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11/27/2023 (#24 this year)
The first Hallelujah practice was last week. It was wonderful. It always takes everyone awhile to sit in the right seats, but it is always beautiful to hear the song. I don’t know
how many times I have heard Handel’s Messiah, but I love it. It always makes me thinkthat Christmas is close and, I’m sure you know, I love Christmas. And we lit theChristmas tree last Friday. That is always beautiful as well. It didn’t snow as much as I
expected1. I feel that there was more snow this time last year. I wonder if this winterwill be mild2 because the summer was so hot. What do you think? Life is much easier
without snow, but if it doesn’t snow it is more proof3 that we have broken Earth.
10 differences

No-kill Caviar
Do you like caviar? The most famous caviar in the world is the black typewith small eggs and it can be very expensive. Caviar is made from the eggs ofthe sturgeon fish. In Japan, ikura is very famous and it is a type of caviar, eventhough it comes from salmon. In fact, the word ikura comes from the Russian
word ikra, which means caviar. To make caviar and ikura, you have to kill thefish to get the eggs out. There is no way of knowing how good the eggs will beand many fish are killed too soon or too late for the eggs to become caviar.
There has been a shortage of7 caviar recently because the sturgeon has been
fished to danger levels. However, a German scientist called Angela Kohler hascome up with a way to take the eggs from fish without having to kill them.
Sturgeon lay eggs when they are 8 years old. She uses ultrasound8 to monitor
the fish and when they are ready, they gently massage the fish until they
release the eggs naturally. Because it is natural, an enzyme9 is activated thatstabilizes10 the eggs, which means they don’t need to use preservatives tostore the eggs. They can stay the same for up to 9 months. They are also very
clean because there is no blood or other cells stuck to the eggs. All of this isvery good, but the best thing is that they don’t have to kill the fish.

Last week’s answer

Something you didn’t know about caviar
1. The Russian word for caviar is “ikra”, but the English word caviar came from theTurkish word “havya”, which came from the Persian word for egg, “khavyer”.
2. Caviar was once used as a treatment for depression4. It can certainly help,
3. The best caviar can cost $30,000 for 1 kg.
4. Caviar is healthy, in small quantities. It has a lot of protein and good fat, along witha lot of vitamins and nutrients5. You shouldn’t eat too much, though.
5. July 18th is national caviar day. I don’t know why.
6. Caviar should be eaten with a mother of pearl6 spoon because silver or stainlesssteel will change the taste of the caviar. Do you have one? I don’t.

1.as expected 予想していたより 2.mild 温暖な 3.proof 証拠 4.depression うつ病
5.nutrient 栄養物 6.mother of pearl 真珠層 7.shortage of～不足 8.ultrasound 超音波
9.enzyme 酵素 10.stabilize 安定させる

One thing we can do to help the environment

World record
I like to try and find records that I think we could beat and this week’s record is certainly
possible. The world record for the greatest distance to throw a grape and catch it in themouth is 106 m. What do you think? An American called Paul E. Lyday managed to get
this world record in 2009 and it hasn’t been beaten since then. Maybe we can try when
the weather gets a bit nicer. I need to make a list of all these records we are going to try
to break. The problem with this record is throwing the grape far enough. I know that I
could not throw a grape over 100 m. I would dislocate1 both my shoulders again. Lookingat the world record video, they used a catapult2 to fire the grape at Paul. What do youthink? When the snow melts and the weather warms up, you can try firing grapes at me.
Or, do you think you should be the ones to try and catch the grape while I fire it? We canthing about the logistics3 when we get a bit closer.

A goal is not always meant to be reached. Itoften serves simply as something to aim at.
–Bruce Lee#9 Switch off heaters at nightThis is something that I already do, but it is one way that we can help theenvironment. Up here, in Hokkaido, it gets pretty cold and we need to use
our heaters. That is obvious4. However, we don’t need to use them at night.
We can use more blankets on our beds to keep warm that way and switch
the heaters off. It depends on the type of heater you have because more
modern ones can be more economical5, but they still use about 84 kilowatthours of electricity per week if you use them at night. For comparison, awashing machine uses about 1.5 kilowatt-hours. If everybody in Hokkaido
uses their heaters overnight, that amount of electricity starts to add up.
Right now, the majority of the electricity produced in Japan comes fromburning oil, coal, and natural gas, which all releases carbon dioxide into theatmosphere. If we can use more blankets on our beds and switch off theheater, we will cut the amount of CO2 released because of us.

1.dislocate 打球する 2.catapult 射出機 3.logistics 物流 4.obvious 明らかに 5.economical 効率的な