Tonight Australia qualified for the 2014 World Cup by beating Iraq 1-0. The goal was scored by Josh Kennedy, who plays for Nagoya Grampus.
Japan have already qualified, so it`s possible that Australia & Japan will meet again in Brazil! Now I`m REALLY looking forward to next year`s World Cup. How about you?
This wooden butterfly I made is based on a black swallowtail butterfly, which is pretty common in Japan. They are in Australia too, but I don`t know if it`s the same as the kind in Japan. I was quite surprised to find on internet that there are lots of kinds of black swallowtail butterfly!
I`ve put this in my Gifu classroom. If you go there, please look for it!
I`ve just finished reading these four Novels by Charles Dickens. He`s a really famous author [ちょさくか ] so I`m a little embarrassed [はずかし] to admit [あやまりをみとめる?] that I`d never read any of his novels before this.
These stories were written about 150 years ago, so sometimes the language is a little strange, for example `catched` (caught), `manufactory` (factory), & `8 of the clock` (8 o`clock`) but the stories are interesting & sometimes quite funny.
Charles Dickens` most famous character is Oliver Twist. Do you know his famous request? I want to say it to my boss about my salary - Haha!
Speaking of football/soccer, one of our Teragoya teachers, Stuart, writes for a magazine & website called JSoccer. Most of the articles are in both English & Japanese so it`s a good way to not only get interesting football news, but also study some English (if you`re Japanese), or Japanese (if you`re not).
Now that Japan has confirmed its place in next year`s World Cup, it`s a good time to start learning about your players, right? Then, next year when everyone is talking about football, you can impress both friends & good-looking strangers with your knowledge.
http://www.jsoccer.com
Good job, Stuart.
Did you watch the game on Tuesday night? I recorded the game & watched it after I finished work at 10pm. I was worried somebody would tell me the score [とくてん?] before then, but fortunately nobody told me.
I thought it was an exciting game. I was supporting [おうえんする] Australia, so I was disappointed that Japan got a late PK, but I think a draw is an okay result for Australia. Actually, overall [すべて] I think Japan played better.
Australia has two more qualifying games left [のこり]. They will play in Australia, which is good. Playing away from home is tough, especially in front of 60,000 Japanese fans! They`re very enthusiastic [ちからがはいる?]! I think that helped Japan on Tuesday night, especially at the end.
I bought an indoor plant for my classroom, but I didn`t have a good place to put it, so I made this plant stand from recycled wood. The height is about one metre. The wood for the legs came from an old thread [井と] spool [スプール] frame in my father-in-law`s factory. The spools rotated [まわす] between the white things.
I was going to put shelves in it, but actually I think I like it as it is [as it is = このまま].
I made these butterflies from recycled wood. They are 12 x 8cm, & I based the design on a butterfly called the `Common Grass Yellow`. You can see this butterfly in Ichinomiya, but the ones I saw in Okinawa recently were a much stronger shade of yellow. I was surprised by the difference.
Anyway, I plan to stick these butterflies on the wall in my Gifu classroom. I hope they help make the room - & students! - feel more cheerful.
Now these yellow flowers are blooming by the roadside on my way to work. They`re very colourful & pretty to look at, don`t you think?
However, I think they are an invasive species [がいらいせいぶつ] called Thelesperma filifolium, from America. Once I saw on Japanese TV a group of volunteers pulling them out & putting them in garbage [ごみ] bags. I`m pretty sure it was this kind of flower.
That`s good - I won`t feel bad when I pull some out one day (to put in a vase, not a garbage bag though!)
On Sunday Teragoya took a trip to Higashiyama zoo in Nagoya. There were about 70 kids this year - a lot more than last year. Fortunately the 10 kids in my group were very well-behaved. Of course they enjoyed looking at all the animals, but I noticed they had different opinions about the different kinds, for example:
The hippopotamus is lazy.
The ostrich is funny.
The elephant is nice.
The flamingoes are beautiful.
The American bison are nothing special.
Oh - poor American Bison! I hope they didn`t hear. But I was interested to see them; I`d never seen a real one before.
Have you ever been to the zoo? Which animal did you like most?
Before we went to Ishigaki Island I bought some magnets at the 100yen ($1) store. We glued them onto the back of shells which we collected on the beach. Then we painted them. We also stuck eyes on a couple (I bought them at the 100yen store too). I will use these magnets on the refrigerator at home & on my whiteboard at school. I hope they don`t break easily.
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yukio 
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