Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Today we did some debates on our essays. I was in the same group with Yuga, Shantonu, Saori, and Natsuko.
Shantonu's topic was about economy and it was difficult for me to understand because I don't know much about economics...:( However I think we did good, active debates today. And thanks to them, I felt that my three reasons for my thesis statement got stronger.

I'm so hungry now and I really need to find more English sources.....

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Oh I forgot to write blog posts on Friday and Monday.

On Friday, we worked on our own essays and Rab helped us with giving advices. I need more English sources and have to search more about law. Law... I don't have any interest in them but I think I have to write something about it to make my essay more convincing.

On Monday, we discussed OMS. Rab told us that Hemingway was a conservationist while he loved hunting. That's kind of a contradiction but someone in my discussion group said that Hemingway loved hunting only in his youth and later he became a conservationist. In the last half of the class we discussed animals and the nature. Since I was just writing a report for my Life Science class about animal testing on drugs and cosmetics, it helped me think a lot. Actually I watched Earthlings yesterday and it was very shocking. I really felt bad watching lots of animals being killed. I thought that everyone should watch them to recognize that animals feel pain as well as humans.

Today we discussed OMS again. It was really difficult for me to find Hemingway's political views because I felt that the story had nothing to do with politics. After the discussion, we did some debate on OMS. I really really enjoyed debating with Shantonu, Kana and Tomoya. We talked about whether the story is a happy ending story or a sad story. I never felt that OMS is a happy ending story but Shantonu was different. Anyway, it was very interesting to discuss that topic. Exchanging opinions is interesting and fun!

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

PWT test is over!

We had our class outside on Wednesday because it was a beautiful sunny day. We learned and discussed Hemingway and The Old Man and the Sea. I'm very interested to find how the story is connected to his biography or the history of Cuba.

Well, I was quite shocked when I knew that Hemingway wrote that the sea is like women because it sometimes can't control itself. I was really shocked to hear that women didn't have their rights to vote because they get crazy once a month. I know women gets crazy once a month and I found that Hemingway didn't have good relationships with women. But I think it's important for men to understand these things and help women as possible as they can. aaargh I can't express my feelings exactly in words but this is the reason why I am interested in gender studies.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Today Rab told us that we should start reading The Old Man and the Sea. I actually have tried to read it in Japanese about one year ago but I gave up in 30 pages because I thought it was boring... Well I think it's easier to read it in English. I hope I won't give it up!

Rab also told us our PWT test scores. I was glad that the score which the teacher gave to me was not so different from the score which I gave to myself. I saved Rab's time ;)

We worked on our essays in the ILC building for the rest of today's class. I think I have to do more research on my topic. Well I have to do the 3Bs on OMS first. Good night!

Monday, May 31, 2010

This is the last day of May! I can't believe it. Time flies...

Today I really felt ill and had a headache and a stomachache. So I couldn't speak so much in today's discussion. Sorry...
Anyway, we discussed nationality today. I was surprised to hear about the man who couldn't get into the onsen and felt sorry for him. It was difficult for us to discuss nationalities since some countries emphasize blood more than the place of birth and some do not. How should we decide one's nationalities? I think this is a good research question for essays and worth discussing. We have to deal with this problem in the future anyway and I felt that I must think about it more.

After the discussion, we had a kind of short presentation and talked about our essays. My thesis statement is "Media should not reveal the real name of suspects in news reports". It's gonna be about media and I think I'll be in the same group with Tomoya, Saori, Izumi and Tomoaki. I have to start working on my essay!

Friday, May 28, 2010

Today we graded our own PWT tests. It was quite difficult for me to decide my own score but I tried to see my paragraphs from an objective point of view. After that Rab asked us a question; "Where can we find informations which have no bias or filter at all?" The answer was nowhere. I was a little shocked but Rab told us that there are some websites that have less bias and filter. These are the websites;

Indymedia Japan http://japan.indymedia.org/

Global Research.ca http://www.globalresearch.ca/

The Narco News Bulletin http://www.narconews.com/

The Electronic Intifada http://electronicintifada.net/

Fair http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4

Information Clearing House http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

Project Censored http://www.projectcensored.org/

In the 5th period we had some guests and we learned how to use sentenceworks and Criterion.

We used sentenceworks to find some mistakes in our first essays. I thought it was quite useful. After that we learned how to make presentations with google document. Rab's Banana presentation was really funny!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

We missed Rab so much yesterday! I hope Rab's mother in law gets better soon.
And Kiyo! How cute he is! He's such an angel! I hope his face gets better soon too.

Sylvan came to our class yesterday instead of Rab. We watched some political attacking advertisement of Obama and McCain. I was very surprised to know that McCain could not use computers because he was tortured and got his fingers broken many times. Also I was surprised to see how they attack each others. They used so many charged languages. By watching these videos, I really felt that we should not believe advertisements without knowing their backgrounds otherwise we can make wrong decisions in important things, such as electing president.


Today I went to Rikkyo university to see the play and tap dance performance with Tomoaki, Miki and Natsuko. Tomoya's tap dance was so cool and I really enjoyed the play. Thank you Tomoya! Other guys in CB should better go and see it tomorrow :)