Welcome to LRS

Start of the Media Club

2006-01-05T16:43:00.000-08:00

Today was the start of a new club. The Media Club taste tested different coffees in Gastown. The Salty Tongue won the award for best coffee. At the end of January we will provide the students of LRS with a small newsletter with more information about coffee shops in Gastown.

Photos courtesy of In Sik Jin for Blog

2005-12-19T12:49:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures from the presentation at the graduation ceremony on Dec. 2nd., 2005. taken by In Sik Jin.

Christmas Decoration Party..

2005-12-05T13:04:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures from the Christmas Decoration Party in LRS.
Welcome to LRS's Christmas Party on Dec. 22nd.~!

Presentation by Catherine 's mid intermediate class Ryoko, Eri, Maki, Young Mi, Daisuke, and Jung Ah

2005-12-02T13:37:00.000-08:00

Korean and Japanese Couples
We would like to talk about Korean and Japanese couples. Most Korean people who were friends become a couple. Usually a man is older than a woman, but nowadays sometimes a man is younger than a woman.
Korean women wait until men make the first move. In Japan we also start from friends, but before becoming a couple, we can approach each other.
When Korean couples have a date, usually men pay for it, sometimes women do. Therefore, if a Korean guy pays the restaurant bill, there is a huge possibility that he likes you.
When Japanese couples go out together, we usually split the bill. When the couple shares some food, usually the woman served the man.
In Korea the most common places for dating are movie theatres, cafes, amusement parks, and driving. After having fun, usually men take women home.
In Japan dating spots are similar to Korean. When Japanese couple goes shopping, some men will carry the bags, but some men still have an old way of thinking. In that case the men won't help women. Korean young couples celebrate many special days, but commonly couples celebrate valentines day, white day, 100th day aniversary, 1000th day aniversary, adn so on. AS a present, men give to women flowers , perfume, or couple rings.
When Korean couples want to break up, gradually they stop meeting and calling each other. Finally they separate. Until getting married, coupels don't live together, because it is not common in Korea.
In Japan couples spend time together until getting married. Nowadays many women get married being already pregnant. Of course almost all parents hope that the bride will be pregnant after getting married.
Usually Korean men propose to women with a ring if it's time to get married, and then they meet their parents and prepare the wedding. Most people have western style wedding, after that they have small traditional Korean wedding wearing Han-bok.
In Japan the couples usually spend a lot of money for their wedding ceremony. They invite as many people as they want. During the reception, the bride changes her dress two or three times.
Anyway Korean and Japanese couples hope they will be happy forever.

Presentation by Akira Ichinose

2005-12-02T13:02:00.000-08:00

I'm going to talk about flying the friendly skys while pardom my French shit-faced. When I stayed in New Zealand, I rented a house with 6 good friends. That's why they had a farewell party for me on the day before I left for Japan. We drank beer, wine, so-ju, and Jaapnese sake.
Eveyone knew that I couldn't hold my drink, but because of the excitement it turned out that I could drink a lot that night. From time to time I have an almost supernatural ability to drink. I got way too drunk. Finally I slept on the floor in the living room, so they abondoned me and didn't wake me up and left me there, even though I had to wake up early in the morning, and I hadn't finished packing my bags. The next morning I got up later than I'd expected, so I said goodbye to them quickly and then I dashed out, because my frined was supposed to take me to the airport. When I got in her car, she said that she smelt alcohol from me, and my foot was still red. Anyway I got to the airport on time and walked drunkenly into the airport. I tried to keeo me cool, but I couldn't. Even though I was in front of a customs officer, my face must have looked stupidly happy. At last, I safely got on the airplane, and then we landed and I had to get a bus at another airport to change from domestic line to international line. I asked soem people for directions whenever I got lost. If I hadn't got drunk, I wouldn't have asked anything because I was still drunk at the time.
While I was on the bus, I was standing behind some couple. I heard that they were whispering that they smelt something from somewhere. I knew that they noticed smell from me. I was annoyed how they kept talking about me. That's why I kept exhaling on them until they got off the bus. I think it was such a strange act, but I was chuckeling at that time, and after that I couldn't stop laughing. I was so happy until I got on the international line, but my feeling was getting unwell after the airplane took off. Therefore I went to the washroom so many times. At first I came and went between the washroom and my seat, but finally I couldn't get out of the washroom. I almost died there. For 5 hours the toilet was my best friend, and I spent almost half of the flight there. When I arrived at Narita airport at last, my friend came to meet me so smiley, because he really wanted to go drinking with me. Then it started all again.

2005-11-23T22:51:00.000-08:00

If you are in Vancouver December the 3rd, come down to Robson Square (Robson and Howe) and watch some short films for free at Vancouver's outdoor film festival: Toquefest. I'm acting in a short film that will be playing sometime after eight called Henry Dobbins Dress warm because it's outside. Wear a toque, eh ?
-Kevin

Presentation by Masayo

2005-11-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

Can you guess what I'm talking about?
I'll talk about a place and I'll give you 3hints about my topic.
1. 60% of Japanese men and 50% fo Japanese women enjoy reading there.
2. Females take 3 times longer than males.
3. An average person visits there 2,500 times a year about 6~8 times a day.
Yes, the answer is "Toilet"

You spend about 3 years of your life on the toilet.
It is reported by the World Toilet Organination. WTO is going to hold a World Toilet Summit in Singapore. And they have started a World Toilet College. It sounds funny but it's a serious fact. Nowadays poor toilet conditions are a worldwide problem. They say that there are 2.4 billion people in the world that don't have adequate sanitation. It's 40% of the entire world population. When we travel out of our country, we can find the diference easily in toilets. We might get angry at disqusting toilets and get upset when we don't know how to use them.
I'll show you some interesting things about our toilet customs.
As you know, in Southeast Asia and in South Asia such as India, they don't use toilet paper. They use water. After relieving themselves, they use water to wash their butts. They use the left hand to wash the butts and the right hand to eat food. When I visited there, I got upset. There were no paper but only buquet and water. I tried it. I didn't know what to use it. I took a buquet and filled it with water but I didn't find a good way. I threw water to my butt.
You might feel upset, at first, but you will end up relizing that the water can clean better than toilet paper. Don't worry about your wet butts because the climate is hot and your butts will dry up soon.
My friend experienced a rare toilet in Thailand. That toilet is located over a pond. In a pond, there are giant carps that is a kind of fish. When we relieves ourselves, carps will eat stool and get nutritions. They are waiting for your stool. If you take a shit a little, they might complain to you. They are served in the restaurants.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. It sounds cruel.
My country, Japan, has an interesting feature about women's toilets. We flush 2 and a half times each time. The first flush is for drowing out the sound of pee to stop someone from hearing our sound because it's so embarassing. The second flush is to wash it. But nowadays we have a good machine to drown out noises. When I sit down, artificial water sounds paly. This machine is called a "Sound Princess". This products were born from a particular Japanese mentality of being ashamed. These roots came from ancient times, when there lived Samurais. There were noble women. When women went to the toilet, they took a few balls of clay. They threw a few balls into the toilet so that we couldn't distinguish which sound was real. They felt embarassed exactly the samen as present Japanese women. I fell it's amazing. we have diffent hairstyles, clothes, we eat different food but we share our feelings. It's our real culture. I'm pretty sure that in the future, we will have another Sound Princess such as Cyber Sound Princess or active silencer Sound Princess. Even though the time passes, and everything has developed, I don't want to lose our culture.
Thank you.

DIALOGUE WORK BASED ON CRIME

2005-11-06T11:48:00.000-08:00

In my morning class, the topic for the week was crime so students had to write dialogues about what they would like to steal from LRS. Sayaka did a great job of using various forms of the conditional in her dialogue. So far nothing has really gone missing from the school but if anything does we'll know who to look for. - Kevin

Let’s steal from LRS

A: Hello, ( B ) ! …… What’s the matter ? You look sad !

B: Ha…. My room was broken into last night.

A: Oh, really ? That’s too bad ! What a pity ! What did you have stolen ? Your laptop computer ? TV ? Camera ? ID ?

B: No, I had many mugs stolen ….

A: Pardon ? Only mugs ? We use it when we drink coffee, right ?
Oh, only mugs ? You are lucky ! Why do you look so sad ???

B: No ! I really treasure them ! I’m serious ! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I went home last night ! Oh, What am I going to do …. I was supposed to sell them on the internet because I need money now. I don’t have money , so I can’t buy anything even food ! Ha … I already found a purchaser who is a mug collector. I have to send mugs to the purchaser by next weekend ….

A: I see. How many mugs did you have stolen ?

B: 30 ! The sneaky thief might be selling my mugs ! Oh, the thief may already have sold my mugs …. I want to accuse the thief of stealing my mugs !!!

A: I have a good idea ! We always use mugs in LRS …. There are many mugs ! It seems to me that there are more than 30 mugs ! How about you steal those mugs ? I can help you !

B: Are you sure ? I don’t want to be a criminal …. But I have no choice. I should do it. How can I steal mugs in LRS ?

A: How about we take 2 mugs each everyday ?

B: No ! It takes too long to steal 30 mugs ! And someone would notice in just a few days that mugs keep disappearing. If George knew about it he would call the police and would look for criminal. I don’t want to be caught by the police !

A: That could happen. Then how about we break into LRS on Saturday early morning because nobody is there, and the police might be very tired because around LRS are many night clubs, so they must work hard on Friday nights. Don’t you think so ?

B: that’s a good idea ! Let’s carry this out on Saturday !

————————　On Saturday morning　————————

A: Let’s go ! …… Let’s break the door !

B: Yes ! …… But how do I break the door ?

A: How ? Don’t you bring some tool, such as wire or hammer …?

B: No, I didn’t…. Do you know this door is high-tech security, so I hear that if someone tried to open the door 　　forcibly, the sensor would go off loudly ….

A: What ? Did you know it ? Why didn’t you tell me about it ? You should have told me about it…
…, No, you had to tell me about it ! We can’t go in there ! What should we do ? This plan is a total failure ! We blew it !! Let's go home now !

B: s,Sorry…, But my mugs are there ….

2005-10-31T16:01:00.000-08:00

Once again the Halloween party was an amazing success. We dressed up, we got drunk, we danced. - Kevin

2005-10-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from the weekend camping trip to Whistler. It was so much fun. I didn't go.

-Kevin

Sang Park's Presentation on Edward Norton

2005-10-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

I've been lucky enough to have Sang in my class for the last four weeks. He's one of the friendliest students I've known at LRS and he's added a lot to the class with his curiosity, cheerful outlook and love of movies. (He's watched Good Will Hunting over eleven times.) Here's his presentation...

-Kevin

Hello, today, I’d like to tell you about Edward Norton, who has been one of my favorite actor's since I was 18. I’m not going to list his entire filmography, but will talk about his well-known movies and some interesting things about him.

Are you a fan of Drama, Comedy Drama, Romance, Crime movies? Are you sick of ordinary Hollywood pretty boys?
Then, you should pay attention to his performances.

Edward Norton was born on August 18, 1969 in Columbia Maryland, USA, the son of a former prosecutor and an English teacher. He received a B.A. in history from Yale in 1991, but took many theater and Japanese courses as an undergraduate.
Following graduation, he worked in Osaka, Japan, consulting for his grandfather's company, Enterprise Foundation, which works to create decent, affordable housing for low-income families.

He is an actor of unusual talent, Edward attained almost instant stardom with his film debut in 1996's Primal Fear.

In Primal Fear, The role was offered to Leonardo DiCaprio but he turned it down. The movie company was looking for a young actor to star opposite Richard Gere, but Co-star Gere was on the verge of walking away from the project, fed up with the wait for a young star to be found, when Edward auditioned and won the role over 2000 other hopefuls. Before the film was even released, his test screenings for the part were causing a Hollywood sensation.

Edward won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in this film, Primal Fear.

In 1998, Norton gained 30 pounds of muscle and transformed his look into that of a monstrous skinhead for his role as a violent white supremacist in American History X (1998). This performance would earn him his second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actor.

For this movie, Norton shaved his head and gained 30 pounds of muscle in 3 months by drinking protein shakes, meat shakes, and lifting weights non-stop for his role as Dereck Vinyard.

With great performances in more than two movies, Norton already had two Oscar nominations before he was 30.

Do you think his movies seem too serious?

Here is his romantic comedy movie Keeping the Faith which was his directorial debut in 2000. Actor Edward Norton debuts as a director with this comedy-drama about love, friendship, and faith. If you are a fan of Ben Stiller comedies, see his early works. You'll really enjoy it.

Some interesting things that I found about him are as follows:
He turned down the role of Private Ryan in Saving Private Ryan which is the character Mat Damon plays in 1998.
Producers of American Psycho wanted him to play Patrick Bateman that the character Christine Bale plays in 2000.

Well, even if you weren’t interested in Edward Norton, I hope this presentation could make you appreciate him.

He treasures his private life and being able to live a normal life – and he said he can't imagine not being able to take the New York subway because of being too famous.

I’m not sure why I’ve been a big fan of his, but those kind of unusual things make me excited and look forward to his next movie.

Thanks for your attention.

-Sang Park

Persentation on Japanese Language by Mariko Yanagisawa

2005-09-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

The topic of my presentation on the 3rd week in my class was "Culture". We chose 1 question from 4 questions in our booklet. I chose question No.3. "Describe an important object from your culture." I'll tell you right off, that what I want to talk about is, to be accurate, not an object. Question No.3 cut a concrete figure for me, so I looked up the word "object" in my dictionary. the dictionary says "- a thing that you can hold, touch, or see, which is usually small-" I think an important objent might be something such as a shrine, a Kimono or Japanese Symbolic something. But there is nothing came to mind to describe about these things. So, please please bear with me as tell you not about an object but something abstract in my culture. I think the most impoportant thing in our culture is our mother language, Japanese. For example, written Japanese, spoken Japanese, characteristic Japanese expressions... I mean all the things about Janpanese language. Japanese use 3 different types of writing, Hiragana, Katanana and Kanji. Kanji is a system of ideograms. Each Kanji has its own meaning. So it might be possible to write messages to communicate with Chinese people. I think it is very difficult to handle Kanji skillfully. We have to write exactly, and memorize the meaning. For example, my family name is "Yanagisawa" "Yanagi" menas willow, "Sawa" means a kind of stream. Almost all parents name their children with their wish, but may name has no specific meaning, manybe. My first name consists of 3 characters. The first character means hemp. The second one means home province, and the last one means child. Parents also consider the number of strokes in a Chinese character. Many people believe that the stoke count of the name determines the fate of the child. It's a very common way to name somebody. In my opinion to write and read Hiragana gives a cute impression because we learned it in elementry school it reminds us of childhood. Katakana gives cool and unfeeling impression. Katanana is also used mainly for foreign words. I love to express myself differently in these 3 ways. In passing, I prefer to write my name in Katakana. Next, I'll focus on the Japanese expression. We say "OHAYOU" when we meet somebody in the morning. Just same as "Good morning" situation in English. But I think"OHAYOU" is not equal to "Good morning". It's a kind of liberal translation. The strait, literal translation might be "It's early", "Good afternoon" might be "Please take a rest". I'm very curious about how to say literal translations in other languages. For your information, I had studied Germany for 4years in University, so I know the literal translation German to English. "Guten Morgen" is "Good morning", "Gute Reise" is "Have a nice trip". It is almost the same. To compare the 3 langages, I think English and German use very positive words, but Japanase are sometime negative. For example "Arigate" is tlanslate to "Thank you". It's liberal translation. But the true meaning might be "Be not very common" "Hardly" or "Seldom". The difference is very interesting. I guess the difference of expression comes from our history, traditions and of course, culture. And I also guess Japanese language formed our national characters such as earnestness, diligence and modesty. Our language has some implied meaning, and it's very common to say the opposite of what we really mean. It is difficult to understand for non-Jananese. But I really love the nuance. By the way, I like to read Haruki Murakami's novels. He is a very popular novelist all over the world. Moreover, he is also a Japanese to English translator. He can write his novels in English by himself with his specific expressions and nuances without other's hels. I think it is very very wonderful thing. I envy him. I hope I can speak, write and express my emotions and expressions in my way in other language. The bottom line is, in my opinion. Language is culture. To understand the other's culture is to embrace the other's culture. We should uphold and pass down our beautiful language and traditional culture through global village. I'm proud of being Japanese. I like to talk with somebody. I hope Ican communicate with people in my own way all over the world. Because I'm very interested in other people, other language, and other culture. For this reason I study English, the universal language.

Preview to the Pub Quiz !!

2005-09-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

Today's the big end of the semester pub party. We're going to a local pub in Gastown where we'll drink, drink, drink and do a pub quiz. Here are the questions. If you used to study at LRS but are now back in your home country you can still participate. Just type out your answers to these questions in the COMMENTS section with your name and email address. Your answers will go into the competition and you might win !! Good luck.

1) Where is the best place to hide a dead raccoon at LRS ?

2) What would be a good nickname for any of the teachers ?

3) What would be the most interesting shape to have a beer mug in ? (George's head, a Grizzly bear, a totem pole, etc)

4) What would be the scariest thing to find in your classroom at nine o'clock in the morning ?

5) What would make a good school mascot ?

6) The Gassy Jack Statue needs improving. What should we do to him ?

7) Teachers at LRS are getting uniforms. What kind of uniforms should they wear ?

That's right seven questions !! Seven lucky questions. Good luck and remember where ever you are in the world, answer these questions with as much humour, creativity and alchohol as possible.

Good luck !!

Welcome to LRS

2005-09-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the brand new LRS blog ! Come by anytime to read interesting student presentations and see some photos of what's going on at the school. If you have any suggestions about what you'd like to see on this site please add them to the COMMENTS section and we'll see what we can do.