Hey everyone!

Hey LeafCuppers!

I"m stil alive an kicking, and I feel the need to write again.

Anyway, I was wondering about something when it comes to learning a foreign language. And so, I have a question to ask. How do you study English?

The reason why I ask is because I myself am studying Japanese. So far, I've found that immersing myself in Japanese on a regular basis is key to my learning. I can study all I want, but if I don't have the proper environment, everything I have learned will be forgotten.

This includes listening to Japanese music, watching Japanese TV/movies/anime, and reading Japanese magazines/manga/newspapers. I make the vast majority of my input Japanese. In a sense, I kind of make myself Japanese. I eat it, sleep it, and breathe it.

I think the same is needed for English. You must have an English environment for a good part of your time. This will reinforce what you know, and even teach you new things. If you want to know more about this, I recommend a site called: www.antimoon.com

This site was written by a guy who learned English doing the very things that he discusses. I think many of you will find it both useful and interesting.

New Year's Resolution

I have to admit, the reason why i have not been posting is that there hasn't been much for me to say. My Winter holidays were OK. I went to a few parties on Christmas and New Year's Eve, but there was nothing really special that happened (although the Christmas party with some of my LeafCup students was pretty fun).

Lately, nothing has really happened, and I haven't really done anything. This is partly due to the fact that a lot of my friends have gone home for the holidays. It's also partly due to the fact that I admittedly have no money, but we won't get into that.

Ultimately, I've decided to make an effort to do more of a variety of things and make my life more exciting. In fact, it's one of my New Year's resolutions. The other is to improve my Japanese, which is also in an effort to make my life more interesting.

"Me starting a blog...again." OR "Belief"

I had a blog a long time ago. I abandoned it with the excuse that I was "too busy." I now know that that kind of excuse is ridiculous. I liked blogging, so why would I quit. I think it was because I had suddenly found myself in Japan and I didn't know waht to make of it all. And because I didn't know what to make of it, I didn't know what to write.

I now have a better sense of what I want to say, and suddenly so I'm now happy to start writing a blog again. I think I'm mostly going to write about my reflections on my experiences here in Japan. It'll be challenging for me, but I think I can manage.

And the first thing that I will talk about is my desire to learn Japanese and become an actor here in Japan. I know it may sound like a strange goal with me not being Japanese and all, but I think it can happen. I honestly find that when it comes to any goal, belief has to come first and foremost. If we don't believe, we are certainly not going to accomplish.

The second part of it is stating your goals to tiher people, like I'm doing right now. I'm stating to you, my readers, what I want to do. Making it known to others makes you acocuntable to the people that you tell this to, thus reinforcing your goals. It's amazing how heavily other people influence your diligency in pursuing a goal.

Anyway, I have chat hosting session at Leafcup pretty soon, so I'll have to say goodbye for now. See ya!