Weakness

The essay was returned from the professor. According to her comment, I should state the topic sentences strongly and clearly especially in subject-object relationship. Probably my sentence do not say the subject clearly first, then the reader will have a problem where to land as the object. And composing strong topic sentence requires to choose the right verb in there. Her comment put me in the writing chaos again, but it made me be aware of my weakness.
Tough, tough, tough.

Party dresses

Watching the fashion at Academy Award, I thought how American culture is attached to the dresses. From high school to the friend’s wedding party, they wear lots of dresses, and I always wonder why such nice custom was not imported to Japan from the US. Neither do we have dance parties, nor do any occasions that have us wear the dress except friend’s weddings. Maybe the Bon dance was supposed to be the one where a man and a woman meet in the ancient Japanese custom. I merely see it recently. Wearing Yukata (casual Kimono) is not common for Japanese anymore.

Anyhow, we buy a cheap looking dress which is made of polyester only for those occasions that hardly happen once or twice a year. I have ever attended the friend’s weddings less than ten times. Buying dresses do not worth just for sitting, eating and watching the bride and bloom. We do not dance at the party. There is no chance to come into direct contact with other person at the wedding party.

When I was a child, we were taught how to dance at elementary school, which is called “folk dance”. They said that this “folk dance” was introduced by GHQ (occupying forces of the Allies after the WWII). So we had a possibility to have similar dance party if things went well then. But the Japanese government forced us to do the “folk dance” as a course of physical education. Consequently the dance was going to be the most boring exercise in my life. Why did the 8 to 12 year old boys and girls have to dance by order? Moreover, the dance itself was not the one American people do, and we danced Hungarian or Ukrainian. And here’s the worst thing. Since I was a tall girl in the class, and the number of girls were over than boys, I sacrificed myself to act boy’s part for girls. It was a tragedy. I wonder that recent elementary school students have been forced dancing. I hope this nonsensical curriculum has been vanished forever.

Melbourne Hotel

I want to write about my trip to Melbourne from time to time.
For the starter, here is where we stayed.

The residential type of hotel is wonderful.
The hotel we stayed has a small kitchen with cutleries.
If anyone who is thinking to go Melbourne, you might want to consider Fraser Place, which is located a few steps away from  La Trobe St near Carlton park.

Fate

I am feeling that fate directs me towards the Jewish American literature world.

When I returned from Australia, an e-mail from the professor of writing was waiting for me. It was saying that there are some old books that she gives me.

A week ago before traveling to Melbourne, she said that I could pick the books I want from the shelf. Those books do not belong to her technically, for a retired professor who studied the Jewish American literature quite a long time left them on the shelf. There are no scholars in my university who studies Jewish American literature. So those old books are waiting for me.
I found American Tragedy of from the shelf which was published in 1949, and it was the 1^st papaerback printing.

Poems

See how the orient dew,
Shed from the bosom of the morn
Into the blowing roses,
Yet careless of its mansion new,
For the clear region where ‘twas born
Round in itself incloses:
(On a Drop of Dew)

The poems of Andrew Marvell are impressive. I learned nine of them in this semester.
On the first day, I regretfully thought that I should have not registered the class.
It was too English to me. I could not identify any of grammatical word order between the lines.
But the sweet scent of flowers and grass hidden each lines somehow attracted me, and many American authors felt the same way as I did.

I encountered at least two of his poems used in the literary work. I wonder how current university students in USA learn these classic poets.Poems sharpen language.  Maybe this is the reason one of my friend likes to read Japanese One Hundred poems.

Those who are interested in them, check this site. There all one hundred poems are translated into English.

http://petals-and-moon.blogspot.com/

An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser

Unexpectedly, I got this paperback.

Look at the published year.  It is truely an old book.

Once I've finished it, I am going to make a summary of this book and little more about Theodore Dreiser.

Systematic

Yesterday, I got a chance to talk to the professor who teaches me in the writing class. She is American. I did not know exactly what I should have talked with her.  I just wanted to get some hints to my writings.  She said I would be a good writer if I improve my writings more the other day. It delighted me a lot, but at the same time, I wondered how I could improve my writings. How.

I have been tring to make an appointment with her since the middle of January, and finally I made it yesterday.

We discussed many things, of course the discussion started from my writing but it was beyond more than that. Her suggestion is this; If you like writing, you should write in English as well for practicing.  I told her I have been writing the blog in Japanese for quite a long time. And she asked me why I never thought about writing in English. That's actually very right question.  If I say I have never thought about it, that would be a lie. Yes, I knew it, at least since last summer, I recognized that writing is the key to strength my English by any meaning.

So this is the first post written in English.

I will write like this diary like post, but the ultimate goal is to write more like academic journals about American literature, history, culture and so on.

The professor suggested that I should be systematic to be a scholar, because it is said to get Ph.D in literature takes forever. Literature major students are apt to be disorganized due to the characteristic of literature itself. Fiction, or either nonfiction, is created by human imagination from the first letter to the last period at the final page. We cannot count or organize human feeling orderly.

There must be enormous other reasons, but these are major reasons, I guess.

Being systematic sounded good to me. I have 20 year working experience that forced me to be efficient and organized at anytime. I have been wondering how I could emphasize my background in immensely academic field since I became a university student. Sometimes, or most of the time, my passion of learning was beaten by marvelous energy of still adolescent girls in my university, envying their spongy brains.

Now I found one goal thanks to my professor.

And this blog will attach and see me how I improve myself.

About me

This blog tracks learning process of my work, Amreican literature and surrounding area. The goal is to pratice and improve writing skills in English for my graduation thesis and further dissertations. I am 42 year-old Japanese woman who came back university in 2011.
Attention: Do not blame me even if I write wrong in English. This blog is a kind of my exercise track.
All your heartful comments would nurture me.