January CROSSROADS Language Studio’s Newsletter 2007

2007 is the Year of the Boar. People born in this year are
reputed to be pure of heart, generous and kind withtremendous “inner strength”; and, then there is my friend
Claude …
Claude is the most pig-headed person you could ever meet!
And dangerous too! When he’s in his car, he’s a regular roadhog; won’t let anyone pass him on the highway.
One day, while pigging out at lunch and embarrassing agroup of friends he was dinning with, he got into anargument with one of the women in the group who told him
he was a male chauvinist pig! He was very upset about thisand, thinking it was unfair to say so, told the lady that she
was talking hogwash. Tempers flared and the situation
became very tense until one of the more level-headed
members of the group started to ham it up while doing animpersonation of Claude loosing his temper. This had thedesired effect of turning the mood into one of fun and all themembers started to laugh,… all, that is, except Claude! He
became even more agitated and stomped out of therestaurant telling the lady as he went that what she had tosay was total pig’s arse!
“Well”, commented one of the guests as he left, “you can’t
make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”“Yes”, agreed one of the others, ‘”and,when Claude gets going, he goes thewhole Hog, doesn’t he?!”Claude, still upset, jumped into hiscar and sped off. He hit the highway
This is Claude on oneof his better days.

On the highway, Claude wouldn’t let any other driver
get near him! If there was a car in front, he would speed up
and overtake it. If one tried to do the same to him, hewould speed up again, swerve, or do anything he could todiscourage the other motorist from getting past him!
Behind the wheel on that day, Claude went hog wild!
This behaviour finally caught the attention of the pigs
who were on patrol along that particular stretch of
highway and soon Claude could hear the sound of theirsiren closing in on him. Claude was forced to pull-over. The
officer got out and walked over to Claude. Claude started
to sweat like a pig as, in spite of his rough and readycharacter, he had never been in trouble with the law
before. It looked like Claude’s bacon was well and truly
cooked.
Now, Claude is ham fisted at the best of times, andwhen, in his agitated mood, he turned to face the officer, hesomehow caught his sleeve on part of the dashboard. This
startled him and in his confusion, he began to squeal like astuck pig uncontrollably.
“I have my rights”, shouted Claude, along with manyother incomprehensible expressions of his frustration.
The officer picking this up said sarcastically, “Yes, andpigs might fly too, but for now I’m going to write you aticket. And if you want to save your bacon next time, I
suggest you keep within the speed limit!”
HAPPY NEW YEAR Claude, and to all our students at
Crossroads too! And, drive carefully this year, please!!

(These words are in colour in the story)
reputed ～といわれている
flared めらめらと燃え上がる
impersonation 物まね
agitated 気持ちをかき乱される
stomped ドタドタと足を踏み鳴らしてsped 急いで
swerve 急に車線をはずれる
discourage あきらめさせる
uncontrollably 自制できずに
frustration 鬱憤
sarcastically 皮肉っぽくJoshua Says: It’s the New Year and I want to start out this year wishing all our students,teachers and staff all the best of good fortune in the coming months, throughout this year
and on into the far future. We are planning more great events, parties (see P3 for shots oflast month’s Xmas party), performance nights and more this year and I am looking forward
to enjoying all of this with you. “Happy New Year” to everyone at Crossroads!
Junko Says: I heard that NHK’s new English Lessons program is using songs to teachEnglish. I feel we finally have an ally! As you know, we have English Lesson programs using
various interesting subjects in our Cosmopolitan courses, one of which is English throughsongs. These Cosmopolitan courses have developed from our long experience in teaching
English to achieve two purposes; one , of course, is to develop English naturally, and the otheris to develop a natural feeling for the need to learn English in order to study the subject.
Alice Says: Have you heard of a web site called “pandra.com”? It’s a radio website. It wascreated by something called the Music Genome Project, which can analyze the kind ofmusic you like and find other songs with the same style, tone and feeling. All you need to
do is type in the name of a song, an artist or group that you like, and the website will dothe rest! I’ve found lots of new and interesting songs there. I think it’s fantastic.
Iain Says: I Don’t believe in superstition, but on New Year’s day an interesting thing
happened. On New Year’s I always go with my wife to the temple, but I don’t like to waste mymoney on those fortune papers. This year my wife was so excited to see that she received theSuper Lucky fortune. I rolled my eyes. Then the paper said that we would find something lost.
I said I didn’t lose anything, but then I remembered I did lose my magic linking rings. The
next day I went to a party and my friend told me that he found my rings! Hmmmm….
Greg Says: How many resolutions have you broken already???? While I was in Australia I
read an interesting book and part of it was a verse that could be used as a resolution. It goes asfollows: Do more than exist – live; Do more than touch – feel; Do more than look – observe; Do
more than read – absorb; Do more than hear – listen; Do more than listen – understand; Do
more than think – ponder; Do more than plan – act; Do more than talk – say something. I hope
you all stick with some of the resolutions you have made.

Adrienne Says: In one of my classes it was my turn to tell about an embarrassing

experience I once had. I couldn’t think of anything. But, now I can remember an experience.
Just two weeks ago, I went to my son’s school to talk to his teacher. I got lost and walkedpast my son’s classroom and the children looked at me and giggled. All the children in thehallway looked at me and giggled. I felt embarrassed. My son was embarrassed too!

Dean Says: So, another year is upon us. It’s interesting that as we
get older, each year seems to go by faster. I spent my New Yearholiday on Kyushu, visiting Fukuoka, a very beautiful city with its
little canals and bridges. This year I would like to visit many newplaces in Japan and do some trekking, possibly in Kagoshima. Whatwould you like to accomplish or achieve in the Year of the Boar?
William Says: My friend went to Nagano to enjoy the mountain slopes over
the New Year’s holiday. Unfortunately, there was no snow, only ice on the skiruns. It was a dangerous few days trying to negotiate the slippery slops. Thebar at night for the après-ski drink was the only surefire part of the trip!
Yuka Says: During the New Year holiday I went to Kyoto with my family to visit some of thefamous temples and shrines and we saw a lot of people swarming around. Every shrine andtemple was interesting, but “Fushimi-Inari” shrine (its guardian deity is a fox) wasunforgettable. We climbed the mountain passing through hundreds of red “Torii” (gate)wishingfor good luck. It took almost an hour to finish the tour. We had kitsune-udon which contains
abura-age, the fox’s favorite. All in all, we had a great time, but our muscles ached the next day.

Sachiko Says: The New Year is here. My husband and I have been busy with business and I still
haven’t finished my New Year’s preparations! Last year was very warm. When we were children,
we had a heavy snow-fall every year and we had a happy time then. We used to have snow ballfights with our friends every day. When it snows, it brings back memories, but nowadays weseldom get any snow in Matsuyama. Oh dear! I had so many things to do for New Year’s, arrange
flowers, buy food…. Oh, my God!! (Photo: Sachiko, on the right, and her classmate Kazumi)

A special event, “twoman” skit from theCosmopolitan Acting
Class students,Matsumi and Eiko –“Yoga for Beginners”

A “captivated”audience

Iain “tricking” us with alittle help from Katsumi

A little background musicfrom Adrienne

And we had REAL Christmas
Pudding, thanks to Alice andthe Cosmo Cooking students

The Crossroads Cosmo Singingstudents – Ryoko, Kyoko,
Katsumi and Naoko entertain us
with a Christmas carol

Courses you can take at CROSSROADS
NET LESSONS:
Are you too busy to come to CROSSROADS to study? Try ourlessons on the internet! --- It’s CROSSROADS in your homeor office! You get CROSSROADS’ great teachers, teaching
programs, even classmates, all on-line! Call for details.

GENERAL COURSES:
2 x’s 60mins / week
1 x’s 90mins / week
Private 1 x / week
Semi-Private 1 x /week

NET SITE OF THE MONTH:
If you have an interest in boar (not “boring”) people FRENCH with Natacha
SPANISH with Patricio
check out: http://www.holymtn.com/astrology/pig.htm
RUSSIAN with Natasha
NET NOTEBOOK: Don’t forget to take a look at theInternet activity notebook in our open-house. You’ll findgames, news and English learning sites.

GERMAN with Marita & Matthias
CHINESE with Noriko
KOREAN with Kim

MOTHER & CHILD, group or private
KIDS, group or private
COSMOPOLITAN COURSES:“Singing in English” with Alice
Yoga with Dean
Guitar with William“Cooking in English” with Alice“Magic English” with Iain
Piano with Adrienne
Acting with Alice
NETLESSONS:
group or private

Phone: 0120-21-7594
Tel: (089) 921-7595
Fax: (089) 921-7319
E-mail:info@crossroadsco.com
Web Site: www.crossroadsco.com