Blue Line

Piano

When I play the piano, I feel happy. I took piano lessons for about ten years when I was an elementary school student and a junior high school student. But I hardly played the piano when I was a high school student. I have some free times now, so I play the piano again. However I cannot play it better than before. So I sometimes practice it. And I want to play it as I did or better than before.

Eating

When I eat a meal, I feel happy. My mother usually cooks our meals and it’s delicious. But I want to cook a meal alone because I want to live alone. Can you teach how to cook a meal? I want to enjoy cooking a meal.

What is happiness?

Someone feel happy when he or she listen to the music, run, eat, sing a song or play with his or her friends… etc. We each have happiness. We may not feel happy anytime and anywhere, but we are happy anytime and anywhere. We live here. Only this makes us happy. I think so.

When I was an elementary school student, I encountered English for the first time. I went to the English conversation class, ECC. I cannot remember now why I wanted to go to this class, but I can remember it was so fun. I looked forward to it because I met friends and a teacher. At this class, we read easy conversational sentences, sang songs, played games and so on. These classes were very interested for me, so I liked English very much then.

The English class began at school when I was junior high school student. I was good at English because I had already known a little English. At the English class of junior high school, we not only studied English but also sang songs and played games. And we learned English grammar. We had to memorize many grammatically structures and vocabulary, but I enjoyed English then.

However, I became poor at English when I was a high school student. We had to memorize much more grammatically structures, vocabulary, idioms and so on at the English class of high school than junior high school. It was difficult for me to learn them by heart. I couldn’t keep up with the class, and my grades in English fell down. So I had trouble with the entrance exam of English.

I made friends with some returnee students who were my classmates in high school. Our class had some returnee student. I thought they were different from me and my Japanese friends. They were very funny, frank and had their own opinions. They talked to me about their experiences in foreign countries. For example, their crazy friends, club activities and their surprise at differences between Japan and foreign countries. These stories were very interesting. So I wanted to go abroad and experience many things like their stories.

I’m still poor at English. So I try to study English harder at the university to go abroad.

When I was high school students, I went to China on our school trip. Our principal thought China is one of the most important countries because Chinese economy develops rapidly and China will influence the world. So he took us there and we learn about Chinese culture and lives.

We went to Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai for only one week. It was hard for me to make the rounds of major three cities in short time.

In Beijing, we went to Badaling, the most famous place of Great Wall of China. It wasn’t stairs. It was a very steep slope. So it was very hard to go up this. I climbed it as if I climbed a mountain. But view of top of it was great. I could see a lot of nature. I felt so good!

Xi’an is the city which lies to the center of China. There are very famous Terracotta Armies. I had seen them in books, so I was happy to see originals. Many Terracotta Armies are taller than I. I thought it must have been hard to making them.

In Shanghai, there are linear motor trains. I took it from an airport to the center of Shanghai. It was very fast. The top speed of it was 430 km/h! I felt scary a little.

Besides we went to the museums, watch a Beijing opera and a Chinese circus and so on. We had a very good time.

But we couldn’t feel the common people’s lives. We could only see them from the windows of bus. We got only one chance to look around the city because we heard some Chinese people got a bead on Japanese tourists and steal Japanese tourists’ money or treasures.

When I looked around the city, I saw the old dirty houses and people in these houses. Some people on the road planted false brand watches and bags. I couldn’t help feeling that we are rich.

In Japan many students take too difficult entrance exams to enter the famous university. But I think we should do away with entrance exams.

Students who target the famous university cram a huge number of facts into their heads. They study only for entering the university. So they didn’t study what isn’t necessary for entrance exams. And studying for only entrance exams is useless for their futures. For instance, many university students cannot speak English fluently though they studied English for six years at least and read many difficult long sentences.

Some people misunderstand that only the students who enter the famous university by passing in too difficult entrance exams are great. I think the true great students continue making efforts for achieving their goals. I have heard that a few of the students who enter the famous university lost their motivations to studying and they idle away their lives. They are never true great students.

And some people also misunderstand that students who take entrance exams are evaluated by the exams. But we don’t know students’ true worth by their grades of exams because the exams test how much knowledge students have and how students cope with knowledge. So we cannot know what they think about knowledge or the other things.

This is why we should do away with entrance exams. But if university students have no exams, they cannot know their ability which they gain through lectures. So I think the students should write papers about the thing which relate to the lectures instead of taking promotion or graduation exams. And we can know what they think about the lectures.

Dream

I had the dream which I dreamed again and again when I was a child. I ran in the red wilds. It seemed that I was chased by something. Suddenly the cliff appeared in front of me, and I fell down. I woke up at the moment. Surprisingly, my view moved up and down. It was very scary for me. But I didn’t dream about it when I was ten or eleven years old. What did it mean?

Sleeping on the train

I go to university by train. I live in Chiba prefecture, so it takes me two hours to go to university. I have to get up at 5 a.m. to be in time for the first class. So I’m always sleepy in the morning, and I always sleep on the train for more than an hour.

When I join in the club activity, which is finished at about 9 or 10 p.m., I arrived at home at midnight. So I can sleep for only 5 hours. It is short for me! So sleeping on the train is necessary for me.

Father
My father works harder for my family. He is an architect. He hardly told me about his work, so I didn’t understand his work. But I study living environment now. I begin to understand his work.

Mother
My mother is nursery school teacher. She often says that she needs strength when she takes care of children. She does this work and housework almost every day, so she is always busy.

Sister
I have one sister. She is older than I by three years. She study singing at college to be singer of classical music. She practices singing at home every day, so I often hear her singing voice. I don’t understand singing, but I think her effort is great.

Extended Family
My father has two siblings, and my mother has four siblings. So I have many cousins: probably 14. Both of my father and mother are the youngest children, so all my cousins are senior to me. Some of cousins are married and have children. I used to take care of their children.

My Family Name
My family name is “Mogi”, but I heard to my father that it was “Motegi”. My father said that my grandfather changed my family name from Motegi to Mogi. When my grandfather worked, he had been called Mogi for a long time. So he decided to change his family name.
I heard this story several years ago when I took part in memorial service. I met distant relatives for the first time. They were my grandfather’s brother’s children and grandchildren. So their family name is Motegi. I was surprised to hear this story.