ブログ引っ越しのお知らせ

こんにちは。お越し下さりありがとうございます。見出しに「引っ越し」と書きましたが、このブログはこのままに、新たなタイトルでブログを開設いたしました。
生まれたてですので、まだGoogleさんにも気付かれていません（笑）。
下記リンクからご覧いただけましたら嬉しいです。
http://kamomesky.hatenablog.jp/

長い間「かもめの英語ポケット」をお読みいただき、本当にありがとうございました。
May something wonderful happen to you today♪

今年もありがとうございました。

こんにちは。早いもので、2017年もあとわずか。
今年も、当ブログにお越し下さりありがとうございました。定期的にご覧になって下さっている方、本当にありがとうございます。ブログの引越しを先延ばしにして（笑）、ゆっくり年越しすることにしました。
英語の話でなくて恐縮ですが、私の絵を見たいとおっしゃって下さるお声にお応えして、メイキング画像（笑）です。私の手の影も写ってます・・・。

紙袋の色と模様が気に入って描き始めましたので、リンゴとブドウはわき役です。鳥の翼やリボンの網目など、模様の細かいところはマスキングインクで抜こうと思っていたのですが、マスキングインクを処分してしまっていたことが途中で発覚・・・。絵付け師みたいになってます。
続きを描きながら、年越しです。BGMは、ポール・オースターの「ナショナル・ストーリー・プロジェクト」朗読CDです。

今年もありがとうございました。
どうぞよいお年をお迎え下さいませ♪

May something wonderful happen to you today!

実践ビジネス英語 ディクテーション (12/29, 30ほか)

こんにちは。NHKラジオ「実践ビジネス英語」”Talk the Talk”のディクテーションです。
Lesson 18のテーマは、‘Transforming a Night Owl’（夜型人間の改造）でした。Vignetteでは、朝型の人が多い職場環境に慣れずにいる夜型社員へのアドバイスという形で体内時計や睡眠習慣などが話題となり、レクチャーを聞いているようでした。
“Talk the Talk”では朝型のHeatherさんと夜型のご主人の朝の風景や、アメリカから帰国する便の機内での残念な体験などについて話されています。

Transforming a Night Owl（S: 杉田敏先生　H: Heather Howardさん）

S: Our current vignette talks about morning people versus evening people.
You’ve said before that you’re a morning person, right, Heather?

H: Yes, I am most definitely a morning person.
And my husband is a dyed-in-the-wool evening person, which regularly pits our body clocks at odds.
Imagine us over the years, let’s say getting ready to leave for some trip in the morning―I’d be bouncing around the apartment as soon as the alarm had gone off and telling my husband over and over, “Honey, you better get up.”
And when he was up, I’d be chattering on about how I wanted to go here and do this during the trip and wasn’t this going to be so much fun.…
While of course, he just wanted to have a cup of coffee and try to wake up.

S: And of course there were and are times when the situation is reversed.

H: Of course. Sometimes it will be pretty late at night, at least it feels late to me, and my husband wants to have a deep philosophical conversation about something, and I can barely manage to follow what he’s saying―let alone respond it in an equally thoughtful way.

S: Ueda recommends some ways to avoid sleeping through one’s alarm.
Do you have any method regarding that problem?

H: I use my smartphone to get up, so I usually set at least two alarms for the morning.
I often get to bed late despite being a morning person, and it’s easy to turn the alarm off fully intending to get up.
And then realize “Ah, no! I fell asleep for another 45 minutes!”
So I set the second alarm to go off 15 minutes later and I usually manage to get up with that one.

S: Grace talks about airlines serving breakfast food to help get their passengers in sync with their destination’s time zone.

H: Yes, and adjusting their cabin lighting, too.
I took a brief trip to the United States in September, and as soon as the return flight left Minneapolis at about 11:15 a.m. local time, they turned off the cabin lights so people could get some sleep.
The time in Japan was, I believe, 1:15 a.m., so they were helping us reset our internal clocks to that schedule.
That’s why it especially ticked me off that the woman in the row ahead of me refused to close her window shade all the way.
I was all right because the light was blocked by her row of seats, so I managed to get some sleep.
But it cast a harsh beam of light horizontally across the plane and the man in the next block of seats across the aisle was kept awake the whole trip.
But even though that man and I both complained to the cabin attendants, they couldn’t get her to close it all the way.
It was very inconsiderate.

S: Grace says successful people make a point of adjusting to their new time zones in 24 hours.

H: I’ll have to research how they do that because I certainly can’t.
Jet lag just kills me every time.

お読みくださり、ありがとうございます♪

スピードスケートを制する色は・・・

こんにちは。年が明けると、冬季オリンピックももうすぐですね。スポーツには疎い私ですが、今月13日付けのThe New York Times International Editionのスピードスケートに関する記事”A shade faster? Speedskaters believe in blue”は一気に読んでしまいました。（ネットでは”What’s the Fastest Color? Olympic Speedskaters Now Say Blue”）
100分の1秒を競うスピードスケートの世界。ウェアやシューズなどは速さを追求して日々改良されているようですが、今季の五輪で選手たちが注目しているのは・・・色！だそうです。「青は速い」という、どう考えても非科学的な色信仰が一部で強く支持されているといいます。

(Photographs by Carina Johansen/NTB scanpix)
先月のワールドカップで韓国、ドイツ、ノルウェーの選手がそろって青のウェアで登場すると、他の選手やファンは呆然。韓国は歴代、青のウェアを着用しているそうですが、ドイツとノルウェーは新たな試み。特にノルウェーは、ずっと赤のウェアで通算80個のメダルを勝ち取ってきた歴史をひっくり返すようなことで、記事によれば、

“It was as if the New York Yankees had showed up at the baseball playoffs in polka dots rather than pinstripes.”
（まるで、ニューヨーク・ヤンキースが縦縞でなく水玉模様のユニフォームでプレーオフに現れたようだった）

阪神タイガースでいうところの「縦縞を横縞に変えてでも」？？　当のノルウェーのHege Bokko選手は「赤より少し速いと聞いたので、私もそう信じたい」と言い、どういうことかと突っ込まれると、

“I have no clue, The Koreans and Germans are also skating in blue, so maybe it’s something.”
（見当もつかないけれど、韓国とドイツの選手も青いウェアだし、効果はあるのかも）

科学的根拠はなさそうです。
記事では余談的に、スキージャンプではオレンジ色を着用している選手が多いということにも触れていました（そうなんですか？）。あるスキージャンプの選手は”It flies better.（オレンジの方が良く飛べる）”と話していたそう。
青がスピードでオレンジが飛翔のイメージなんでしょうか。そういえば新幹線のイメージも白が基調で青いラインですね（秋田新幹線は紅色でした）。

“Still, they acknowledged that confidence, in oneself and one’s gear, was crucial. Feeling fast can help you go fast.”
（それでも、選手たちは自分自身と自分の道具に対する自信が極めて重要だということを認めた。速いと感じることが実際の速さにつながることもある）

特定の色で心理状態が変わるなら、パフォーマンスも変わりそうです。そういう心理戦も実力のうちなんですね。オリンピックでは青色の効果に注目したいと思います。
本日もお読みくださりありがとうございます♪
May something wonderful happen to you today!

実践ビジネス英語 ディクテーション (12/15,16)

こんにちは。NHKラジオ「実践ビジネス英語」”Talk the Talk”のディクテーションです。
Lesson 17のテーマは、‘Help With Maternity Leave’（産休・育休を支援する）でした。Vignetteでは、女性社員の出産・育児を支援するマタニティ・コンシェルジュ・サービスが話題になりました。“Talk the Talk”では、Heatherさんがある銀行のマタニティ・コンシェルジュが提供するサービスを紹介。日本の産休・育休が優れていることについても話されています。

Help With Maternity Leave
（S: 杉田敏先生　H: Heather Howardさん）

S: Our current vignette talks about maternity concierges, company staff who help pregnant employees and those with small children.
How does that sound to you, Heather?

H: Luck, heaven, sign me up.
I recently read about the services offered by the maternity concierges at a U.S. bank―they were great.
One concierge prepared a mom-to-be’s hospital bag, researched a list of possible churches for another baby’s baptism.
She even helped one employee choose her baby’s name!
Apparently the program was developed by one of the bank’s executives, who heard from expecting mothers and new mothers at the company that they were overwhelmed by all the things they had to get done before the baby arrived.
I can speak to that.
It’s mentally as well as physically draining.
I was lucky to have a lot of help and advice from friends and colleagues who already had kids, but what if you didn’t have that?
Just knowing help is close at hand must make the mothers feel much more secure.

S: So, what kind of help would you have asked for if you had had access to such a service?

H: Definitely some assistance with grocery shopping after the baby came.
My husband works at home, which was a great help, both before and after I gave birth.
But we were both absolutely exhausted all the time after our daughter showed up.
Just having someone else bring us food from the supermarket would have been a godsend.
I was very grateful for the services provided by our ward office.
I asked a midwife to come to the house at one point, for example, to get some advice about breastfeeding; I wasn’t sure if I was doing it correctly.
And her advice was most helpful.
I’m glad to pay residency taxes to fund services like that.

S: Maternity concierge services also benefit their companies as the vignette points out.

H: They must be wonderful for fostering loyalty.
Employees will not only do a better job if they’re less tired and emotionally frazzled, they’re sure to be grateful to the company providing all this help.
It would certainly make me think twice about going somewhere else if I worked at a place like that.

S: The vignette later compares the maternity leave situation in the United States to that in Japan.

H: If everybody could come over here from the States and experience what a great help it is to have guaranteed paid leave, they’d go back to America and demand the federal government institute a national program at once.
The current president’s daughter has said she wants to get something done in this regard; I really hope she’s able to do it.

S: The vignette mentions that doctors recommend taking at least twelve weeks off after birth to bond with the baby and recover physically.

H: I’m sure that’s true, especially if you have a trend toward older mothers like Japan in recent years.
I was almost forty-two when our daughter was born, and I certainly needed time to recover physically.
A week or two after I went home, we needed to go to a branch of our ward office to file some paperwork.
Normally it’s just a fifteen-minute walk from our house, but in my postpartum condition, it took forty minutes.

お読み下さり、ありがとうございます♪

今年を振り返り・・・。

こんにちは。もう今年もあと3週間ほどですね。実践ビジネス英語のディクテーションだけを（アリバイのように）淡々とアップしてきましたが、ここで近況報告を―。
今年はいろいろなことが重なった年でした。特に健康面で思いもよらぬ事が起こり、病院探しや通院で、時間が砂のように流れていきました。そういうブログではないので詳しく記すことはできませんが、一病息災と受け止める覚悟ができたところです。
この間、在籍中の生徒さんとのレッスンのクオリティを維持することに徹し、新規の生徒さんはお受けしないつもりでした。ですが、復学を強く要望して下さった方、発音を一から習得したいという熱心な方をお受けすることになりました。1年の終わりに再会と新しい出会いをいただき、「一陽来復」の兆し・・・。
さて、長らく続けてきましたこのブログも、そろそろ引っ越しを考えなくてはいけないようです（はてなダイアリーは、徐々に外堀を埋められつつある感じです）。新しい年は新しいブログで迎える予定です。
本日もお読み下さってありがとうございます♪
May something wonderful happen to you today♪

実践ビジネス英語 ディクテーション (12/1,2)

こんにちは。NHKラジオ「実践ビジネス英語」”Talk the Talk”のディクテーションです。
Lesson 16のテーマは、‘Curiosity Killed the Cat?’（好奇心と感性）でした。Vignette前半では、仕事の場にふさわしい話題について、後半は不安や心配性への対処法などが話題になりました。
“Talk the Talk”ではHeatherさんの同僚の失敗談、話題のマナーについて話されています。心配性というHeatherさんは、ある映画で使われていたセリフ”Worrying means you suffer twice.”（心配することは2度苦しむことだ）を唱えると気持ちが落ち着くそうです。

Curiosity Killed the Cat?
（S: 杉田敏先生　H: Heather Howardさん）

S: Our current vignette starts off with topics of conversation that aren’t appropriate for work.
What topics would you stay away from, Heather?

H: I agree with the A&A staff.
Definitely do not talk about your salary or detailed financial matters.
A friend of mine made that mistake, and it ended up affecting his relationship with one of his coworkers.
In a nutshell, my friend had some tax-related complaints, but by talking about them, he inadvertently revealed his salary level.
It was a good deal more than the person he was talking to, and it made things awkward for a while.
My friend works very hard for his money, but it affected how the coworker viewed him.
It would have been best if the whole issue had just never been part of their relationship.
My friend told me that ever since then he’s confined complaints like that to his spouse and his parents.

S: That’s probably wise.
The conversation also talks about paying personal compliments and when and if that should be done.
What are your thoughts?

H: Tricky, hmm…very tricky.
I would say keep such remarks light, brief and infrequent.
If a man sees a female coworker with a new haircut, for example, he’s probably safe saying something along the lines of “New haircut? Looks nice.”
And leave it at that.
Don’t go into a lengthy spiel about how it brings out her eyes or anything.
And just say things like that once in a while.
Maybe once a month, tops.
If it happens too frequently, she might start to feel that that’s what you notice, instead of her work.
It is also a good idea to hold off on such compliments until you know the person very well―until you’ve established a generally relaxed platonic relationship.
And she knows that a compliment is just a compliment, not an attempt to put the moves on her.

S: What would you say to avoid too personal topics if another person brought them up?

H: I’d probably say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I have a personal policy not to talk about that subject at work.”
I just don’t want to jeopardize my relationship with anybody, so I stick to the philosophy of ‘better safe than sorry’ and just don’t talk about it.

S: Another subject under discussion in this vignette is worrying.
Are you a worrier, Heather?

H: Who? Me? Hahaha…yes, I have been a massive worrier for many years.
But, actually, I recently came across a line of movie dialogue that has greatly helped me in that regard.
Basically, a character said, “Worrying means you suffer twice.”
That really, really struck a chord with me, and it has helped me put worrying aside a lot of the time.
Like Grace and Salmans say, worrying can help us solve problems by encouraging us to envision the future and prepare for it.
But once we’ve done what we can do regarding some issue or problem, we need to let things take their course.
At that point, it’s out of our hands.
So lately, when I find myself obsessing over something, I repeat that line in my head, “Worrying means you suffer twice,” and it really calms me.

本日もお読み下さり、ありがとうございます♪