Homesick It was January, 2009 when I first came to Canada. It means I will stay abroad for 2 years to 2 months. I can't help thinking how fast time flies, and sometime I am still struggled with the difficulties about living abroad. It was 3 months later that I got the worst home sick after I came to Canada. I had tried to adjust new environment, but my sickness was maximum those days. I used to miss my family and friends in Japan. Even though my homesickness are getting better, but I still suffer it sometimes. The homesickness is a kind of a waves in the sea, it comes and goes temporary in front of me, but I guess it might never disappear. I was born and raised up in Japan for over 28years, so I spend almost all the life in Japan. Of course I love Canada, there are no complains about this great country, but my identity of Japanese will never be erased. Maybe someone who has been in foreign country for such a long time might understand my idea. When I go to Japnese stores in Canada, Japanese songs make me half cry. They remaind me of Japanese beautiful scenery, my memory of Japan and lovely family and friends. The typical songs that remind me of Japan is " 遥か" ( Haruka ) by GreeeeN sung by Japanese famous pop band. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sENZ922mqZA This is a seasonal ( graduation) song indeed, It reminds me Japanese spring that cherry blossoms are flowered at their best. When it plays, I always stop to listen to it and miss Japan alot!

Japanese manner of drinking. Hi! This is Megumi. I am going to write drinking manner in Japan today. As winter comes, many Japanese will get drink together with their friends and co-workers. This is called ”忘年会”(Year-end party) in Japanese. Japanese likes punctuate. This event is also for ending up the year we have experienced and to look forward to next year. During the party, we will review this year and show their one year's gratitude to each other. When we get drink together in formal way, there is a rule where to sit at restaurants or izakaya (Japanese style bar). If you go drinking with your co-worker, or you are invited formal party, you should pay attention to your place to seat. First of all, if your don't have any titles in the company,or if you want to show respect to other people in the party, you could choose your seat which is the nearest to entrance. This is called”下座”( shimo za)place. In contrast, if you have suprerior title in the company or if you are main parson at the party, you could sit the farest from entrance. This is called ”上座” (kami-za). In the drinking party, we have also ruled( it is not a mandatory, but most people do) action called "お酌”(oshaku). This action is to pour beer/sake into other people's glasses. We can do this action even if the glasses are not empty. In turn, other people also come to you to pour alcohol into your glass. If you are not drunken so much, you had better to accept other people's oshaku. This is called”お酌返し”(Oshyaku gaeshi). At oshaku time, people intend to talk to you personally and oshaku makes good friendships with you and others. You just enjoy other people's oshaku and conversation!

How to describe "macho" person? It might be disapproving question, but when I looked up the dictionary, it says macho means "male in an aggressive way". I have no idea how does macho person act agressively when I use" he is macho" Do you think a guy who never admits his wrong is a macho person? Plz tell me ur discription about macho person. No swear about other people's opinion in terms of this topic, please.

Say " No" A book name that one of the best seller of 90's in Japan is " No to ieru nihon jin" ( Japanese who do say "No"). Nowadays,I am thinking about importance to say " No " to people. Sometimes I am suprised the diffrence the thinking between Japan and Canada. (As I always show examples at my school),for example, when Canadian teachers say some difficult requests;teacher ask reception for some stationalies that are not in school, receptionist says " NO, we don't have " and teacher aren't angry with it. However,in japan,if teacher reqires some stationalies that are not in school, we say " Sorry,we don't have it so far, but I will ask manager if I can purchase your wanting items or not" insted of "No".Otherwise some teacher might think the receptionist doesn't complete her dutie. I guess, Japanese people are tend to overthink other people's request. It makes Japanese as a " High quality survice country", but sometimes we should have brave to say "NO"and explain our idea. I am starting thinking about saying " No" that is not relevant to me and lawer priority one.

"You are so ESL " When I read Facebook, I saw the word " You are so ESL". I know the word of "ESL" ( English as a Second Language, like me!) I suess, It might be slang of something. Some one who are new or don't know stuff very well ?( samd as a word "nuts"?) Plz give me a answer, to whom has large knowkedge of English. Thank you:))

Present perfect vs simple past I learned that "present perfect tense is used to talk about a past action that has the result in the present" http://www.italki.com/answers/question/69821.htm but, I am still confused with the image of pesent perfect. If I say " I have eaten my lunch just now", insted of using " I ate my lunch a couple of minutes ago" ( I think lunch's finishing time is almost same) , what do I want to emphasize by using present perfect? Do you mind telling me the diffrence between those two sentences and if have an idea, I would ask you which one do you use often in daily life? Tons of thanks,

Happy Halloween! Happy Halloween, everyone:)) I can hear and see fireworks blowing and flashing. Have you put your costumes? Tell me the faniest costume you have seen this year. The best costume I have seen this year is " Funny millionair style" . One woman was waring flushy far coat, putting a black and white hair wig and had a tabacco pipe on her hand. She looked rich, but her white hair showed her sad history. I could understand the woman's story from her costume, that's why I love it!

Question about on the way, on my way and half way.

Wonder of memory As I wrote about my school jobs before, actually I have two jobs right now. One is a teacher and administrative assistant at ESL school and another the other is retailer of doller shop. It was my 4th day at doller shop today, and it means I am almost new of the job. As you know, doller shop is a shop that has tons of items,so employees are reqired to memorize all items' place where they are stored collectly. First of all, I was very anxious about remembering items because I am still training jobs at ESL school, so my brain must be fulled with ESL jobs.I can't have any space for remembering another jobs. However, what I felt myself today was when I went out from school and once I entered into dollar shop,I forgot the school job and tried to learn about doller shop's job. These two job are totally diffrent kind of jobs, but I can make two space in my brain for school job and doller shop jobs to remember and there is no inturrupt between them. Amazingly, these two work together into my brain. When I found it, I can't help wondering people's brain work. Can we make many space into brain to remember new things and can't new things disturb old stuffs? I learned by TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) course, we have a system called " scheme" that store language imformation into brain. Our brain is like boxes, we unconsciously classify infromation and then put them into brain. Space of brain for remembering is infinitive, so if we learn English and French at same time,it doesn't borther each other. First time,I doubted about this thesis. However, I am trusting it a little bit because I have made it sure this thesis. I hope my brain will work for studying English too;)