みなさんこんにちは。

明日、2月14日はバレンタインデーですね！

日本では「女の子が好きな男の子にチョコレートをあげる」という習慣になっていますが、

アメリカでは男の子や女の子は関係なく、好きな人はもちろん、大切な人や家族にあげたりもします。

また、チョコレートをあげるという決まりもなく、クッキーやキャンディーなどをあげたりします。

3月14日のホワイトデーもありません！自分が大切だと思っている人に自由にあげるのです。

ハロウィンやクリスマスもそうですが、海外から伝わるイベントは日本にやって来るときに

違ったイベントになっていますね。

もしかしたら、日本の節分やひな祭りなどのイベントが、海外では違う祭りになっているかも？

It’s almost my birthday! Since I’m getting older, I don’t really want to make a big deal about it. Instead, drawing inspiration from a popular photo meme, let’s take this chance to look back ten years at the Ryan of the year 2009. What was this Ryan like? What was this pre-Hello!s Ryan doing? In order to find out some of these answers, and for the sake of your entertainment, I’ve trolled the depths of my social media account. 

First off, here is a picture of me from that time, taken with my little sister Karalyn at her apartment in Chicago. Incidentally, this is one of my favorite pictures of the two of us together. Back then we were extremely good friends, and we’re still pretty tight, I think! But we don’t have the same nearly constant back-and-forth on social media that we seemed to when we were ten years younger.   

What I was eating in 2009: Lots of pizza, apparently. Also, I wrote scads about going to the farmer’s market, so I think I was eating and cooking a lot of local organic produce, including tons of beans and legumes (I was a very strict vegan at the time). It seems I was also into foraging, and reportedly ate wild mushrooms and raspberries, on occasion. 

What I was reading in 2009: “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”

What I was writing in 2009: Poems. I tried submitting my poetry to different literary journals, but it seems like they all got rejected. I guess it’s for the best!

What music I listened to in 2009: I was in the throes of my Baroque-mania, which meant I was constantly plugged into C.P.E. Bach, Vivaldi, and Rameau. 

New experiences in 2009: I guess I learned how to drive stick shift. Being a cheapskate, I tried cutting my own hair in the mirror (starting an unfortunate series of self-inflicted choppy/uneven hairstyles).

Low point of 2009: My apartment in was broken into while I was away at a family party. Out of all the things they could have taken, they decided upon my school bag, filled with my assignments, notebooks, and readings necessary for my school finals, as well as a USB drive with my final papers on it (and, less importantly, but still disappointingly, my iPod).

High points of 2009: A bird built its nest against my bedroom window so I could closely watch it live its life and raise its chicks. I bought a harpsichord(!!!) at a very reasonable price. Also, I won the David Strauss Prize in American Studies at my college.  

I hope that this blast from the past was interesting to you and that you could get to know me (or, at least, the me of 2009) better! 

Ryan 

気付けば2019年になってすでに１か月半が過ぎてしまいましたね。

そしてまだまだ寒い日が続いていますね。

関東地方では雪が降ったりだとか。

生徒と話していると、風邪やインフルエンザがまだまだ流行っているそうで。

まだまだ油断できませんね。

マスクをして、手洗いうがいを欠かさずにしたいものですね。

Hey y’all!

   So as y`all know from my last blog post Emily, Michael and I were planning a trip to Hanoi, Vietnam. Well…. We`re back and had a wonderful time! However, our trip didn’t start off as smoothly as we would have liked. Since we are American, we all had to have a visa to enter the country. Emily was able to get hers on time, but Michael and I weren’t so lucky. Long story short, we had to stay in Osaka an extra day. With that extra day though we did get to go to the Nissen Noodle Museum which was super cool! After spending an extra day in Japan we did finally make it to Hanoi. We went all over the city to places such as the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Literature Temple. The food was by far the best part of the trip! We ate so much Pho and Banh Mis` and it all tasted so unbelievably good.

    Although our trip started off a little rough, it was still such a killer good time! Traveling with Michael and Emily is always fun and Vietnam was a great country to visit. The people were so nice and the sights were just breathtaking.

See y’all in class!

   Sam

2018年第3回の英検を受検したみなさん、お疲れさまでした！ε=ヾ(*・∀・)/

３級以上だと二次試験があります、あとひと踏ん張りです！

二次試験の練習も、ハローズで一緒に頑張りましょうね！！

ﾌｧｲﾄｰｰ!( ﾟﾛﾟ)乂(ﾟﾛﾟ )ｲｯﾊﾟｰｰﾂ!!