From Australia_Report on_St. Andrew’s CC_May_31st_2016

Updated Report on May 31st from Cairns, Australia

The following is the updated report on St. Andrew's Catholic College by Marin Nakamura, who is enrolling at the college as 2nd term of 2016 exchange student.  Her report is so amazing and outstanding comparison study about interesting difference in school cultures between St. Andrew's and Otsuma Nakano.

Hello, everyone there!  I'm Marin Nakamura, 11th year student of Otsuma Nakano and also a current St. Andrew's student.

Guess what?  I have only 4 more weeks to stay in Cairns, Australia left.  I am feeling everyday has passed so quickly that I can’t remember.  It is getting cooler, so many people are starting to wear a long sleaved jumpers.  Australian people say that 26 degrees is cold. Can you imagine that?  Most Japanese would think that is moderate climate.  But Australian lives in a tropical so they feel cold.  The season is opposite in Australia compared to japan, so the Christmas is hot in here.  I think it’s very cool!  How is everything in Japan?  I guess it’s getting hot, day by day. Today, I will like to introduce a school difference between Otsuma Nakano and St Andrews.

The big difference is that the St. Andrew’s school buildings are very colourful and the buildings are separated, so students have to go outside when they move to the other classrooms.  We move to the other classroom in every subject and we don’t have a 10 minute break, so we usually get little bit late for the next class.   But in Otsuma Nakano, the school buildings are made of bricks and not separated, so we don’t have to go outside and there is an elevator which we can use in the morning and the afternoon.  I was a little bit surprised to see the many students don’t use their umbrellas when it rains and when they move to the other classrooms. Even though it was raining heavy outside!  I guess if this was in Japan, everyone would run.

Everywhere is surrounded by a lot of beautiful nature here.  I live in Tokyo, so I cannot see much nature, which makes me sad.  I was also surprised about the school playground at St. Andrew’s. It is so large that I can’t explain the size of the playground.  There was a cross country in week 2 that was held in a school playground. Cross country is a 3 kilometre race around the school, students have an option to either do this or run 800 meters instead.  Every student has a sports team, there is Chisolm which is red, Hollows which is yellow, Ozanam which is green and Mackillop which is blue, our sports teams are named after Catholic saints and every saints are Australian.

 In Japan, we usually eat lunch at the table and sit in a chair, but in Australia, we eat lunch at the ground. I think that is a cultural difference between japan and Australia.  In St. Andrew’s, there is a morning tea time and the lunch time.  So there is a big second break and we can buy foods at tucks shop, which sells sandwiches, ice cream, cakes and so on.  However, there isn’t vending machine at school, so everyone has to buy drinks at the tuckshop and I was surprised about the price of the ice tea.  In Japan, it cost about 1 dollar and 50 cents but here in Australia, it cost about 4 dollar. I think the prices are higher in Australia than in Japan.

In Otsuma Nakano, most of the students join a clubs after school, but there are no clubs in St. Andrew’s, so most of the students go home as soon as possible.  Well, there is some clubs but it’s only once a week.  What’s difference is that the school ends at 2:40 pm, so it is very fast to go home and most students come to the school by car or the bus, so we don’t have to use the extremely crowded train! Which was very stressful every morning for me when I took the train in Japan.

How was my report about the difference between the school lives in Australia? I hope you enjoyed it.  I am now really enjoying the school life in St. Andrew’s.  Everyone is friendly and I am helping my friend’s Japanese homework and they help me with my English grammars when I make mistakes; which is very helpful for me.  I hope I will be able to improve my English skills further in the following weeks.

Kind regards,

Marin Nakamura

こんにちは！

もう残すところ4週間しかありません。毎日があっという間に過ぎています。ケアンズは寒くなってきたので上着を着てる人を見かけるようになりました。オーストラリアの人は26度で寒いそうです。想像できますか？日本人なら心地よい気温だと思います。しかしオーストラリアは南国なので26度が寒いと感じるそうです。また、季節が日本とは反対なのでオーストラリアのクリスマスは真夏です。日本は最近どうですか？日に日に暑くなってきたのではないかと思います。今回のレポートでは大妻中野とSt.Andrew'sの違いについて紹介したいと思います。

まず、大きな違いは学校の建物です。St.Andrew'sの建物は全て分かれており、赤、青、黄色、緑とカラフルです。毎時間、教室を移動するのですが授業の間に10分休みがないので次の授業に少し遅れてしまうことが多々あります。大妻中野の建物はレンガで校舎が分かれていないので毎時間外に出なくてよいです。また、朝と放課後にエレベーターを使うことができますがSt.Andrew'sにはエレベーターがありません。教室移動をする時に雨が降っていても傘を使わずのんびり歩くことに私は少しびっくりしました。土砂降りでも走りません！もし日本だったらみんな走ると思います。

ケアンズはどこを見渡しても美しい自然で囲まれています。t.Andrew'sの校庭はすごく大きいです。大きすぎてサイズが表せません。week2にcross countryという学校の周りを3キロ走るか、800メートル走るという大会がありました。全生徒は赤、黄色、緑、青と４つのチームに分かれています。赤はChisolm、黄色はHollows、緑はOzanam、青はackillopです。全てオーストラリアのカトリックの聖人にちなんで名付けられたそうです。

日本では椅子に座ってお昼ご飯を食べるのが普通ですが、オーストラリアでは地面に座って食べます。これは文化の違いだと私は思いました。St.Andrew'sではmorning tea timeとlunch timeがありtacks shopという売店でサンドイッチやアイスクリーム、ケーキなどを買うことができます。アイスティーは日本で約150円なのにオーストラリアでは400円という値段に私は驚きました。こちらの方が日本より物価が高いです。

大妻中野では、ほとんどの生徒が部活動に参加しています。しかしSt.Andrew'sでは部活動がないので学校が終わるとすぐに帰ります。なにが違うかというと2時40分に学校が終わり多くの生徒は車、またはバスで帰るので日本のような満員電車に乗らなくてよいのです。しかし学校のロータリーや駐車場は毎日渋滞するので大変です。

オーストラリアの学校生活について少しでも知ってもらいましたか。私は今、St.Andrew'sでとても楽しい学校生活を送っています。毎日学校に行くのが楽しみで仕方ありません。私は友達の日本語の宿題を手伝い、みんな私の間違って使っている英語を直してくれてとても助かっています。また、残りの4週間でさらに英語を向上させたいです。