The most precious thing in my life

"What is the most precious thing in your life?" To answer this difficult but also frequently asked question, I would say "Love is the most precious thing for me." I do not know much about love yet, but I am pretty confident with the answer. Even though my mother and father got divorced before I became one year old,  I believe that I wouldn't be here if there were not any form of love between my parents. And my mother and father weren't here if their parents and ancestors were not in some sort of love and gave birth to their children, and so and so forth. So I think love gives birth to new lives and therefore, it is very precious thing. Some people might say that children can be born without parent's love, and it is true in some cases, but I think child raising which comes after giving birth cannot be done without love and care from parents and other family members of the child. As myself still being a child, I am confident to say that I am loved by my mother and grandmother, who have been taking care of me since the time I was born. They took great care of me and did their best to provide me with the best education they could provide. Not only the education, but they provide me good food, shelter, and cloth to maintain my physical health. Not only the physical health, but they also keep my mental health healthy as they listen to my talks and cheer me up when I am having difficult time with my studies or relationships with others. In return to their care and love, I also love them and care about them, especially their safety and health. In contrast, I hardly ever felt love for my father and it is because I do not have any experience to be loved or to be cared by him. I do have a biological bond with him, but not a emotional tie. It is not that I hate him because he left me, but I do not have any particular feeling towards him. I am curious how he looks like, but I don't have any intention to meet him. I guess a picture will do to satisfy my curiosity.
 As I said at the beginning, I do not really know about love and I haven't really thought about it. But recently I started to think and feel about the importance of love in my life. Up until now, I've always been the one to be loved and I haven't really question about it. I thought it's natural to be loved and to be cared. However, I realized recently how important but also difficult it is to show love and care to the others, especially to someone who is important to me. I started to realize the complexity of the feeling of love, and now I understood why there are so many songs, paintings, movies, and other forms of creative works to express the feeling. I think everyone suffers, get confused, and maybe delighted by the feeling of love and therefore everyone wants to share their feelings with others. In any case, I am very comfortable with my relationship with my family and I want to love them as they love me. Also, I recently met someone who has become very important to me, and I am surprised by the amount of new feelings I get in our relationship. I think love enables me to stay calm, and to be who I am, and also to discover new dimensions about me. I know I am not being logical when I am talking about love and I am pretty sure that it's shown in the writing, but this is why I think love is the most important thing for me.

Favorite movie of the summer 2011

 This summer I watched numbers of movies and the one I liked the most is "From up on poppy hill". This movie was created by Goro Miyazaki, the son of famous movie maker Hayao Miyazaki. His previous movie "ゲド戦記(Gedo-senki)", which is created based on the novel series "The Earthsea Trilogy" by Ursula K. Le Guin, was criticized so badly for its rough illustrations and poor development of plot. Part of the reason why he met harsh criticism was that he is the son of Hayao Miyazaki, who is one of the leading Japanese film makers. His film company "Gibli" has produced numbers of successful animation movies such as "Nausicca" and "Princess Mononoke" and the company and its films are beloved by most of the Japanese from different generations. Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine how high the expectation for Mr.Goro and his first film was, and also the disappointment of the people after watching the movie. Before the release of his second movie "From up on poppy hill", there were numbers of interviews set on different magazines with Mr.Goro. In these interviews he talked how difficult it was for him to endure the pressure of being the son of Hayao Miyazaki and to create a film by his own hands. I was very surprised to know that he knew nothing about film making before he made the first film and he had actually had no intention to become a film maker before got a sudden request to create a movie.
 I will not go into the precise details of the movie, but I really liked the movie for several reasons. First, the story takes Yokohama city, which is my hometown, in the 1960s. In the movie there are many places I know and it was fun to see how the places looked like in the past. The second reason was that the story takes place in the actual world and not in a fantasy world. Gibli movies usually take place in fantasy world and that is something I really like about the movies, but it is also interesting to see how Mr.Goro tries to discover different approach of film making. He said in an interview that his uniqueness is his ordinary viewpoint and I think he presented his view point really well with greatly depicting personalities and emotions of characters. I really want Mr.Goro to produce more and more movies with his style and be the next leading figure of Japanese film industry.  I also want people not to just listen to what critiques say about his film and quit watching his movies. If you are interested in the movie, I really recommend you to watch it !!

what is your favorite food ?

In Japan, there is a saying”食欲の秋”(Syokuyoku no aki) which means, something like, "autumn, s season for strong appetite". There are many other sayings and idioms which relate the season of autumn to eating, and I assume that it is because Japanese people love food in autumn. We enjoy eating fruits such as pairs, grapes, persimmons, and chestnuts and some people go on an organized tour for gathering these fruits. As for vegetables, we eat lots of eggplants and mushrooms in various ways. I love to simply bake them, put soy sauce and eat. Autumn is also considered to be the best season for eating Sanma (pacific saury), and the most popular way of cooking the fish is broiling it with salt. Sanma is one of my favorite fish and I eat it throughout a year, but I also agree that it is best in the autumn. The seasonal food in autumn goes along really well with my eating habits, because my dietary life is consist mainly of vegetables, fruits, and fish and other sea foods. I do not like things that are oily and too sweet and I do not eat much meat. I avoid eating food with artificial additives so I do not eat any junk food, fast food, and other foods of that sort. I do not have to take snacks but when I get hungry I eat fruits or sometimes vegetables. I also do not drink any pops, energy drinks and juice. In stead, I prefer drinking mineral water, tea and coffee. When people hear about my eating habit, they often get surprised how strict I am to myself. However, I am just eating what I like and avoiding what I do not like. I am very comfortable with my current eating habits and I wish to continue eating in this way. Because of this somewhat special eating habit of mine, I sometimes avoided going out on lunch or dinner with my friends. I was annoyed by people always asking me questions about my food preferences and I also didn't like to make others worried or annoyed of my food preference. I thought and still think that eating should be something fun and free without any concern or negative feelings so oftentimes I chose eating alone at my home. However,  I have recently started to enjoy going out to eat , thanks to my friends who are tolerant and kind enough to accept my food habits and take me to various kinds of restaurants. I think I have also learned better ways to explain my eating habits, instead of telling others what I can not or do not like to eat. I like eating with others simply because it is so fun to share nice food with others and having good conversations at the same time. I also think eating with others let me try things that I usually don't try when I am by myself. So I wish to enjoy the autumn with great food and great friends !

What does writing mean to me ?

 Being a student requires me to write a lot.  I am often asked to write reports, journals, essyas, short paragraphs, and other forms of writings for assignments. The University also asks us to fill out and sometimes to make documents. I know some friends who hate writing and therefore try their best to avoid taking those classes which require them to write essays and reports. I can understand their feelings but I personally don't have any problem with writing. I am a person who take writing assignments quite seriously. Actually, I can find it fun doing these kind of homework. I prefer writing letters than texting messages and I enjoy writing personal journals. I write blogs and tweet too. I feel great joy when I feel that I was able to put my feelings and thoughts into right words. It is much more exciting when my words are accepted and understood by others. I think my love of writing comes from my great love of reading. Ever since I started reading, I've always been amazed how various and effective writings can be, even though they are made up simply of words, something we use everyday. I have always wanted to be like those amazing authors who can move people's hearts by their use of words and I think that is the reason why I found it fun writing by myself. I do not have any specific plan yet, but I wish to write a book in my future. But this is only if  I have accumulated things that I can feel worth sharing with others. The other reason why I like writing is because it helps me organize my ideas. It is often difficult for me to give spontenous responces to certain questions because I prefer to have certain amout of time for making considerations before giving answers. So writing helps me to understand what I really want to say in responce to some questions. Though writing means quite a lot to me, my writing skill is still very limited and therefore I　sometimes it difficult to fully express myself. I am eager to learn from the sophomore english and improve my writing skills.

Fall semester

I heard that autumn semester is considered to be the busiest term in a year. I do not know the reason behind it, but I must agree that this fall is going to be very, very, busy.
This semester I am taking Sophomore English, International Law, Political Therory, Japanese Politics, Introduction to Sociology, and Archery as P.E. This is my first time to be satisfied and truelly interested with every single class I take within a term, so I am very happy about it. I think it is because now I am sophomore and therefore be able to take courses which are more academic and focused into more specific topic. However, this also means I have to put more efforts into each of my studies and therefore I need to think of the ways to use my time wisely and effectively. As for extracurricular activity, I'm taking a part in JIPSC, Japan-Israel-Palestine Student Conference. Last August we finished our biggest project, the summer conference, which was held in Hiroshima this year. Now we are writing reports of the conference and getting ready for the debriefing session which is going to be held this December. Though I am not going to continue working for the conference next year, I'm determined to do the best I　can to help the members of the next year conference. As for the studies outside ICU, I am going to take French lesson at TUFS and Chinese lesson at Sophia University. I am so excited about both classes, but especially the Chinese class ! It's has been one of my dreams to learn Chinese because I　have so many friends from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and I really want to communicate with them with their language, in order to have better understanding of their culture and also their way of thinking. The other thing I am excited about this autumn is that I'll start taking lessons at Yoga studio. Now I  am taking Yoga classes at a sport gym which I　go to, but I've already got used to all the classes that are held at the gym and therefore wanted to take more advances classes. I wish to improve my Yoga skills because I　think this is a sport of my lifetime :)
 There are so many new things I　am going to start from this autumn and I wish to the best I can on each one of them.

Who am I ?

 "Who am I ?" I think it is the core question which we are going to be asking ourselves throughout the semester. When I think of the answers to the question, things that come up in my mind are such as, name, gender, age, nationality, profession, social status, hobbies, etc. So my answer is going to be something similar as this: "My name is Arisa Ono. I am 21years old and I am Japanese. I have no siblings and I am currently studying at ICU. I love reading, traveling and playing sports, especially Yoga and jogging."
But does this really answer the question ? I think it does explain about me in some ways, however, I also think that there are many parts of me that cannot be explained by this answer.  I believe that we are made not only of what we currently possess, but also of the things that we have had before, such as the path we have gone through or memories and experiences from the past. In my case, books that I read in my childhood have left great influence on me and I can still feel their effects on who am I today. When I was little I read almost any kinds of books that were around me. After reading all the children's books in my house, I went to a small library nearby, which is a minute walk from the house,  and as I grew older and entered elementary school,  I started to use school library and municipal library. Now I spent a great amount of time at university library, partly because I have to deal with tons of assignments, but mainly for to walk around the shelves for the purpose of finding interesting books that I have never seen or heard of. I also love going to huge book stores and book cafes in Tokyo. It is frighting even just to think of it, but if I didn't read books in my childhood,I wouldn't have had this great hobby, which I think can entertain me throughout my life.
 My love of books gave me interests in various fields, from the Greek mythology to astronomy (it doesn't necessarily mean that I understood the books on astronomy at that time). I often read bibliographies of important historical figures and illustrated reference books of flowers and plants, stars, insects, animals, dinosaurs, etc. I think reading books in various fields made me curious and open to learn and accept new things.

Sophomore English: The first day of the class

This is my first blog entry for the sophomore english class, "YOU: A Course of Personal Writing". As for the first entry, I would like to write why I decided to take this course.

I choose to take this course because it seemed a bit different from other classes. I realized from the syllabus that this is the first time for the course to be held at ICU and that made me to think that this course might have more relaxing and free learning styles in comparison with other courses with specific learning materials and learning goals. I also thought that this course will help me to discover more about myself, which can be a great help on some occasions such as interview for job-hunting and presentations at university. I have always had a difficulty explaining myself in occasions such as job interview and it has been a great concern for me. I thought that one of the reasons for me not being able to fully expain myself is because of my lack of understanding of myself. Therefore, I thought that this will be a great opportunity for me to think and to discover something new about myself.

I am looking forward for the class to begin and express myself through various academic writing styles, especially by writing Haiku! This will be my first time to make Haiku in English and I am sure that it will be exciting. I also simply wish to enjoy the class with my new teacher and new classmates and I hope everyone else is feeling the same way as I do !!