Pukman @ WinK: the community that time didn't forget

I was surprised to read today that Celtic have become champions of the Scottish Premier League. Although they have had more points than Rangers for a long time they also had played more games, because Rangers had been very busy with UEFA Cup games. Rangers just needed to get a few good results at the end of the season to become champions. I guess Rangers must have slipped up because they have allowed Celtic to overtake them.

As you know, Celtic is the team where Nakamura Shunsuke plays. He must be very happy to have got two consecutive championships. But I doubt that he won the Player of the Year award this year, as he was injured for much of the year and only looked good in a few matches. I wonder if he'll be in the national team this Sunday for their match against the Cote d'Ivoire?

Have you heard of the Lost Years of Merlin? It's a fantasy series about Merlin, the famous wizard from British legend who helped King Arthur. Apparently, there is a lot written about Merlin's life, but most of it is about his adult years. There are some years in his childhood that are not accounted for, and this series fills in the author's imaginings of those years.

This series isn't as well-known (or as good, in my opinion) as more famous series such as Narnia, Earthsea, or the Lord of the Rings. But the books are quite entertaining and easy to read.

Today, let's work to improve our essays. We will work on your essay drafts in order to create a better final essay. (The deadline for the essay is next Thursday.) That essay is the equivalent of a 提出物, so you should take care with grammar and vocabulary.

First, find a partner to work with (groups of three are OK, too). Then do rock-scissors-paper or similar to decide whose essay draft to look at first (A). First, work separately. You should both (A & B) write blog comments on A's essay. Here is a checklist of points to look for:

1. Singular nouns without an article (a/an/the)
2. Singular nouns with plural-form verbs
3. Plural nouns with singular-form verbs
4. Incorrect spacing. Remember you need a space after a period or comma, but not before.
5. Spelling
6. Mixed present/past.
   

Did you see the final? It started at about 3:45 this morning. For the first time ever, it was between two teams from the English Premier league, Chelsea and Manchester United.

Recently, there has been a lot of criticism of the Premier League, many people saying that matches are played too fast, that teams try not to lose rather than to win, and that there isn't enough skill. But I thought this morning's match was great. Attackers from both teams showed great skill even when under heavy pressure from defenders. Chelsea, especially, played a very attacking game, and I felt they deserved to win. Unfortunately, they hit the crossbar or goalposts three times, missing out on a goal each time. In the end, Manchester United won on penalties.

In the chart, the figures in green are Manchester United's. Note how dominant Chelsea were in terms of goal attempts.

If you visit my catalogue in LibraryThing, you should see something like this near the top of the window.

If you click on "use it", the display should change to one showing book covers on the left. More interestingly, there is a Google Books column on the right. If you click on Book info for a book, for example for Abadeha, you'll see a screen like this:

This gives you access to much more information about the book, including where to buy it, reviews, and sometimes even the opportunity to read a few pages of the book.

You can set the view that you want visitors to your LibraryThing catalogue to see by clicking on the pen icon in the top left of your catalogue:


You can customize all your displays if you wish,

but I recommend focusing on these two options near the bottom of the screen:

My favorite movie is Donnie Brasco.

I've already written a juppun ha juubun post today so I don't know what to write about! So I'll just add some random links! Yeah! The final Indiana Jones movie (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) is coming in about a week! Woo! You can check out the trailer here.

Taking a longer-term view, you can see the teaser trailer for Ice Age 3 here. That movie's not coming until summer 2009!

And check out this fun puzzle.

There are lots of movie sites that can give you information about movies that might be useful in movie reviews or just deciding what movies to see.

The one that I use most often is the movie trailers site at www.apple.com. I like this one because the quality of the trailers is quite high and the variety is quite good, too. Most of the movies are ones that are coming soon to screens in the USA, so many of them will come much later to Japan. But you can also search for older movies. Trailers are usually between 1 and 2 minutes long so they are quite good for intensive listening practice. You can listen and watch the same trailer many times, and you can stop and rewind a few seconds at any time.

If listening is your main goal, then the English Trailers site may be best. This has a smaller variety of movies but each one is accompanied by various exercises to guide you in your listening and stimulate your interest in the movie. If you have any problems with this site, try opening it in a different browser, for example Firefox.

Specific information about the widest range of movies is best provided by the Internet Movie Database, which I expect many of you already know. It's probably the best place to check, for example, the exact title of a movie, the names of the actors and director, and so on.

My favorite review site is Roger Ebert's site, a subsite of the Chicago Sun Times. Another well-known one is Rotten Tomatoes. This one is a kind of meta-site, offering excerpts from many external reviews (and links to those reviews), and a general score based on various reviewers' opinions.

The best place to find out the Japanese title of a movie from the English title (and vice versa) is allcinema.

You can find a much wider selection of links at http://ma.gnolia.com/groups/wink/tags/movies

On today's menu:

1. Juppun ha juubun
2. (2nd period) LibraryThing 2: Joining the WinKers group; (1st period) Introduction to the WEI
   
3. Starting Essay 1-03 (a movie review)

1. written at least 25 posts (including everything below) since March 1st this year;
2. written at least 5 book reviews, with the tag book reviews;
3. written 2 essays, with the tag essays (the Kumamoto essay should also have the Kumamoto tag);
4. added Tags (Labels), LibraryThing, and Recent Comments to your sidebar;
   
5. decided what movie to review for Essay 1-03.

As with Essay 1-02 (about Kumamoto), we'll spend two weeks on Essay 1-03, which is a movie review. In today's class, you'll need to write a post that gives the basic information of the movie, such as title, actors, and director. This post should have the tags essay prep and movies. You don't have to write in sentences; probably a list is easiest. You should also include any useful keywords.

By May 22nd, you should post a version of your review, complete if possible, for correction. This should be labeled movies and essay drafts.

The actual essay is due by May 29th. You should label this one movies and essays.

Remember to use the Essay Map if you find it helpful!

It seems that the Cinderella story originated in China, and has been adapted and interpreted in many countries and hundreds of versions. Check out the collection of Cinderella-related books in my LibraryThing account. You may need to sign in to LibraryThing to see the collection as it's supposed to be seen. If the display doesn't work properly, go to my collection and search for cinderella.

Many people enjoyed the movie Batman Begins, the first of the Batman movies to star Christian Bale. Many felt that he gave the series new vitality. Well, another one is on its way, called The Dark Knight. You can see a trailer at the New York Times website. Also check out the official movie website.

Do you like Cambridge English Readers? I think they are great. One interesting-looking recent release is Love in the Lakes. You can read a short excerpt here. If you like love stories, some other good ones are Just Good Friends, Staying Together, and When Summer Comes.

Read more about CER on one of my other blogs.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pmEgmwS9f9Bf6UHtoB6vzFg

My Golden Week was rather busy. On Saturday, we went to Ikoi no Mura in Aso for camping. We were intending to stay for 2-3 nights, so we took lots of food. The weather forecast was originally quite good, so we thought we'd be OK, but on Saturday the forecast changed so we left after only one night. I did some cooking during the camping, played tennis, and also took 10 children swimming in Azalea. It was a lot of fun, but very tiring. Because we came back so early, we went to our friends' house for dinner the next night, and then to our relatives' house for cherry picking. It was a very enjoyable Golden Week, but I wanted a holiday afterwards!

Many students like the Oxford Reading Tree series. I think this is the best of the leveled readers (as opposed to graded readers) series. Check out these sites to get a bit more information.

On today's menu:

1. Juppun ha juubun
2. [1st period: Add LibraryThing widget to blog] [2nd period: Join LibraryThing]
3. Essay 2 continued: Kumamoto (to be finished by May 15th)

1. Remember that your work for the Kumamoto essay should include at least 2 posts: one labeled "essay prep" and "Kumamoto", and one labeled "essays" and "Kumamoto". If possible you should also have one labeled "essay drafts" and "Kumamoto".
2. Don't forget that this is the 2nd essay. You should already have finished one introducing yourself. Don't forget to label it "essays", too.
3. Please don't use the "essay" label for diary-type posts.
   

1. The essay that we will start next week is a movie review. Please decide what movie you are going to write about before next week's class. If you wish you can choose a partner to work with on the same movie.
2. You should have written at least 20 posts before today's class (since March 1st this year). Those should include at least 4 book reviews and 1 essay. Remember that you can write more book reviews as part of your five-posts-a-week requirement.
3. We will do a weblog assessment soon. Make sure you are ready!
   

onsen

As usual in Golden Week, I'll be going camping in Aso with my family and 6 other families. We're leaving tomorrow morning very early so tonight we'll be busy preparing. We don't actually do very much in Aso but cooking for 7 families takes a lot of time and food and effort. Probably we'll go to an onsen at some point during the 3-4 days. How long we'll be there depends on the weather. According to the forecast, it looks as though the weather will be OK, but so far every year it has rained heavily or there's been a thunderstorm.

Some bad examples of topics for essays on Kumamoto:

• An Overview of Kumamoto
  
• Sightseeing in Kumamoto

• Traditional foods in Kumamoto
• Kami-tori Arcade
• Transport in Kumamoto
• Kumamoto Castle
• Amakusa
• The History of Kumamoto
• Day Trips from Kumamoto
• Kikuchi
  

On today's menu:

1. Juppun ha juubun
2. [1st period: Make LibraryThing accounts][2nd period: Play TyperShark]
   
3. Essay 2: Kumamoto (to be finished by May 15th)

1. You should write at least 4 and if possible 5 or more paragraphs.
2. Choose a specific, fairly narrow topic.
3. You need to finish one "essay prep" post today, containing some notes or keywords for your essay.
4. I advise you to write another post, labeled "essay draft", by May 9th, containing your essay in rough form. I will comment on those drafts, and you can use those comments to write a better final version.
   

1. You should have written a total of 15 posts (counting from March 1st) before this class, including 3 book reviews and 1 essay (self-introduction essay/letter).
2. Our 3rd essay will be a movie review. We will start this on May 16th. Please watch any movie (at the cinema or on DVD/video) before that date. Make some notes on characters and what happens, to help you when you write the essay. I recommend that you choose the same movie as one of your friends, because you can share ideas and opinions.
3. By next week's class (May 9th), you should have written a total of 20 or more posts, including 4 book reviews and 1 essay.
   

As I suggested earlier, it seems that Manchester United did have the advantage. They won 1-0 at Old Trafford and will go through to the final. So it will be an all-English final this year, perhaps for the first time ever?