Through these two classes of Integrated Skills, we have read and talked about the first few chapters of "Arthur and Merlin" by Kevin Crossley-Holland.  For me, to tell the truth, I couldn't find this stroy exciting...

There are mainly two reasons.

First, the author uses unusual words or descriptions.  As a matter of fact, he gives us a very long adjective from the very first paragraph, like, "clamber-and-tumble-and-beech-and-bramble."  I saw this kind of a strange adjective, and couldn't understand at all what those hyphens mean.  That is, I'm not used to this kind of unusual way of writing, so I came to be confused, reading the sentences.

Then, in this story, there are too many things, which remains unknown.  Actually, the narrator seems to have least intention to tell us detailed information about his world, which is rather different from ours.  Because of our lack of knowledge about their world, it is really difficult for readers to clearly and exactly imagine the sight the main character sees.  And it is so trying boring because the story goes on and on without my understanding.

However, I know that the second problem is only first, and as the story goes on, we can know more about another world step by step.  That is, it is highly possible that the process is really exciting even for me, and that my image against the story is just a bias.

Any way, at least, I'm going to read the first volume of this book!

Hello!

I had to submit some message for this blog last week, but I was really busy until the day before yesterday, so I couldn't!  So I'm typing this now, and I'm going to tell you why I was so busy.

There were mainly two reasons.
 
Firstly, I had a test of French.  This was first test in this semester, so I couldn't guess what kind of questins would be asked by my new teacher.  Besides, I also had some assignments, so I couldn't study for it enough...
But my teacher is so kind and gentle man, so I thoght that he wouldn't make a too severe test.  It was just my assumption.  Actually he gave us a test with A LOT OF questoins! 
Any way, I did do my best for it.  The result will come back next Friday!

And then, the next reason is that I had a speech contest for practice, named "the Carnation Cup".  Now, I belongs to the Speech Sectoin in E.S.S., and there I usually make two speeches a year.  This semester, I wrote a speech with a title of "See It As It Is."  In the speech, I stress the importance of seeing things without bias, and suggest the solution to get rid of it.  I presented at that speech contest in front of much audience.  There were also Speech-Section members of the University of the Sacred Heart, Tokyo, and the Yokohama City University.  I made some mistakes, like forgetting sentences...but I was so happy to be cheered up by everyone!  I could also made many friends!

On the whole, I could enjoy those substantial experiences!!!

I don't know much about "Alice in Wonderland" because I only saw the movie of animation ver., produced by Desney when I was a little child.  I just know the general prot and the unusual characters, like the white rabbit, running for his appointment, and the cheshire cat, grinnning at everything.
So through this class of the integrrated skills, I got to know many things about "Alice in Wonderland," reading the first part of the story.  The most impressive new information for me was his writing style that he makes one long sentence as a paragraph.  In my opinion, this is because, "Alice in Wonderland" is weird story, so Lewis Carroll tried to give the strange impression also to the style of writing.
I don't know whether Lewis was intended it or not, but any way, I was interested in his unusual style.

And I also didn't know that this story is translated into sooooooooooo many languages!!  I don't know the reason, so I'm going to keep thinking!

There are numerous number of dragons, created by a lot of writers from ancient times.  Even now, we see various kinds of them through books or movies, like "Hobbit" and "Harry Potter." 
As for me, I got to know some of them through those kind of fantasy movies or books.  In my image, dragons have big and rough bodies with pairs of large wings, parts of which are teared and damaged.  To describe them simply, they are like smart dinosaurs with much lighter bodies and freedom in the air.  Most of them can brearh fire freely, and they seem to be stronger than any other animals on the earth.  Usually, they have some roles, like guarding something important.  In the movie, "Shrek" one red dragon is guarding a princess in a castle.  And though many of them are reagarded as a brutal bad animals, some of them sometimes can be good companies, like in "The Chronicles of Narnia 3" and "Shrek."  Anyway, dragons are one of the most exciting characters, and plays important roles in many movies!