Taking Medicines

It’s so cold these days, isn’t it? I got cold, so I take some medicine every day. I always remember one thing about medicine. When I was in America, I got cold, and my mom sent a medicine because I wasn’t sure that American medicine works for my Japanese body. I didn’t know that we can’t take any medicines to school without a special permission, so I brought, and one of my friends was very surprised about that, and told me that I need my host mother’s or host father’s signature then I hided my medicine. Isn’t it’s kind of funny? Every time I take the medicine, I remember that. (110 words)

Into the Wild

I watched “Into the Wild” in my Movie English class. Is this movie famous in America? I had never heard about this movie, but I liked the movie. Actually, I liked almost every part of the movie, but I didn’t like the last part because a boy, the main character, dies, and I couldn’t believe that it is the real story! It’s not fiction. The main character in the movie is bone in a rich family, but he didn’t like everything in the society. He burns all his money and backpacks to Alaska. A teacher of Movie English class told us sometimes it happens that in America. It surprised me a lot. Before I watch this movie, I used to want to be a backpacker sometime, but now, I don’t think I want to be any more because many dangers are there more than I thought! In the movie, the boy didn’t write or call his parents, so his parents were very worried about him. Then long months or years later, they knew there son died in far away. I wanted him to go back to his home, and he won’t die so soon. This movie was so deep, and it made me think something a lot. (207 words)

What I did recently

Until the night on December 30th, I had my part time job, so I went back to my home in Yamaga in the morning December 31st. I was so happy that I could stay with my family on the end of the year because last year, I had my part time job from December 24th to January 3rd, so I stayed at my apartment alone! Isn’t it terrible? So I was so happy this year! In the morning, I cleaned up my apartment, and left. I was very looking forward to see my do, Shiro. She seemed gained weight little bit, but she was still cute! My mother and I dote on Shiro too much, and we think that our dog is the smartest and the cutest dog in the world. Actually, she can’t do anything.
At the night, I went to bed before seeing the old year out and the New Year in. In my family, we usually eat the buckwheat noodles eaten on New Year’s Eve around twelve O’clock just like other Japanese do. Then I woke up late on January 1st, and I visited the grave with my mom and dad. It was so cold and I didn’t want to go out, but I feel weird if I didn’t visit grave on New Year’s Day.
The next day, my dad’s sister and her family came to see us from Fukuoka. We eat lunch together every year, and we talk each other a lot. Then they go back to their home in the evening. It was good to see each other. The next day, I went to see one of my friends from Junior High School. She said she was going to marry her boyfriend on September or October. We are only 21 years old now! Isn’t it too fast to marry someone? However she seemed so happy, so I was happy, too. Then after we talked a lot, I went to get some DVDs to watch, and went back my home. I got two DVDs, Desperate Housewives and Gray’s Anatomy. Do you know them? I really like them because they are funny and little bit serious sometimes. I enjoyed watching them, and I helped my mom making supper then we ate. In the night, I was going to go back to my apartment, but I quit and I decided to stay one night longer at my home. Next day, I finished watching the DVDs, and went back to my apartment. Spending time in my parents gave me a chance to relax. (424 words)

B.R.-14 New York

This book is about New York.
“The big apple” is the famous phrase for New York. I have heard that, too. The first chapter tells us why New York is called “The Big Apple”. However I didn’t understand well…
Many pictures of famous buildings in New York were in the book. They had pictures of the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center, the United Nations Building, and the Statue of liberty. I remembered that I visited there when I was a Junior High School student. When I went there, the World trade center wasn’t there, and I saw many flowers and messages. Some people were playing “Amazing grace”. I was really impressed by that.
This book says that there are 17,000 or more place to eat! I was so surprised by the sentence, “you can eat in New York every night for fifty years and never visit the same café or restaurant twice!” Can you believe that? I can’t imagine it.
There are not only good things in New York. There are dangers, too. The book says, “Don’t carry a lot of money with you. Don’t travel on the subway alone at night. Stay with the crowds late at night. Go into the nearest hotel or shop if you suddenly feel afraid.” These sentences made me scared! However, many people still dream to work in New York or travel to New York because New York is so exciting city! (243 words)

How to Steal a Million

How to steal a million
I watched a DVD, called “How to Steal a Million”. This is really old movie, but I wanted to watch it because Audrey Hepburn was in the movie. She plays the main character, Nicole Bonnet. The story is…


Nicole lives with her father Charles Bonnet. He is very good at painting, and he makes many counterfeits, then he sells them. Nicole really doesn’t like it because it’s a crime. She always keeps telling him to stop selling his fake masterpieces, but he doesn’t care at all, and he gave Kleber-Lafavette museum a loan of his statue of Cellini Venus. The Cellini Venus that Charles made is displayed in a famous museum.


One day, Nicole was alone in her house at the night, and reading a book in her room then she heard a noise. She goes down stairs to check if someone is there, and a thief was there. The stranger was looking and doing something with a picture on the wall. Nicole didn’t call police because of the counterfeits.


Nicole thinks the man who was in her house was stealing the picture, but actually he is not. He is a “private detective, specializing in stolen work of art”, so at that night, he was chipping a piece of the coloring from Charles’ painting.
However Dermott, the private detective, didn’t tell that to Nicole and acted like a thief. Of course he found out that the pictures are not real, but told nobody. Nicole and Dermott didn’t notice by themselves yet, but they were already in love.


Another day, an old man came to the house and said that they insured Cellini Venus against all accidents for one million dollars. He also asks Charles, “Would you like to be present at the technical examination?” He says that’s they are required to insure.
Now they are in big problem.


Nicole contacts to Dermott to steal the Cellini Venus from the museum before the “technical examination”. At first, he wasn’t going to that because the Cellini Venus is under close guards, and he couldn’t understand why she needs to steal hers. However she can’t tell why, but she must do. They dates and think how to steal.
The day to steal it came. They go to the museum, and they stay at the museum after it closed somehow. They hide a tiny space under the stairs, and wait until midnight. Dermott does steal the Cellini Venus with a magnet, piece of rope, and a boomerang! Can you imagine how did he make it? He is really genius. He is detective, so he knows many things to steal! Then they go home with the Cellini Venus, and he tells Nicole everything. He tells that he knew Cellini Venus wasn’t real, he could guess when Nicole asked him to steal it.
At the end of the story, Dermott meet Charles and warns him to never do it, but Charles never learns and he still keeps enjoying it. Anyway, Nicole and Charles are very happy because they don’t need to have technical examination.




I love this movie. The story was interesting and how Dermott steal the Cellini Venus was really awesome. I also liked Nicole in old-fashioned clothes. They were so cute! I really recommend you to watch it. I think girls will like it.　(557 words)

B.R.-13 New Neighbors

A girl, Alice is the main character of this story. It doesn’t tell, but I think she is a little girl, maybe she is an elementary school student. She didn’t like her neighbors because the building was old and something was different from others. Her mom said Alice that she read too many mystery books and watch too much mystery on TV and movies, so her thinking is going wild. It was true that Alice likes to read mystery books and to watch mystery on TV, but she was sure that she thinks the neighbor is odd is not because of that. One day, she saw many people are going inside of the old buildings with boxes or strange shaped packages. Alice was watching that through the window in her bed room. One man was carrying a blanket, and it seemed something was in it. Actually, she saw an arm drop out from the blanket. In the night, she was watching the old building. She could tell what was going on inside because she could see a shadow on the wall through the window, and it seemed someone was breaking something or killing something! The next day morning, she got to check the old building. It seemed no one was there, so she got inside from the window. There are many boxes and some parts of the bodies on the floor, and she screamed. Then four of the new neighbor came and described that they are not real, they are puppet. They say that they are puppeteers and using the room for work.
Alice still felt strange after that, too. I think I understand how she feels. If I were her, I would think they are strange, too, and the image won’t be effaced so easy. Anyway, I think it is interesting that children have so huge imagination.(398 words)

B.R.-12 Marcel goes to Hollywood

The main characters in this story are two French mice, Marcel and Celine. One summer, they are on holiday and went to Hollywood. Then they stayed at a house. There is a family, dad, mom, and their daughter, Lois. When everyone in the house was sleeping, they Marcel heard a noise and looked through the window. He saw two men are taking Lois away. There was a note on a door, and it said, “We have the girl. Don’t go to the police. Be in your office tomorrow at 10. We have the telephone number.” In the morning, Lois’s parent notices that Lois isn’t there and finds the note. Marcel and Celine follow Lois’s dad going to his office at ten O’clock. Her dad seems very worried. Then the phone rang, and he answered it. It was the kidnapper, and he said bring one million dollars to a room at twelve O’clock. Of course Lois’s dad goes to the place that the kidnapper said with one million dollar, so the two mice followed him. At twelve O’clock, there was the kidnapper, and Lois’s dad gave him the money, but the kidnapper says that this is only the first time, and he isn’t going to give the daughter back, then he also says to stay home and wait for a phone call. Then Lois’s dad goes back to his home, but the two mice, Marcel and Celine stays with the kidnapper. The kidnapper calls a guy who was with him at the night Lois was taken, and says that he got the money and he is leaving, so the two mice hide in a big bag which money is in. The kidnapper doesn’t notice them, and goes to another kidnapper’s home. It was old, and Lois was in a room. In the night, the kidnapper fell asleep, and Marcel and Celine decided to help Lois. First, they hid the kidnapper’s gun in the kitchen, and carried the phone to another room, and called police to tell about the case. In the morning, two kidnappers wakes up, and there are polices already. They are caught, and Lois is taken back to her home. Her parents are very happy and the mice are happy, too.


This story was really easy to read. They had a lot of cute pictures, too. I wonder why Lois’s parent didn’t call the police because if I were them, I would call the police first. When I was a child, I always wished that animals could speak, but now I don’t because it weird! (431 words)

M.R.6 Whale Rider

This is a story about Maori culture in New Zealand. The main character is a girl named Paikea. Paikea is also the name to man’s who came to New Zealand on a whale a long time ago. At the very first part of the story, Paikea was born, and her mother and her twin brother died. Paikea’s father lives in Germany, and she stays with her grandpa and grandma. Her grandpa, Koro is really strict about tradition. He wanted a boy to pass the tradition down from generation to generation. Paikea was kind of special. She did many things than other boys do, and she was interested in learning the traditions like taiaha. However Koro didn’t let her do that because Paikea is a girl. Koro always follows the old tradition, and doesn’t like breaking the traditions. I think that it is a really difficult problem. The traditions are important, but sometimes you need to break the traditions to do new things, and it makes things better sometimes. The existence of Paikea shows that to Koro.


At first, Koro wasn’t happy about Paikea’s birth, and he didn’t seem sad about Paikea’s mom’s death. I couldn’t understand that. Sometimes it is difficult to understand the culture for people who have a different culture. However I think it’s really interesting there are so many different cultures in the world.
I liked when Paikea and Koro ride a bicycle together. However the scene was very sad when Paikea was going to leave her grandma and grandpa with her dad.


I also felt the family love as I watch this movie. Even when they couldn’t understand each other, they don’t hate each other. For example, sometimes Koro yells at Paikea, and sometimes Paikea does things which are really bad for Koro, but they still love each other. I believe that the love among the family is the strongest! (314 words)

B.R-11 Christmas in Prague

This story begins with interesting phrases. “Do you know everything about your family – your parents, your grand parents, your brothers or sisters, your uncle or aunts? Does your family know everything about you? All families have secrets.”


There is a family in this story. Jan, his English wife Carol, and his father Josef, and they live in Oxford. Jan has never sawn his mother, because she died when Jan was a baby, and Josef always has a picture of his dead wife in his pocket. Carol plays the harp in an orchestra, so she is going to go to Prague to give some concerts on Christmas, and she wants Jan and Josef to come. Josef says that Prague is a very beautiful place, but he never wants to go there. At a morning, Jan told Josef that Carol really wants to go to Prague to play the harp in the concerts, and she wants them to come, then Josef finally said okay.


Carol is in Prague to have rehearsals, and Jan and Josef is coming two days later. After the rehearsal, she went shopping to get some Christmas presents for them. When she was walking down the street, she saw Jan across the street. She thought, “Why was he in Prague so soon?” She shouted to him, but he didn’t hear her. She shouted very loud, again. “Jan! Jan! It’s me, Carol!” This time, he turned to Carol, but he didn’t smile or speak, and he started to walk away. Carol was very afraid, and felt like she was loosing him. Suddenly Carol runs across the street, but there was a bus, and Carol lay in the snow.


The next morning, the orchestra is having a rehearsal, and soon they notice that Carol is not there, and the conductor finds out that Carol is in a hospital. He goes to the hospital, and calls to her husband. Carol wakes up, and she says she saw Jan on the street yesterday, but the conductor can’t understand what she is talking about because when he talked her husband on the phone, he was still in Oxford. Few hours later, a man, Pavel who saw the street accident came to see how Carol was doing, and Jan and Josef arrived to hospital, too. They are very confused because Pavel is Josef’s son and Jan’s twin brother!


Josef talked about a night at Christmas which was long, long time ago. When Josef was young, he married Jan and Pavel’s mother, Lenka. However, things were difficult in Prague at that time, and they got to leave there. They planed to go to Austria, and then go to England. Josef and Jan could get Austria at night on 24th. Then next day night, Lenca and Pavel tried, but the guards noticed them, and shot Lenca. After that, Pavel stayed with Lenka’s mother. She told him Lenka dies at a hospital, and Josef left and he is having new life in England, so Pavel was mad at Josef because Josef never wrote to him. Then Josef shows a piece of paper. It was a very old letter from Lenca’s grandma to Josef. The letter said that Lenca and Pavel were shot at the border, and she never wants to see him or hear from him, so never come back to Prague. Now Carol, Jan, and Pavel understood. Then the conducter came into the room, and said that he needs her to play the harp in the concert at the night.
At the concert, Carol could play the harp, and Jan and Josef could go to the concert with their new family! They all are happy now.


This story was really interesting! I never could guess what was going to happen. I chose this book because it’s the day before CHRISTMAS! I wished that I could stay with my family.
I remember the Christmas about four years ago. I was in America that year. December the 24th, I went to a Church with my host family at the night. We sang a song, and prayed. They had a very big tree and many candles. They were really beautiful, and it was a very good experience to me.
Anyway, have a nice Christmas! (712 words)