From America Study Report on Pleasant Hill High School_170209

This is from Otsuma Nakano International Department.  Along with the study reports from New Zealand and Australia, a new report from America has arrived.   Akane Takahashi, an exchange student from Otsuma Nakano to Pleasant Hill High School in Oregon, USA, who is a current Grade 10th student, introduces her current ongoing school life at Pleasant Hill High School.   It would be great if you could share the following.

Happy New year everyone! Do you have a new year's resolution?  My new year's resolution is to challenge everything.  Since this is my only year in PHHS, I want to challenge everything and have fun.

During my winter break, my host family and I went to our friend's house and butchered two rabbits. This was my first time watching animals getting butchered, so I was very shocked. Yes, it seems inhumane. Yes, it hurt my feelings.  Despite that, it was a good chance to think about not wasting food.  Humans kill animals in order to live, so we should not throw away food.  “Therefore, we used all the parts of the rabbit”. You make a claim that this is a way to think about food waste, but it makes me think more about local food production or conscious of our eating habits: all the meat you eat every day is butchered.  You might not think about feet and other things, but they are used for things like charms, gelatine and pelts for fur and clothing. Even mass produced meat is used for its maximum use to make max profit. This is probably unnecessary, but I think you should add at least one more sentence.

At the end of the winter break, I wished I could have some snow days because I was used to waking up late. And it did happen! We had four snow days plus the weekends. When I woke up one morning, everything was covered with snow. I was so excited and I went sledding with my host sisters and brother for about two hours. Then we made a snowman. I had a lot of fun enjoying snow days. It was the longest winter break ever in my life. The first day of school was super fun because I hadn’t seen my friends for such a long time. The semester is ending soon so the next few weeks will be pretty busy.

Woohoo! Our basketball league started in January. Since we had no school due to the snow, our first league game was cancelled. Our first game was against Harrisburg. We won that game but we lost on our second and third game against Creswell and La Pine. Yesterday we had a home game against Glide. It was a very tough game. After the first quarter, we were losing by 16 points but we ended up winning. It was very exciting and fun game. I felt like everybody fought to win the game. I'm so proud of my team. Next week we will have three games, so I really hope I can win all three games.

Our team did a scavenger hunt. We all came to school to practice. Since the boys’ team was practicing in the gym, we went to our coach's classroom and watched our film. After that Stacy, our coach, started to write a riddle on the board and that is how we started the scavenger hunt. The last place we came was at the lunch room. Then our other coach, Simone, brought pizza for us and we hung out. It was super fun and I love my coaches for doing all the things for us. I will try to play my best ability to show them how grateful I am.

皆さん、明けましておめでとうございます！皆さんは今年の目標は立てましたか？私の今年の目標は何事にもチャレンジする事です。私にとってはこの一年間しかPHHSで過ごせないので、全ての事にチャレンジして楽しみたいと思います。

私はホストファミリーと友達の家に行き、二羽のうさぎをbutcherしました。私にとって動物がbutcherされるところを見るのが初めてだったので大きなショックを受けました。とても残酷で心が痛かったです。ですが毎日当たり前のように食べているお肉は一つの命を削って頂いていることを思い直すいい機会になりました。毎日食べ物が食べられるありがたさに気づき、無駄にしないようにしたいと思います。

冬休みも終盤に近づいたところで私は毎朝遅くに起きていたので、雪でも降って休校にならないかなと期待をしていました。するとなんと本当にそうなったのです！四日間休校になり、さらに週末もあったので休みが六日間も延長されました。ある朝、目が覚めたら庭一面真っ白な雪に覆われていました。私はホストシスターとホストブラザーと一緒にそりで2時間近く遊びました。そのあとは雪だるまをつくりました。雪の日を満喫した気がします。私にとって人生の中で一番長い冬休みとなりました。

私たちの学校のバスケットボールのリーグが今月から始まりました。雪の影響で学校がなかったため、リーグ戦の初の試合はキャンセルになりました。私たちの初めての試合はHarrisburgという学校との試合でした。その試合は勝ちましたが、二試合目のCreswell、三試合目のLa Pineは負けてしまいました。昨日はGlideとホームゲームがありました。接戦で、１ピリが終わる頃には16点差で負けていましたが最終的には勝ちました。会場全体が興奮の渦に包まれていました。この試合はチーム全員で戦った感じがしました。私のチームを誇りに思います。来週は三試合あるので、全部の試合で勝っていきたいと思います。

放課後私のチームは宝探しゲームをしました。最初は練習をするつもりで皆学校に行きました。男子のチームが体育館で練習をしていたので、コーチの教室に行き、試合のビデオを観ました。そのあと、コーチがホワイトボードになぞなぞを書き始め、そうして宝探しゲームが始まりました。最後に着いた場所はカフェテリアで、もう一人のコーチがピザを買ってきてくれました。とても楽したったです。そして、このようなことをしてくれるコーチに試合に勝って恩返しをしたいです。