Hola! This time, I would like to talk about my lunch yesterday. Yesterday, after Roger's class, I had lunch with Mo-chan, Mio and Nadine. Nadine is a ryugakusei from Germany. We have been gooood friends since we firstmet in August. I know that many ryugakusei don't study seriously, and it seems that they came to Japan just to have fun, but Nadine is not like that. She tries hard to improve her Japanese, and she is interested in things of Japan alot, so when I talk with Nadine, I am encouraged to study hard. We talked about so many things of Germany, Japan, etc, so we felt it was sort of petit globalization. Exaggerated? ...anyway, some details of our chatting are below...

Of course we talked about studying in foreign countries. I asked alot of questions of Nadine's stay in Japan, and I was pleased to know that she enjoys Japan. Now she stays with her hostfamily so she can learn Japanese real life style. She also asked me if I would go abroad to study during KGU's time. Then I said I had been thinking if I should have tried or not because I didn't have confidence in my ability of English, but still I hoped that I could. Then she said if I study abroad, that would be a very important part of my life because it is not just travelling, but I live in the country. I thought Nadine has learned alot not only a language(Japanese), but also herself & life itself.

There is our dislike point in KGU. When I talk with ryugakusei & KGU's students, all of them say they dislike it too. That is the situation that ryugakusei & KGU students are separated sharply. I have been thinking that I want more chances to make ryugakusei friends, and my ryugakusei friends hope so too, but in fact, ryugakusei have their classes at CIE, and Japanese students have theirs in buiding1 or2. Why don't we have classes in the same building? We wanted to write a letter to KGU's president, Tanimoto san, but we didn't know how we could meet him... I often go to CIE, ask my ryugakusei friends if they have some time for lunch together, try to speak to my ryugakusei friends' friends, but still, I think students need some support from school.

Nadine has a lot of high technolory products such as MD-walkman, Kanji-German dictionary and digital camera. We were surprsed to see such high tecnology stuffs, but she WAS surprised that we didn't know that they were Japan's tecnologies!! Actually, no Japanese people know that they were Japan's. Now I am a bit proud of Japan's tecnology, and I also realize that tecnology can spread to the whole world!

I was very sad to hear that Nadine would finish her staying in Japan, and leave for her home in May. I wanted to get together with her more often, but we have been too busy to meet so far. She gave me German chocolate as a present! It was sweet & delicious. I will keep the package for memory as everything is written in German on it. When I see the package, I can remember how fun talking with Nadine was. We also took photos & exchanged adresses each other so that we can keep in touch. I will miss her heaps, but someday, Mo-chan, Mio & I want to visit her in Germany in the future!

Some days ago, before I started to write an essay about globalization, I asked my family some ideas. Then I found a surpring and great idea from my brother. He seemed to be curious, and asked me what I was talking about. Then, I told him 'pros' and 'cons' of globalization. When I was reading 'cons' and said "wars happen", he was against the idea. I explained to him that in the globalized world, so many different opinions and ideas are mixing, and people don't agree with each other. Then he said, it was wrong. Now, this world is globalized, so people got the idea to have discussion to solve problems. Through our history, wars happened because globalization was not developed, so people didn't have the way to face different opinions.

When I heard this idea of my brother, I was shocked and surprised that he had such a great idea for globalization at the age of 14!! Actually, 'my brother' is YOUNGER brother!! Soon I thought that I had to write an essay from 'globalization is good' side with his strong, persuasive idea. I had no way to oppose him and totally agreed, or I can say that his idea cracked me up, and made me agree. I praised him for such a great idea, and he seemed to be a little proud.

I also knew that it is nice to talk with many different people because even if the subject of the conversation is the same, when we talk with different people, we can bump into new ideas. Then we can see new parts of the thing which we have already known, and also, we can think about the things from different side!

One day I was surprised to hear what Roger said in our class. He said that it was sunny but we could not see the mountains because of pollution. Everyone seemed to be surprised too. Before I heard it, I thought we could not see far because it was a cloudy day but in fact, the cause was a pollution.

Roger also said that he had a sore throat because of the air pollution too. I felt sorry to hear that and I thought about the situation around KGU. There is a plant next to KGU and there is a traffic lane which a lot of trucks and cars pass every time. Thinking about all those circumstances, the air which we breathe every day is not very clean.

Then how can we solve this air pollution? Wow, tough question, isn't it? Can we ask the workers in the plant to stop working? Impossible. Can we close the traffic lane so that no cars can pass around KGU? No way. I think one of the biggest problems of global issues is this. It is very difficult to find a way which is the best for all the people to solve the issues. Even so, we have already started to think about global issues in Scott's class and I think there is a big difference between just leaving the problems and considering them. Now it is clear for us that we can not ignore the issues any more.

The 3 most important global　issues are population, education & recycling because thoses issues have some effects to my life. As Scott said in our class, there are too many people on the train every day when I come to school especially when I have a class in 1st period. It seems that people don't have manners as I often see people who cut in the line or push others to get a seat! It is just stressful for me and when I see such rude people, I get much more tired. I hope that trains come more often & people have good manners. Education is also serious because if children can not go to school or can not have education, they can not get a job so that they can not earn for their own life. If a lot of those people live in one place, the country will be worse itselfe. I got this idea when I studied about refugees last year.

Hello this is my first blog.