Journal #5 (Week 6)

Hi!

Here are the questions presented to me by Shogo.

Do you have religion? Decribe it.
Do you think people need religion? Why or why not?

Please write as much as you can in response to these questions. Also, because this is a somewhat more personal topic, it's important that we remember to respect everyone's views.

I look forward to reading your responses.

Have a good weekend!


Shiki's Response:
I believe in a kind of Buddhism, but I don’t know well about it. It is because generally, I have not used it. My family and I use it only when we perform a funeral, wedding ceremony or new year’s days. I think in my country, Japan, most people are in almost same situation as me. For example, on new year’s day, most Japanese people go to shrine or temple to pray to god. While we pray, we say appreciation or some wish to god. When my family performed a funeral for grandmother, we invited a specific priest who believes our religion and, he said a sutra. In addition to that, we had to wear black clothes and have only vegetables and law fishes for one week. My grandmother and grandfather believed their religion more than me. There is a household Buddhist altar in their house. Furthermore, they clean it and pray to god in front of it almost every day. I think the people who believe religions come to reduce gradually. But I don’t know its reason. In my opinion, people need religion but, it is not good to depend it strongly because probably, we want to need the power we cannot see when we get into difficulties. I usually pray to god when there is nothing I can about something. For example I pray to god just before I take a very important exam. However, there were a lot of wars all over the world because of the people who believed their religion strongly. I think such people came to be blind through they depended on their religions. Religions sometimes help us but, sometimes they cause a big war or problem. Therefore, it is the most important thing to respect other religions and not to depend on one religion hard.

Yu's Response:
I think it is the hard question. I don't have religion, but I believe the god. Many people have the same idea in Japan, and sametimes it is regarded as unusually thing. For exsample, the man has the religion, and he has mental illness and needs to be able to believe something. We think so. But I think therefore it is needed by people. Sometimes it can support people. If we don't believe anything, we can't keep usually our mind. I don't know what is about religion so much,so I can't say anything. But I think we can choice we have religion or just believe the god.

Satsuki's Response:
Honestly, I don’t believe religion. I think religion is important in the world, but not necessary thing for people. I think religion is connecting many things. When I was high school student, my school is Christian, so I used to worship every Monday at school. A preacher always did preach for us and we sung a hymn. This is not interested for me, but there were many things to study. Religion has some rules, some rules are strict and some rules are important or pleasant. I can’t understand well about these rules. It means not criticism for religion, but believing religion is difficult for me. In Japan, there are many people who are an unbeliever, but there are many events that connecting to religion. For example, most Japanese people aren’t Christian, but they are celebrating it on Christmas day. It becomes habitual event in Japan now, but usually almost all Japanese don’t think about Christian. Also, Japanese people who are an unbeliever always go to shrine or temple to worship for the gods and Buddha. I don’t know what is right about religion, but I think people should have jointly that important, pleasant thing of religion.

Shogo's Response:
I may be not more religious than others, but I am a Buddhist. I went Buddhist temples when these are traditional times to visit Buddhist temple, like the New Year in January, an annual visit to our family burial site in August, or memorial service, for example. And I visit the temples to enjoy the beauty I find there. I think that religions are not needed for people, but if you think that it is need, it is need. For me, it is not important that I have a religion. Actually, most Japanese don’t have it, they are not more religious. I ‘m not pretty positive, one of the reasons, we have a big rate of suicide. Sometimes, religions make sadness like war, but it makes happy like excusing. I mean that it depends on their selves that the a religion is need or not.

Homework for Monday, Oct. 3rd

1. Narrative Paragraph Draft 2
2. Ex. 3, p. 75-76
3. Journal #5 (see question on blog)

HW for Thursday, Sept. 29th

1. Reading (p. 71-72) + Reading Questions 1-5 (p. 72)
2. Ex. 1 (p. 73)
3. Ex. 10 (p. 40)
4. Connecting Words Handout from class
-complete and chewck (p. 40-41)

Journal #4 (Week 5)

Hi!

This week's question marks that start of responding to topics chosen by you, the students! Salim has volunteered to come up with this week's question; next week I'll ask another student to do the same. Hopefully, everyone will get the chance to ask a question that they would like to present to the class.

Just a reminder: try to write as much as you can in response to each question. The more thoughts you provide, the more interesting and unique your response will be.

Here is Salim's question:

While living here in Missoula, what is the one thing from your country that you miss the most? Please explain your answer fully. Provide any details you can in your response.

If you would like to read about what I missed when I was in South Korea, please feel free to check out my response below.

Thanks for writing!

Have a good weekend!

Josh


Josh's Response:

When I was in South Korea, there really wasn't much that I missed. I mean, I was able to fish every week, I had good friends (both Korean and foreigners), the food was great, I loved my job, and in general, life was good. Of course I missed my family (especially my mother) and my good friends back in the States. Family aside, the one one thing that I really missed (this is going to sound sooo American) was............pizza! That's right. While I thoroughly enjoyed the variety of cuisine that Korea had to offer (great food!!!), about once a week after eating Korean food for lunch and dinner every day, I would really "pine" for a nice, cheesy pizza pie.
Now, I'm not saying that there wasn't any pizza in Korea. To the contrary: every country I've visited (close to 20 now) has had pizza in some shape or form. The problem was that Korean pizza just didn't taste like pizza. To be exact, the sauces were strangely sweet, the toppings were eclectic but not in a good way (squid? on pizza?), "stuffed crust" meant stuffed with sweet potato, not cheese, and there always seemed to be something in the sauce that just wasn't right. I even went to old pizza standbys like Pizza Hut and Papa John's but to no avail. Even in these "American" restaurants, the pizza had been thoroughly Koreanized.
I was at a loss, and my longing for a margharita with just the basics (red sauce, mozzerella, and basil) grew to point where I made it my mission to find the right slice to satiate my need.
One day while wandering the many back streets of Andong, where we lived, I ran across an inconspicuous pizza stand whose sole advertisement was a picture of a slice of pizza on a white sign. I asked the woman working the stand if she indeed made pizza and she nodded "yes." As I watched her throw together a simple mini-pizza, I made sure to ask her to leave out the corn and other odd toppings. After six minutes, my pie was done. One bite later, I knew that I had found my slice of Korean pizza heaven. It was delicious! Cheesy, saucy, and thoroughly "normal." In fact, I promptly ordered another pizza for the road. I thought to myself that my worries were over.
A week later, when I could no longer curb my pizza cravings, I went straight back to the little pizza stand with high hopes. To my dismay, the stand was closed, the sign was gone, and the litte woman was nowhere to be seen. Two weeks later? Nothing. For the rest of my stay in South Korea, I continued to miss my favorite American food. And even to this day I ask myself, "What happened to my simple little pizza stand with the nice woman who made such delicious pizza?"

HW for Monday, Sept. 26th and Tuesday, Sept. 27th

Monday, Sept. 26th
1. Short descriptive paragraph (handout--about a place from childhood)
2. Paragraph 1, Draft 1 (Narrative)
3. Journal #4 (blog)
Tuesday, Sept. 27th
1. Ex. 12 (p. 41-42)
2. Ex. 47 (p. 232)

HW for Thursday, Sept. 22th

Writing Homework
1. Ex. 2 (p. 31)
2. Write a topic sentence for you narrative paragraph.
3. Paragraph 1, Final draft portfolio (including draft 1, 2, and 3)

Grammar HW
1. Ex. 45, (p. 230-231) check answers (handout from Tues.)
2. Ex. 46 (p. 231)

Journal #3

Hi students,

Thank you for you interesting responses to last week's question. I love learning new things about other languages.

For this week's journal, I'd like you to think about a memory that you have of some significant historical, political, or social event. For example, you might write about an important election (I'll never forget the day Barack Obama was elected president). On another topic, I remember the night our football team (University of Nebraska) won the national championship--I almost cried! Maybe you remember the night you celebrated the millennium (2000). These are just a few examples. In your response, please describe the following: when, who was involved, what happened, how you felt, and the impact of this event (if any) on your life.

If you like, you can read my example response below.

Happy writing!

In 2008, I was living and teaching in South Korea, but I wasn't out of touch with the polical events of that important year. Every day I would skim news article on the Internet to find out what was happening between Barack Obama and John McCain. All through the summer and early fall, it seemed that the impossible might become reality: the U.S. would elect its first black president. For me, the excitment of that election season didn't have so much to do with the prospects of having a Democrat in the White House after 8 years of Republican rule (to be sure, I sort of liked both Obama and McCain). Rather, I began to realize that I was experiencing (albeit from overseas) a change in my country's political and historical history.

The day of the election is still as clear as can be in my mind. All of the English teachers gathered in the teacher's lounge of the language center and tuned in to CNN international (the only English station we could get). Soon the the results started pouring in. As we sat fixated on that red and blue screen (red for Republican, blue for Democrat), we couldn't believe it: Obama was dominating! Even after it seemed clear that Obama would win, my disbelief in how much my country had matured lingered--just 45 years ago, black people STILL couldn't vote in some states! Had we really come this far? Was it possible to leave our controversial history behind us and move on to an era when a person's character truly meant more than the color of his/her skin? I was hopeful but reluctant to believe that Americans would move past our racial past. Fortunately, my pessimism was unwarranted: by 11 am South Korean time (it was 10 pm or so in the U.S.!), the United States had a new president; and I had renewed faith in my fellow Americans.

HW for Monday, Sept. 19th and Tuesday, Sept. 20th

HW for Monday:
1. Choose narrative topic (p. 37-38)
2. Journal #3 (see next post!)

HW for Tuesday
1. Ex 3 (p. 32-33)
2. Part One on grammar handout from Thurs. (past tense)
3. Ex. 45 (p. 230 and 231)

HW for Thursday, Sept. 15th

1. Ex. 2 (p. 16, 17)
2. Ex. 1 (p. 31)
2. Reading (p. 29-30)+ Comprehension Questions 1-5 (p. 30)

Please don't forget to email me draft 2 by 3 pm tomorrow.

HW for Tuesday, Sept. 13th

1. Writing:
-Look at teacher's comments for draft 1; bring questions about comments.
-Optional: use the "Specific Supporting Details" handout to think of specific details for your paragraph.

2. Grammar
-Study for the grammar quiz (see handout from last week).

Quiz #1 Grammar Review

These activities are optional. I'm posting them so that you can review some of the more important grammar points we've covered so far this semester.

1. Clause Review
a. Exercise 1
b. Exercise 2

2. Subordinating and Coordinating Conjunction Review
a. Exercise 1
b. Exercise 2

Week 3 Journal Question

Hi students!

First, I'd like to say that I really enjoyed reading your responses to our first journal question. Nice job!

For this week's question, I'd like to stick to the topic of writing. I heard some students discussing punctuation in their first language, and that conversation gave me an idea for this week's question. To be exact, I'd like you to describe how writing in your langauge is similar to or different from writing in English. You don't need to write a long paragraph. Rather, you can focus on one aspect of writing in both languages; for example, you might discuss differences in punctuation, or you could talk about the alphabet. You could even talk about a particular difference causes confusion. There are many other possible ideas.

I look forward to reading your responses.

Have a good weekend!

Josh

HW for Wednesday, Sept. 7th and Thursday, Sept. 8th

HW for Wednesday, Sept. 7th
1. Write 3-4 main supporting ideas for your topic sentence. Email your supporting sentences to me by 3 pm.

HW for Thursday, Sept. 8th
1. Paragraph 1
2. Ex. 2, p. 6
2. Ex. 14-15 (p. 19)

HW for Tuesday, Sept. 6th

1. Journal #1 (post your response on the blog)
2. Read p. 10, "Support"
3. Do Ex. 7 (p. 11).

Have a good weekend!

HW for Friday, Sept. 2nd

Please email me your topic sentence by 1 pm, Friday.
You can email it to me at joshua.rosenberger@mso.umt.edu.

Thank you!