From New Zealand_Report on New Plymouth GHS_Mar.8th_2016

2016 8^th of March.  From New Zealand.

The weathers in Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere are getting close with each other.  Summer is getting into autumn and winter turning into spring.  It is an interesting and amazing wonder of the earth.  Now the updated report by Haruka Koyama from New Zealand has arrived.  We do hope you can find it interesting.

Hi guys!  What’s going on in Japan?  It has been perfect weather in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

I had two big activities these two weeks in our school, which are “Swimming Sports Day” and “Athletic Day”.  On the 25th of February, we had swimming sports competition in our school pool.  There are 4 teams called “house” and each house has the name in Maori and house color.  I was Tainui, which is green. There are other houses, Aotea (red), Kurahaupo (blue), and Tokomaru (yellow).  We have to wear clothes of our own house color.  I wore a green T-shirt printed “Taranaki”.  Even teachers belong to houses, so they wore house color clothes.  I think it was a very interesting system because if you want to participate, you can, but if you don’t want to, then you don’t have to, just relax and watch someone else swimming.  We can get some food at the café. There was music, and everyone was dancing.  We also have chants in each house and we sing them. There was a competitive game between the students living in the hostel called “Boarders” and the students living in the hostel called “Day Girl”.  I didn’t participate, but I enjoyed watching them with my friends.

Last Sunday, I watched the movie called “Divergent”. It was my first time to watch the movie. I watched it with my host father, host mother, and host sister.  It was a science-fiction kind of movie, and the story about the world.  All of human will divided into six types of characters when you grow up to 16. But some belong to not only one but also two or three characters or some don’t belong to any of them. That is called “divergent” and the government thinks that they are dangerous to the world.  I liked it so much and this movie became one of my favorites one. The next day, I watched the next movie of Divergent, Insurgent. It was a really good movie, too.

This Wednesday, we had Athletic’s Day.  It was held in a field that took 20 minutes by foot from our school. It was very similar to swimming sports day but we just do marathon or relay or something athletic. We sang our chants.  There also was music, and a café.  I just joined fun run that we all together walk or run. It was a really hot day, but I enjoyed it so much.

The day after tomorrow, my host family and I will go to a fish and chip party at the Ngamotubeach. There will be many exchange students and I hope it will be a lot of fun.  We are going to have a Taranaki Holiday on Monday of the week after next, so I will go on a trip with my host mother and host sister.

It has been almost 5 weeks already since I came here, and that means I have only six more weeks by the time I have to go back to Japan. I can’t believe that the time here goes by so quickly.  I hope I will be able to get my English skills much better in the following five weeks.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in two weeks!

Yours Sincerely,

Haruka Koyama

みなさんこんにちは。ニュープリマスでは天気の良い日が続いていてとても暑いです。この２週間で学校行事として水泳大会と日本でいう体育祭のようなものが行われました。

水泳大会では４つのハウスと呼ばれるチームに分かれて戦います。それぞれテーマカラーがあり、私は緑でした。当日は緑の洋服を着なければいけません。中には全身タイツを履いていたり、コスプレをしていた人など、みんなそれぞれ個性的な衣装ばかりで、日本では経験できないと思いました。レースは、ハウス対抗、チューターというホームルームのようなもの対抗、そして、boardersと呼ばれる寮に住んでいる生徒対day girlと呼ばれるそれ以外の生徒などがありました。とても楽しかったです。

先週の日曜日には家族で”Divergent"という映画を見ました。SF映画だったのですが、とてもおもしろかったです。

今週の水曜日には体育祭がありました。学校から歩いて２０分ぐらいのところにある競技場でやりました。水泳大会と同じようにハウスに分かれて行われました。屋外で屋根もなかったのでとても暑かったです。

そして明後日には海でフィッシュアンドチップナイトという他の学校に通っている留学生のほとんどが集まるパーティーがあります。また、来週の月曜日はこの地域の祝日なのでホストマザーがホストシスターと旅行に連れて行ってくれるそうです。

ここに来てから５週間が経ち、いよいよ残り半分になりました。残りの期間を日々大切にこれからも過ごしていきたいです。