
━━━━━━━ http://www.pref.gunma.jp/a/07/inthebox/index.html━━━
県立高校の生徒が執筆する英語のメールマガジンです。
今年度は１２校が月替わりで担当します→９月は【桐生女子高校】！！
→ http://www.kirijo-hs.gsn.ed.jp/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
□INDEX□
[1] The intoduction of Kiryu Girl's High School from the English
Course students
[2] The memory of the cultural festival from the English Course
students
[3] My favorite movies/dramas/books
（監修：群馬県総務局国際課）
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[1] The intoduction of Kiryu Girl's High School from the English
Course students
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1) Asuka Nakamura
All of the students at Kiryu Girl's High School are very powerful,
cute and kind to others. We have so many clubs, such as basketball,
softball, swimming, soccer, orchestra and so on. Especially, our soccer
team is very strong. They have won the championships in Gunma several
times. When they play soccer, they look like boys!! Our orchestra club
is very famous, too. I'm a member of the orchestra club. We practice
hard every day until the sun goes down behind the mountains. Our school
is very far from any stations, but I like Kirijo very much.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Haruka Nakamura
Kirijo is the most fun school!! Firstly, our students and teachers
are very kind to others. Next, this school is surrounded by beautiful
nature. Thirdly, we have very exciting school festivals, such as a
sports festival, a cultural festival and a ball games festival. Kirijo
students like not only to study but also to join in school festivals.
If you come to Kirijo, you might be surprised by our Kirijo power.
You'll get to like our school. I love Kirijo, and my friends say so,
too. The memory of Kirijo will be our treasure in all our lives.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Ayaka Nasu
Kirijo is the best place to spend your school life. Firstly, all the
students are very friendly, so we can have a good time at school. Sec-
ondly, all the teachers are very kind. If you have some problems, they
will help you. Thirdly, Kirijo has a lot of good events. They are a lot
of fun. The students of the English course can go to England for about
two weeks in March. We have our sister school there. I joined this ex-
change program last year and it was a very good experience. Kirijo is
a very good school and you will become a fan of it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Yuki Nomura
Kirijo is in the north of Kiryu city. It takes us about half an hour
to get there from the Kiryu station. Almost all students come to school
by bike or by train. It's well known that our school uniform is very
pretty. One of my friends decided to go to Kirijo just to wear it. I
decided to go to Kirijo to learn English. I think that I will be able
to be an interpreter in the future if I try to study hard in Kirijo.
Some students of the English course have the same kinds of dreams as
well. I hope that our dreams will come true. I will enjoy studying and
have a good school life in Kirijo.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[2] The memory of the cultural festival from the English Course
students
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1) Yoshimi Takano
We had a cultural festival called“Suzukake-sai”on June 18th and
19th. A lot of people came to Kirijo and I was very surprised by that.
Our class's theme was“love.”It was difficult for us to explain this
to others, but our presentation was successful. Many people came to see
our class.
I'm a member of the tea ceremony club. On the days of the cultural
festival, we were very busy to serve sweets and tea, but it was a lot
of fun. I was glad that everyone who came to our club said,“It's de-
licious.”I had a very good time, so I've never forgotten this cultural
festival.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Masaho Itano
In those days I was very busy. But I was very happy because many peo-
ple came to our class. When they finished listening to our class pre-
sentation, they said,“I was greatly touched by it.”We wanted them to
think about“love”and we did it. The thing which made me happiest is
that our presentation brought some people to tears. I belong to the
music club where we play the Japanese traditional string instrument,
the koto. Thanks to practicing, I could play it well on the days. Many
people who heard our koto said to us,“You are very good players.”
Those days gave me memories forever. I'll never forget them and I'm
proud of them.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[3] My favorite movies/dramas/books
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1)“The Dancer in the Dark” Ami Imaizumi (2nd year)
It's a story about a woman who likes dancing and her son. She was
earning money for her son. But one day she had all the money stolen
unfortunately. She was planning to kill the man who stole her money to
get it back and she did it. She was executed for murder, but she didn't
tell the truth. It was really moving how much the mother loved her son
and how hard she defended him.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2)“A Little Tern” Hitomi Okabe (2nd year)
This is my favorite western book. Do you know terns? They are very
similar to sea gulls. This is a story about a little tern which can't
fly at all and the person who always looks after it. At last the little
tern can fly high up in the sky. I've been thinking about“What is my-
self?”through this book. It's hard to finish reading it, but when
you've read it from cover to cover, you can welcome a person from the
bottom of your heart. Why don't you read this book?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3)“The Phantom of the Opera” Yurie Soyama (2nd year)
My favorite movie is“The Phantom of the Opera.”It's a story about a
man who wears a mask and a beautiful woman. He lives in the basement
under the opera house because his face is ugly. She is an actress who
sings. He loves her and teaches her to sing well. She also respects
him. This movie isn't like other movies because it's an opera. It real-
ly touches my heart. The phantom's singing voice is attractive and the
music is wonderful.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4)“曲がり角の彼女” Konomi Yamagishi (2nd year)
My favorite TV program is“The Lady at a Turning Point.”It's a story
about a 33-year-old career woman. She isn't married and has no child.
Although some people call her“a loser dog,”she is strong enough to
solve all the problems. Her positive attitude really touches my heart.
The main actress, Izumi Inamori, is very beautiful and good at acting.
Her co-star, Jun Kaname, is very cool.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
＊次の High School Edition（１０月５日発行予定）は伊勢崎東高校が担当し
ます。お楽しみに！
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
** English E-mail Magazine **
GUNMA-in-the-box "High School Edition" Vol.22
== October 5th, 2005 ==
━━━━━━━ http://www.pref.gunma.jp/a/07/inthebox/index.html━━━
県立高校の生徒が執筆する英語のメールマガジンです。
今年度は１２校が月替わりで担当します→１０月は【伊勢崎東高校】！！
→ http://www.ihk-hs.gsn.ed.jp/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
□INDEX□
[1] Meeting of the Schools
Interviews and translations by first and third year English
Club members,
Introduction by John
[2] News Briefs
By Mr. Shigeta
[3] Opinions from Higashi Alumni
（監修：群馬県総務局国際課）
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[1] Meeting of the Schools
Interviews and translations by first and third year English Club
members,
Introduction by John
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
As some of you know, we have an interesting situation here at our
school. Our second and third year students go to Isesaki Higashi High
School, while our first year students go to Isesaki High School. So we
have two schools in one building. Isesaki Higashi is an all-boys
school, but Isesaki High has both girls and boys. The uniforms of the
two schools are different too. Our English club students and I won-
dered how the students feel about this interesting situation, so we
asked them. We asked Isesaki Higashi students about Isesaki High
school students, and we asked Isesaki High students about the students
at Higashi. Below is a selection of questions and answers that can
give you a feeling for the opinions of our students.
Q1: What do you think of Isesaki Higashi/ Isesaki High School students?
Comments from Isesaki High about Isesaki Higashi
・“They are eager to participate”
・“They are trustworthy compared to other high school students”
・“They are easy to get along with”
Comments from Isesaki Higashi about Isesaki High
・“Isesaki High School students don't have any physical strength, but
they are always lively”
・“There are many noisy children”
・“Isesaki High School girls' skirts are too long”
Q2: What do you think of Isesaki Higashi/Isesaki High School student
attitudes?
Comments from Isesaki High about Isesaki Higashi
・“Surprisingly, they are kind”
・“I think Isesaki Higashi high school students don't use honorific
words”
・“I think the students are blunt”
Comments from Isesaki Higashi about Isesaki High
・“The students of Isesaki High School have to use the honorific to
the students of Isesaki Higashi”
・“They are slow”
・“Their skirts are too long”
Q3: What do you think of Isesaki Higashi's / Isesaki High's uniforms?
Comments from Isesaki High about Isesaki Higashi
・“Isesaki Higashi's uniforms are nicer than ours”
・“Isesaki Higashi's emblem is cool!”
・“Students wear their uniforms sloppily”
Comments from Isesaki Higashi about Isesaki High
・“It is no good because it is old fashioned”
・“I would like it better if the uniform is sailor type”
・“There is no sexiness”
Q4:
Comments from Isesaki High
・“It's good because we can meet lots of students”
・“It is as though there is a wall between the two schools”
・“I don't notice the difference”
Comments from Isesaki Higashi
・It is very interesting
・Many things are happening so it is difficult to understand
・I feel that only the school uniforms are different
Q5:
What is your message to the students of Isesaki High/ Higashi?
Messages from Isesaki High to Isesaki Higashi
・“Don't think that the girls chose Isesaki because of the boys”
・“Let's do more interactive activities”
・“I wish I could have gone to a boy's school”
Messages from Isesaki Higashi to Isesaki High
・“Isesaki High school student's studies seem to be painful”
・“I think that Isesaki High School's students study very seriously.
Do your best”
・“You are pioneers who build a new age of the future”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[2] News Briefs
By Mr. Shigeta
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
□A New Intersection
This summer a new street has been opened near Isesaki Higashi High
School. It connects Isesaki and Honjo. Many people think it will be
a useful street, but there is a problem. The new street is big and
straight. Many drivers use this street, and many students use it too.
Recently, some students have met with accidents.
□The New Schoolhouse
A new multipurpose school building was built. It has four classrooms
and a large multipurpose room equipped with air-conditioners. We usu-
ally use the big room for John's English class. Next year, a new gym
is being planned.
□Goodbye Erich ? Hello Armando and Florian
We have some sad news. A student from Germany, Erich, returned to his
country during this summer vacation. He is a nice guy and he told us
many things about his country. We had many good experiences with him.
Thank you, Erich.
We also have some happy news. From this September, two new students
will join our global communication classes. Armando comes from Mexico
and Florian comes from Germany. Both are very good at English. Wel-
come Armando and Florian.
□Ball Games Tournament and Athletic Festival
Before summer vacation we had a ball games tournament. This tourna-
ment was planned by many volunteer students. There were many games and
almost all students enjoyed their games. Students competed in their
classes. The teacher team joined and had a good fight. This year's
tournament was hot.
Just recently we also had an Athletic Festival. This festival was
planned by many volunteer students too. There were games and relays
and everyone enjoyed themselves. We got some cool weather for our
festival so it wasn't too hot.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[3] Opinions from Higashi Alumni
By Mr. Shibata
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Our school is changing from Isesaki Higashi to Isesaki High School.
Many people are happy about this, but some people are sad. In less
than two years, Isesaki Higashi will end. I wondered how Higashi Alum-
ni felt about this. Luckily, some of our teachers here are Isesaki
Higashi Alumni. I asked them how they felt.
□Mr. Nara
He is a Japanese teacher at Isesaki Higashi. He has worked here for
two years. I asked him what he thought of Isesaki Higashi ending. He
answered, “I think I want this (new) school to become a good school.”
□Mr. Nakajima
He is also a Japanese teacher at Isesaki Higashi. He has also worked
here for two years. I asked him the same question and he said, “I
think it is a little sad.”
□Mr. Kamei
He is a social studies teacher at Isesaki High School. This is his
first year. I asked him what he thought of the end of Isesaki Higashi.
He said, “I think it is a little sad, but I want to take care of the
traditions of Isesaki Higashi through Isesaki High School.”
□Mr. Yanagisawa
He is an English teacher at Isesaki Higashi. He has worked here for
three years. I asked him about the end of Isesaki Higashi and he said,
“I think it is a little sad, but I hope Isesaki Higashi will be a good
school for two more years.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
＊次の High School Edition（１１月２日発行予定）は高崎高校が担当しま
す。お楽しみに！
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
** English E-mail Magazine **
GUNMA-in-the-box "High School Edition" Vol.23
== November 30th, 2005 ==
━━━━━━━ http://www.pref.gunma.jp/a/07/inthebox/index.html━━━
県立高校の生徒が執筆する英語のメールマガジンです。
今年度は１２校が月替わりで担当します→１１月は【高崎高校】！！
→ http://www.takasaki.ed.jp/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
【Introduction】
Takasaki High School is designated as a “Super Science High School”
by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology,
which places emphasis on the education of science & technology, natural
science and mathematics.
The following article was written by Taiki Nakamura and Kouki Seki,
both of whom are students of the Super Science class and belong to the
school's English club.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
MY TRIP TO THE U.S.A. ☆☆☆━━━━
☆☆☆━━━━
━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━
I left Japan for Texas by airplane. The flight was very comfortable
for me. I could see the movie animation “Madagascar” on an LCD
screen on the back of the seat. I could play video games. I remember-
ed “Super Nintendo Entertainment System” by playing the game again.
I could watch TV programs which use only English. Actually, I couldn't
understand it. But, I was tired from the flight because I was confined
in the plane for half a day!
By the way, I underwent immigration formalities first when I reached
Texas. In Japan, I had heard the immigration check in the USA is very
strict. It was true - I was asked the purpose of coming to the USA,
and my picture was taken. My finger print was recorded. What's more,
the officer was very blunt and overbearing. I felt nervous of a pos-
sible relapse of the 9.11 terrorism.
I went to a hotel by bus after the long and strict check. I experi-
enced traffic in the USA for the first time. I felt the road was real-
ly wide at first. It is two or three times as wide as road in Japan.
Second, I was astonished at the need to keep right. But, in Japan, we
keep left. So I was confused. I often saw a car made in Japan.
I arrived at the hotel. I felt the hotel was pretty old. Especially
the elevator's motion was slow. It took a lot of time to reach there.
I went to a restaurant nearby the hotel to have dinner. I could eat
many kinds of dishes because the restaurant was buffet style. But, the
dishes were often different from Japanese taste. Especially, the
dishes consisting of meat were too oily to eat. I wanted to ask “Can
you tell flour from sugar?” After the dinner, I returned the hotel
and went to bed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Texas was sunny and hot. But, it was cold in the bus and buildings.
On 18 August, I visited Johnson Space Center. I walked to Johnson
Space Center on foot because it was near to my hotel. While I was
walking, I found that the traffic lights for pedestrians were very
inconvenient. The time of green traffic light is short. I can't
understand why the signal is placed where it is. I crossed the cross-
ing and found JSC.
Johnson Space Center is like a theme park! I was surprised that JSC,
which has the image that it is the best laboratory office in the world,
is a theme park. I thought that JSC was made like a theme park to sup-
port a national project. What's most important is content and it was
made so that all people from children to the elderly can enjoy. For
example, the training of astronauts, seeing the image quality of HD,
and seeing movies on the development space.
I took a tram tour on this day, and looked round Mission Control
Center, a full scale model of the space shuttle, and universal labora-
tory. Mission Control Center was used for Apollo No. 1 to No. 17. Now
it is an American historical spot. There are seats for VIPs (for exam-
ple the President). At the back of the seats, there are seats for
reporters. Seventeen Apollo emblems line the wall. There is a red
telephone that can be used to call the President. Next, we saw a model
of the space shuttle and a part of the International Space Station
(ISS) and the universal laboratory. I saw them through the glass, but
they had a powerful impact.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
On 19 August I visited the Johnson Space Center again. When I first
arrived at JSC, I heard a lecture by Mr.Yasushi Hisadome, a resident
chief of the JAXA office in Houston. I understood how important it is
to bridge information between JAXA and NASA well. After the lecture I
saw the movie at the theater. The content was “Living in Internation-
al Space Station (ISS)” and so on. But I couldn't understand what the
narrator was saying.
After the movie, I went to the pavilion of the history of space devel-
opment. It had a lot of historical records from the beginnings of
space development to the present. We were allowed to touch a lunar
stone, so I touched it. It was very smooth and mysterious.
We had lunch after visiting various exhibits. After yesterday, I
chose a kids' meal. I also ordered pink lemonade, because I don't like
carbonated drinks. But this lemonade was too sweet to drink. When I
weakened this lemonade with mineral water, it tasted delicious.
After lunch and shopping at a souvenir shop, we were given a lecture
from Toshimatsu Matsumoto who is a former professor of the University
of Texas. He is an expert in seismology. When he was an assistant of
Tokyo University, he took part in the first Japanese wintering party
(越冬隊). In 1960, he went to the US, and has settled there.
He was concerned with NASA deeply, and in the Apollo project, he took
part in development and observation of a Moon earthquake recorder which
examined the underground structure of the Moon. He made the epoch-
making discovery that there was a core in the Moon as well as the Earth,
and that the Moon's surface was covered with very deep fragmentation
layers.
Another thing he undertook, at the request of military, was the work
of telling between an earthquake wave resulting from a nuclear test,
and a normal earthquake wave. But, he was in a position to deal with
the secret, so he got a high rank and in 1996, he won a prize
“Kun-yontou-zuihosho,” which is a traditional Japanese prize, so he
has a great career.
In this lecture, we listened to a story about the first Japanese
wintering party in the South Pole and seismographs. The story about
the process of reaching the South Pole was very interesting to us. The
story about the wintering party in South Pole was introduced on Project
X - a TV program broadcast in Japan.
After the lecture, I had dinner. The dinner was Chinese food and
sushi. I ate a lot because these are my favorite foods. But the egg
for the sushi was too sweet and the wasabi was not sweet, just fiery.
So I was disappointed about that. But I was happy to eat Japanese and
Chinese food. Day 3 of my trip to the USA was over.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
After that, I went to the theater and saw a movie. I couldn't under-
stand what was said. But as far as I could see, it was a story about
the training of astronauts and the history of the space race.
It was lunchtime after that. Lunch was traditional American dishes
such as hot dogs, french fries, and coke. There was so much volume
that I couldn't eat all of it.
After lunch, I went to the weightless experiment laboratory called
NBL. NBL was a gigantic pool. The depth of this was deep enough for
the ISS to enter it. The width was as wide as a soccer court. Astro-
nauts were trained in this place. The impurity of the pool was near 0%
in order to keep complete weightlessness.
After visiting, I took two courses from NASA researchers. Though I
was sleepy before the lecture because of visiting many places, I took
the lecture in earnest. I learned about the moon and NASA's research.
After the lecture I had dinner. I had a strange dish. Though it
tasted salty, it was good.
There was another lecture after dinner. It was the lecture of Keiko
Nakamura, a NASA researcher. The content was how to use a meteorite,
about cosmic dust, and so on. She said since a meteorite and cosmic
dust are precious data, it is regrettable to fail in these examina-
tions. When she was a high school student, she dreamed that she would
be a NASA researcher, and her teacher made a fool of her. But she re-
alized her dream. She is also the first woman to reach the South Pole.
After the lecture, I went back to the hotel and went to bed. With
this, my second day was finished.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
＊次の High School Edition（１２月７日発行予定）は高崎北高校が担当しま
す。お楽しみに！
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
** English E-mail Magazine **
GUNMA-in-the-box "High School Edition" Vol.24
== December 7th, 2005 ==
━━━━━━━ http://www.pref.gunma.jp/a/07/inthebox/index.html━━━
県立高校の生徒が執筆する英語のメールマガジンです。
今年度は１２校が月替わりで担当します→１２月は【高崎北高校】！！
→ http://www.center.gsn.ed.jp/gakko/kou/takakita/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
□INDEX□
[1] School trip to Singapore and Malaysia
>>1 Sentosa
>>2 Night Safari
>>3 Johor Baru
>>4 Tanjung Piai
[2] School Speech Contest
>>1 Running with Tom Sawyer
>>2 That is Our Mission
>>3 To Make Your Life Extraordinary
>>4 Just One Experience
（監修：群馬県総務局国際課）
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[1] We went on a school trip to Singapore and Malaysia from October
23rd to 27th. Here are some of the nice experiences that we had
during our trip.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
>>1 Sentosa by Ogawa Ryohei
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello, everyone! My name is Ogawa Ryohei. I'll tell you about Sentosa
Island.
We visited Sentosa Island on October 23rd, the second day of our trip.
The word “Sentosa” means “peace or quietness” in Malay, and we had
a very good time for an hour there.
On the island we first visited an aquarium called “Under Water World.”
We could see various kinds of fish swimming above us as we walked
through a tunnel in the aquarium. I was fascinated with one fish called
“clione,” which means “a fairy of the sea” and can be seen only in
the sea under the thick ice of the polar regions.
After the aquarium we walked along the beach nearby. Because it was
Sunday there were young people and children swimming in the sea. It was
very quiet there and I felt so good.
Then, ten minutes later, we were in the sky tower. We were surprised
to see the cabin of it going up and down, turning around. I was sorry
it was cloudy because when it is fine one can enjoy beautiful scenery
and see Indonesia and Malaysia.
In spite of it being just a four hour stay and our fatigue from a busy
day traveling the day before, we really enjoyed Sentosa Island and had
a very happy time. There are many more places to go in Sentosa. I'd
like to go there again some day. Thank you!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>2 Night Safari by Arai Hideaki & Yokobori Shunsuke
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We went on a night safari after dinner on the fourth day of our trip
to Singapore.
A night safari is an attraction where we can see the ecology of about
one thousand animals.
We rode on a tram, which was like a bus without doors or windows. We
could use two kinds of voice guidance on the tram, one was English and
the other was Japanese. We chose a Japanese guided tram. The tram ride
took about 40 minutes.
We enjoyed seeing many animals and tropical forests that were in
danger of extinction all over the world, including elephants, jackals
and flamingos, etc. It was a pity that we could not see any white
tigers. Under the moon light the animals looked fantastic!! We wanted
to take pictures of them but it was prohibited, because doing such a
thing disturbs their ecology.
One of the guides said “Today many animals and tropical forests are
dying out on earth. Some species exist with only 300 living animals.”
Then we thought it important that we must think of not only ourselves
but other creatures as well. We had a nice experience on the night
safari.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>3 Johor Baru by Kurosawa Misaki & Minekawa Naoko
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello, every one. We are Misaki and Naoko. We visited Johor Baru in
Malaysia on the third day of our trip.
Johor Baru is situated near the border between Malaysia and Singapore.
We heard that the word ‘Johor’ means ‘jewel’ in Malaysian and
‘Baru’ means ‘new.’ The town seemed to be more rural than that in
Singapore, but there were a lot of large apartment houses. They say
that people from abroad live in apartments with rent around thirty
thousand yen but ordinary people live in apartments with rent about
ten thousand.
It was a temple of Islam that we visited first. It was an excellent
building facing the sea, from which people can see Singapore. In the
temple we found some forms of the moon and stars, which are the symbols
of Islam. There was an Islamic school near the temple. It was said that
people go there after graduating from a normal school.
In the Sultan Royal Palace we saw the Malay King's jewelry box, and
many kinds of stuffed animals such as a stuffed tiger, etc. The King
seemed to like gold and collecting animals. There were also many rooms
and a large hall there. We were sorry that taking pictures was forbid-
den there.
Then we visited a Malay village. Most houses in Malaysia didn't have
refrigerators. But they seemed to enjoy their lives. We saw them danc-
ing while playing their traditional musical instrument made of bamboo.
We also went to Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve and Science Center, etc.
We had really good time there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>4 Tanjung Piai by Katagiri Aya & Kodaira Maya
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We are going to tell you about our wonderful experience in Tanjung
Piai in Malaysia.
Tanjung Piai has a beautiful sea and woods like a jungle. We stayed
there with a family for one day. We enjoyed lunch, which was very deli-
cious, and played with children. While playing we found origami in the
house. So we showed the children how to fold origami in English. We
cultivated a friendship with the family.
One group was allowed to wear traditional costumes and another experi-
enced a rehearsal of a Malaysian wedding. We all enjoyed ourselves very
much.
**********************************************************************
We found many things during this trip. Singapore is known to be a
multi-ethnic nation and after seeing it with our own eyes, we realized
how true this is.
A few minutes walk took us to Arab Street, or Little India. We also
enjoyed China Town. Each person speaks a different language, believes
in a different religion and eats different food. Do you think that
Singapore is an enjoyable country, where we can experience various
things in just one country? We were impressed to see that many kinds of
people can live together in one country. We really want you to go to
Singapore!!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[2] We had a School Speech Contest this autumn. All the students in
the 1st and 2nd grade had to take part in it. These are some of
them.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
>>1 Running with Tom Sawyer by Sakabe Misaki
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I had the following experience in one of my classes the other day. My
teacher asked the class. “Do you know Kawabata Yasunari?” The whole
class was silent. “He is a famous writer.” My teacher continued.
“Well then, have you ever read some of his works?” There was still no
answer. “What about, Yukiguni? It's a beautiful story. Have you read
that story?” Still no answer.
I could not believe the amount of students who were unfamiliar with
this famous work and writer. These days, fewer and fewer younger people
read books. I know that many of my friends read comic books, but I only
know a few of my friends who enjoy reading serious literature, detec-
tive stories, fantasy, history or biography and so on.
People say reading books is important. Most people think so because we
know we can gain much knowledge by reading. I agree. I would like to
say, however, that reading has other benefits, too, the most important
of which, for me, is to develop one's imagination.
I like reading very much. Since I was a little child, I have been
reading many different kinds of books. When I read “The adventures of
Tom Sawyer,” I became “Tom,” running in the woods and I could smell
the trees and flowers. When I read “The Diary of Anne Frank,” I cried
over the diary, because I was able to imagine how harsh and sad the
situation was and I could share Anne's feelings. When I read “KOKORO,”
by Natsume Soseki, the desperate conflict in the feelings of the main
character pierced my heart. As you can see, my imagination has been de-
veloped much by reading books.
Why is the imagination so important for us? In my opinion, having a
good imagination will enrich one's life. Here is just one example: if
you have a good imagination, you can be a good communicator, because an
imaginative person is able to share in the feelings of other people.
When someone is able to understand others' feelings, he or she is more
able to treat other people well. These days, we hear awful news about
younger people almost every day.
We hear about students bullying each other at schools and kids killing
their parents or friends. I believe that those people who hurt or kill
other people really lack imagination. They don't understand or feel how
painful it is to harm other people, either mentally or physically.
Reading a book is an effective way to deepen your imagination. You can
start reading a book now, and I guarantee that it will open your world
and change your life.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>2 That is Our Mission by Harada Hikari
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A little brown house with a red door is standing in the mountains. It
is a log cabin with many windows. The sun fills the inside of the cabin
with light and the natural woods fill the cabin with a rustic smell. In
every direction the view is spectacular.
This is a cabin that I designed. It is located in the campground in
Kurabuchi village. It is actually used by many people who stay there
and enjoy camping.
I love drawing very much. Ever since I was a child, I enjoyed drawing
many different kinds of pictures; people, houses, or something of my
own creation. When I draw the pictures, I get carried away and forget
the time. People have asked me to design posters for school festivals
or pictures for club T-shirts at school. One of the cabin pictures that
I drew attracted the attention of the owner of the campground in
Kurabuchi. Thanks to him my design was able to jump off the page and
into a beautiful mountain setting as an actual cabin. It gives me great
joy when my pictures make the people around me happy and pleased.
Have you ever thought about “gifts” or “talents”? One of my teach-
ers once said, “You were born with certain ‘gifts’ or ‘talents.’
When you hear the word, ‘gift’ or ‘talent,’ most of you would imag-
ine the special ability that only a few people are given. That's not
true. We all have gifts, and we all should serve others through our
gifts. That's our “mission.” My teacher's words moved me. I started
to think about what a “gift” means. It was the first time for me to
consider the importance of talent.
There are many people who find their own gifts and use them to make
themselves helpful in the world. For example, a person who likes Eng-
lish is able to become an English teacher, an interpreter or a trans-
lator. A person who likes music can be a musician or a music teacher
and tell the people how wonderful music is. My older sister, who likes
children and is good at being with them, is studying to become a pre-
school teacher. “What is my ‘gift’ then?” I thought.
Now I think “drawing” is the “gift” that I have been given, be-
cause I am good at it and above all, I love it. I would like to get in-
volved with a job that will make the most of my talent in the future.
We should realize that we are each given “gifts” or “talents” and
we have to utilize them for making the world better. As my teacher put
it, that is our “mission.” If you haven't found your gifts yet, why
don't you start discovering them right away?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>3 To Make Your Life Extraordinary by Noda Fumika
----------------------------------------------------------------------
“Here!!” All of the classmates answered out loud when the homeroom
teacher called her name. But, one girl whose name was called was not
there. She had graduated with us from junior high school on March 17,
2005. Unfortunately, she could not attend.
That girl was one of my good friends. She had been suffering from can-
cer for almost 4 years. She was cheerful and happy. She was also a very
active girl. Before she died, she had been looking forward to attending
our graduation ceremony and becoming a high school student. She bought
all of the textbooks to prepare for the entrance exam. Her dream was to
become a nurse. All of her prospects and ambitions disappeared because
cancer took her life. She was only 15 years old.
I came to think about what life means through her death. People say
that life is precious and should be cherished. Everyone thinks that
killing people is terrible. But why? I have found one answer for that
question.
If you live in this world, that means you are given many chances to do
almost anything. That is to say, we all have unlimited potential. When
someone stops breathing, he or she loses all these possibilities.
These days, sadly enough, huge numbers of innocent people's lives are
being taken by dreadful conflicts, such as war or terrorist attacks.
Suicide bombers exploded themselves and killed many people in Bali re-
cently. Whenever I hear awful news such as this, I become depressed and
angry. I have heard that in Japan about 30,000 people commit suicide
every year. How come people take lives so lightly? More sadly, it seems
that people never realize what taking lives means.
After the graduation ceremony, my homeroom teacher talked about our
friend that had passed away and told us: “We will never forget her.
She has taught us how important and precious our lives are. You are
each alive and have countless possibilities. However, she doesn't any-
more. You really have to realize this fact and appreciate it. You have
to try your best to make your lives extraordinary.”
We are all given a chance simply because we are alive. If we were to
kill someone or to take our own life, we would either take or lose all
the future possibilities that we all have. None of us have the right to
take away all the chances that people have. I would like to keep in
mind the fact that I have endless possibilities and opportunities to
make my future bright. As my homeroom teacher said, I will do every-
thing to make my life extraordinary!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>4 Just One Experience by Yokoyama Yuka
----------------------------------------------------------------------
One day, a memo on our school bulletin board caught my eye. It said
“To high school students; Would you like to have an experience working
as an occupational therapist?” “Occupational Therapist? What is that?”
I wondered. The moment I saw the words “Occupational Therapist,” I
became interested in the advertisement. I thought about whether I would
participate or not for a long time and finally decided to apply for the
event.
The day I took part in the event came. It was held at the hospital. I
was nervous and excited, because I had no idea what was going to happen
in a couple of hours. We had a little tour in the hospital. I saw many
occupational therapists working with the patients. One of the thera-
pists told us an “Occupational Therapist” is a person who helps peo-
ple who need rehabilitation not only physically but also mentally.
During the tour, I had an opportunity to meet an elderly lady. She was
easy to talk to and was full of energy. I noticed there was something
wrong with her left leg. I held my breath in surprise when I realized
that she had no leg under her knee. “It was amputated, because she had
a nerve disease in her leg.” One of the therapists explained to me.
I wondered how this woman could be so cheerful and happy. She smiled
and said, “You know why I am so positive all the time?” She turned
her face toward one of the male therapists. “Him. He is the person who
makes my life bright. He and I can talk about everything. I can be
cheerful and happy because of his support.” I was so moved that I al-
most cried over her words. “What a wonderful job!” I thought. “I now
desire to become an occupational therapist and want to bring much hap-
piness to patients.”
Before this experience, I had been thinking about my future. I could
not really decide what I was going to do. There are many people around
me who are having trouble determining what they are going to do in the
future. In my case, after much consideration, I decided to try the
event and experience working as an occupational therapist. If I had not
taken part in the occasion, I would not have come across this job. From
this one experience, I discovered my future interest in occupational
therapy.
Just one experience truly changed my life. I now understand the impor-
tance of living a full life and taking advantage of all life has to of-
fer. We should realize that we are surrounded by many opportunities
every day. Please don't let life pass you by, because one experience
has the power to change your whole life.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
＊次の High School Edition（１月４日発行予定）は吾妻高校が担当します。
お楽しみに！
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
** English E-mail Magazine **
GUNMA-in-the-box "High School Edition" Vol.25
== January 4th, 2006 ==
━━━━━━━ http://www.pref.gunma.jp/a/07/inthebox/index.html━━━
県立高校の生徒が執筆する英語のメールマガジンです。
今年度は１２校が月替わりで担当します→１月は【吾妻高校】！！
→ http://www.agatuma-hs.gsn.ed.jp/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
□Index□
[1] Introduction of Agatsuma High School from the Students
[2] From the Welfare Course - ‘A Candy’ by Hagiwara Ayumi
[3] About the School trip to Okinawa - ‘War and Peace’
by Yamamoto Manami
[4] About Club Activities - ‘Silence or Honesty?’ by Kabe Namiko
（監修：群馬県総務局国際課）
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[1] Introduction of Agatsuma High School from the Students
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
>>>1 Sakurai Naomi (1st Year)
I'd like to introduce my high school! It's ‘Agatsuma High School.’
Most people call it ‘Agako.’ Agako has about 480 students, and all
students are girls!!
There are three courses in Agako: the Commercial Course, Welfare
Course and General Course. Everyone studies each subject hard!
Agako has many clubs. For example, the basketball club, volleyball
club, ping-pong club, softball club, art club, mandolin club, dance
club … and more!!! Many students put effort in both their study and
clubs.
Our teachers have very nice characters!! And they teach us so kind-
ly. For example, we can take supplementary lessons in Japanese, Math
and English after school. All students are studying very hard to make
their dreams come true.
The atmosphere of Agako is really friendly. I'm sure you can enjoy a
wonderful school life in Agako. Come and join us (next year)!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>2 Kabe Yukimi (1st Year)
Agatsuma High School is a girls' school. And this school has many
clubs. For example, the basketball, softball, tennis, volleyball,
dance, chorus, art, drama club and so on! The most famous club in this
school is the table tennis club. They are very strong so they will en-
ter the National Convention.
This school also has a mandolin club. Do you know the mandolin? It
is a musical instrument. They also play the mandolin, the mandola, the
mandoloncello, the guitar and the contrabass. Their activites include
an annual concert, a ‘comfort’ concert for the aged and the mandolin
festival - the Prefectural Convention leading to the National Conven-
tion. They also perform in some school events, as well. They are re-
quested to play often. If you have a chance to visit our school,
please listen to the playing of the mandolin club.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>3 Kabe Natsumi (1st Year)
Agatsuma High School is surrounded by nature. So, the air is fresh.
In the spring, cherry blossoms bloom. Many other flowers bloom, too.
In the summer, when we return to the clubhouse from club activities, we
hear very beautiful sounds. These come from the ‘higurashi cicada.’
In the fall, we enjoy watching colored leaves. And in the winter,
Agatsuma is very cold. So, it snows. We can play in the snow every
year. Thus, at Agatsuma High School, all year round we can enjoy na-
ture.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>4 Ayumi Honda (2nd Year)
I am a second grader in Agatsuma High School. There are three
courses in our school. They are the General Course, the Welfare
Course and the Commercial Course. You can choose the course that you
prefer.
Our school is a girls' high school. So, if you were a boy, you
couldn't enter!
We have a lot of sports clubs and cultural clubs. For example, the
table tennis club is famous and always wins the prefectural tournament.
Others are the tennis club, the volleyball club and so on.
Our school trip is to Okinawa. We also have a chorus festival, a
school festival and, of course, we have some exams!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>5 Uehara Risa (2nd Year)
I am a second year student in Agatsuma High School. There are three
good points to our school.
・First, our teachers and students are very friendly. We readily talk
to our teachers, even outside class.
・Next, there is a girls' singing contest where each class competes
every year. Every class sings a beautiful song that echoes all over
the gymnasium.
・Finally, our school has a high attendance rate. This shows that our
school life is very fulfilling.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>6 Ozawa Asuka (2nd Year)
・Agatsuma High School
Many people call our school ‘Agako.’ Agako has three courses:
Commercial, Welfare and General.
Of all the schools, Agako is the only high school in the prefecture
that has a welfare course.
・Agako's funny point is that it is as if the school building is a
labyrinth! Many people get lost when they visit Agako for the first
time. The library is in the center of the building, so this is a ren-
dezvous-point for the students.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[2] From the Welfare Course - ‘A Candy’ by Hagiwara Ayumi (3rd Year)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I study welfare at school and I went to a nursing home for on-the-job
training last May. I took care of an old woman in a wheel chair who
has been hearing-impaired since birth. At first, she seemed to have an
invisible wall around her.
She had a small white board in her back pocket and communicated by
writing on it. I wrote “hello.” She made an awkward bow. “It's
hot like summer, isn't it?” I wrote. This time she smiled bitterly.
I wrote my name and she wrote hers, but she stroked her elbow and I saw
her mouth move, “Ouch.” So I stopped. I didn't know what to do.
The next three days, I tried to communicate with her, but didn't suc-
ceed, because writing made her elbow hurt. I thought “Maybe I can't
communicate with her” and lost confidence.
The fourth day came. I sat next to her with a white board on the ta-
ble, but I couldn't write anything. Then a staff member came and
asked, “Ms Hagiwara, how's it going?” “I don't know how to communi-
cate with her,” I answered. Then, he started to talk with her by
writing individual words. “Today. Fine.” She nodded. “Go. Out-
side. Walk?” She nodded.
At this moment, I realized. She has been deaf since she was born, so
she can't understand long sentences, but I used many words. That's why
she couldn't understand me. He said, “If you try really hard, you can
do it.”
With these words in my mind, I went out for a walk with her. I
stopped her wheelchair where we could see a mountain. “Mountain.
Beautiful.” I wrote. She nodded. I thought I heard, “Yes.” When
we came back, we talked by writing again. This time she wrote much,
and gave me a candy. I really thought, “I want to know more about
her.”
On the last day, I suggested that we make a picture together. She
nodded and made a circle with her fingers. She worked with a radiant
smile. When the picture was completed, she motioned, “Let's display
this on the wall.” When I hung it on the wall, she looked very happy.
I was so glad.
Through this experience, I have found the difficulty of communica-
tion, and the beauty of communication. What she gave me was not just a
candy. She gave me her heart. It was a token that she had accepted
me. I have learned that everyone wants to communicate with others.
Even people who are not good at expressing themselves send us messages
in some form. I would like to be someone who can receive these subtle
messages and understand their feelings.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[3] About the School trip to Okinawa - ‘War and Peace’
by Yamamoto Manami (3rd Year)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
As you know, it has been 60 years since World War II ended. Some of
you may have learned it through TV programmes. World War II is the
last war Japan has fought in. There, Japan fought with the US, China
and other countries. That war was called the Great East Asian War in
Japan then. The battlefields were mainly South East Asian countries
and the Pacific Ocean. The war between Japan and the US started when
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 8, 1941. First, Ja-
pan dominated over the US, but in the second half of 1942, the US and
their allied forces fought back and gradually they took over Midway,
Guadalcanal, Saipan, Iou island and Okinawa. Then they started to air-
raid the mainland of Japan and dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Finally, Japan accepted an unconditional surrender on August
14th in 1945.
Last October, we visited Okinawa during our school trip, where we
learned how the war in Okinawa was. We had a chance to listen to a
talk from a lady who was one of the surviving Himeyuri student nurses.
To me, this was the first time to listen to the real experiences people
had during the war. What I heard then was really shocking to me: how
they suffered, how many people were killed during the war, especially
in Okinawa.
We were born long after the war, so we can learn about the war by
reading books or watching TV or cinema. This was a rare chance that we
could find out about the war directly. At that time I thought we
should pass on the war time experiences of these people to keep a
peaceful society in Japan.
Have you ever heard about the Kamikaze suicide squad? They were the
special attack corps of suicide bombers aiming to attack the enemies'
battleships. Once you join these corps, it means that you have no
other choice but to kill yourself for the nation's sake. During war
time, it was regarded as an honor if you die for the nation. But I
think everyone is afraid of being killed in the war and very few were
willing to sacrifice their lives.
By the way, do you think the special attack corps are very much like
nowadays' attacks? What could it be? It is very much like a terrorist
suicide attack. Their aims or ways are different but one thing is com-
mon: that they both sacrifice their lives. Japan is now peaceful and
calm but there are places on earth where people are fighting with each
other harshly for some reasons. It is natural for us to study at
school and enjoy our daily lives, but in the past, only 60 years ago,
people could not find time to study at school. If they got red papers
from the government they had to join the military forces without any
other choice and fight with their enemies. Can you imagine what it was
like, living in war-time Japan? If you happen to see something about
the war on TV, what do you have in your minds? I often think I am
lucky because I was born in a peaceful Japan. Watching TV programmes
related to wars, even I shed a tear from my eyes. At ordinary times,
we don't need to think of wars much, but I think we should think of
wars always and thank that we are now happy here living in Japan.
They say people tend to repeat the wrong deed when they forget about
it. We should always keep learning from history and never, ever forget
about the war we did and the wars that are now taking place.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[4] About Club Activities - ‘Silence or Honesty?’
by Kabe Namiko (3rd Year)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Until last June, I was in the basketball team of our school. During
the summer two years ago, I took part in an intensive training camp in
Niigata. It was very, very hard, but I had a very good experience. I
learned the most important thing is not to show negative feelings when
we play, even if we are tired or not happy with the practice.
I made up my mind to tell what I had learned to other teammates so we
could make an improvement both technically and mentally. After this
camp, I said again and again to the teammates, “Let's not show our
negative feelings! Let's control ourselves!”
One day during our practice, we, the second-graders, had a game
against the first-graders. At the game, the other members of our team
showed their negative feelings clearly. I could tell that they were
tired and didn't want to play. They didn't have a strong wish to win
at all. I was very shocked and disappointed by their action. They
didn't understand what I had been saying.
After the game, we had a meeting. But nobody spoke. Everybody just
kept silent. But I thought, “I have to say honestly what I think.”
I began to speak, hoping that everybody would understand what I wanted
to say. “It is quite natural our feelings come out, but we have to
learn not to let them out. We've got to control ourselves to win!
Only then, can we do it!!” But no response came from the teammates.
Then our teacher said, “Why do you give such a cold response? She is
trying to tell you the things which are hard for anyone to tell! You
must have something to say.” His words sparked something in the team-
mates. They began to speak. One of them said, “Honestly speaking, I
thought ‘Why do I have to be told like that?’ But, when I thought
again, I realized that she had said something hard to say and what she
said was true. I thank her for what she said and for her courage.
Thank you, Namiko.” Through this experience, I learned that being
honest can change something.
Some of you may be afraid of expressing what you have on your mind
because you are afraid of the reaction of others. Surely you need a
lot of effort and courage to tell your honest feelings. There may be a
risk. But if you don't try, you can not change anything. When you
express yourselves, you can change something. So don't be afraid! Try
to tell your honest feelings to others, even little by little. Then,
things will change, even if it's little by little.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
＊高校生版を読んでのご感想をお寄せください。 mailto:kokusaika@pref.gunma.jp
＊次の High School Edition（２月１日発行予定）は伊勢崎清明高校が担当し
ます。お楽しみに！
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
□Gunma Prefecture's homepage address: http://www.pref.gunma.jp
□We hope you have enjoyed reading this edition of GUNMA-in-the-box
High School Edition. If you have any suggestions or comments, please
send them to: kokusaika@pref.gunma.jp
□GUNMA-in-the-box High School Edition is written by the students of
Gunma Prefectural High Schools and proofread by Nicole Willcox, Co-
ordinator for International Relations at the Gunma International As-
sociation.
□You have been sent GUNMA-in-the-Box because your E-mail address is
registered in our database. If you did not register yourself or you
simply no longer wish to receive GUNMA-in-the-Box, please click here:
http://www.pref.gunma.jp/a/07/inthebox/s01_stop_req.html
―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
|