		みんな元気？忙しい？サッカーに釘付けなの？？？ Hello Everyone! No doubt you are all busy with whatever you are doing and just a little too busy to read the mag but don’t give up as reading will make your English improve and you know if you keep a book with all the new words you find in the mag and look them up in your dictionary then you will be doing even better. It is like anything …the more you do something the better you will get. So the plan is to give you some new and exciting words and thanks for the suggestions and then you can write back to me with all those new words! So let’s get on with the news and topics for the week as I am sure you will be glued to the TV watching the soccer! At the moment it is the United States that seem to have gone from being very apathetic to being soccer crazy. It is amazing how winning at something that then make you love it! Anyway please let me know how Japan is doing as we don’t here much about Japan on the TV. Since we are all into soccer this mag will be about round things…….
＜玉を思わず拾っちゃの....＞ Topic- Gambling with balls I had never ever seen the game called ‘Pachinko’ in my entire life. It seemed to be a little like the poker machines in Australia until I saw all those little balls. The balls were everywhere. They were in the machine spinning around and people were putting them into the machine from big containers. Then they were on the floor of the pachinko shop as well and I made a mistake by picking one ball up. Everyone turned and looked at me as if I had done something very wrong and indeed I had. I learnt that it was bad pachinko ‘ettiquette’ to pick one off the floor. It was also worse to actually use it in the machine. I went and bought some balls thinking that 4 yen a ball was very very cheap. I was soon to discover that although this was cheap the pachinko machine was able to swallow all my balls before I could understand what to do. I still did not understand until the lady beside me lent over and showed me how to use the center knob to change the pressure which controlled how fast the balls were release. That was great and I thought I understood but two minutes later I ran out of balls and called it a day! It was great to try pachinko and maybe next time I will win something but I don’t think so. ＊called it a day ：それでおしまい！
		＜もしも未来が見えたら....＞ Topic- Look into the crystal ball…… Wouldn’t it be great to see into the future. You could make so many decisions differently. You could pick the winner of the Japan Cup or perhaps meet the man or woman of your dreams a lot sooner. The benefits of seeing into the future could really make your life a lot easier. On the other hand it could make your life very complicated. Now we spend so much time on the Internet looking for things or just chatting with people but if you had your own crystal ball then that would change everything. You would be spending all of your future trying to look into the future. You would need to know what would happen to you and others tomorrow and the next day and the next. You would spend so much time looking into the crystal ball that soon the image that you would see of yourself in the crystal ball would be you looking into a crystal ball. So I guess our lives are much more interesting without the ball afterall!
		＜地球の行方は.....＞ Topic- Is the Globe is getting warmer? This sounds like a topic about a light globe but no it is not. Here in Australia this winter has been a little odd as we have had warm days where it is just like summer. The weather forecaster tells us that it is just odd and is nothing to worry about as this happens sometimes and no one can ever predict the weather. Well others say that the word is getting warmer and soon the whole of the world will be feeling the heat with hotter summers. I do not know who to believe but I think that we all need to do more to save the earth. Start with small things like using the same shopping bags instead of getting new ones all the time. A better idea is use only cloth bags and use them everytime. When they get dirty you can wash them. So let’s get together and start to do something instead of thinking that it will all be ok. It will not be ok for our children’s children if we do nothing now to save this big ball we live on. Don’t do it for you but do it for your grandchildren and their children
＜シドニ-へいったら寄ってみて！＞ In the park If you are planning a trip to Sydney then go to the botanical gardens and you will see these very funny birds called cockatoos. These guys are taking turns at having a drink from the water tap and I was very impressed because they were very polite with one another. They all waited but then one of them just after this picture was taken thought it was all too serious so he hung upside down from the tree. This is at the Sydney Opera House end of the park and they are usually there between 4pm and 5pm and the show is free! ＜それじゃ-またネ！いつも笑顔で楽しんでネ！＞ Well that is all for this week…have fun and laugh a lot… Ajet Blondy ＜キーワード＞ Glued to …..( this means you are watching something and cannot move away from it) Apathetic ( not interested in something) Call it a day ( to finish something…..or to give up on something)