９月→１０月になり、数字が２ケタになると「もうすぐ年末だなぁ…」という気分になりませんか？

１０月といえばHalloween。

ハローズでのぱーティーは終わりましたが、あと２週間はお祭り気分を味わえそうですね☆.。.:*・

BOO! TO YOU ALL!!  HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!ヽ(*´∀｀)ノ

This Halloween I decided to be a witch.  I have noticed over the years that witch costumes are very popular in Japan, much more so than in America.  Probably because most of the witches in our stories are old, evil and not very cute.  I thought that if I wore a witch costume to our Hellos Halloween party the students who dressed as witches would be happy.  As it turned out more than 10 other witches came!  Unfortunately they didn’t seem to like my costume, probably because I wasn’t very cute.  Some smaller students tried to pull off my beautiful blonde hair.  Oh no!  I used my magic to turn them into mice.

Recently, I shaved all of my hair off.  This might come as a bit of a shock, but I would like to take a minute and let you know why I made this decision.

Three years ago, I had cancer.  The medication I had to take to fight the cancer was very tough on my body.  The good news is that the medicine did its job and got rid of the cancer!  The bad news is that it made all of my hair fall out.  For most people, hair grows back after finishing cancer treatment, but sometimes—and this is the case for me—hair only comes back a little bit or not at all.  For three years, I tried to be patient and wait for my hair to come back.  It was so thin and patchy, though, that it just reminded me about how sick I was and that my body would never be the same.  It made me feel embarrassed and sad to look at it. So, I decided to cut all of my hair off.

It might be a little bit strange to look at me at first, but I want you to know that it is okay to ask me—or any of the Hello!s teachers—any questions you might have.  I feel happier and much more confident being bald.  Though, my head is a little bit cold now!  ^_^

(No more hair!)

みなさんこんにちは。

ハローズでは先日一足先にハロウィンパーティをおこないました。

たくさんの子どもたちが参加してくれ大いに盛り上がりました。

僕は今回包帯を巻いて肌が見える部分を完全に隠し、ミイラ男になりました。

やはり本物の包帯リアリティが出ます。自分では納得の出来でした。

しかし当然のことながらすごく呼吸がしにくくて、パーティの間中ずっと苦しかったです。

ハロウィンの仮装も楽じゃありませんね。

Growing up I used to avidly collect baseball cards. I still have almost every single card I collected as a boy at my parents’ house in American, and I still enjoy looking at and organizing them when I visit their house in the U.S. Although I know that someday I am going to have to sell them, I am just not quite ready to do that just yet, but one thing I know I will never sell are the four very special signed baseballs that I own which were all given to me when I used to collect those cards. One of the balls I have was signed by Yogi Berra, a great baseball player who is often considered one of the top three catchers in baseball history by professional sports writers, and is always in the group of the top five. He is also widely considered to be one of the top 100 players of all time, played in 14 World Series teams, and whose team won an unbelievable ten times! That is more than any other player in Major League History, and he played in 75 total World Series games, again, more than any other player. He appeared in another eight World Series, too, but those times as either a manager or a coach. In total, he was in 22 total World Series play-offs, 13 times on the winning side! As a player, he was also the American League MVP three times during his career, and was in the top two in the run off for that award two other times. He had many other highly impressive baseball stats, but rather than sharing those I wanted to mention something else he is possibly even more famous for these days, and that is lots of the silly statements and quotes that are attributed to him. Even people that don’t care for baseball very much often enjoy reading his quotes because many of his quips are very funny and have become quite famous. Here are just a few of his most popular:

• “90 percent of baseball is mental; the other half is physical.”
• “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
• “You can observe a lot by watching.”
• “Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise they won’t go to yours.”
• “You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.”
• “If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.”
• “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”
• “You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.”

And there are many, many, many more.

Yogi Berra is one of the most beloved people to have ever played the game of baseball and a larger than life man. I am very proud to have something that he signed and held just a few moments of his monumental life and will forever be happy that my parents gave it to me as a boy.

What do you have that means a lot to you? If you see me, please let me know. I would love to chat with you!

John