midnight raining cats and dogs

Last ngiht, I went to bed about one hour before usual time.

When I wake up, I felt having slept well. But, to my surprise, it was 1 o'clock yet. And then, it was raining cats and dogs.

At the begining of raining, it was so muggy.

There is a skylight in our upstairs.

I love this skylight because I can see the night sky every day through the skylight.

In winter, I can see the snowflakes falling on it. It's so fantastic!

However, when it is raining heavily, I'm scared of its sound.

It's reminiscents of the Hiroshima heavy rain disaster in 2014.

Our residence area suffered severe damage, a lot of landslides. 

I mulled over tending my garden that I've recently struggled with so as to take my mind off it.

After raining a lot, I can weed glasses easier, I think.

Because most weeds spread their roots so deeply and steadly, I'm always exhaused.

Our home town is located at the foot of mountain and the soil is poor, making of Decomposed granile soil.

So the plants growing here are so tough.

Rain helps me tend my garden.

Rain has a lot of pros and cons.

worldwide wish

One day, in the video of "Everyday Grammar in VOA Learning English", I saw a complaint by one of the viewers picked up.

The title is "Understanding Fast Talkers".

Because I was interested in this theme, I watched the video carefully.

The answer was very simple.

The commentator told us the following.

Most English teachers speak so slowly and detail pronunciation that English learners can listen to them.

However when the natives speak English, they usually squeeze, shorten, combine, and drop sounds especially  words like "be", "will", "have", "do", and "to" etc.

So, we, English learners should train our ear to listen for shortend grammar words.

I understood what he said well.

By the way, there were some comments blow this video.

The comments were written by the English learners from a various coutries, including Brazil, Colombia, Thai and so on.

It was fun to read those comments.

And I found a comment written by a Russian.

He wrote that he wanna watch american movies & tv shows without subtitles.

I was glad to find that people have the same wish across the world.

TOEIC exam! for the first time in my life!

Today, I took a TOEIC exam for the first time in my life.

This exam named #TOEIC公式みんなで模擬試験 is planned as a gift.

It is said that a lot of TOEIC exams have been canceled and postoponed under covid 19 pandemic.

So IIBC The Institute for International Business Communication holds this event for a lot of English learners. 

Hamachan gave me this infomation 1 or 2 weeks ago, 

To my surprise, it doesn't any fee to take the exam.

For a while, I wondered if I would try or not.

I've never taken a TOEIC exam and furthermore I had probably taken such test measuring English ability officially only once in my life.

I guess it was EIKEN test grade four that I took in my junior high school days, because I didn't remenber to take an interview examination.

So I've been afraid of taking an exam like EIKEN, TOEIC, etc.

In addition to my fear, any tests haven't seemed necessary to me till now.

However, if I can take it without a fee, I wouldn't lose anything without self-respect.

So I decided to try it!

As a result, I'm satisfied from my heart because I can achieve an average score and can know what kind of test TOEIC is.

I have a meaningful experience.

It encourages me to study English harder.