Basketball

The school Basketball practice started on the 5th of December 2010. I have never done basketball before so this is completely new to me but I'm enjoying it a lot!

So far we have had practices every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday for about one hour and a half each time.

On Monday 20th of December, we had a practice at the British School of Colombo from 9 to 5. I found it really tiring but I had a lot of fun.

In doing basketball, I am undertaking new challenges because I have never done basketball before. I am also working collaboratively with others because basketball is a team sport and working as a team is really important. By going to practices I am showing perseverance and commitment and overall, I am developing new skills.

Piano

Now I am practising this song. It is called 'River Flows in You' by Yiruma. I adore this song, it is beautiful.

The criteria I am fulfilling: showing perseverance and commitment and developing skills.

Piano

I started Piano when I was 6 years old so I know how to read music, which is why I don't take classes anymore and I prefer to pick a song that I like and teach myself how to play it. If I attend classes, I have to practice songs that my teacher makes me play so I am practicing individually with the songs I actually want to play.

In practising the piano, I am showing perseverance and commitment because I am committing some time everyday to practice. I am also developing skills since I still have a lot of room to improve.

Now I have begun practising this song. It is called 'One Summer's Day' by Joe Hisaishi. Here is the sheet music for it:

Book Drive For China!

Last week I received a thank you letter from the Chinese students of Juang Cheng Second High School.

Here is the original letter, which they wrote in Japanese:


ゆうこさん　けんとさん　ボコさん　テスさん　シェイマスさん　へ

こんにちは。みなさんお元気ですか。
私たちは、中国の山東省鄄城県第ニ中学の生徒です。以前、私たちにたくさんの
本を送ってくださって、本当にありがとうございます。これらの本は日本語の勉強
の役に立ちます。とてもうれしいです。みなさんに感謝しています。私たちは日本
語が好きです。これからも努力して日本語を勉強しようと思います。
　　みなさんに、いくつかの質問があります。
みなさんは、どこの国の人ですか。いろいろな国の言葉を話すことができますか。
普段は何語を話しますか。今までどこの国に行ったことがありますか。中国に来た
ことがありますか。みなさんの学校に中国人の先生や生徒がいますか。ゆうこさん、
スリランカはきれいですか。ゆうこさんは中国で武術を習いましたか。川村先生は
今中国で武術を習っています。みなさんは中国の武術が好きですか。みなさんの将
来の夢は何ですか。
　たくさん質問して、すみません。私たちの中には、将来日本に留学したいと思っ
ている人もいます。そのとき、会えたらいいですね。
　もし、よければお返事をください。それから、私たちの写真も送ります。
　では、これからもお互いに日本語の勉強を頑張りましょう。

　　　　2010年11月22日
山東省鄄城県第二中学
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　3年生日本語学習者一同

I translated the letter:
Dear Yuko, Kento, Boco, Tess and Seamus
Hello. How are you?
We are students of Juang Cheng Second High School in Shan Dong. Thank you so much for the many books you sent us before. It will be very useful for studying Japanese and we are really happy that you sent them. We love studying Japanese and we hope to improve with these books.
We have some questions we would like you to answer.
Where are you from? Can you speak many different languages? What language do you usually speak in? Which countires have you been to? Have you ever been to China? Are there any Chinese people in your school? Is Sri Lanka a beautiful country? Have you ever learnt Chinese Martial Arts? Because Ms Kawamura is learning martial arts at the moment. Would you like to learn martial arts some day? What are your dreams for the future?
We are sorry for asking so many questions. We hope that some time in the future we will be able to study abroad. Maybe we will meet then, which would be really great.
If you have time, please reply. And we will send some photos of us.
We will work hard to improve our Japanese skills.

2010.November.22
Shan Dong Province Juang Cheng Second High School
9th Grade Japanese Students

I think it is so great that they enjoy learning Japanese and they wrote the actual letter in Japanese. We are going to write a reply letter to them now and we hope we can keep in touch in the future!

Book Drive for China

Over a period of a few months, I did a book drive for students in China. Since my father works in the Japanese International Co-operation Agency (JICA), I asked him to see if there were any problems that I could work on and there was a co-worker in Shandong Province in the East of China who worked as a Japanese teacher for Chinese students, who needed some easy Japanese books to read. The school name is Juang Cheng Second High School and the Japanese teacher there is Ms Michiyo Kawamura.

What I did, with four of my classmates, was collect Japanese books from different people and then do a fundraiser to raise money in order to send the books to the school. We collected picture books, magazines, comic books etc. that were easy to read. In total, we collected about 60 books.

In order to raise money, we held a movie night for the elementary school kids at my school. We booked the auditorium and showed the movie 'UP' and served biscuits and popcorn. The money we raised from the event all went to sending the books. Our goal was initially to raise Rs 10,000 but we managed to raise over Rs 20,000.

In this process, I increased awareness of my strength and areas for growth since it was my first time leading a fundraiser like this. That being said I also undertook new challenges and developed new skills by planning and initiating activities. Because we did this as a group, I managed to work collaboratively with others and show perseverance and commitment in my activity.