もう２月が終わると思うとびっくりです！

お正月、節分、バレンタインデイ・・・

たくさんのイベントを楽しみました。そして

今度はひなまつり。

大安の日を選んでおひな様を飾りました。

最近では、くまのおひな様や、キティちゃんの

おひな様がありますね。

そして、つるし雛も素敵です。

女の子の成長を祝う楽しいイベントです。

甘酒、雛あられ、ひしもちなど食べてゆっくり

日本のお人形をみて楽しみましょう。

数カ月前からセキュリティの関係でアメリカジョージア州にあるジョージア校にカメラをつけています。夏には緑豊かなジョージアの地も冬はここ岐阜より寒くなります。さずがに雪が降ることは少ないですが、木々の葉も落ちさみしい風景です。それでもあと1ヶ月半で高校生18名が、「スプリングブレイクインアメリカ」でジョージアを訪れます。今年はニューヨークとフロリダも訪問し、かなり温度差がある3か所になります。

It’s Valentine’s day.

Valentine’s Day is a day of love.  

John Lennon once said “All you need is love”.  He wrote a song about it, too.

Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love

There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy
Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need

Happy Valentine’s Day!

みなさんこんにちは。

明日、2月14日はバレンタインデーですね！

日本では「女の子が好きな男の子にチョコレートをあげる」という習慣になっていますが、

アメリカでは男の子や女の子は関係なく、好きな人はもちろん、大切な人や家族にあげたりもします。

また、チョコレートをあげるという決まりもなく、クッキーやキャンディーなどをあげたりします。

3月14日のホワイトデーもありません！自分が大切だと思っている人に自由にあげるのです。

ハロウィンやクリスマスもそうですが、海外から伝わるイベントは日本にやって来るときに

違ったイベントになっていますね。

もしかしたら、日本の節分やひな祭りなどのイベントが、海外では違う祭りになっているかも？

It’s almost my birthday! Since I’m getting older, I don’t really want to make a big deal about it. Instead, drawing inspiration from a popular photo meme, let’s take this chance to look back ten years at the Ryan of the year 2009. What was this Ryan like? What was this pre-Hello!s Ryan doing? In order to find out some of these answers, and for the sake of your entertainment, I’ve trolled the depths of my social media account. 

First off, here is a picture of me from that time, taken with my little sister Karalyn at her apartment in Chicago. Incidentally, this is one of my favorite pictures of the two of us together. Back then we were extremely good friends, and we’re still pretty tight, I think! But we don’t have the same nearly constant back-and-forth on social media that we seemed to when we were ten years younger.   

What I was eating in 2009: Lots of pizza, apparently. Also, I wrote scads about going to the farmer’s market, so I think I was eating and cooking a lot of local organic produce, including tons of beans and legumes (I was a very strict vegan at the time). It seems I was also into foraging, and reportedly ate wild mushrooms and raspberries, on occasion. 

What I was reading in 2009: “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”

What I was writing in 2009: Poems. I tried submitting my poetry to different literary journals, but it seems like they all got rejected. I guess it’s for the best!

What music I listened to in 2009: I was in the throes of my Baroque-mania, which meant I was constantly plugged into C.P.E. Bach, Vivaldi, and Rameau. 

New experiences in 2009: I guess I learned how to drive stick shift. Being a cheapskate, I tried cutting my own hair in the mirror (starting an unfortunate series of self-inflicted choppy/uneven hairstyles).

Low point of 2009: My apartment in was broken into while I was away at a family party. Out of all the things they could have taken, they decided upon my school bag, filled with my assignments, notebooks, and readings necessary for my school finals, as well as a USB drive with my final papers on it (and, less importantly, but still disappointingly, my iPod).

High points of 2009: A bird built its nest against my bedroom window so I could closely watch it live its life and raise its chicks. I bought a harpsichord(!!!) at a very reasonable price. Also, I won the David Strauss Prize in American Studies at my college.  

I hope that this blast from the past was interesting to you and that you could get to know me (or, at least, the me of 2009) better! 

Ryan