Monday, January 15th  “Drugs and Supplements”

I recently started taking Vitamin B.  Last week I wrote about how I don’t have any half moon on the base of my nails.  I asked my students whether they had them and most of my students told me that they did not either.  I was relieved to hear that.  I did some research and found out that it was due to lack of Vitamin B, especially B12.  I went to the drug store and bought a bag of Vitamin B.  I’m not sure how effective the supplements are, but I decided to try it for two months.  If my half moons appear on my nails, I can say the supplements really worked!

Actually, I’m really skeptical of drugs and supplements.  I believe that drugs will always have some kind of side effects. I always try not to take drugs if I can manage.  I take cold medicine only if my symptom gets really bad.

 Since I hardly take any medicine, my body is not used to them.  Therefore a drug might work too well for me.  One time when I took my students to America, I had a really bad headache from jet lag.  I had never experienced such a bad headache before.  I know I had to take some Aspirin.  I ran to the nearest supermarket and got an American Aspirin.  I remember it was red and it was really big.  I swallowed the red medicine, and within 5 minutes I had no headache at all.  It was completely gone!!  It was a miracle!!! On the bottle of the Aspirin, it said that the medicine would work for 6 hours.  The strange thing was exactly 6 hours later the headache came back.  The way the headache came back scared me.  I felt it came back instantly.  It was like someone turned on a switch, and the pain was back, and it was worse than before.  

whether 「〜かどうか」

relieved 「ほっとした」

lack of vitamin 「ビタミン不足」

effective 「効果的」

worked 「効く」

skeptical 「疑っている」

side effect 「副作用」

symptom 「症状」

swallowed 「吞み込む」

Tuesday,  January 16th  “NHK”

I kept getting a scary mail from NHK.  It said, “MUST READ” in big red letters.  They sent me this letter three times now.  They are like a loan shark coming after their money.  I ignored them for a while, but I finally decided to call them.  I wanted to tell them that “I don’t have a TV so stop bothering me!!”  I’m really serious; I don’t have a TV or watch TV on my cell phone.  Therefore, I feel I don’t need to sign up for NHK!  

When I called them, a lady answered the phone.  She didn’t sound really nice.  I don’t think she likes working there.   I told her I don’t have any TV.  She was skeptical.  She said, “Really?? Don’t you have ワンセグ or watch TV in your Car Navi?”  I told her I don’t watch TV at all.  I don’t think she believed me.   I wanted to tell her I get my News from student journals.  I don’t think she would understand what I was talking about.  

Speaking of journals, I read today that there was a missile warning in Hawaii.   Although it turned out to be a false alarm, it caused a panic in Hawaii.  Everyone tried to get away from the missile that they thought was coming toward them.  Since I don’t have a TV, I would be in trouble when an emergency situation happens.  I would be the last to get the news.  Therefore, do me a favor, please write your journal and drop it off at school before you evacuate, so I would get the News.  I’m counting on you guys!!

loan shark 「ヤミ金」

ignored 「無視する」

bothering me 「迷惑をかける」

skeptical 「疑っている」

turned out 「結局わかる」

false alarm 「デマ」

do me a favor 「私の願いを聞いてください。」

evacuate 「避難」

counting on 「頼りにしている」

Thursday, January 18th　 “Try not to awww challenge”

I used to have a dog named MAX.  He was a good boy and I have a lot of good memories with him.  I’m by nature a dog lover.  I think dogs are really cute.  Actually, I like all kinds of animals.  However, I’ll probably never be able to have a dog in the near future because of my lifestyle.  

If I ever retire in the countryside, I would like to have a dog again.  Until then, I’ll just watch cute YouTube videos of animals.  Recently, I found YouTube Videos of “Try not to awww challenge”.  In English, the sound “awww”  means it’s so cute.  In Japanese, we say, “Kawaiiiiiiii”.  In English, we say, “awwwwww”.  It represents the same feeling.  Enjoy these videos.  

by nature 「もともと」

awww「かわいい〜〜」

represents 「~を表す」

Saturday, January 20th   “Official Master English LINE account”

This week I was finally able to set up a formal Line account for Master English.  LINE is the new communication tool that everyone uses, and I hope I can communicate with more people by using it. When you sign up to my account, other people cannot see that you are on my Master English account.  Therefore, it protects the privacy of subscribers.  Secondly, if you would like to contact me directly, you can do so on that account.  No one else but I can see it.  

If you are reading my blog weekly, I hope you will subscribe to my Line account.  I usually send a text out on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays on updates of my blog.  I will send it between 8:00 am ~ 9:00 am.  I hope to see you all on LINE.

sign up 「登録」、「申し込む」

subscribers 「購読者」

No one else but I can see.  「私以外の人は見れない」

Here’s the QR code.  

You can also click here. → line://ti/p/@vyq6259z

Sunday, January 21st    “PINO Experience”

Last night I felt like staying up.  Especially a night before your day off, you want to stay up as much as you can.  I think you know how I feel.  So I did.  I stayed up until 3:30 am.  It’s not like I was doing anything special.  Maybe, I just wanted to zone out.  Anyway, the next day I woke up at 9:00 am and I had to do a lot of things.  Firstly, I did all chores quickly.  Next, I ran to the supermarket to get some groceries for the coming week.  After that, I cooked myself lunch.  It was ok up to that point.  While I was eating lunch, I started feeling bad so I stopped eating.  I felt like throwing up.  I decided to lie down a bit and I fell asleep for an hour.  When I woke up, I felt a little better.  I had one private lesson so I headed for school.  On my way there, I felt like eating PINO (ice cream) for no particular reason.  Since I did not finish my lunch, I was probably little hungry.  I ran to the nearest convenience store and bought a box.  Before the lesson, I quickly ate it.  And then, the sick feeling came back again!  I felt like throwing up PINO.  I usually love PINO but I hated PINO at that moment.  I somehow managed to not throw up PINO in front of my student.  I went home quickly and I decided to sleep again.  This time I slept for 3 hours.  I just got up and I’m feeling little better so I’m writing this journal now. I feel like eating something but it might be PINO all over again. 

I think life is full of these PINO experiences.  You know what I mean?  Pino is delicious so you want to eat 10 boxes of them if you can, but after you really regret it!!  You say to yourself, “Why the hell did I do that??”  Now sitting here, I can recall a lot of PINO experiences in my life. My Sunday sounds pretty fun, doesn’t it?  I’m 100 percent certain you had a better Sunday than me!    

stay up 「夜更かし」

as much as you can 「できる限り~をしたい」

zone out「ぼーっとする」

up to that point 「それまで」

throwing up 「吐く」

lie down 「横になる」

somehow managed to 「どうにかする」

all over again 「最初からやり直し」

recall 「思い出す」

certain 「確か」