Plans for future.

I'm going to go back to Japan after this semester and continue to study in my Japanese University for the lest of two years.  I miss my japanese friends and hip hop...lol  I'm really excited to go back, but at the same time, I feel I don't want to leave here.  It's a little bit complicated feeling:/  I wanted to hang out with my friends here.  I'm thankful for seeing you here, and I'll miss you guys:,(

Living in Canada:)

I've seen a lot of differences between Japan and Canada since I came here.  I found that Canadians have really stressless lifestyle compared to Japanese.  For example, my Canadian host family never hurry whatever they do, such as cooking.  They take two to three hours to make supper. Besides, if they have some plans in a few days, they always say, " Too stressful week!"  Even if the plans are just hanging out with their some of friends.  Whenever they say something is stressful, I think if they lived in Japan, they would be stressed out and be crazy because Japanese are busier and stricter and more punctual than Canadian, and usually they don't feel it stressful but normal.  The difference is funny for me.

The Quality to Be Successful

Perseverance, one of the most important qualities, is necessary to be successful in life.  You might encounter obstacles which are on your way to achieve a goal; however, if you have perseverance to overcome the difficulties, you will never give up.  If you don't have it, you won't never success because you won't put up with obstacles.  Besides, having perseverance means that you can keep making efforts and don't miss a beat in any situation.  It's significant to attain a dream to keep doing.  Therefore, perseverance is the most important quality to achieve your dream and be successful in life.

Success

I define success as achieving your dreams or goals as many people think so.  Of course, if you have a dream which you want to realize, achieving it is the best thing.  However, I think the process of achieving goals is also important.  if you go through a worthwhile and improving process to you,  I also regard it as success although you fail to make it come true, because that experience would tell you instructive lessons.

I was really touched by the presentation of Elizabeth Gilbert.  I hadn't known who she was before I watched the video, but I could understand what she wanted to tell us through the talk.  She said, to her, writing was her "home."  I don't know my "home" which I love more than I hate failing at, but I'd really like to find it and live there like her.

Hello!

Now, I'm going to talk about my way to develop vocabulary.  As most Japanese do so, I learned English words from word book in high school.  To be honest, I was bad at remembering words because it's boring to me to memorize just words themselves.

So, I try different way to expand vocabulary these days.  First, I like watching movies, so I use them to study English.  If you like watching movies, I recommend to see English movies with subtitles.  You can learn new words and how to use them, and enjoy the story at the same time.  Second, I sometimes watch TED, of course, with English subtitles.  It's the same reason with movies, but TED is easier to practice because it's shorter than movies and easy to watch repeatedly. Also, you can read the scripts of the presentation in both your first language and English, they would help you to understand well.

Besides, I'll try to you guys' recommendation to improve my English vocabulary!

Thank you:)

Self Introduction

Hello everyone, I'm Kaede. My name means maple in Japanese, so call me maple if you want!  I'm from Hokkaido, Japan.  It's a most coldest part of Japan, but Calgary is colder than there.  

I'm an university student and studying English.  I'm interested in pragmatics, a kind of linguistics, and cross-cultural communication.  I came here to study English and multiculturalism of Canada.

I like listening to music, watching movies, and dancing.

I'd like to be your friend, please feel free to talk to me!  Thank you.