June 16

Nice to meet you!  Today, I would like to have a free conversation lesson with you.

 

First of all, please call me, either Kay-san, or Kay, or Kayoko (my real name) san. 

 

I got a score of 835 in TOEIC test two years ago, but if you speak too fast, sometimes I cannot follow you.  So I would like to be pleased if you speak slowly in our lesson.  Thank you!

 

Here is my self introduction.  Since I started talking RJ lessons last August, many tutors call me Kay-san or Kay. 

 

I'm a 48-year-old housewife, married at 40 and without children.   I live in a countryside in western part of Japan. 

 

I went to the US when I was 23 years old, and studied one year in an American college.  I used to work as a clerk for import and export businesses in Tokyo for more than 20 years.  I arranged English documents such as invoice, packing list, etc.  I even arranged some documents to declear our businesses dealings to some countries' embassies in Tokyo.  I enjoyed working as an office clerk.

 

When I was 40, I got married to a man who lives in a countryside here, and I found that there is no job vacancies for related businesses in a countryside here.   

 

So, I took a license as caregiver trainee in 2011 because there are more elderies in all areas in Japan, and caregiving businesses are generally often short staffed.  It is easy to be employed as a caregiving businesses, I think. 

 

Nowadays, I visit elderly's houses once or twice a week to ask about their health and ask what they want me to do such as cleaning the house, or cooking meals. 

 

It is only a part-time job because I cannot work full time.  Being a caregiver, it takes me a lot of physical labor.  As I am close to 50 years old, I feel symptoms of menopausal disorder. Sometimes I need 2 hours of sleep in the afternoon.  I asked about some of my friends in the same generation, they said that they are experiencing uncomfortable condition like mine.  They are trying to relax  as much as they can.  

 

I take care of my house because my husband is a typical Japanese husband who isn't good at any housekeeping chores. 

 

So I decided to relax at home and polish my English skills.    

 

For me, studying English is something more than just called as a hobby. 

 

One RJ tutor said that I have to study harder such as reading English newspapers, watch Holloywood movies a lot.  Maybe she wrote this from her kindness, but I was discouraged by her feedback.  I am a middle aged woman living in a countryside, I don't have any special job opportunity to work any English-related.  I study English through the Breaking News English website for 2 hours on weekdays, and I think that's enough.  I feel cleaning our house is more important because it leads to us more comfortable.

 

 

We love visiting flower gardens. 

My husband is 61 years old.

My cockatiel's nice name is Pearl chan.  6 years old.

I have two budgerigars.  They are smaller than love birds.



I love knitting and sewing. 

This picture was taken in a park last winter.

 

 

June 3

I would like to use the latest entry of Breaking News English article for today's lesson.

Children can learn to eat vegetables
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/1406/140602-vegetables.htmltr

I read the article yesterday, and I think I understood the content, so I would like to try to discuss
something related to the article.

Japanese young mothers who have kids at kindergarten prepare "Kyara (or chara) ben" every morning.  Kyara here means anime charactors such as Doraemon, Kitty chan, and Pokemon, etc) and bento means lunch box.

Please take look at the link below so that you can find out what "kyara ben" looks like:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%e3%82%ad%e3%83%a3%e3%83%a9%e5%bc%81&qpvt=%e3%82%ad%e3%83%a3%e3%83%a9%e5%bc%81&FORM=IGRE

I heard that school children eat lunch at home in the Philippines.  They go back to their home between morning classes and afternoon classes. 

When I went to elementary school, I used to live in a house where it is as far as 30 minutes away from school.   The lunch break was only one hour long, so all of the children eat lunch at school.  I guess that there were half of the school children lived in a place like me; they take half an hour to go to school.

I don't know whether THE school provideS lunch for students or THE parents prepare lunch for their kids.
Young mothers have pride on their techniques on how they present kyara ben in spite of  their busy hour in the morning

I think when I was at school 30 years ago, my mother never made any of chara-ben because it was not popular then.    But I am still thankful to my mother because she passed me lunch box every morning when I left our house to school. 

When it comes to chara-ben, more technique is needed to make them.  But they want to include vegetables in their chara-ben, so that their kids eat vegetables. 

-----

We don't have kids, so I haven't made any chara-ben so far.  But my husband and I ate much volume of vegetables when we visited Kobe on May 31st.  The picture below is the dinner.  We became full.

The place we visited is called Kobe Happy Village.  The Kobe city operates the village.  Private owners run their restrunts in this huge village.   We thought it nice because they buy vegetables from the native farmers.    The fresh vegetables are delivered to the restaurants, and the chefs cook them.

We were able to choose six different dishes except miso soup, rice.  We chose main dish as fish.  They also had a salad bar. 

   My dishes

My husband's dishes

In general, rice contains high calories, so we should avoid eating much rice if we like to maintain proper weight.   We usually eat two portions of rice bowl every meal.

But at that time, we ate only small portion of rice, we became full with vegetables.