It has been a really long time since I last watched a good horror movie. Now that Halloween is approaching, it might be the best time to get back into it. When I was just a wee little girl I remember the thrill I got from watching Jaws, Arachnophobia, and The Gremlins. I miss the adrenaline rush, getting goosebumps, jumping out of my skin, curling up and hiding under a blanket, and covering my eyes or ears because it’s too scary to watch or listen to. You know it’s a good horror movie when you’re too scared to go to the toilet on your own!

To name a few, my favorites would have to be The Exorcist, The Ring, Shutter, Thirteen Ghosts, The Grudge, Shutter Island, and Silence of the Lambs.

A student recommended I watch a more recent one titled A Quiet Place. What do you recommend I watch?

One of my favorite sports stories comes from the 1974 National Hockey League player draft. 

Back then, the player selection process was painfully slow and done via telephone. As a tongue-in-cheek protest to this, Buffalo Sabres general manager Punch Imlach and PR director Paul Wieland decided to use their 11th round pick on an entirely fictitious player.

That “player” was Taro Tsujimoto, so-named for a Tsujimoto grocery store just outside Buffalo. According to the Sabres, Tsujimoto was the star of the Japanese Hockey League’s Tokyo Katanas. While the JHL was a real league, there was no team in Tokyo at that time, with katanas being a subtle-sword nod to sabres. With no way to confirm his actual existence, the mystery pick was made official and Taro’s name appeared in newspapers and league publications.

When training camp rolled around that fall, Imlach finally revealed that the pick was a hoax. The official record now shows that the Sabres made an ‘invalid claim’ or no selection at all with their pick.

Even still, Taro continues to live on today: a local sports column goes by the name ‘Taro says…’, fans sometimes chant ‘We Want Taro’ when the Sabres are winning big, and occasionally you can see a Tsujimoto jersey in the stands at the KeyBank Center. 

Trying to learn Japanese when you’re an English teacher can be a challenge. When you teach English all day, the opportunity to speak Japanese is close to impossible. Luckily, with a little help from Netflix, I can hone my Japanese listening skills. I especially like the Netflix anime series Aggretsuko for it’s honest (if not exaggerated) portrayal of the Japanese workplace.

Aggretsuko, a combination of “aggressive” and “Retsuko”, follows the mishaps of a young red panda named Retsuko. By day, she silently suffers at her boring office job where she is overworked and under-appreciated. But by night, she releases her workday stress by singing death metal. Her musical ire humorously covers nearly every topic from her horrible boss to uncomfortable shoes to meddling shop clerks.

What I enjoy the most about Aggretsuko is the juxtaposition of the cute animals with the decidedly un-cute world of office work. The characters were created by Sanrio, which is world-renowned for Hello Kitty, Purin, and other adorable characters. But Kitty-chan and Purin-kun don’t work terrible office jobs; their biggest problems are what birthday present to get their friends or getting a stomachache from eating too many apples. Aggretsuko has the nostalgia factor and brand-power for young adults who love cute Sanrio characters, but are forced to grow up and start their own, possibly awful, careers. Plus, with an episode run time of 15 minutes, I can watch two or three episodes in Japanese before I go to bed. Who says learning a new language can’t be fun?!

Retsuko by day–calm, polite, and hard-working.

Retsuko ready to unleash her grievances.

And here’s a 15 minute compilation of all of Retsuko’s rage breakdowns. 

こんにちは、アミック石井校の辰馬です。

先日、英語のことわざについて書きましたが、その中にTime flies like an arrow.（光陰矢のごとし）というのがありました。

ジョークの世界ではこれに続けて、Fruit flies like a banana.という言い回しがあります。フルーツはバナナのように飛ぶ？ 一体どういうことでしょうか。

実は、flyには「飛ぶ」という意味のほかに「ハエ」という意味もあります。同様に、likeは「～のように」という前置詞に加えて、「～が好き」という動詞の使い方もあります。

なので、Fruit flies like a banana.は、「果物バエ（ショウジョウバエ）はバナナを好む」という事実を述べているんですね！

英語には同じ単語でもたくさんの意味があります。ふさわしい意味をピッタリとあてはめられるように、ぜひ色々な文章を読んでみてくださいね♪

今日もアミックブログを訪れてくれてありがとうございます^ ^

木々の葉が色づき始め、金木犀の香る季節となりました。
生まれも育ちも愛媛東予の私としては、10月は秋祭りで胸が騒ぎます。

でも今日は、愛する地元のお祭りの話ではなく、遠く離れたアメリカのシカゴについて。
大学時代から6年間慣れ親しんだ私の大好きな街です。

アメリカ中西部Illinois州最大の都市Chicagoは、五大湖から吹く風が高層建築の間を吹き抜けることでついた愛称Windy Cityを持ちます。

NYやLAに比べると日本人には馴染みの薄い街ですが、アメリカ第３の大都市なんですよ。
有名なものをあげると、スポーツ（MLBチームはWhite SoxとCubs, NBAはMichael Jordanで有名なChicago Bullsなど）、音楽（Jazz & Blues）、美術・博物館(アメリカ３大美術館のシカゴ美術館)、建築（ダウンタウンの高層建築はシカゴ派として知られ、近代建築史においても重要）etc.
オバマ大統領が上院議員を務めていた場所としてご存知の方もいらっしゃるかもしれませんね。

シカゴ郊外に位置するオヘア空港は、世界一の離着陸量を誇る世界でも最も忙しい空港の一つとも言われます。
また、シカゴ郊外のアーリントンハイツには日本企業が多く進出していることもありミニ日本人街が形成されています。

そんなアメリカ中西部の夏は５月〜８月と短く、9月には紅葉が始まり、10月にはぐっと気温が下がり始めます。
本格的な冬は12月〜２月の間で、平均気温はマイナス5℃。時にはマイナス20℃にもなりますが、ミシガン湖から吹く強い風の影響で、体感温度はもっと低く感じられます。

この季節、外を散歩していて冷たい空気が体に触れた瞬間、一瞬で遠く離れたシカゴへ記憶が連れて行ってくれます(*´ω｀)
感覚を通して、昔の様々な記憶がよみがえってタイムトラベルが出来るなんて贅沢です☆

今この瞬間も、未来への旅行切符かもしれませんね☆

アミック英会話

There’s about 15 punctuation marks commonly used in English: the period (.), comma (,), question mark (?), exclamation point (!), apostrophe/inverted comma (‘), dash (—), hyphen (-), colon (:), semi-colon (;), parentheses(( )), brackets ([ ]), bullet points (•), slash (/), and ellipses (…). If you extend this list to typography marks, you can also add the ampersand (&), at sign (@), number sign/pound/hashmark (#), asterisk/star (*), and underscore (_).

However, the full list of punctuation only begins there–in their lifetime, a regular English reader will occasionally encounter a number of other marks. However, they probably won’t be able to tell you their names, or maybe even their purpose. Case in point, these five fun punctuation marks with equally as fun names:

¶ (pilcrow)

The pilcrow is most often seen in word processors and design programs to show where the ‘Enter’ key was hit to jump to the next line of text. However, it also has several other uses:

• Proofreaders and copyeditors write it to indicate where a new paragraph should begin
• Legal writers write it where a citation to an article, statute, law, or similar needs to be made
• Church programs use it to indicate when the congregation should stand, sit, or kneel 

It also sounds like an awesome name for a comic book villain. 

÷ or †(obelus)

Commonly known by most as the ‘division sign’, the obelus of the same name but a more dagger-type shape is also used by editors and proofreaders as a way to indicate a character is dead. It is also sometimes used to indicate a footnote.

‽ (interrobang)

The interrobang is for people who are too lazy/efficiency-minded to write out ?! or !? when wanting to expressed confused surprise. The mark was invented in the 1960s by an American ad man that wanted a symbol to indicate a rhetorical question in his company’s advertisements. After becoming somewhat fashionable in the 60s and 70s (even making its way onto some typewriter keys), the mark has all-but disappeared from use. However, it can still be found in some common computer fonts and there’s even an inverted version (or gnaborretni–interrobang backwards) for Spanish speakers: ⸘

☞ (index, manicule, or fist)

What looks like an overly-detailed emoji is actually a printing mark that dates back to the 12th century. Originally used in the margins of manuscripts to indicate corrections or notes, today it is mostly used in non-fiction to direct the reader to an especially important passage. 

◊ (lozenge)

What most might call a diamond is actually the lozenge, which has many purposes other than just soothing a sore throat or writing about poker:

• To indicate the subtotal key on a calculator (~1960s)
• On public roads in the U.S. and Canada to mark a specific lane’s use (carpool, bicycles only, etc.)
• Math things that I don’t understand

And unrelated to writing/typography but still mildly interesting, the eponymous medicine earned its name because the first cough drops originally only came in the distinct shape.

With Halloween just around the corner and all the Amic schools decorated with pumpkins and ghosts, I’ve definitely had horror on the brain. There’s just something about this time of year that makes you want to grab a pumpkin spice latte, eat an apple cider doughnut, and watch something so scary you can’t sleep at night. I will admit that I’m a huge scaredy-cat; I usually end up watching horror movies with my ears plugged and my head buried in my lap! Lucky for those of us that can’t stand the suspense of a standard 175 minute slasher movie, there’s music videos! Yes, there have been music videos created that are so disturbing that MTV refused to air them (I’m looking at you, Mr. Bungle). The beauty of scary music videos is that they are small works of art in themselves; high quality production without the cheesy dialogue. 

So without further ado, here are my top 5 scary music videos, in no particular order. Watch at your discretion.

Basement Jaxx- Where’s Your Head At

An aggressive chorus! Monkeys with human faces! Human science experiments!  An attempted escape! Despite being nearly 18 years old, this music video fills me with dread to this day. 

UNKLE- Rabbit in Your Headlight

After watching this video, I’m always left with so many questions and theories. My top theory is the man is actually an angel that’s gone mad witnessing brutality on Earth. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Radiohead- Burn the Witch

What starts off innocently enough in “Thomas the Tank Engine” land ends on a much darker note. 

Aphex Twin- Come to Daddy

I think Aphex Twin may be the music video king of horror. The children wearing masks of Richard D. James’ face live in the uncanny valley. I just hope that dog is okay. 

Tool- Stinkfist

Maynard James Keenan makes some of the creepiest videos around. His mind is a dark place. 

Thoroughly creeped out yet? What are some of your favorite scary movies or music videos?

Run away

• Meaning: Flee by running
• Example: The crowd had to run away from the burning structure with only the clothes on their backs.

Run away

• Meaning: Leave home
• Example: The little boy was unhappy about having to take a bath every day and decided to run away from home.

Run away with

• Meaning: Leave secretly with another person
• Example: She ran away with my best friend.

Run away with

• Meaning: Steal and get away with it
• Example: The robber ran away with some valuable paintings.

Run away with

• Meaning: Be misled
• Example: Don’t run away with the idea that this money will solve all your problems.

Run away with

• Meaning: Overwhelm, get the better of
• Example: He allowed his emotions to run away with him.

Run away with

• Meaning: Be superior or outstanding in something
• Example: Team USA ran away with the medal count.

Run back

• Meaning: Take someone home by car; to give someone a lift to their house
• Example: If you can wait a couple of minutes, I’ll run you back.

Run back

• Meaning: Rewind a film or cassette
• Example: Can you run it back to the beginning, please?

Run by

• Meaning: Inform someone briefly of the main points of an idea
• Example: Let me run that idea by the board before we spend too much time on it.

Run by

• Meaning: Briefly stop at a location for a particular purpose
• Example: Can you run by the store for milk?

RUN DOWN meaning – Phrasal verbs with RUN

Run down

• Meaning: Hit someone with a car or other vehicle and injure or kill them
• Example: He was run down while crossing the main road.

Run down

• Meaning: Criticize someone or an organisation, often unfairly
• Example: My sister is always running me down in front of my friends.

Run down

• Meaning: Find something or someone after searching for a long time
• Example: I finally managed to run down that report. I had filed it incorrectly.

Run down

• Meaning: Lose power slowly
• Example: If you don’t switch off the car lights, you will run the battery down.

Run down

• Meaning: Read quickly a list or other short text
• Example: Running down the list of suggestions, I can see three we can discard immediately.

Run down

• Meaning: Reduce the size or stock levels of a business, often with a view to closure
• Example: The board of directors have decided to run down the stocks held in storage prior to offering the company for sale.

Run for it

• Meaning: To run very quickly in order to escape from someone or something
• Example: As soon as he looked the other way, we ran for it.

My favorite film genre is probably the documentary. In particular, I like ones that introduce me to some sort of underground world or subculture I didn’t previously know about, or those that take some everyday thing I’ve never really thought about and explain its history.

I don’t watch them as often as I’d like, but here are some of the most memorable docs I’ve watched over the past few years:

A Map For Saturday (2007)

There was a time in my life when I was obsessed with the idea of quitting my job and going backpacking around the world by myself. Around that time, I watched A Map For A Saturday, an indie documentary that prepared me for the realities of long-term travel: the ups and downs of making new friends then having to say goodbye, the lack of a real sense of ‘home’, and the difficulties in navigating a place where you don’t speak the language. Having now done this type of trip, I appreciate the film even more as it paints an incredibly accurate picture of the backpacker lifestyle (and is a great way to relive it when it you can’t get back out on the road). 

Icarus (2017)

I love documentaries that seem to start down one road then take a completely unexpected turn down another. In Icarus, filmmaker Bryan Fogel enlists the help of Russian doctor Grigory Rodchenkov to try and win a challenging amateur cycling race by using undetectable performance-enhancing drugs. Shortly after, Rodchenkov reveals he was the mastermind of a state-sponsored doping program that allowed dirty Russian athletes to go undetected at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. From there, the film shifts from sports doc to geopolitical thriller as Rodchenkov spills the details of the scandal while trying to avoid being ‘silenced’ by the Russian government.

I Know That Voice (2012)

It’s basically 90 minutes of voice actors doing their characters’ voices on camera. For that reason alone, it’s awesome. 

The Barkley Marathons: The Trail That Eats Its Young (2014)

There’s nothing like watching a movie about insanely fit people while you sit on your couch eating snacks. The Barkley Marathon is an invitation-only ultramarathon that consists of five 20-miles laps through the hilly and wooded Tennessee countryside, all in less than 60 hours. The race’s charm comes through its quirks: the race’s entry fee is $1.60, a personal essay, and a license plate from the runner’s home; the waypoints hidden along the course are old paperback books the competitors must tear the assigned page out of; and the run is initiated by race founder Gary Cantrell lighting a cigarette. The race is so difficult that in its 32-year history, only 18 runners have finished in time. 

The Search for General Tso (2014)

In America, there’s probably not a town of decent size without at least one Chinese restaurant. The reason why I had never really thought about, but after watching this film I learned the interesting history of how Chinese food (well, the Americanized version) spread throughout America, the history of the fortune cookie, and why you’ll never find General Tso’s chicken served anywhere in China.