Brithday project two

On 25th February, it was Sooa's birthday. Since we had a week holiday, me and Haruka planed her birthday party.

Plan: 02 22 2013 from 12 o'clock in front of the studio/metro

• Me making a bracelet for her as a secret present.
• Haruka booking the photo studio 
• Both buying the one piece for her.
• announcing to the people who Sooa is especially close to.

So on Thursday, which is a day before the event, we went to the mall close to kievskaya, and bought a dress that sooa is wearing in the picture. It took about two hours to decide the one piece for her. She requested us the bright, simple and not too sexy one, and I think we could find a good one.

What went well:

• Sooa was so happy about it
• We all enjoyed photo session.
• The lights and stuffs were quite good as professional.
• we bought some snacks and water before it begins and it was a great idea since there weren't any food with us except them.

Even better if

• I could bring a professional camera. since we thought that there was a camera rental service, no one brought a good camera...
• we had more clothes and stuffs decorates the room.
• we could choose more convenient place to go

Even though there were some troubles, we had so much fun though taking photos and pretending as a model. Thanks to haruka who booked and found the place and to everyone who came in!
I was happy that I could provide that kind of service for someone precious and I was glad to see people's enjoying face including me! I hope it made our relationship even closer than before.

Photography

This week, I worked as a photographer and took many photos. There are about 15 photographies, I'm going to show you only some of them which I like the most. Since it's snowing so hard recently, I mostly took MOSCOW WINTER, so.. yes. Hope you enjoy!(left picture is the original and right is edited)

• So this is the first one. Basically, it's just a tree, but it looks retro in left picture. I also put some tilt-shift effect, so that the tree is emphasized. We can see many windows in the back ground though, since they are all square and there are both horizontal and vertical lines, we can only focus on the main object which is tree and which mostly have horizontal lines. The point I think I failed is, there are some objects that there is no need to be taken such as some tree branches and light. I also think that I should have put tilt-shift effect on another green object on the left side 

 

• Here is another one of the same Moscow winter, but with the dark image. At the same time I feel it's so beautiful, I wish I could back to summer holidays with shiny sun and white cloud. Plus it sometimes make me feel like it will never end so I sometimes feel Moscow winter as a dark image, so here it is.

• Another picture of the beauty of Russia. It was taken by me in the school though, I was devised the angle. If you take it from the same height as your eye sight it will look like just a Russian tree with snow but with this angle, I think it can express how strong it stands. I also like the point I made it white and black so that background apartment with typical Russian apartment's color will be less visible. By putting effect of the tilt-shift, the audience's attention straight goes to the tree.

 

• So it's gothe last picture you see today. This is in the morning,about 8:30 before nk that this picture is so beautiful as that I don't really need to edit. But at least I tried to make it more beautiful. I made sure the main object is the two trees so that the light in the back ground looks like a small house with light way too cute. But actually I feel like I should have focused on different main.　I just prefer the style that there is only one main object.

So I think I showed all my favorite pictures and I hope you do like it all :) In this session, I think I've met some learning outcomes such as;

• Increase awareness of my strengths and areas for growth

　by taking lots of photos in Moscow

• Developed new skill

 by looking for the filters and effects that suit the original photo

Birthday project!

　Today, it was my precious friend's birthday. I prepare some stuffs for her with Momoko.　The some stuffs are mini-surprise-party at Momoko's house, original cake and a message card. I mostly worked for the message card and making the cake she designed. It was actually first time for me to try something like pic-collage and it was so fun to make! First of all we chose some pictures and decorated them, then asked Japanese friends to write for her. My favorite picture is the one playing volleyball. That was the other way around at the first time. I flipped to left since it fits more in the card! I was amazed that it doesn't look like I flipped and look even better than before! I also like the point I put lines around every photos and letters. By doing that, they look more 3D and stylistic...I think.

So here is a cake we made. The base is gateau au chocolat(chocolate cake) and above that there are cookie house and plate with massages. Since we wanted to celebrate friends who have just passed their entry exam so we put three messages. The cookie house is just like what I made in previous session, but I changed recipe for cookie so that it was more delicious but easier to break. It took us about 2 hours (or more!) to stick their parts up though, it looks like pretty in this photo. And it tasted good as well! The base cake was delicious too. We gave some to our parents and friends and everyone who are close to us and they all said it was so good. So I believe what they said! For me, it was first time to write a message on cookies as well. My hand vibrated hard and it took a long time to write only two or three words. For the point we couldn't write perfect, we used a small stick to edit them. I souldn't forget how we suffered sticking them together. Since the cookie house is kind of heavy, we first made the cake freezing and sticked them with cream. It was quite nice idea to stick them with cream because it matches to the  gateau au chocolat really much! As we expected, the collaboration of them was amazingly tasty.

When we asked to our birthday girl to open the cake( it was covered by silver bowl so that no one couldn't check what's inside) she looked confused and when she finally opened it she screamed and thanked us so much. We were so happy that she didn't even notice that it was her birthday party and we do hope best wishes for her.

I believe I met several outcomes for CAS project. One is definitely, collaborating work with others and planned activity, me and Momoko spend so much time together to think and plan about it. One is developing new skill, I never made original cake and a message card. I think it was so creative for both of making and it also collaborates with my CAS which is cooking and photography. By the way the five photo( out of eight) we chose were taken by me.   

Next time, I hope I can involve more people and have a bigger event so that I can think more, prepare more which help me to grow more! Thanks for reading :)

EIKEN finished!

So last week, my student had the English examination for Japanese called "Eiken". Although the grade she challenged was the first one, I think it was a bit challenging for her since basically it's for twelve/thirteen kids. Here is a website for that in case you are interested.
http://stepeiken.org/


On Tuesday,I have marked her results and with my marking, she got about a half of them. In writing, she correctly marked according to what I taught in the lessons, but in listening, I see her confusedness. her result is just about 50 percent, so I am really not sure whether she can get a diploma or not.

From now on, she is trying to get the next grade which is the forth one, and which is more difficult. I can't manage to teach her until the next exam though, I will do my best with next two months or less than that. In my plan, I am going to focus on listening, writing, grammar and vocabulary. ... Sounds like everything. well, I think her problem is on reading, since Eiken only focuses on reading and listening. However language is not only reading and listening. So I think at the first step, if she can read and write words, she can produce and understand speech/text. I'll be trying to put some conversations in English only because in my experience I found it so difficult to speak only in English though it's so normal to communicate with other people.As the first lesson after the examination, in first 30 minutes, I give a book about American family who has just moved to japan to her and read it out with me. The reason I put this exercise is  there are many useful words that she doesn't know.  After that we did exercise of forth grade, some examples and explained.

I do really hope that my tutor time will somehow help her in the future. Thanks for reading :)!

Hockey weekend

This weekend was such a hockey day. I had a practice in the today's morning and afternoon and a game with French team yesterday. This is a picture of yesterday's game. It seems like there many Japanese, but there are more. The game was divided into two sections, an first hour for beginners and another hour for... normals. Since French team is a kind of small, our best of best players cannot play with them, so even though I played in the second section, doesn't mean I'm good at playing. Anyways, I played with 4 younger students from Japanese school against 5 French kids. As the result of the game, we weren't able to win the game, but at least we didn't lose. However I feel like I could have shoot other 2 goals, because I missed two shots which I could have goaled.

Despite yesterday's game, I was quite nice mood in morning practice. I goaled two or three from a keeper and one of the passes was just like yesterday. After two hours of exercise, I went to a local skate link with my friends, we played about an hour and a half. I suppose that my hockey skill and Russian have improved since I asked some Russians about skating and tickets.

But I think I was just in a good mood today, so I'll keep eyes on me whether I can play just like that next week. Also I'm still a third center out of three so I will keep practicing hard!

 

Gym training

It has already been almost a week since I started going to gym again. So I did some exercises based on running. It took about an hour and within an hour, I run for 25mintes and rest of them, I did sit-up and hula-hoop. For first 25minutes, I walked about 5km per an hour for first 5 minutes, and then run at the speed of 9km per an hour. It was quite difficult to achieve since I was about a half of a year away from running, however when I finished, I feel really great about what I'd done.
Even though it's hard to take time just for that because I do English tutor 3times for this week and next week, I'll start going there just as the plan which is 3 times a week, from next next week. My achievement for gym training is, to become able to run for 20minutes at the speed of 11km/hour with slope-changing, or to run 4-4.5km for 5 minutes. I used about 200carolies for only running at this time, so I want to use 250 next time.

I believe that I've met several learning outcomes;

1. Developed new skill

   ( I'm going to be able to run more and more quickly and longer-distance for continuous challenge.) 
2.  Undertake new challenges

Got an unexpected tutor challange!

From the first day of second term, the mock exams have started for year 13 and 11. I still remember about my mock exams, I re-learned all the topics some points that I did not understand. My friend is also at the same position now. She is in year11, suffering with mocks, she asked something about maths. We both from Japan, so we can communicate in Japanese which makes the explanation and understanding a bit clearer. So we did some exercises related to vector which was one of my dislike topic last year. There are some confuse about this topic such as where to start from. We made it clear and she said she can solve the question about the vector now! We also studied about interest questions. There are two types of interest on the exam in IGCSE which are compound and simple. She did not really studied about it since she came to the school not from the beginning of the two year course. So I told her the equation and how to remember it. She looks feeling great to become able to do these questions. It was only about 30minutes when we were waiting for our parents playing hockey after we've done with our practice though, I believe that we made a quite good effort for maths exam. I also hope that it helped her preparation and helped my explanation skills as well.

Cooking a new challange!

I've been thinking about my cooking project and I just thought I want to do something special as a first time in this year. I knew that it's hard to do, but I just wanted to try making small house by cookies! What I was thinking of was a very cute one, with some snacks around it but the reality was even harder. So this is what I came up with.

I know it looks pretty odd but I feel great finishing it, just like the feeling after running long distance. The most difficult point was structuring, I made up them from my draft which is this...

 I think it looks okay in this picture and the problem was I didn't pay much attention to the thickness of the cookies!So I found in sticking parts very difficult but it was actually fun! IF you consider the thickness, it will look amazingly cute, so try doing it if you have time.

It seems like it was pretty risky challenge to me, but I hope I learned something from it like thinking from various view... Anyways, next time I will try to make a normal cake, maybe a chocolate one since the st.Valentine's day is coming soon!

I believe that I've met several leaning outcomes such as;

1.  Increase awareness of my strengths and areas for growth
2. Developed new skill
3. Undertake new challenges
4. Planned and initiative activities

Tutor 2013!

So I started working as a tutor for English again. As I've mentioned new-year-post, she is studying for the exam coming next week, it's Japanese exam and I think I better tell her to encourage her vocabulary. I searched in the Internet and found a good resource to study with her. Here is the resource that I found... It's written with pronunciations and meanings.

I'm going to test her on Thursday, which is unusual to teach, but it's almost like the week before the exam, so we decided to study 3times in a week in this week and the next week. I think it's going to be a bit hard to teach, because I am kind of scared of the situation that is nothing to teach...
For other 4days plans are

• vocabulary test from the paper
• listening to the dialogs which are from previous exam

And I think it's pretty enough since there are many things she has to remember. I was so happy that in today's lesson, she almost remembered all the words that I asked her to remember. Even though they are basic words, such as 5W1H, I believe that it help her understanding of text.

Learning outcomes for me, are

1. Increase awareness of my strengths and areas for growth
2. Planned and initiative activities

Snorkelling!!

I went to Egypt during the holiday and here are some pictures of when I tried snorkeling as a first time!In the first picture, the very left one with pink foot is me.

Snorkeling was really hard sport to do I think. It was a bit cold and windy to snorkel but I could see some beautiful part of the Red Sea which is awesome. I think it was quite challenging, because we was swimming about 30minutes in the cold sea and we are beginners.
The point was it wasn't easy to breath normally with a pipe. Moreover, sea water come into my pipe like at least once in 30seconds. So I guess I drank sea water kind of much... Anyways, it was great experience and I was glad that I could do it from the beginning to the last, because my friend's little sister gave up at the point before turning point.
I don't think I will learn it in Moscow though, I want to do it again sometimes and I think it's easy to be done since there is sea close to my grandmother's house. Of course it's no longer the same with Red Sea but I think next time I can enjoy it more!