Happy New Year 2021 !!

It’s been almost four years since I started living on a small island in the southwest of Japan.
There were many good things and hard things.

I learned here that the important thing is to be thankful.
When asking God for something, thank him first.

It’s easy to forget when we’re busy, depressed, or tired,
we have to be grateful that we were able to spend 2020 safely and pass the year safely.

Thank you for the new year.

Self-introduction

I will introduce myself again.

Place of birth: Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture.
Where I grew up: Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture → Ota Ward, Tokyo → Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture.
Places where I lived after becoming an adult: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo → Paris, France (4th, 5th) → Yaeyama-gun, Okinawa.

The work I have experienced
① Post office
② Pachinko parlor
③ Movie theater
④ Cram school
⑤ Tutor
⑥ Foreign-affiliated consulting company
⑦ General trading company
⑧ Editing design / printing company
⑨ Personal import agency business
⑩ Apparel
⑪ Accommodation business

Hobbies and special skills
Ballet and art as a child
Ikebana after becoming an adult

What I was happy about recently

I have two children.
What I was happy about recently was that my daughter played a long piece (Beethoven’s sonata) for more than 5 minutes at a piano competition.
My son ran faster than junior high school students at the relay race of the elementary and junior high school he attends and received the MVP award.

I am on a stage where I am looking forward to the growth of my children more than myself.

Challenge for children’s Eiken

Last year, the children did their best and there were challenges to Eiken : Test in Practical English Proficiency.
My daughter, who become a junior high school student and started studying English in earnest at school, passed Grade 2 and Grade Pre-2 at the same time.
My son, who is in the third grade of elementary school, said that he would take it for some reason and passed the Grade 4 in the second challenge.

My daughter grew up in France until she was eight years old, so she has a French base and has passed Level 2 of the French test.
Understanding English, which has similar language roots, seems to be smooth.
What was a little surprising was that while she had the effort and ability to pass the Eiken Grade 2, she was in a state of “what is a be verb?” And “what are intransitive verbs and transitive verbs?”.
She had never memorized the conjugation of verbs, so all that expresses the past is that she have passed the present perfect form instead.

It was 100 times harder for my daughter to study for Level 2, but it was for my son to study for Level 4.
He completely forget the memory of growing up in France, and even though he is not familiar with English at all, he profess at school that he will receive Eiken.
However, he couldn’t study by himself, and he started from a level where he couldn’t distinguish the alphabets “b” and “d” and “p” and “q”.
My son seemed to have reached the level of passing grade 4 from there, but after a while after the exam was over, he could not distinguish between “b” and “d” and returned to the point.

Level Pre-1 is still too difficult for my daughter, and I feel that studying level 3 is more difficult for my son, so I hope they can set a different goal this year.

This year’s goal

Work within 8 hours a day
Get 8 hours of sleep

Contrary to the image of living on an island = slow life, I have had overwork and lack of sleep since I came here.
Compared to child-rearing life in France, due to the long working hours unique to Japan, the inability to efficiently shop and do household chores due to remote islands, and the small number of child-rearing generations on the island, the time spent on school and community activities is greater. It is hard both in terms of time and physical strength.

Since I’ve been sick since the latter half of last year, I will keep in mind that my body is capital this year.
I would like to manage my working hours and sleeping hours so that I can spend my time in good mental health.