[Make 11 sentences using new voca]

1: Challenges make my life interesting.

2: There is a growing trend towards later marriage.

3: The country's fiscal system still has problem.

4: My friend's father has taken early retirement.

5: And he will enjoy his life with a pension.

6: Actually he didn't reach pensionable age.

7: She needs to pay off all her debts before she leaves her country.

8: Parents hope their children to be ethical.

9: A lack of experiences can be an obstacle to find a job.

10: She has an enormous capacity for learning languages.

11: United Nations have to find a solution to the threat of widespread famine in Africa.

[Assignment 4] draft #1

A Typical American Household

　In postwar Japan, the nation have had envy of American life for many years, then we rehabilitated our country from damage of the defeat. I know that my imagination about American Household must be given by mass communication.
　First of my thinking of American Household is streamline. For example, mothers don't take long time for preparing meals. The can use microwave and frozen food perfectly, and they frequently eat out. If a wife is busy on her job, her husband is willing to do housework. In addition, there are a lot of institutions for caring children during parents work. That is to say, mothers have opportunities to continue to work and the can be independent.
　Second, I think that American people think all the world of their privacy even in their family. They give each children one kid's room, and they don't sleep with their children in a same bed since children were babies. However, American parents spent for long hours with their children for doing sports or doing activities.
　In addition, I imagine that the most important thing for American is freedom. They don't eat food that they don't want to. The can watch any TV programs they are interested in. They can get marriage and divorce easily. In other words, they cherish their own life.
　Despite I don't know typical American life styles that I can imagine is happiness for human life or not, I can absolutely say women can live comfortably in America.

[Speech] talk #2

The Best Day of My Life

　Even though I've been lived for half of my whole life, I believe the best day of my life is December 7, 1994. On that day, I had my first baby. I was 29 years old.
　It was really beautiful winter day, so the sky was blue and high. I'd been in a hospital since the day before giving birth. I took for 23 hours to give birth, and I put up with pangs of childbirth for 23 hours. During the birth, I thought I would die.
　After the suffering, My daughter came out. She who was born 14 days earlier than the term was as small as a cat. Usually people say newborn baby's face alike a monkey though, my daughter's was different. Her crying face was very cute and beautiful.
　I named her, Mayu. Her name's Chinese characters have a meaning, "Dancing Snow Flakes." I think the name match with her.
　By the way, I have marvelous experience about her. It happened one day when I was pregnant my second baby, and Mayu was 2 years old. When Mayu and I'd taken a nap, she suddenly held her knees with her arms, and started to roll around on our bed. I asked her, "What are you doing?" She said, "I was doing like this in mammy's tummy." I was so surprised, because I'd never told her anything about prenatal. "How was inside of mammy's tummy? Was it dark?" I asked and she said, "It wasn't dark. Little bit bright and very warm. I was swimming. I could hear mammy's voice. Mammy would sing. I wanted to see mammy soon, then I came out."
　Now she's 8. After tomorrow is her 9th birthday. Of course, she's already forgotten about prenatal.

[Essay 2] draft #1

My Significant Person in the U.S.

　If you lose your lifework all of a sadden, what will you do every day? If you can not meet your best friends after tomorrow, whom will you talk to? If you lose word, how will you express what you mean? In August 2001, when I had moved in the United States, I was absolutely filled with dismay. I lost my lifework that I had gotten it as a result of effort, I parted from my best friends who I could talk whatever everything of mine. And most depressed thing was that I was not able to write nor speak English at all. That situation was extremely ignominious for me as a journalist. Yet I fortunately met an excellent English teacher at a language school, even though I had been up the creek without a paddle. The teacher's name is Janet, a middle-aged white woman. I have been changed by a meeting with her.
　First of the things I changed is that Janet saved me from loneliness. She understood my hopeless situation with the reason of her experiences. She moved to Japan from Canada because of her father's job when she was a junior high school student. At that time, she must have felt sadness and loneliness, likewise me though, while she was living in Japan for ten years, she graduated from a university, got marriage, and she had the first baby. Actually only once, I have ever cried and whined her that I didn't have any friends in this country. Then she told me, "The best of friends must part and vice versa. You can make new friends here." Before long, those her words became be true.
　Furthermore, I have been given language by Janet. At the time when I just met her, I was not able to speak nor understand English except my name. For example, even if she said that we opened a number of pages in our textbooks, I couldn't open the page. Because my English was really poor, she must have needed a lot of patient to teach me English, as though she was teaching an infant words. And several months after, she asked me, "What do you want to be?" I could just answer, "I want to write again." In fact, I had attended to the language school to learn English enough for daily life; however, my motivation to learn English was changed by her question.
　In addition, Janet made me be realized that having a dream is indispensable for everyone's life. She had always suggested me to find a hope for the future, and had encouraged me, "You can do it! Just study hard!" Also when I was hesitating to transfer to Irvine Valley College, she pushed and told me that I must not afraid of taking off to new world. Consequently, I found my dream that becoming a translator of books and I have been studying at the college positively. In other words, if I didn't meet Janet, I wouldn't have continued to study English.
　It is clear that I was given a change by strong and thoughtful her, nevertheless I have lost my lifework and friends. I have probably become tough and optimistic little by little as the effect of Janet.

[New Voca.& Definitions - from 8 Mile]

1: scoff [v]
to talk about somebody or something in a way that makes it clear that you think they are stupid or ridiculous

2: dawg [n]
a friend; an acquaintance

3: butter [adj]
cool

4: peace out
good bye; see you later

5: wrath [n]
extreme anger

6: evict[v]
to force somebody to leave a house or land, especially when you have the legal right to do so

7: venom [n]
strong bitter feeling; hatred and a desire to hurt somebody

[Essay 1] draft #2

My Mother-in-law's Stereotyping of Unfamiliar Things

　I have had some bitter experiences with my mother-in-law because of her stereotyped thinking. She is a person born and raised in a small province. Her family members have always been local government employees except her sons. Thus, the environment she grew up in was completely different from mine in that I was born and raised in a family of self-employed workers in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan. Her limited experience and lack of big city exposure has caused her to negatively stereotype Tokyo, self-employed business people, and me.
　Her biggest misunderstanding is about Tokyo. Although she has never lived in Tokyo, she thinks that Tokyo is dirty, dangerous, and people are very nasty. She said that Tokyo is not a place for human living. I am not able to deny the fact that there is air pollution there, though my district is kept clean because of the wealthy residents. When she went to Yokohama to see her relatives with her family including my husband, they all put helmets on their heads and in the car because they had to drive and pass through dangerous Tokyo. I have never seen people driving in Tokyo with helmets on except on racing tracks or construction sites. In fact, their act was a traffic violation in Japan. Certainly, a lot of crimes occur in Tokyo, but given the dense population, crime is understandable. Thus, the general populous knows how to protect itself from crime and shows how to avoid dangerous situations. In addition, with regard to people from Tokyo being especially nasty, spiteful people exist all over the world.
　Moreover, my mother-in-law despises independent workers. She has told me repeatedly that independent workers always carry a lot of cash and boast of their wealth, that they manipulate people by using their money to force them to do things they don't want to. I don't understand what grounds she bases her opinions on. My family and I are independent workers; a carpenter, a hairdresser, a free-lance computer engineer, and a free-lance journalist. Our cash is for our employees and for running our business. We have never been wealthy. We are actually kind of poor. Similarly, she has said that public employees earn very little in comparison with independent workers; therefore, her family must save all their money for emergencies. She has no awareness that self-employed people are totally responsible for themselves, their business and their employees.
　Finally, she has a very old-fashioned stereotype of marriage. When my husband asked his mother if he could marry me, she cautioned him that an older woman in Tokyo was tricking him into marrying. She believed that I (the older woman) would be getting some benefit and her son would be losing something. She would like me to stay home and do house work all day long, despite the fact that we couldn't live without my income when my husband was young. So she sympathized with him as I had to be absent from home working. In her opinion, a wife is supposed to stay home and not have any ambitions. I frequently wonder why she has never changed her stereotype.
　In brief, stereotyped thinking such as my mother-in-law's shows a lack education and experiences. She is totally unaware of how she hurts people's feelings, and she makes her world narrow by herself. It is my guess that my mother-in-law will never ever live nor make any friends in Tokyo.

[Summary of 1 News Story]


Millions not getting school breakfasts, group says


　Only 6.7 million of the 16 million low-income children eligible for free or discount breakfasts are getting them, an advocacy group said Thursday after reviewing government data.
　The school breakfast program is like federal school lunch, which feeds 16 million low-income children. The children eating government-paid lunches at school qualify for breakfast, too. Still, breakfast participation has doubled since 1987, when 3.2 million children were in the program overseen by the Agriculture Department. It reimburses schools for the meals.
　Studies show hungry children generally have a harder time learning. The nutrition agency of the Agriculture Department is trying to increase participation in the breakfast program, in part by encouraging schools and states to review their enrollment to identify gaps. The department also is proposing to start a single sign-up system for lunch and breakfast.



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5 New Vocabulary Words & Definition

1: eligible [adj]
a person who is eligible for something or to do something, is able to have or do it because they have the right qualifications, are the right age, etc

2: advocacy [n]
the giving of public support to an idea, a course of action or a belief

3: double [v]
to become, or make sth become, twice as much or as many

4: reimburse [v]
to pay back money to somebody which they have spent or lost

5: nutrition [n]
the process by which living things receive the food necessary for them to grow and be healthy