January 30, 2013

Dear Friends

Here is a picture of snow in the campus of Ryokuen, Ferris taken on Monday of that week.

I left home much earlier to reach the place but was not snowing in Honmoku, my home. Ryokuen is located 10 or so kilometer north and covered with snow in the morning.  I had to go Chiba that day and the road to Narita was closed due to snow. But made it.

gto

January 29, 2013
These are my Ferris Speaking/Listening class students on Monday.It was their final
day.
gto

January 29, 2013
This is a picture of my former student with her daughter.  Nami is a daughter of my good old friend, Curtis.  Curtis was a half Black American-Japanese, went to St. Mary's and St. Joe together.
She worked in YMCA Thai and met a Thai man in Japan and married.

January 28, 2013

This is the picture of GTO at Ferris University with Mt. Fuji on the background.

January 27, 2013
This is a picture of Aoyama CALL with students of English Literature.

January 23, 2013
I went to Ferris University and watched My Fair Lady.  It was one of the best films I ever watched.
Mr. Burleigh told me that whether I would like to change my reading and writing classes and I answered I would rather like to keep them. He also mentioned that whether I would like to teach Yokohama City Water Workers some English and told him that I would take care of it with the Open College.

 

January 20, 2013
Day by day spring is coming
And we are getting older and wiser.
We are looking forward for a new year
Chinese or Lunar calendar New Year is coming soon.
And we get older and wiser.
Hope I will be wiser this year.
George

The picture of a group of teachers who went to a fareware party for Taniguchi Sensei, Joyce.

This is the High School Hallway of St. Joseph College, the Alma Mater.

Hope someday, I can make this hall way active as those days.

When I came to Aoyama Gakuin University few years ago, I didn't know how to teach or what to do. she was kind enough to advice me what is the priority in teaching English Core classes.

Plus my daughter had been extremely ill and  I had been under pressure, she was kind and guided me from darkness.

 She is completed her career with Aoyama at time when Aoyama is moving their campus to Shibuya.  She doesn't like the city life, she prefers to stay in country.

We all miss her.

She is the real model of teachers.

This is my new sign/logo drawn by Tateishi san's help with my original plan of Saint and GTO.

Tateishi san is known for New Meiji Logo and Meiji goods of Mejiro.

I hope this will bring me closer to what I am aiming to, a Scholarly Writer.

January 13, 2013, Red Cross Volunteers, 50 years

January 13, 2013
This is a picture of the Japanese Red Cross Language Service Volunteers.
They are my friends of youth. I will neveer forget the dsays I worked hard for the group and went to Israel.
We had the gathering of 50th year of finding  of the Volunteers.
I wanted to see the group but the invitation letter mentioned that the Empress may come to the occasion. But I doubted she would come to such a minor gathering.
I didn't know the site , so I called the restaurant in the morning where it was, but I could not get it quite well, so I felt I should check it with a map at the station, Hamamatsucho.
I was at the corner of World Trade Center Building, used to be the tallest building in Japan, to check which way I should go and look at the map of the area in front of the building, then some uniform and plain clothes policemen talking and walking as you see before an important person will come.
I walked toward them and found some others were looking for a back alley Italian restautrant smaller and simpler than any "Gakushoku"s in Japanese universities.
I went to the fifth floor of the building, a smaller elevator than most of the university elevators, can accomodate four or five.
I was happy to see my friends from youth. My life in youth was with Red Cross after International Boy Scouts/St. Joseph College life. Wew were told that Empress Michiko will be coming and we cannnot take pictures while sdhe is there plus the elevatores will be strictly used for her for three four mintues.
The gathering was standing buffet style though the empress and some had a place to sit and eat.
The whole meeting was to celebrate the finding of the Japanese Red Cross Volunteers and the founder Hashimoto Sensei's memorial remembrance with the president of the Red Cross Mr. Konoe and his with wife, Princess Mikasa talking about the impression of Hashimoto Sensei when he met her first.
Most of the time we were interested in meeting our friends of the days of youthy than the existence of the empress for two hours.
 It is very unusual atmosphere.  Our priority was never on her presence but on talk to people we had not met for years.
Here is the picture of people who went to Israel Paralympic, the wheelchair person is Mr. Tsunemi, who was the leader of the group and the founder of Edwin Jeans Company, a graduate of Meiji.
George T. O.

January 5, 2013
We will start from January 8, 2013, Tuesday.

January 5, 2013
Happy New Year
This year will be a good year.