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Tawawa suffered a server crash that obliterated all archives between June 8 and August 9, 2003, as well as the database. You are reading the flat archive files we managed to salvage from the wreckage.
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RKA
Only Child
As some of you know, I am an only child. When I was a little girl, my friends often envied me because I monopolized all the toys and sweets in the house. In return, I envied my friends who had brothers or sisters because they often followed and played with their siblings and other friends. Even today I sometimes wish I had brothers or sisters.
My father has an elder brother and a younger brother. They have a good relationship and sometimes visit each other. Once a year, they gather at the eldest brother's house and chat about their children, their jobs, and their boyhood memories over a couple of drinks. Whenever I see their gathering, I think having brothers or sisters is great when we grow up.
One of my best friends has an elder sister, and she often goes shopping, travels and eats out with her. She tells me that she can talk with her sister about her worries which are secret from her parents. Also, her sister is a good adviser for her.
I have wanted to have brothers or sisters since my childhood. Generally speaking, an only child is spoiled, selfish and unsociable, which may apply to me. For me, even a quarrel between siblings sometimes looks happy, although it might be frustrating for them.
I don't know what having brothers or sisters is like. What do you think about it? And if you have siblings, have you ever wished you were an only child?
My brother
Yesterday (June 6th) was my brother's sixteenth birthday. My elder sister and I gave him a gift voucher for the SATY shopping center because he really likes to buy clothes and shoes.
Now he is a first-year student in Tsu high school, from which I graduated three years ago. He goes there with his friends on foot every day. Although he gets up late every morning, he has never be late for school, I think.
My brother belongs to the tennis club in Tsu high school. He is a good player and used to be captain of the team when he was a junior high school student. We sometimes play tennis, but I always lose ...
He asks me many many many questions about mathematics and English every evening. He doesn't like being left with his questions unanswered, so when he asks me I must reply to every one of them, which can be a bit exhausting.
My brother is naughty, noisy, and stubborn. But he has a sense of humor: his stories make my family laugh. Though he is cunning as a fox, I think he is the most wonderful brother in the world.
Like shopping?
Shopping is one of my pleasures. I like buying clothes, shoes, hats and so on, but I also like just looking at those goods around the shops without buying. I'm not so rich and I can't shop frequently, but when I do shop I am very happy and I feel my stress gets reduced, in a way.
The other day, I went shopping at Jazz-Dream Nagashima. As the Japanese may know, it is one of the biggest shopping malls in Japan and they sell clothes and other goods. This is one of my favorite places to go shopping! I bought a LEGO T-shirt and a skirt there. It's a little large for me to walk around in and my legs got muscular pain after wearing it...
My shopping habits are a bit strange, I think. I can't easily decide what to buy, so it takes me a long time to do my shopping. At first I don't buy anything and stroll through the shop, looking around, talking with my friends etc.. When I find a piece of clothing which I like, I keep it in my mind and continue looking for other nice pieces. At last I pick up some pieces to choose from, and then I decide which one to buy. It takes me much time and physical strength! But those are my basic habits... Some of my friends choose their clothes intuitively; I am envious!
After shopping I also enjoy thinking about the combination of the clothes I bought with the ones I've already got.
How do you enjoy your shopping? Are your shopping habits contrary or similar to mine? Or is there anyone who dislikes shopping? For me, shopping is lots of fun.
Hello guys
Hi everyone!
How are you doing? Do you guys in Mie University remember me? Anyway, I'm doing fine in Nabari.
I suppose most of you in the English department want to be English teachers. If you need any information about teaching, don't hesitate to ask me. I don't know if I can answer all the questions you have, though.
Now, I'm teaching English to high school students. The school I'm working for is not an academic one, but the students are very good and they're fun to be with. However, it is sometimes hard to deal with their problems. And of course I rarely have holidays as I had in university.
I have many questions for you, too. I want to know how I can make an interesting English conversation class and a writing class. I want advice not only from teachers and those who speak English but also from students.
Today, I'm eating out with co-workers. Have a nice weekend!
A female firefighter
My father is a firefighter. He fights fires, helps injured people and carries them to hospitals in an ambulance, trains for several situations, and maintains fire engines and ambulance cars so as they are ready to depart any time. He looks very tired when he comes home, so I think a firefighter’s work is both physically and spiritually hard.
When I asked him whether women worked as a firefighters, his answer was “No”. Although some women work at the fire station, they do not work at the scene.
But a few days ago, I found an article in a newspaper about a newly appointed female firefighter. She is the first woman in Mie prefecture who works as a firefighter, not at the office but at the scene. She is 18 years old now and enters a fire brigade this spring.
The article tells the story of her decision to become a firefighter. She belonged to a softball club in her high school days, and she was such a good player that she was very important on her team. One day, she hurt her leg in the game and was carried away by an ambulance car, so her team lost the game. While she was being carried away, a firefighter told her that she could play softball again after her leg was healed. He encouraged her, and she decided she also wanted to encourage and help suffering people. After that, she studied very hard to pass the test, and at last her effort bore fruit! She said, “It is very hard to work as an equal with men, but I am determined to give my best.”
I was surprised and moved when I read the article, because the young woman fixed her eyes on her future, put in an effort, and made her dream come true.
Local Festivals
Festivals excite and entertain people, don't they? I am looking forward to this weekend, for a festival is to be held in my town! It is called the Saioh-matsuri Festival and it is the biggest event of the year in Meiwa. Saioh is the Imperial princess who served the God of the Grand Shrine of Ise in ancient Japan of the Heian era. My town Meiwa, especially Saiku, has a long history related to the ancient Emperors of Japan. There are some excavations and a museum in Saiku. In the Saiku Historical Museum, you can see a lot of exhibitions and explore the culture of the ancient Saiku. So the Saioh and Saiku are very popular among us, and the Saioh-matsuri Festival is one of our pleasures.
Local festivals such as the Saioh-matsuri Festival, I think, have three good points.
First, they are, of course, enjoyable entertainments. At the Saioh-matsuri Festival people enjoy a beautiful parade, music, folk dance, and various performances. Also, many booths and stalls sell foods, sweets, and so on.
Secondly, local festivals unite people's hearts. As the Saioh-matsuri Festival is coming up, we can find advertisements and flags for it all over the town, and attention is paid to the big event by almost all local people. People share common feelings through a festival.
Thirdly, local festivals give you an opportunity to learn local culture. Any festival has native, unique characteristics, and most of them have come down to us through a long period of time and shaped local culture in the process. It is very important for us to learn the culture and customs of other times in our hometown. And a local festival might be a cue to do so.
Thus local festivals are of great significance. The Saioh-matsuri Festival also makes me feel my love for my hometown. Local festivals are the embodiments of love for one's home!
Das Experiment
I love movies very much. So I'd like to talk about a movie that made a deep impression on me.
I'm studying Social Psychology now, and I take a seminar about the field. A member of the seminar recommended a movie to me that relates to social psychology. I soon became interested in it because the movie is based on a real-life experiment. The title of the movie is Es in Japan. But it is a German movie made in 2001 and its title is Das Experiment (The Experiment in the United States). When the movie was over, I felt fear because it depicted the dark nature that everyone has.
The movie is inspired by the Stanford Prison Experiment of the 1970s and based on the novel Black Box by Mario Giordano. The experiment was conducted by Prof. Philip G. Zimbardo, who has been teaching at Stanford University for over thirty years. In 1971, college student volunteers were asked to role-play as prisoners and guards in a simulated prison for two weeks. But the guards quickly became so sadistic, and the prisoners so depressed, that the experiment was abandoned after just six days. In the movie, this process is described more shockingly and violently; some fictional drama was added, for example, ordinary people take the place of the college student volunteers.
The brilliance of this movie is the change of characters of the guards. They are given great power to keep order in the prison, and are placed in circumstances where they dominate over weak prisoners. They quickly become more aggressive and begin to abuse their power. To make matters worse, each abuse on the part of the guards leads to rebellion on the part of the prisoners in an escalating sequence of violence with murderous consequences. But they are ordinary people rather than sadists or criminals, which suggests that uniforms and the roles they are assigned may amplify underlying psychological tendencies under such circumstances.
We don’t necessarily have anything to do with such things mentioned above. Still, Das Experiment will make you think about human nature. This is an excellent film; I recommend it to everyone, but the destructive potential of human nature may disturb you.
You may also find these movie reviews informative.
My Grandfather Died
On May 29th, my grandfather on my mother's side died because of disease. He had been in hospital for half a year, but his disease was very severe and he was not strong enough to undergo an operation so that doctors had no way to cure him. Though he underwent anticancer drug treatment, he got weaker and weaker day by day and, at last, he died.
I was very surprised and sad when I heard this news, but I had little realization because I didn't want to believe it. On the 30th, I went back to Nara to attend his funeral. When I saw his face lying still in death, I had a full realization and his face reminded me of the good days he and I had. He was strict with his children and grandchildren, so I was often scolded by him. But now I realized it was his love.
He often told me about his youth. He survived wars and experienced hard times. I liked listening to his stories. But now he can't scold me with love or tell his brave stories any more!
I'm shocked about his death. Have you had a similar kind of experience? And how did you get over the grief? Please tell me!
The Client State
Japan always follows the United States. At the U.N. Security Council meetings before the outbreak of Gulf War II, France openly opposed a second resolution authorizing the the U.S. to disarm Iraq by force. Japan, in contrast, suported the new resolution, which meant that Japan was backing the United States. This attitude, however, did not reflect public opinion in Japan. Without any convincing explanation to the citizens in the Diet debates, the Japanese government simply adopted the U.S. position.
Soft Tennis with Five Guys
I played soft tennis on May 18th with the Noro brothers (Kazuya and Kyota), Shingo (50th), Hidetaka (51st) and Oka-chan (54th). We are all English Department students except Kyota, but he is taking courses at the department.
It was a sunny day. We played on the artificial turf courts at Mie University. Kyota (the younger Noro) and Oka-chan have some experience because they played the game when they were junior high students. Kazuya (the elder Noro) and Shingo once belonged to the soft tennis club at Mie university. Hidetaka is a beginner.
I was surprised that they were all very good at playing it; Kazuya plays carefully and never misses a ball. Shingo has good control. Oka-chan hits a ball as best he can. Kyota is very good at lobbing: to lob is to hit a ball in a throw high curve. I have to run from side to side. Hidetaka is a beginner, but he understands quickly. He was practicing strokes against a wall rather than actually playing the game. If he continues to practice, he will become a very good player!
I enjoyed playing very much. I would like to play more with English Department students. Does anyone want to?
Hidetaka-san and other guys, please post if you have any comment.
Lost our way again...
Today I went to nabana-no-sato, a flower garden in Kuwana city, with my father, mother and grandmother Tama-chan. I drove to that garden and it took us more than three hours to get there! At first we couldn't find the park and asked some people where it was. We went up and down, crossing the Kiso River, the Ibi River and the Nagara River several times. It was exhausting but at the same time it was really a good driving practice for me, in a way...
We never get to a destination without losing our way at least once. That's because we don't consult the route carefully on the map beforehand. Usually my father knows the route more or less, and we follow his directions. What we learned from our experience is that memory is unreliable. I will consult the route very, very carefully when we go for a drive next time!
Have you ever lost your way? If so, how did you get out of that situation then?
Dreams
Some young people express their interests or dreams to the world. It is very good to have a dream and take some steps towards it, I think, because having a dream gives us the power to make it come true.
I wanted to be a pilot when I was little kid because I wanted to fly in the sky, free like a bird. It was going to be cool and fun. I did not like math but I tried my best in elementary school.
Next I wanted to become a teacher because of a teacher I had in my junior high school days. He was a social studies teacher. Usually we used the textbook in the class but he didn’t use it so much. He often said, “Imagine how these people thought. Why did they make this?” or “What do you think is their true purpose?” His class expanded our imagination. I wasn’t very good at history but I enjoyed it very much.
When I entered this university and began to study education, I was very much interested in psychology because that is such an exciting field of study. But at the same time, I realized that education plays a very important role in our development, and that if I learn about psychology in which I am interested, I can contribute to education, as well as to a great many other things.
So now I think that this dream is growing. As in my case, we first want to be something that feels cool or nice, but next we come to have dreams that establish a relation with the people around us. And we will probably reach a dream which shows us how we can make a difference in other people's lives.
In Japan, many young people say that they don’t have particular dreams. But I am convinced it is good to find and have a lot of dreams. As Walt Disney once said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” If we hold on to our dreams, they will guide us.
Fireworks
The
other day, I bought fireworks for this summer at the supermarket. Was
it too early? I like fireworks very much, because they are very
beautiful and enjoyable. In summer we often have fireworks displayed in
many places. I sometimes watch them in the garden of my house, which
tells me that summer has truly come. I like both watching and using
them.
Especially, I love the sparkling fireworks which are very small and look like they are trying to sparkle hard by themselves. Last summer I played with these sparkling sticks with my friends and we competed with each other to see who could make them sparkle the longest. Since those things are very thin and light, they are easily put out by the wind, which makes this game very exciting.
In my hometown, we have a peculiar performance called tezutu-fireworks, which is made and displayed by men. They make it every year by stuffing some gunpowder in a bamboo tube, plugging it with newspapers, and then displaying it in their hands in front of everyone. It is a very dangerous display but an essential traditional event in my town. My father likes to participate because it makes him feel brave and daring.
Anyway, fireworks are normally displayed in the night sky in summer. Is it because it is too cold to see firework outdoors in winter?
Mario!
Mario is popular with everyone, especially young children, because he
is one of the characters made by Nintendo, the famous video game
company. He has a moustache and a big nose, and always wears overalls
and a red cap.
I have a lot of Mario video games. I sometimes play them with my younger brother who really likes them. We usually enjoy a role-playing game; it is very attractive, and once we play it, we continue for almost an hour.
Super Mario World is one of my favorites. In this game, Mario goes to the Kuppa castle to save Princess Peach, who was kidnapped by Kuppa. On the way there, Mario meets many enemies who are Kuppa's followers. But Mario defeats all of them by stepping on their heads (he is good at jumping). And finally, he fights Kuppa and saves Princess Peach.
Welcome back
Owing not entirely but mainly to my own stupidity, Tawawa has been offline for almost a full day.
While trying to bounce incoming traffic from the silly green splash page directly to this weblog, I accidentally – and without first noticing it – transferred the domain name Tawawa.org from the web host's domain name server back to to the registrar's. That was bad: visitors ended up being redirected to an error message that said the site didn't exist.
Well, it didn't really cease to exist. The little baby just ran off and hid in the tool shed for a couple of hours.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Tama-chan
I love my grandparents, though my grandfather has been dead for about 14 years and I don't remember him very well.
My grandmother, whose name is Tamae and who is called Tama-chan by her friends, always complains that she has aches everywhere in her body, but she is doing well. Tama-chan is very talkative and she wants to know everything about me, my campus life, my friends and so on. She even asks me about my boyfriend! Sometimes I'm too embarrassed to answer her questions.
How about your grandparents? Do they ask questions like my grandmother does?