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11/20/2023 (#23 this year)
We (the teachers) have a teacher training1 afternoon tomorrow. I expect you are all
happy because you get to go home early. Ha ha. Then there is a national holiday on
Thursday, so you have a lot of time at home. It will give you a chance to do lots ofstudying for your tests!! Our teacher training day should be interesting. It is always fun
to learn new things that we can use in the classroom. A recent trend 2 has been to tryand use more technology in the classrooms. AI software like Chat GPT, DeepL, and allof the others are here to stay, so we need to work out how to use them to teach. We
cannot just ignore them. We are living in interesting times.
10 differences

Last week’s answer

Something you didn’t know about Michelangelo:
1. Michelangelo was first noticed when he made a counterfeit 3 Greek statue and tried
to sell it. The con 4 was discovered, but his skill was noticed.
2. He very rarely signed his work, but he did hide his face in many of his paintings.
3. He designed the fortifications 5 for the city of Florence during its rebellion6. That is
one of the reasons why he was sentenced to death7 by Pope Clement.
4. He was also a poet and he wrote over 300 sonnets and poems.
5. He kept working until the week before he died at the age of 88.
6. His full name was Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.
7. He very rarely bathed or changed his clothes. He only cared about work.

Secret Michelangelo Room
Do you know who Michelangelo is? He was a famous artist who lived
from 1475 to 1564. Maybe you don’t know his name, but you have definitely
seen his most famous painting. It is the roof of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
While he was painting theSistine Chapel, there was arebellion in his home townof Florence. Michelangelo
went to help the rebellion
and stopped work on thechapel for two years. Therebellion was crushed8 andMichelangelo
wassentenced to death by Pope
Clement. The pope was controlled by the Medici family who controlled mostof Italy. Michelangelo was afraid for his life so he escaped and hid in a room
under a chapel9. His supporters brought him food and he stayed there for twomonths before Pope Clement lifted the death sentence. While he was there,
he passed his time by drawing on the walls with charcoal 10. In 1975, over 400years after he left the room, staff in the chapel found the hidden entrance tothe room and opened it. They were amazed to find all of the drawings on thewall. Now, fifty years after the room was found, it has been opened to thepublic. If you go to Italy, you should try to go and see it.

1.teacher training 教員研修会 2.trend 流行 3.counterfeit 偽造品 4.con うそ5.fortification 防御設備 6.rebellion 反乱 7.sentence to death に死刑を宣告する 8.crush
a rebellion 反乱を鎮圧する 9.chapel チャペル 10.charcoal 木炭

One thing we can do to help the environment

World record
My daughter likes doing magic tricks. We sometimes buy one when we go to thehundred yen shop and sometimes she learns how to do them by watching YouTube
videos. However, I don’t think she will be able to beat this week’s world record. Avery
Emerson Fisher is 13 years old and she has the world record for the most magic tricks
performed underwater. She went into an aquarium1 in San Francisco and performed 38
magic tricks in 3 minutes. I think it would be difficult to do 38 magic tricks in threeminutes on land, let alone under the water. She practiced for three months before she
attempted the record, and she even earned a Scuba2 Magician certificate. I did not knowsuch a thing existed. She is only 13 years old, so who knows what other records she isgoing to be able to break.

Be yourself. Everyone else isalready taken. Oscar Wilde–#9 Buy secondhand things
Many people, myself included3, don’t like to buy secondhand4 things.
There is a stigma5 associated with them. Buying secondhand makes us feelashamed6 because it seems like we can’t afford to buy new things. Perhaps
it is just me that feels like that. Perhaps it is my generation. There are many
more secondhand shops around now than when I was growing up and it isa lot more acceptable7 to buy old clothes and furniture. It is a great way ofhelping the environment. It takes 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton
shirt. If two people buy a shirt, this is over 5,000 liters. If one person buys
a shirt that another person has finished with, that is only 2,700 liters. By
reusing things, we can save on resources, we can reduce the number ofthings that end up in the trash, and we can save money. This is true withother things, not just clothes. Pieces of furniture are often just thrownaway when they are still good. Appliances8 as well. Some people take oldpieces of furniture and appliances and fix them, or restyle them, making
them look amazing. There is a whole new style of vintage9 fashion wherepeople buy old clothes and remake them. I am going to start buying moresecondhand clothes.

1.aquarium 水族館 2.SCUBA(Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) 潜水用呼吸装
置 3.myself included 私自身も含めて 4.secondhand 中古品 5.stigma 烙印 6.ashamed 恥ずかしい 7.acceptable 受諾できる 8.appliance 電化製品 9.vintage 古い