特別ポスト: The Small Book of Big People (Part 2)

Hello! 

How are you? This is a special post on a collection of writing by students I have been gathering up over time about the special and unique people they have known or admired in their lives. It's called The Small Book of Big People.

You will see that this says "Part 2." Part 1 I uploaded back in 2015 - I have been that busy in getting back to this! You can check it out at this link here.

Here is one gathering of this writing from your classes that I'm adding to the collection. Read these and write a short comment in the comments section of this blog on what you most like or enjoy.

So check these out!

A great person for me

I have a special person and that person is my mother. She is the most important for my life. I would like to write about her and tell you how great she is because I want you to know her.

My parents divorced when I was ten years old. I don’t have father and I’m just my mother’s son. I think my father has never existed. You might be sad to hear about that. But that I have only one parent has never made me sad, because I have been loved by my mother and she is a good mother. There are two reasons I think so.

I have an older sister. She is more intelligent than me, and my mother I think know that. For example, my sister was graduated from high school with honors. On the other hand, I was graduated from school with a bad grade. If a general mother heard that, she would say you are a bad child, or you are a trouble-maker.  However, she has never compared my sister and me, and she often said just the way you are. Then I felt I was not alone. That is one reason why I think my sister is a good mother. I still keep the phrase in my mind.

The other reason is my mother allowed me to do what I wanted to do. She is not a lawyer, and she is not a doctor. In short, my family is not wealthy. But when I wanted to play the guitar, she bought me a guitar. In addition, when I wanted to go on to university, she said you don’t have to take account of money to go on to university, and all you have to do is to prepare for the entrance examination. The phrases encouraged me to study hard and I appreciated the phrases and her.

Some Japanese people hesitate to say they love their mother and some are ashamed of saying that. But I don’t hesitate and I am not ashamed, because my mother is not only a good mother but also a great person. That is true. Why shouldn’t I do so? What stops me? The answer is nothing. I love my mother and I’m proud of her. In the future, I want to be a man like her.

A great piece of writing! Our family members are indeed important. But there are other people in our lives who are important as well. Let's take a look at this one: 

Memory of mine

I’m going to tell and share one of my memories. This memory is kind of a milestone. Well, I’d like to talk about someone who did change my life, whom I owe what I have been now.

When I was fourteen years old and a second grader in junior high school, I was in really a bad place, in other words, I was in a bad situation with everything; friends, club activities, teachers, many things. One day, the English teacher asked me to join the English speech contest. When I heard of this for the first time, I was confused, but I decided to join it. At that time, I thought to join something like this kind of event would make me have confidence more. Then I met the other teacher, Nick. He was a guy from the United States. He worked at my junior high school as an ALT. He is the one who changed me, he is the one whom I owe what I have become now. Meeting him was one of my milestones, a big, the biggest milestone in my life. Let me tell you more about him.

Speaking of Nick, he did teach me not only English things; grammar and pronunciation, but also the importance of studying English, how nice to have a lot of experiences, studying abroad, go abroad, and so on. In case of Nick, he came to Japan as an exchange student when he was in university. He said going somewhere while you are young is so nice. I totally agree with his idea. In addition, he told me that broading my horiozons is awesome. Talking with him, being taught English by him, everything was the worth for me. His story, his background made me want to improve my English, study more! I liked the story of his background, for instance, studying in Japan when he was young, how nice and fun studying other foreign languages is. When I talked to him, I always felt good, comfortable. With his guidance, I could get the first prize at the speech contest. By the way my speech title was “My Dream”. At that time, age at fourteen, I wanted to be a saxophonist. I was a member of the brass band club. I was extremely happy when my name called as a first prizer. I got speechless at that moment. I was too nervous to be calm. That was the best day ever.

So, I do owe who I have become to him. If I had not met him at that time, age fourteen, I think I would have become a different person. Ever since, I’ve kept having a great relationship with everyone, friends, teachers, people all over the world. Meeting someone who can change the other people is great, I guess. Therefore, meeting Nick was a milestone, he is the best teacher I have ever met in my life, and this is one of my memories.

That was a great one! Now look at this next one - sometimes, the influential people in our lives are those we haven't met yet, but are there:

My favorite person

Hi. Do you like to listen to music? What do you usually listen to? I like to listen to all kind of music so much. So I have many favorite singer and composer, but today I will tell you about my favorite person. His name is Alan Menken. Do you know him? Maybe some people knows him as Disney film music composer.

In 1949, he was born in New York. He has liked music since he was a little kid, and he has been learning about classical music. After graduating from college, he taught that he wants to become a composer for music director of the stage. In 1979, he offered the musical. Its name is w; God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and it is the work for the first time for him, but it was not a great box-office success. He learns from this experience to make more good one. In 1982, he was in the limelight for Little Shop of Horrors, and finally his song which he writes music became the theme song for this stage nominated for a Grammy. Then maybe you know. The movie was showing in 1989. It is The Little Mermaid. He was nominated for the Golden Globe Award and won four.

In my opinion he is a very good person. It is because he tried again and again, and above all the song which he wrote makes many people moving and exciting. Certainly me too! When I was in high school student I sung his song at school festival. Everyone knows it so that really became lively. Then he is still writing music for movie. Not only it, attraction’s song in Tokyo Disney Resort too.

My favorite his song is "Compass of Your Heart." It is attraction’s, Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage, song. It is a song which he wrote it only it. When you visited to Tokyo Disney Sea, please ride it and listen to the song. You might be changed your view of the world like me.

Wow! Now here's another one!

My favorite guitarist

I have many hobbies. Listening to music, buying clothes and playing with friends. Especially my favorite thing is to play the guitar. It is the influence of someone that I liked the guitar. His name is John. Thanks to him I was able to like guitar.

John isn't form a band, and not release a CD. He will never appear on TV programs. Why? Because, he is an internet guitarist. He posts performance videos playing the guitar. I was shocked by watching his videos. I thought "It's really cool!" I bought a guitar soon after a few days later. It's the same model as him. Knowing John, I started to like guitar. John's guitar playing is very cool, polite and sometimes powerful. There are lots of guitarists in the world with amazing technique. For example, it's faster to play, strange sound. But John is different. He doesn't do difficult things and plays a very simple phrase. It's actually fresh, and mainly, easy to hear. Perhaps, he can also be difficult. That makes me feel very good. His charm is other than playing the guitar. That is his character. He is often doing live streaming of videos. I originally had a sober and dark personality. So, I thought we were similar. But, John turns into a different person when playing the guitar. That's very amazing!

That John played live last August. Members are bass players, drummers and vocalists active on the Internet. He seldom plays live. So I took a ticket soon to go see the live. I arrived at the stage. There were more people than I thought. I was feeling tense and fun. Large music flow on the stage. At the same time band members will enter, and I could see John. He looked somewhat unconfident. And after all he is sober. The bass plays the phrase and song starts, and John plays the guitar. I was surprised and very excited, because he moved the body greatly and shook his head! He looks like a different person a while ago. At the end happy and I can not move, but this is still the first song! The live was 12, 13 songs in all. I enjoyed live more than ever. After the live, I decided to speak to John. But there were lots of people and I didn't have time so I couldn't do it. It was sad. But there is still a chance! John is playing live this September. I'll go to it and will talk to John this time! 

I hope you could enjoy just this small sample of writing from your classes! I'm only sorry I can't upload them all because there are so many good ones. 

Have fun with these! Please comment on what you think of them. Short comments are okay. 

Image: Personal photograph. All rights reserved.