Please have a listen to my second podcast episode, about KGU.

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Women's Soccer

Although everyone is very excited about women's soccer, I am more concerned about the English Premier League. It seems that Manchester United have renewed their side quite effectively, Liverpool have bought a lot of expensive players, and Chelsea and Arsenal don't have any major changes yet. Manchester City look a little unsettled.

Podcast tips

No spaces in mp3 filenames, please!

And no uppercase letters!

In your blog, add a link to the file in 2 places: in the body of the post, and in the enclosure link field.

Exam

The content of the writing exam will be as follows:

1. Your final declaration for word count, post count, and so on;
2. An original short essay.

Some notes:

• 1 is the most important part. In order to do it quickly, you should prepare a Blog Stats post the day before the exam. Then you can copy the figures from that post onto the exam paper.
• The essay question will be a new one, but it will be similar in some ways with the essays you have done this semester. Watch out especially for simple errors such as santangen no S, and matching singular and plural. Also remember that, in general, a singular noun has an article!
• You can use the Internet to look up information for the essay. But don't spend too long collecting information. Get a few bits of interesting and relevant information, and spend most of your time writing and checking your writing.

Women's Soccer, and other matters

As you probably know, Japan won the women's soccer World Cup. They played the US in the final and won on penalties. Their performance will hopefully serve as an inspiration to the men's team, under coach Zaccheroni.

In the English Premier League, Liverpool have been spending big in the transfer market, while Arsenal look like they are going to lose more than they gain.

Red Gyuu

As you know, yesterday I had a hamburger made from Aso aka ushi. So today I drank a Red Bull. Maybe I will give birth to some red veal soon.

APA reference practice

Daynes, K. (2007). Aladdin and his magical lamp. Usborne.

Mason, C. (2008). Macbeth. Usborne.

Aka ushi

Yesterday, I went to Yagogawa with my family to get our rice milled. Then we went to Aso to eat some sweetcorn and finally we went to Miyaji station to eat a red beef hamburger with demiglace sauce.

Class of July 11th, 2011

On today's menu:

1. Juppun ha Juubun
2. Second-semester typing (notice from Mr Tomei)
3. A note on blog tags (labels)
4. Revision of APA reference format
5. Creating and recording your 2nd podcast episode
6. Blog stats ( Post before class of June 21st.)

Make sure you do your blog stats before July 21st! Also, make sure to finish recording your 2nd podcast episode, and save it in your folder on the 学内私書箱 server, before July 21st.

Also, don't forget to check the Writing Targets!

The number of book reviews for this semester is 12.

The exam is on August 1st.

You can start second-semester blogging on September 1st.

Baskin Robbins

Baskin Robbins is the most famous ice cream speciality store in Japan. (In fact, I don't know any other chains of such stores, though there used to be a single store in Kengun.) During the summer months, they have a special sale allowing you to buy 3 scoops of ice cream for the price of two. Yesterday, my wife said "Hey, let's go out", but she didn't tell us where. But we arrived at Baskin Robbins in Kengun and we all had 3 scoops. I had Love Potion 31, Oreo Cookies, and Caramel Ribbon. Actually, the seasonal flavours available now don't interest me so much. (May favorite time of year is spring when they have Burgundy Cherry.)

Under-21 Football

Last night, as I mentioned in my previous post, Japan's Under-21 team played a match against Kuwait. This was their 2rd round qualifier. These 2nd round qualifiers are played in two legs, and last night's match was the first leg. It was in Japan. Generally, it is more difficult to play away, so it is generally considered important to win the home leg. If the total number of goals for the two teams over the two legs is the same, the team with the most away goals wins, so, just as the away team wants to score, the home team wants to avoid conceding any goals.

The result was 3–1 to Japan. It was a good result, though Japan was a little disappointed to concede a goal, especially after looking so much better than Kuwait throughout the match. Ohsako (from Kashima Antlers) played pretty well. I think the away leg will be held on Thursday in Kuwait, and I hope it will be televised too.

Father's Day

Yesterday was Father's Day. I am very busy these days with work, so I had to go to Kumamoto University for the whole day. But I finished work early, in order to get home by 6, and when I got home my wife said: "Hey, let's go out to eat." So we went to a nearby restaurant that sells "kushi katsu", and we had a nice meal there. When we got home, I discovered that my wife had recorded a soccer match for me to watch. I hadn't realised that there was a match so this was a nice surprise. Moreover, the match was very nice. It was a qualifying match for next year's Olympic Games, between Japan and Kuwait. Japan played very well and won 3–1.

Wizard of Oz

I've just finished my first podcast episode, about the Wizard of Oz. Please check it out!

Black Swan

Have you seen the movie Black Swan? I finally got to see it last weekend. I had been looking forward to it for a long time, and I bought a discount ticket at a convenience store a few months ago. As you probably know, Natalie Portman is the star of the movie, and she won an Oscar for her performance as a young ballet dancer who is chosen as the Swan Queen in the Tchaikovsky ballet Swan Lake.

The movie was interesting, especially the performance of Mila Kunis as Lily, another dancer in the ballet company. Unfortunately, I didn't think the performances of Vincent Cassel and Natalie Portman were particularly good. But the movie is pretty interesting and well worth seeing.

Detective Dinosaur

Detective Dinosaur's a great book. Check out my podcast episode about it!

Premier League

The 2010-11 Premier League season has finished, as you probably know. The 2011-12 season will begin in late August, I think, but some teams will be back in action as soon as June 30th. Those teams include Fulham, who have qualified for Europa League qualifiers through fair play over the 2010-11 season.

As happens every season, some managers have been sacked, and others have quit their jobs. Fulham manager Mark Hughes resigned last week, and Fulham announced just a few days later that they had hired Martin Jol, a former Spurs and Ajax manager, to take over. Aston Villa's Gerard Houllier, who was hospitalized for heart problems during the season, left his post, and Aston Villa are still looking for a replacement. Wigan's Roberto Martinez was invited to take over the job, but he chose to remain with Wigan.  The biggest vacancy is at Chelsea, where Carlo Ancelotti was fired after coming second in the league and being knocked out in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Soccer, continued

In my last post, I talked about soccer, so I'd like to continue with that topic. I mentioned that Manchester United lost to Barcelona in the Champions League final, and that Manchester United hadn't really found a way to fight against Barcelona convincingly. One interesting aspect of the match is that Manchester United kept Barcelona pegged back for a short time at the beginning of the match, and that at one point the manager, Alex Ferguson, got angry with Wayne Rooney. One theory is that Rooney's main job was to mark Busquets and thus to stop Barcelona's attacks from the beginning, but that he was more interested in attacking so Busquets had too much freedom to play. Thus, the manager was angry with him for neglecting his defensive duties. Interestingly, Manchester's play seemed to get worse after the altercation, so some think that Rooney became angry with the manager and ignored his instructions.

Another recent match was England against Switzerland. England conceded 2 early goals but came back to draw.

The Wizard of Oz

Dorothy walked briskly along the yellow road, her silver shoes tinkling on the bricks.

In the first episode of my podcast, I introduce the wonderful story, The Wizard of Oz.

Soccer

Although the soccer season in Europe is over, there have been some matches to watch on TV. The first of these was the UEFA Champions League final, featuring Manchester United from the U.K. against Barcelona from Spain. Barcelona was the favorite, but in the days before the match many people were saying that Barcelona's travel plans and their lack of matches before the big match would make them less sharp.

The final two years before had featured the same two teams, and in that match Barcelona won. Many people said that Manchester United's tactics had been at fault, so everyone was looking forward to seeing Manchester's tactical plan this time.

For the first ten minutes, Manchester looked impressive, but after that Barcelona dominated possession, and my impression was that Barcelona had improved a lot since two years ago, while Manchester had failed to learn any tactical lessons. The match ended 3-1 to Barcelona.

In Japan, the Kirin Cup is taking place now. Japan's first match against Peru was not a good one, but it will be intereresting to see how they play against the Czech Republic tomorrow.

WWTC 2011 continued

The World Table Tennis Championships are important not only in themselves but also because they affect the members to be chosen for the 2012 Olympics. There is speculation that Ma Long, having lost in the semi-finals, will not get a place in the Olympics. The two places that are decided are Wang Hao and Zhang Jike, who are ranked 1 and 3 and were also runner-up and champion, respectively, in the WTTC. The third would usually go to the highest ranked remaining player, who is Ma Lin.

Although I like Ma Lin, he is getting old, and I think Ma Long would be a much stronger competitor next year.