Postcard from Berlin, Germany

 Dear Jim sensei,

It is sunny with clear blue sky in Berlin. This must be the best season to visit here. Not too cold, not too hot...just comfortable!

We came here for usiness, but we had chances to visit many famous places like Brandenburg Gate and East side gallery.

We walked around everyday, as our phone told us it's over 18,000 steps per day! We believe we became healthier during our stay in Berlin.

Ritsuko and Tomoko

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

In 1913, Emperor Franz Joseph commanded Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, to visit the military exercises in Bosnia in June of 1914. Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg were assassinated on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip. Princip was one of a group of six assassins (one Bosniak and five Serbs) coordinated by Danilo Ilić, a Bosnian Serb and a member of the Black Hand secret society.
The purpose of assassination was to break off Austria-Hungary’s South Slav provinces so that they can be combined into Yugoslavia.
The assassination led directly to World War I. Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia after it happened. However, a part of them was rejected by Serbia since Russia promised military support for Serbia. Then, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia because Germany promised military support.
Under the Secret Treaty of 1892, Russia and France were obliged to mobilize their armies if any of the Triple Alliance mobilized. Russia ordered general mobilization. With the Russia's general mobilization, Austria-Hungary and Germany also Austro-Hungarian and German mobilizations. Soon all the Great Powers mobilize their armies and gone to war. As the assassination of Franz and Sophia was the trigger of starting World War I, it is important historically especially for European countries.

Hijack at Entebbe

Date: 1976, 7,3
Place: Entebbe international airport
Result:102 people saved by Israel army
 Air France 139 was hijacked from Tel Aviv to Paris via Atene on June 27, 1976
 Hijacked by terrorists right after the departure from Greece, Athens
 2 of them from PFLP-EO, one of PSF Palestine Struggle Front
 2 of them from RZ, terrorist group in west Germany
 3 terrorists were joined after landing at Entebbe airport
 256 of passengers and crews were boarded
 Airplane was landed at Entebbe international airport in Uganda per the order by terrorists
 Idi Amin, president of Uganda supported terrorists
 150 passengers and crews were freed from terrorists except for Jew and Israeli
 106 Jew and Israeli became the hostages at Entebbe airport
 Terrorists requested to release the other terrorists from jails
 Israel government decided to get the hostages out from Uganda
 Israel army flied to Uganda and proceeded their plan with complete secrecy

The Fugitive

This is the story from these film The fugitive (1993), a big Hollywood film with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. The film came from the famous 1960s American TV program, The Fugitive. In this story, Dr. Kimble found his wife was killed when he came home, and tried to find the murder even though he was suspected. Gerard who was chasing Kimble as a detective while he wondered if he was a real criminal or not.

The plot is well organized. It makes us surprised when we reach a final chapter. It isn’t just a story of running away but contains action, suspense and mystery. The story is nail-biter. After Kimble decided to find out a murder, he continues to keep moving around and finding clues in different places. The detective Gerard was kept chasing him and starts thinking about a real culprit. As readers know Kimble is not a murder, we may want Gerard to know it and can feel like we are finding the real criminals together with Gerard.

How Kimble found the murder of his wife, and how he got back his normal life, you must enjoy the whole story without stopping.

The place where I can most concentrate

When I was a child, I used to study in living room while my family was watching TV or talking. After growing up, when I was university student, I used to go to casual restaurant like a Gusto, Denny’s and do homework and study assignments with my friend or alone. Now I am an officer but still go to casual restaurant and do homework when I have it. My favorite place is Komeda coffee. I can concentrate to study while listening people talking or BGM of the restaurant. And it is also necessary to have some drinks when I concentrate doing something. If I have to think about something difficult or complicated, I always prepare a cup of coffee and start thinking. Sometimes I have some sweets if I felt tired. The best time of working is after 5pm when most people went home because anyone don’t ask or talk to me.

Reiko's World Cup 2018 prediction - Group A

World Cup 2018 will be started today! Here is my prediction for group A.

There are 4 countries in group A as below

1.  Russia - Host country - FIFA ranking 70th in the world. There is no star player but the strongest point is the host country. The power of audiences could help the team to win. They might score 2 goals against Saudi Arabia and win a game as FIFA ranking is almost the same. I think Russia team will probably lose the other games considering FIFA ranking.
2. Saudi Arabia FIFA ranking 67th in the world. There is also no special player in this team. They may score 1 goal at least to any of team but I think Saudi team might not be able to the next state.
3. Egypt FIFA ranking 45th in the world. The forwarder, Mohamed Salah Ghaly is the most famous player who belongs to Liverpool. But he got his shoulder injured and could get in the game of Russia. So I think Egypt will probably win Russia team and score 3 goals. But they might lose Uruguay team at the first game because Salah might not be able to get in the game. 
4. Uruguay FIFA ranking 14th in the world. There are two star players; Edinson Roberto Cavani Gómez who belongs to Paris Saint-Germain and Luis Alberto Suárez Diaz who belongs to Barcelona. As Cavani and Suarez are forwarder, the offensive strength is very good, they will probably score more than 4 goals in the group stage. On the other hand, defensive strength is also good because of goal keeper, Néstor Fernando Muslera Micol. 

Uruguay team will probably finish the first round at the top of Group A.

Did you know? -Biomimicry

Among Formula 1 fans, it has been controversial whether the modern F1 car or the classic F1 car is more stylish. New technology makes design changes in both good and bad ways. Which aspect is more important to you in choosing cars, appearance or performance?

Let me introduce you a very fascinating car with futuristic performance but looks different from cool F1 cars.

The concept car with box-like yellow body is from Mercedes Benz called “Bionic car” publicly unrevealed more than ten years ago. This car is designed based on the inspiration from the body shape of box-fish, hako-fugu in Japanese. Unlike F1 car, it has fat and round shape but it was believed to have high maneuverability and efficiency like a box-fish making quick turns with less energy consumption.

The appearance of new revolutionary cars should be unfamiliar to the public. Toyota Prius is a good example; many people reviewed it ugly but Prius has been one of the bestselling car in the world.

Many technologies, such as the shark fin and the T-wing have been adopted by F1 engineers and removed by F1 regulations.

Will you be a big fan when Formula 1 cars have round body with no wings?

It is too scared to imagine for me.

My dream house - probably (After reading of Don't Tell Me What To Do)

I have never bought or built any own house, but I would like to describe my process plan how to buy an own house. If I have a child, I will probably buy the own house when the child enroll at an elementary school to avoid him/her from transferring the school.

In order to decide a layout of house, I would like to visit many houses what types of layout there are and what layout/function is convenience for my life style. Also, we should confirm what construction/material have the quality to last long and how maintenance is needed. From seeing many houses, I may get many useful ideas.

I think it is very important to imagine not only current but also future life style and to find a best solution with satisfaction at that timing. My thought mentioned above is caused by my experience. When I bought my current car, I checked many many cars at car park etc to know what internal/external design I really like because I thought it was very important to like the look of the car to ride for many years.

Now, over 10 years passed after I bought my current car and I still like it.
When a rough idea of layout/function is made, I will ask some home builders for quotation. It is likely that the quotations will exceed our budget, and I mayl review again what part we can handmade or eliminate and negotiate the home builder to do markdowns.

After reading Viking Tales - Utgard writes to Odin

Dear Odin,

 Hope you are doing well. Thor and Loki with small human boy named Thialfi visited us without any notice last week. Thor said he came to here, our castle in order to fight us all because he was board and had nothing to do. Fortunately, Skrymir told me they were reaching to our kingdom. We wanted to avoid fighting with Thor, Loki and Thialfi. Thus, we had no way but we used tricks.

Firstly, we took the bones from the table and burned them while Loki was eating all meat. Secondly, we put Hugi’s twin brother at the other end of the field and pretend Hugi had already arrived the goal. Then we used the drinking horn which is connected to the sea so that Thor could not drink it up. And we asked Jormungand to change into a cat. The cat could not be picked up by anyone even though by Thor. They believed some of our friends had a special ability and we won all competitions. We did not have to fight each other in the end.

We appreciate it if you keep them away from our Kingdom so that we can avoid any unnecessary fighting each other.

Sincerely yours,

Utgard

The Lost World - the Mystery of Egypt

Egypt is one of the most interesting country which I’ve never been to. There is a TV program my mother loves to watch, it is called “Discovery of the World’s Mysteries (Sekai Fushigi Hakken)”

I also have been watching the show since I was a child. One of the popular topics of the show is the Mystery of Egypt. When I saw the culture of the ancient Egypt, it was very interesting for me that the world is expressing by some pictures, they could make the historic building from the high-level scientific approach and many historians still make researches to try to find out the truth about the past.

If I could go to adventure, I would like to go to Egypt with one of Japanese historian who make researches there because he could guide me where tourist could not go like the inside of pyramid. Then I would like to unravel a riddle of one of the ancient Egypt together with the historian and his team.

Postcard from Chicago, Illinois

Hi Jim-sensei

I am leaving for Japan tomorrow.

This time I had two full-day meeting and it was very productive one.

I hope I can work closely with my customer for future product developments

Tomoko

Amelia Earhart - missing, presumed dead

Amelia R.I.P.

Beginning approximately one hour after Earhart's last recorded message, the USCGC Itasca took a search north and west of Howland Island. The United States Navy soon joined the search and over a period of about three days sent available resources to the search area in the vicinity of Howland Island.

The official search efforts lasted until July 19, 1937. At $4 million, the air and sea search by the Navy and Coast Guard was the most costly and intensive in U.S. history. But search and rescue techniques during the era were introductory and some of the search was based on erroneous assumptions.
Despite an unprecedented search by the United States Navy and Coast Guard no physical evidence of Earhart, Noonan or the Electra 10E was found.

In late July 1937, Putnam chartered two small boats and while he remained in the United States, directed a search of the Phoenix Islands, Christmas Island, Fanning Island, the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands, but no trace of the Electra or its occupants was found.

Back in the United States, Putnam acted to become the trustee of Earhart's estate so that he could pay for the searches and related bills. In a court in Los Angeles, Putnam requested to have the "declared death in absentia" seven-year waiting period waived so that he could manage Earhart's finances. As a result, Earhart was declared legally dead on January 5, 1939.

Love among the Haystacks - stargazing

Under the stars

I love seeing stars.  When I was a high school student, I was a member of astronomy club. The most interesting activity of our club was to see a star shower.  There are two big chances to see the star shower in a year.  One is Aquarius meteor in May and the other is Perseid meteor in August.  There is a good camping site for our activity in Ikeda-machi.  We went up to the hill and had a camp.  When sun goes down, we started the preparation of observation.  Ten members went into each sleeping bag and lie on the ground in a circle.  In the center of circle, one member sat down on ground and took note how much shooting stars we could count in each direction.  We took turns watching all the night.  All of us tried hard not to sleep, but some members went to sleep during the observation.  The member in the center of circle called over the name every ten minute, but some member didn’t reply.  The midnight was the hardest time for us, but it was the best time for seeing stars.  More and more shooting stars can be seen in the midnight toward morning.  It was silent night and stars were very beautiful in the dark.  We felt the sky was nearer to us. 

Posted by Reko on behalf of Tomoko

Amelia Earhart and her airplanes

Planes

 

One of Amelia’s air planes was Lockheed 5B Vega.

It was called little red bus. It was vivid red, and had a single seat.

In 1932, she used it for her famous flight and made a record.

She flew alone over the Atlantic Ocean back and forth without any recess. It was the first record for woman.

The Lockheed 5B Vega was sold into the market in 1927. The designer was Jack Northrop and Allan Loughead. It was first product made by them for Lockheed Aircraft Company. Lockheed 5B Vega was sharp shape and fast. It soon became popular among pilots.

She repaired the little red bus because of an accident. The fuselage was replaced and strengthened in order to carry extra fuel tanks.

It mounted three types of compasses, a drift indicator and a more powerful engine. She accomplished the Atlantic Ocean flight with the modified little red bus.

She sold it to Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute. It’s presently displayed in Smithsonian museum.

Another air plane was the Model 10-E Electra. It’s also made by Lockheed Company. It was the best known aircraft, but disappeared in the Pacific in July, 1937 with Amelia Earhart and her flight assistant, Fred Noonan on the half way to achieve world record flight.

Posted by Reiko on behalf of Yumi

The Piano Man - after reading, choose another Tim Vicary book

"The Everest Story" of  Mr. TimVicary looks very interesting for me.

Some Japanese tried to climb up to the top of the Everest before. The climbing was broadcasted to the world including Japan. There are also a lot of climbers in Nagano as there are lots of high mountains in Japan. Actually, I had climbed up to the middle of the mountain in Nagano when I was 14 years old. That was my first climbing of a full-scale mountain in my life.

I got used to seeing the people of the climbing mountains since my childhood and liked to see their stories to reach to their final goal after the harshness of nature, various difficulties and enjoyable beautiful scenery. It is difficult to climb the Everest by myself, but I think I could imagine and enjoy when I read the book. And I also would like to learn how difficult to get the top of the mountain and how to find the way to climb to there.

The Empress Michiko

The current Empress Michiko (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Queens- Write about a powerful woman in our country’s history.

Empress Michiko (皇后美智子 Kōgō Michiko), born Michiko Shōda (正田 美智子 Shōda Michiko) on 20 October 1934, is the Empress consort of Japan as the wife of Emperor Akihito, the current Emperor of Japan reigning from 7 January 1989.

Michiko Shōda was born in Tokyo, the eldest daughter of Hidesaburō Shōda, president and later honorary chairman of Nisshin Flour Milling Company. Raised in Tokyo and in a cultivated family, she received both traditional and "Western", learning to speak English and to play piano and being initiated into the arts such as painting, cooking and Kōdō. She is the niece of several academics, including Kenjirō Shōda, a mathematician who was the president of the University of Osaka from 1954 until 1960.


She attended Futaba Elementary School in Tokyo, but was obliged to leave in her fourth grade because of the American bombings during World War II. She was then successively educated in the prefectures of Kanagawa, Gunma and Nagano in the town of Karuizawa, where Shōda had a second resort home.

After attending college, she admitted to have also been named in her childhood as "Temple-chan", because her curly hair and reddish colors were unusual for a Japanese girl and it made her look like the American child actress Shirley Temple. Although she came from a Catholic family and was educated in Christian private schools, she is not baptized.

She graduated summa cum laude from the Faculty of Literature at the University of the Sacred Heart, Tokyo with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in 1957. She also took courses at Harvard and Oxford.

Since she came from a particularly wealthy family, her parents were very selective about her suitors. Biographers of the famous writer Yukio Mishima had considered marrying Michiko Shōda, and that he was introduced to her for that purpose sometime in the 1950s.

In August 1957, she met then-Crown Prince Akihito on a tennis court at Karuizawa near Nagano. The Imperial Household Council formally approved the engagement of the Crown Prince to Michiko Shōda on 27 November 1958. At that time, the media presented their encounter as a real "fairy tale", or the "romance of the tennis court". The engagement Ceremony took place on 14 January 1959.

Michiko married Crown Prince Akihito and became the crown princess of Japan until the death of Emperor Hirohito. She was the first commoner to marry into the Japanese Imperial Family. She has three children with her husband. Her elder son, Naruhito, is the current heir to the Chrysanthemum throne. As crown princess and later as empress, she has become the most visible and widely travelled imperial consort in Japanese history.

The Mutiny on the Bounty - Pitcairn Islands

The Pitcairn Islands are a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. That is the British Overseas Territory in the Pacific. It consists of the four islands – Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno. They are spread over several hundred miles of ocean and the total land area is about 47 square kilometers (18 sq mi). Only Pitcairn, the second largest island is inhabited.

There are no inhabited islands 300km around. Why do people live in this solitary island far off in the ocean? The Bounty mutineers who are famous in the several movies serve as a trigger. The people in this island are the descendant of the sailors who took part in the mutiny of the Bounty.

Their religion is Christianity. All islanders are protestant of Seventh-day Adventist. Basically they don’t drink nor smoke. The alcohol and cigarette are sold in the government store which is only one convenience store and the Christian’s café which is only one café in the island but is thinly distributed.

There is a rule for the food, they don’t eat pork nor shrimp. This is because they are dedicated to their passion in the practicing Christianity. After the mutineer lived in the island, some of drunken islanders killed each other. The Adams who was the last person in the accident sought help from the Bible and the islanders have practiced hardly and don’t eat pork nor drink in the end.

Passing Cambridge P.E.T. Our success story with JP004

My students in a Business English class were finally persuaded to prove to themselves how good their skills have become. They were obviously delighted to be presented with their certificates, and more than happy to share the secrets of their success.

I suggested they brainstorm ideas & map out a general plan on the board, and the video is the outcome. I think they're making superb progress, and passing P.E.T. (Cambridge Preliminary) a very solid milestone for them to chalk up.

Looking forward to them updating their profiles on LinkedIn! Comments very welcome - and why not subscribe to Luna's YouTube channel?

The Secret in the Farmhouse - writing about being brave

I have three dogs. The accident happened to one of them nine years ago. It had past several months since I had her. I had taken her for a walk every morning.

One day, I changed the lead to new one for her as the previous one was a little bit complicating. It, however, was too loose to hold her. When she stopped to sniff a tuft of grass, I pull the lead and moved forward. Then, she came out from the lead. When I tried to catch her, she was surprised and ran away! I chased her, but she continued to escape from me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have mobile phone. In addition, there were no any other people around there. Therefore, I could not ask anyone to help and I had no way but to keep chase her not to lose her. I had been struggling with the situation for twenty minutes.

After that, I found a dog in the backyard of a house. I suddenly recalled that my dog liked other dogs. I thought that she came close to the dog if she saw the dog and I could catch her.

I didn’t know the owner of the house, but I knocked the window from the backyard to call the owner. The owner was surprised, but when I talked about the accident, she took her dog to me. When my dog saw the dog, she was pleased to come close and I finally caught her. I was very relieved and appreciated the owner and the dog.

I can't remember my part of the conversation if I stand up

So I asked my students if they took their English notebooks with them when they travel on business (the reason we are studying in-house)...a lot of blank faces at first, then shaking of heads as if it were a really stupid thing to ask!

OK then, you take take your textbooks..."Eh?"

Or the interactive DVD/workbook with your laptop...insane suggestion?

Thing is, I'm the native speaker/teacher operative, and I can't remember the right way to do stuff all the time in a business context (introducing colleagues, asking for assistance, making small talk etc) and need to double-check. It really is OK if my students do too!

Everyone comfortable sitting down? When was the last time you greeted a customer to your factory with a rug on your knees? If it's cold in the lobby, you'd better make sure you get this role play sorted out quickly and properly - no giggling please! In front of everyone walking past? Absolutely...can't perform now, imagine what you'll be like if an actual foreign visitor turns up. And if the conversation breaks down or turns left...deal with it professionally, or get help. Meantime, stay calm; name, rank, & number.