Paul's Blog

Another year, another birthday. I love October 9th. We all can get to feel special on one day. So October 9th is the day that John Lennon was born too. Some others include Keith Entwhistle (of The Who) and Jacques Tati, French film actor. And Che was killed on this day as well.

 When is your birthday?

The second semester has started again, so we are making blogs. I wonder what interesting things my students will write about themselves. Do your best everyone!

 

I can't believe it is October yet again. At last, the summer heat has gone. Luckily, I was able to escape from the heat and enjoy a cool summer in Europe.. almost too cold at times. Anyway, apart from some time in Indonesia and Singapore in the spring, I don't feel I have experienced a lot of over-hot weather this year at all. It is probably good... people in Japan often talk about Summer-heat-wearines, so it is good to avoid that at least. Enjoy October everyone!

So of course, being English, I've never really seen baseball. But last week, I got 2 free tickets to the game at Nagoya Dome to watch the Dragons playing the Carp. It sounded fun and interesting so I took Alex along. He knows more than I do about baseball because he plays it at school, so he was able to explain some of the rules to me.

The first thing I noticed was that everyone was carrying some kind of noise-making machine! There were sticks, horns, beaters.. and most of them had Dragons logos and colours on them. Anyway, the game started and I tried to work out what it all meant. The scoreboard was complicated.. S, H, N, O, R? What did they mean? We finally worked it out...

It was strange for me to see. It was slower than I expected and there wasn't so much action. It's like halfway between football and cricket perhaps. But sometimes, they hit the ball very far and everyone cheered. It was strange too that every 30 minutes the cheerleaders came out and danced. We don't really have these things in Britain at all.

Dragons started well, and were in the lead all the way. The middle of the game was a little boring actually, as nobody scored for ages. Most people were chatting or eating popcorn or drinking beer and walking around.. then suddenly Carps scored TWO runs and went ahead. It was thrilling because at the very end, a Dragons player hit a great ball, got a home-run, and they finally won the game

Did you know that baseball actually comes from England? It was first mentioned about 200 years ago, and it probably comes from rounders, which is a game we play at school. Actually, it's usually played by girls, but it's pretty much the same game. It is popular in Britain, but not as much as football, rugby, and cricket.

Britain has invented many games and sports (lots of them are named after places in England like Rugby and Badminton) but we're not very good at playing; we never win medals! But we don't care, because the English way is just to Do your Best and enjoy it. Winning isn't important

It's October again. I love it. Of course, it's my birthday this month so that makes it special, but anyway, October is the perfect month I think. The weather is just great and the season change makes it interesting. In England, Autumn really starts and the leaves are just beginning to change. It's strange for me that this happens in November in Japan.. it's so late!

In England, lots of events start in October. We have halloween, then Bonfire Night, then the run up to Christmas. There is plenty to look forward to. Even if the weather is bad outside, we can enjoy warm cosy days inside.

This year, I'm so busy helping prepare for the Chukyo conference. It's next weekend, so I'll be working on my birthday  But never mind, it's fun! The student helpers this year are great, and I'm going to enjoy working with everyone.

 Anyway, to celebrate October coming, here are the words from a very old song by U2..

October
And the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
What do I care?

October
And Kingdoms rise
And Kingdoms fall
But you go on...

...and on...

It's time to start making the new blogs again... which means the summer holidays are over.. But at least the blogs are fun!

Anyway, this summer was great--a little too good perhaps. I went to lots of places beginning with "P"... Paris, Prague, and Poland. And England too, though it doesn't begin with P...

Paris was tiring to walk around, Prague was beautiful and antique, and Poland--well, we had to wait for a long time to get served in a cafe there! At least the weather was lovely and cool everywhere. So it was quite a big shock to get back to hot, hot Nagoya!

Like I wrote before, last Sunday was Advent Sunday and that is the beginning of Xmas, so we put up our tree. It's not so big, but it's very colourful and we love decorating it. I bought it when I first came to Japan. It was just before Xmas one year, and I began to miss Christmas because then, it was not so popular in Japan.

In fact, I had to work on Christmas Day! So to cheer myself up, I went to Mitsukoshi and bought a tree. It was hard to find one in those days, so I got a small one, and we've kept it since then!

We usually put presents out around the tree towards Christmas and open them all on the morning of the 25th. I wonder if I'll get anything nice this year...???

Of course I love eating out, but I also really enjoy cooking. Here's a pizza in the making... I often cook Italian food and pizza is easy and fun because you can add lots of interesting toppings. When I was younger, I used to make all my own bread, but unfortunately it takes too long so these days, we have to buy it. I'm often too busy to cook as well, but when I get the chance, I really enjoy it!

Hi everyone! Well, today, we went out to a very nice Italian restaurant. It was near Fukiage, and the food was wonderful. We went with Brian Cullen, who I teach and write books with, and he introduced the place to us. Actually, there are so many good restaurants in Japan, but this one--Hiroshi's--had a really good atmosphere. Last summer, we were in Italy for a month, and this restaurant really reminded me of then. Perhaps it's because it was a little old and dusty... Anyway, we had an enormous dinner, so I'll have to watch my diet from now. After we came back from France this summer, we visited a French cafe in Nagoya. Everything was perfect, and the food and coffee were great... but it missed the mood of the real France. We were disappointed. Perhaps it was too clean! Most Japanese people probably prefer clean places, but I don't mind it if somewhere is old and even dirty, as long as it has a good mood. Perhaps that's one big difference between Japanese people and Europeans. Maybe you'll be shocked when you visit England!

This Saturday we played tennis outside, even though it was really cold! We were lucky to get a government tennis court, so it was really cheap--about 600 yen for 3 hours! I really enjoy playing tennis though I am very poor still. My service is terrible!

The problem was the court was covered with sand or gravel, and it was very uneven. The lines were made of tape and nailed onto the concrete underneath... and because it wasn't flat, the ball bounced in strange directions every time, so it was almost impossible to guess where it would go. Anyway, I really enjoyed playing, and it was good exercise at least!

It was quite a sporty weekend. On Sunday, we went to watch the university rugby match. It was an important one, between Nagoya University, who are at the bottom of the first division, and Shukutoku, who are at the top of the second division. If Nagoya University lost, they would swop divisions.

There were quite a lot of people watching, but they were so quiet, compared to Britain. In Britain, everyone shouts and screams and plays musical instruments to support their team. But on Sunday, they cheered just a little, and clapped politely if someone played well.

In the end, Nagoya University won, though it was a well balanced match. I enjoyed watching it a lot, and I'd like to go again in the future.