The Inside Fish Pond

November 15th, 2012

So I have fish outside in my garden in their own little pond. They’re getting really big, and that pond is doing really well.

Last year we bought several smaller fish and put them inside the house in a large bowl.

Several of those fish didn’t make it, but the ones who did are doing very well.

This bowl is on the middle of our stairs landing and I enjoy walking by there every day and seeing them. They also are used to seeing me and sometimes come up and beg, like little puppies, to be fed.

I wish I could say I always take the time to watch them for a while when I fee them, but I just don’t always have time. I do enjoy sitting on the steps and watching them eat while I drink a cup of coffee when I do have some time. This is especially true now that it’s getting colder and the morning sun shining through the window there onto the landing makes it very comfortable.

Here are a few pictures of them:

Halloween Cookies

October 31st, 2012

This week is Halloween, and though I don’t really have Halloween parties in class, students bring snacks and Halloween things to class and we eat and play while we do activities that are related to the holiday.

This year was a good year for Halloween in my classes. Tuesday classes were one day before, and Wednesday class  was on Halloween. That helps since lots of students are pretty focused on the holiday for that day.

One of my students at Chukyo actually made the cookies she brought to class, and that was really nice. Very nice. She’s a good kid 😉 She brought 3 cookies for each student (I think there are 10 students in that class), and they were wrapped and placed in a small paper bag for each person.

The cookies were delicious, and they looked really cute.

Here are a couple of shots. Sorry they’re a little blurry. I ate them before I realized the photos I took weren’t very clear.

Thanks, Kumi!

The Best Way to Eat Icing

October 18th, 2012

A few days ago my youngest son had his birthday and we celebrated it in the usual fashion: cake and presents!

A few days before his birthday he surprised me by asking to have a turtle on his cake. Hmmm, not easy, but I told him I would give it a shot.

I tried making turtles from icing, but using fresh cream icing is too difficult to get the shapes to stay for any time, so I gave up. Might have been able to work it out if I had a little more time, but I didn’t. Luckily I had stopped by Toys R Us earlier and picked up a very nice turtle to use, just in case.

Actually I went by several places looking for something suitable, but couldn’t find anything.

The one I got is really life-like. Some people thought it was a real turtle on the cake. Come on, no way I’d ruin a perfectly delicious chocolate cake by doing that!!! 😉

I added a frog just because I thought it looked interesting and balanced things out.

Oh, about eating the icing? You’ll see what I mean in the photos below.

See, we’re serious sometimes…

October 1st, 2012

Last week kicked off a new semester for me at both Aichi Shukutoku and at Chukyo University.

We of course jumped right in with the hard, serious work and didn’t mess around at all.

Since I know how hard that is to believe for everyone, I thought I should provide some proof of that.

Here it is:

What? Not enough proof for you!?! 😉

 

Back to School… again! ;-)

September 27th, 2012

Hey everybody, it’s that time… again, to get back to class.

This semester is going to be a busy one for Web English with 3 sections for me and all of them completely full.

I’m very sorry to hear that several students from last semester were unable to register and get into the class for the second semester. I really wish that wasn’t the case, but it is not up to me at all when it comes to who gets into the class.

This semester will be very similar to last semester in the structure of class since we’ll be continuing to learn and use internet vocabulary and finding and using sites that are fun and useful for learning and using English to better your skills.

Anyway, I am looking forward to it, and I’m ready to get things going.

Let’s have a great semester!