Author Archives: AllisonChang

My grandmother is a second generation Japanese American. She’s around 85　years old. The other day, my grandma and I were watching a Japanese　television show. It was a show about an onsen. When I said "onsen" in　Japanese, at first she couldn’t understand what I was saying. When she　figured it out, my　grandmother said, "You sound like a Caucasian person!" I　said, "How rude!" My grandma is so naughty! My grandma just smiled though,　and we kept watching the television show.

おばあちゃん、私のアクセント、変だった？

　私の祖母はハワイ生まれの日系二世です。年齢は８５才くらいです。ある日、私は祖母と日本のテレビ番組を見ていました。それは温泉の番組でした。 Continue reading →

When I was a kid, we hung up stockings for Santa to fill, even though we didn’t have a fireplace.  My mom said that one year, she put money in our Santa stockings, and then the next year, my sister and I put lots of little stockings up on our Christmas tree!  Plus, after that year, we kept making more big stockings to hang up.  I think that the last time we put up Santa stockings, my sister and I had two or three each, and then we also had stockings for our two cats and our dog!  Of course, we got to keep the money that Santa gave to our pets. Continue reading →

I attended Japanese school for a few years during elementary school. However, by high school, I’d forgotten most of it.  I took Japanese from 10th grade in high school, but instead of learning, we played cards and watched anime.  Therefore, I wasn’t prepared when a Japanese tourist in Waikiki asked me a question.  (I was in 11th grade then.)  I said, "wakarimasen," and she laughed and said, "oh, Japanese student!"  Exactly! Continue reading →

Do you know Mayuko Matsumoto’s mailing address?  I wrote her a card and then　realized that she only gave me her email address.  I wanted to send her a card,　because I wrote my message in Japanese, and I can’t send her a Japanese email.  Thanks!

Allison

　松本真由子さんの住所をご存知ですか。彼女にカードを書いたのですが、メールアドレスしか貰っていないことに気付きました。残念ながら、私のコンピューターからは、日本語のメールを送れません。彼女に日本語でカードを書いたので、是非、送りたいと思っています。宜しくお願いいたします。

アリソン拝 Continue reading →

butter mochi recipe

4 cups mochiko
3 cups sugar
3 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups milk
1 block butter, melted

Combine all ingredients and pour into a greased 13 by 9 inch baking pan.
Bake at 350 degrees F for one hour. Continue reading →

 
20 degrees Farenheit equals about -6 degrees Celcius.

華氏２０度は、約摂氏マイナス６度です。

かし ２０ ど は、やく せっし マイナス ６度 です。 Continue reading →

Hawaii has very clean drinking water.  This is because of the artesian water beneath the islands.  When it rains here, the water soaks all the way through the ground until it reaches the seawater underneath the islands. The volcanic rock that the islands are composed of acts as a filter, so by
the time the rainwater has filtered through the ground, it is clean, drinkable water.  I think the fresh water doesn't mix with the salt water because salt water is more dense, so the fresh water floats above it.  I learned all of this in elementary school, so hopefully I haven't gotten confused.

Continue reading →

Sleeping Bag

Instead of a blanket, I sleep with a sleeping bag. I don’t zip myself up in it, though; I unzip it so it’s a big square, and I use it like a blanket. I’ve done this ever since I was little, probably because both of my parents use sleeping bags, too.

In intermediate school, I wanted to be more grown up, so I got a normal comforter, but in college I went back to using a sleeping bag.

Since my family and I had never really experienced winter, we didn’t realize that the dorm rooms would be well heated at night, so we thought that I’d need something to keep me warm, and that a sleeping bag would be perfect.

The sleeping bag I bought for college is supposed to keep me warm down to 20 degrees Farenheit! I brought it home with me after college because it’s so soft and comfortable. I guess it’s a little strange Continue reading →

Rochester’s winter

When I was in college, I didn’t have very good study habits, because I procrastinated a lot.  Since Rochester’s winters were usually very long, and since I didn’t really like walking around in cold weather,

I studied in my room instead of at the library.  That didn’t work too well though, because I almost always fell asleep studying in my room.  The only time that I didn’t fall asleep while studying in my room was when I was writing computer programs.  However, when I wrote programs, I would almost always get an upset stomach.  Despite that, I really enjoyed programming!
 
Sometimes I’d have to work on my programming assignments in the lab in the computer science building.  Once, I stayed in the lab for 23 hours!  After that, I hurried back to my room to take a shower, and then I returned to the computer science building for a class. Continue reading →

At a payphone

In my junior year of high school, before my boyfriend and I started dating, I called him from an outside pay phone near a theater to invite him to a movie. He’d just gotten back from a basketball game, so he couldn’t come. Since he still had to take a shower, the movie would have already started by the time he was ready. However, we continued talking for over three hours! Finally, his mom told him to invite me over. I had been standing at a pay phone only five minutes away from his house!

　１１年生の時、ボーイフレンドと交際を始める前のことです。彼を映画に誘おうと、映画館の近くにある公衆電話から電話をしました。

　彼はバスケットボールの試合から帰ったところだったので来ることができませんでした。彼はシャワーをあびなければなりませんでしたし、準備をしているうちに映画は始まってしまうからでした。 Continue reading →