Since I have taken this semester, my brain keeps working hard, and it has never stopped. This semester gives me a big opportunity for learning college level of studying. After the half semester has passed, I feel as if I am taking ENG 100. All sentences are getting difficult and complicated. I have learned a lot of new reading skills such as annotation, author’s point of view, author’s tone and so forth. These new methods are very helpful for reading. Each class is organized, and we are not bored. For example, we have plenty of activities like group work and group games with grammar rules. We also helped to make the party plates with a mount of roast turkey and Kalua pigs at the HCC garden. Our teacher, Ms. Kym, has searched videos and screens like PDF relating to our class studying. In my opinion, she is a passionate teacher to teach her ENGLISH skills. Moreover, when the class became online, she has talked high voice as if she tries to cheer us up every morning. I like her the way of positive talking. The class atmosphere has been getting better than before. After the announcement of online class, my classmates made our group chat, and I was invited. We asked and gave information such as due for assignments, how to use flipgrid and so on. Obviously, we corporate each other. That is one of my good memories. At last, during this pandemic, we would not get sick. Unfortunately, some students could not keep taking our class, but they did not get disease. They left the class because of their personal reasons. No body is absent our class, so I think it is wonderful for all of us. Overall, my brain has been busy the whole semester, and I have learned a lot of good qualities of English learning methods.

Since this semester started, we have been reading “Healing Water” by Joyce Moyer Hostetter. When I started reading this novel, I could not put it down because I was attracted to Pia’s character. According to “Healing Water”, the main character, Pia got leprosy, and his grief turned to anger and stayed in Pia’s heart for a long time. He could not forgive himself or his best friend, Kamaka either. Pia met some important people, and he learned about real love through them like Keona and Father Damien. This story is not only the leprosy patients story, but it also tells us a lot of important essentials for our living. For example, the book says that anger gives us a miserable life. As for me, when I was an elementary school student, I told my top secret to my best friend. I said not to tell anybody, but she told her mother about my secret right away. I was so disappointed in her, and I ignored her for a while. That was a tiny thing, but I ignored her too much, so she had another friend. I did not realize I was wrong, and I kept thinking that was her fault at that time. My anger toward her was increasing, but I also felt lonely and felt jealousy to her new friend like Pia. The author describes that forgiveness is important, and let it go. I learned about human’s emotions, forgiveness, and the true love from this book. Ending of this story was great, so I feel refreshed. Because Pia and Kamaka both get over their problems and move ahead, I get a strong energy from them. I hope that the author will publish part 2, and Pia and Piolani have a romance. I would like to recommend “Healing Water” to my husband first, and we can discuss about this novel together. After sometime, I would like to read this book again carefully.

Using high-technology is essential for living in the world, and people have created super intelligent robots. According to one article, it shows that the apps of artificial intelligence are big hit, and they give us a benefit for having dates. The author reports that these apps make us unbalanced and unemotional, too. As for me, I agree with the author because communicating with computers is not real and unemotional. I can not imagine if I am in depression, computer messages will comfort me. Maybe I can not find the right answer. Besides, computer conversations are programmed and created by human. Moreover, computers repeat nice words automatically without any feelings over and over. The author also states that these apps are wonderful opportunities for someone who enjoys without serious intentions. This statement reminds me of my niece in Japan. My sister’s older daughter, who is a teenager, loves virtual characters, and she enjoys her dating. Her app characters are so handsome, and they talk very sweet to her. If she types her problems on the screen, they answer right away and comfort her. Unfortunately, I did not realize her, and I felt strange because she is clinging to the virtual characters too much. She does not care about the real boys including her classmates. I do not think she can concentrate on studying, and she can chat with them forever because characters do not feel tired. I also felt generation gap. Remarkably, teenagers like my niece grow up with high-technology, and they are good at finding those fancy apps. All in all, high-technology is used in the whole world, but we should not trust a computer’s analysis of our feelings. Computers are also limited in what they can understand about the nuances of human behaviors and emotions. In my opinion, computers can not go over human’s sentience.

I’m not good at creating nor making something, but if I would be an inventor, I would like to create two useful and low-cost things for everyone. The most useful item in my mind is a changeable carpet. For example, we bought a tiny condominium in 2017, and we have not changed our carpet yet. It came from the previous owner, and we are not sure how many years they had used it. In addition, we have a lot of terracotta pots for indoor plants, so the carpet is getting dirty especially in front of our windows because they need much sun. If I would create many sheet of carpets in one like post it papers, we could make clean our floor without many processes, and we also could enjoy nice carpet colors often. This idea sounds more sanitary, and it would be good for changing interior, too. My second idea is an incredible shelf. For instance, we have a dishwasher which is broken. If we turn on it, it never stops. When we moved here, we tried using it, and it kept working more than 5 hours, so we gave up. Instead of washing dishes, we are using it as a wine cooler. My imagination is that outside would be a normal dishwasher or a shelf, but inside would be a huge space like a big storage. Recently, we have to stay home as much as possible, so we have so many food stocks just in case. If I would open the magic shelf, inside would be deep and wide, and we could put anything we want such as many food cans, a huge pack of rice, a beer case, kitchen papers and so on. This idea is perfect for many people who live in the tiny houses like us. My two imaginations would sell anywhere like Home Depot, Sears, or other furniture stores, and they would be low cost with good qualities. If I would be an inventor, I would like to help someone who have the same problems like me, and these items would be efficient and reasonable.

One blog caught my attention by the time I skimmed through someone’s blogs. Because she is very strong, positive, and love her kids and family deeply, I am interested in reading. According to her article, she is a nurse and face many difficulties including Coronavirus. She also has to take care of her children so that they got an extra long spring break. She suggests some advice how to stay with kids in this tough situation. First, she tries to make her kids a habit of studying at home. Fortunately, there is a lot of free education app, and they are useful. Even though schools have no classes, they can keep on studying at home. Another her suggestion is that she uses her imagination for fun time with her family. For example, she makes a movie theater in her living room, plays the family board games, and arranges a big space for drawing on the wall. She creates many ideas for her children, so they are not bored even they can not go out. In addition, she attentions not to use our energy on anger. There are many senseless people and unreasonable things but just let it go. She tells us to save our energy for something valuable. Furthermore, she mentions that everybody is freaking out and feels fear about unknown virus but accept our circumstances, then move ahead. Additionally, she gives us her advice that talking and staying with our kids are important for reducing their negative thinking. At last, she informs that finding our own hobbies and taking care of ourselves are the most important. She says if we think and act positively, we can love and take care of our family. Overall, all women have a difficult time and feels stress about this situation now, but she encourages us with her strong and positive minds.

As high- technology has been growing rapidly, we can buy and find anything we want from the networking, and online dating is one of the most popular sites in the world. However, I have never thought of using it, and I am sure that I will not be able to count on online to find my important partner because it sounds too dangerous. In my family, my husband’s younger brother used online dating once, and he told us about his story. After my husband’s parents passed away, my brother in law moved and take care of their property a couple years ago. His house which was located in the countryside in North Florida was very far from everything. It took for 20 minutes driving for the grocery shopping, so he was bored of the country life. Unfortunately, he started using online dating, but he said that was a big mistake. He met one lady who lost her partner, and he felt sorry for that woman. They had chatted some times through online, and he was interested in meeting her, so he invited her to his house. To his surprise, she loved drinking alcohol from the morning, and she was a vicious drinker. At first, he enjoyed drinking beer with her, but she did not do anything. He wanted to take her to some shopping mall or drive, but she did not move at all. When she left his house, all his alcohol disappeared, and there were plenty of empty bottles. Moreover, she visited him twice, and she brought her daughter that time. They had an alcohol party from the morning, but he was uncomfortable with them. Finally, he could say good-bye to her, and he learned a lot. He did not get involved any criminals, but many people would be victims. Some people enjoy a short time or fake romance on purpose through online dating cause of escaping from their real life. Other people want to find the real love so that they do not feel solitude. Overall, online dating has some merits and demerits, so we have to be careful and clever to use online dating.

Ten years is long but short. I am excited about thinking of my future. I have three reasons why I think I may have a bright future after 10 years. First, I might graduate from HCC and UH Manoa. I will be able to do many things such as reading very thick books, using English correctly and understanding whole story of movies. I may also work somewhere valuable for me because I have not worked in America yet, so I am going to work and challenge in the new word. Second, maybe, our two daughters will marry some one who are nice to them. They may have their children with nice houses. I can not wait to be a grandmother because I am sure our grandchildren will bring us big happiness. We will have many fun events with them. I also want to cook handmade cakes and sweets for their birthday parties and some special occasions. That will be wonderful. At last, my husband Joe will be retired with in 10 years, so we will have a lot of time for travelling to some places. I’d like to visit our most favorite place- Singapore and spend a luxurious vacation time. We have visited Singapore so many times when we lived in Japan, but we are not tired of visiting there. When we visit Singapore, we always get powerful energy. I also want to visit Washington, D.C. to see Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorials because I am interested in studying American history, and I am going to take an American history class very soon. Overall, I am so happy to think about my wonderful future. It will be fantastic,and many exciting things may happen to me.

My family and I were not a crazy fan of Hawaii in the first place. We had traveled to here only few times. I thought Hawaii was too tourists’ island because so many people were everywhere. However, the day of our fate had come. A few years ago, all my family tried to go to Seattle to visit my husband Joe’s brother and our family friends during summer vacation. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get on the flight because of stand by. Suddenly, the airline counter lady suggested us that Honolulu flight was wide open that night, so Joe changed our destination to Hawaii instead of going to Seattle right away. He remembered his ex-manager of his old office retired long time ago, and she has been living in Hawaii for a long time. When he contacted with her, she offered us her house to stay for one week. I met her a couple of times in Japan; she was very friendly, but she was like a perfect career woman. By the time we met her in Hawaii, she totally changed. She put on relaxing clothes, and she looked more easy going. To our surprise, she had lived in a very big house with her partner right in front of Lanikai beach. After staying with them, we changed our thinking toward Hawaii. We were enchanted by Hawaii’s attractiveness. We liked the way of living- stress free and easy going with a big nature in Hawaii. We started to think of living in Hawaii, but it was a huge dream and almost seemed impossible. After two years from our Hawaii trip, Joe got a new job in Hawaii, and our dream came true. Moreover, our younger daughter had her health problem when she was a high school student in Japan. In fact, she has not had any problem since we moved to Hawaii. Overall, everyone in my family was quite busy all the time, and we did not enjoy our life. We followed our routine and did our task everyday. On the contrary, Hawaii life let us feel relaxed and open heart. The connection between Aina and us is stress free life with the beautiful mountains and the ocean.

I was not a happy child, and I almost cried everyday when I was an elementary school student. I have 4 reasons why I was an unhappy child. First of all, my parents did not get along well with each other at all, so they fought so often. I wanted to stop their fighting, but there was nothing to do for them. I was scared of them every time they were fighting. Because I wanted to escape from the real life, I concentrated on playing the electric piano and reading many books. Next, my mother had jealous and felt irritated about me because my father always took me to somewhere he wanted to go such as the horse race place and Haneda airport, in Japan; when he wanted to think of something deeply, he took me to the airport to watch many airplanes. I did not know why, but my mother and my 7 years younger sister almost always had to stay home. My mother’s stress came to me, so she sometimes yelled and hit me hardly. A few years later, my mother was so strict on me, so we argued frequently when I was a teenager. When I came home late, she sometimes locked the door, so I had to stay out side the house over night miserably. My mother and I did not try to approach or understand each other by our hearts. I could not find my way out. Finally, my parents did not care about kids’ presents, so I did not have any memories about having X’mas present or birthday’s present. I had no idea what Santa was, so I was ashamed when my classmates talked about Santa or their X’mas presents. However, that was not my parents’ fault because they had not gotten their presents from their parents- my grandparents when they were children. All in all, I was a cry baby and miserable. Moreover, my family bond was unstable.

By the time we moved to Hawaii in 2016, I did not feel any homesickness, but I felt stress. We stayed at hotel until we found our apartment. Finding our new apartment was smooth, but our moving company was delayed almost one month from Japan. As we moved to new apartment, it was totally empty. We did not have any clothes, books, kitchen items,etc. All our belongings had stuck somewhere. It took for a long long time to deliver to our house. Unfortunately, we had to buy so many things for our living including our new car. I did not know everything was so expensive in Hawaii! At that time, we did not exchange much money from Japanese yen to US dollars, so our money was getting low fast. Moreover, my husband had lived in Japan for ages, so we did not have our credit card history in America; he could not make his credit card right away. I did not remember how we survived. In my opinion, moving from another country was incredibly difficult. I promised myself, we won’t move to other country. Here, Hawaii is our destination.