しあわせ

One of my fellow students, アリソン後輩、at the Big Headed Man Club has started quite a nice Japanese themed blog, Haikugirl’s Japan. I think we might all recognise this obsession with Japan in ourselves.

She got interested in Japanese through Haiku hence the name. I hope to see some haiku on the blog some day, maybe some haiku advice.

The other thing I’m looking forward to is haikugirl’s adventures in Japan as she is making the huge step to go and live in Japan. うらやましいよ!

In the meantime the weekly blog about Japanese class is interesting.

Give her a little support and encourage this blogger! よろしくおねがいします。

I was even inspired to try a haiku. (or one of my faux haiku 非俳句 at any rate, no cutting word, no kigo)

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　無
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　辺
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　空
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　ス
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　ズ
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　メ
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　い
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　そ
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　い
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　そ
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　天
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　涯
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　へ

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　驢
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　馬
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　跡

A Life More Ordinary

In February the ICA in The Mall, London are holding a short festival of contemporary Shomin-geki. 庶民劇 [しょみんげき]　The drama of ordinary people. So no yakuza, samurai, weird horror, or giant robots.

There are six films

The Milkwoman 9, 11 Feb
Strawberry Shortcakes 10 Feb
The Cat Leaves Home 12, 13 Feb
Kamikaze Girls 13, 15 Feb
No One’s Ark 16, 17 Feb.
Kaza-Hana 17 Feb

The only film I’ve seen is Kamikaze Girls; it’s an enjoyable film, worth a watch.

Prices are £8 for non-members and £6 for ICA members

Thanks to Andrew-san for telling me about this.

Strawberry Shortcake trailer
Strawberry Shortcakes review

This short film festival is organised by the Japan Foundation and will be touring the UK in February and March.

ICA (London) 9 – 17 February
Watershed Media Centre (Bristol) 15 – 21 February
Queens Film Theatre (Belfast) 22 – 28 February
Filmhouse (Edinburgh) 29 February – 6 March
Showroom (Sheffield) 6 - 22 March

Nihongo Kantan Ursula Zimmerman Department of Science and Education Ireland 2007

Japanese is a fairly new subject on the Leaving Certificate exam syllabus in Ireland. However in 2007 only 90 students sat the exam (36 getting an A1 grade 28 of them girls) and as far as I’m aware it is usually only on the timetable for the transition year in some schools. (The transition year is a year between doing the Junior Certificate and starting the 2 year program for the Leaving Certificate. They didn’t have it when I was a kid. I think besides extending secondary school by a year, it allows the opportunity to do things off the more formal academic program, like work experience or learning new languages)
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