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Hi Everybody,

Hope you are all being careful on these hot days. Too much sun can make you sick or give heat stroke so be careful.

Sorry, but I have added more things I am trying to sell or give away. Be patient with this for now.

We’ve been busy sorting things out and finishing classes and saying goodbye to friends. Saying goodbye is never fun. The giving away stuff is strangly relaxing. I didn’t know I had so much stuff!

OK, everybody do me a favor. (That means do something to help me.) Tell everyone you can about all the stuff here on the blog and about me leaving Japan. Spread the word so I can get rid of this stuff!!

Have a great three-day-weekend,
Randy Miller, RCC

Sorry to be gone so long.

As most of you should know by now, my family and I are returning to America. We’re leaving the first week in August this year. We are looking at it as a great adventure and trying not to get crazy by worrying about jobs and the economy. Wish us luck!

I still plan to keep this blog going and I will continus doing email/online classes. My dream is to do classes in America for international companies. Still like to teach so keep your fingers crossed for us.

Since we are moving we have many things to give away or sell. I will post pictures here and if you or anyone you know are interested please email me.

More English stuff soon so be patient.

Take care,
Randy

Are you happy? Don’t think of it as a childish idea. Happy people live longer and better lives. Are you happy? If not, why aren’t you? Sometimes, with all the disasters and bad economy, it is too easy to be unhappy unless we actively think about it. Thinking about why you or I should be happy can make us feel better. Me, for example. I am not rich, thin, or handsome. Or young! I do have a good wife that I think is pretty. I have a beautiful, intelligent daughter. She is healthy and kind. When I see people with children or relatives that are not healthy I often feel guilty that I am so lucky. Yes, I wish I was rich, thin, and MORE handsome but I am lucky.

Have you ever done any of these????
Here are some good things to do every day or as often as you can: Compliment three people a day; always have something beautiful in
sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly glass, surprise an old friend with a phone call; don’t overlook life’s small joys while searching for the big ones; take a kid to the zoo; enjoy tomato soup and a toasted cheese sandwich, make someone’s day by paying the toll for the person in the car behind you; travel, see new places, but remember to take along an open mind; volunteer to be a Little League umpire; hug a tree! - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

One of my students asked me about the “R” word. He’d heard it on the News and wondered what it meant. The “R” word or something similar is used when we don’t want to say the word or we think that it is an unpleasant word. The “R” word now is Recession and nobody wants to say that. Have you heard this type of phrase before?
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Easy to mix up words: These two are examples of the trouble some people have with b and v and R and L such as:

Vote vs boat
Play vs pray
Grow, glow,
Clue, crew, glue,
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If you can explain these two to me you’ll win a free class!

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” — Linus Pauling

“It only takes one person to change your life — you.” — Ruth Casey

Have a great day,
Randy Miller RCC
Email: randymiller@randys-cc.com
Blog address to pass to friends: randyscc.journalspace.com
RCC class schedule address: www.randys-cc.com
Email classes available. For information contact me at: randymiller@randys-cc.com
Problems or questions about English or email communication? Drop me a line.
Skype: randymillerr4804

I received 5 chocolate gifts on Valentines Day plus a nice one and a cake from my wife and daughter. I like Valentines Day! Hope you all had a great one too.

This is a quick one. I wanted to put in a few notes about words students have used or asked about recently.
Here they are:
Yucky Yucky means something or someone that is dirty or disgusting. “Oh, that is yucky!” You can use it on Saturday morning when you see where a drunk person has thrown up. Yes, I know that is a bad image.

Hailing a cab/taxi: Hailing, in this case, means to call or try to attract attention of someone. When you stand on the side of the street and wave at a taxi to stop you are “hailing a cab”. Someone might ask you to “hail a cab” for them.

I love dogs but they are very hard to travel to other countries with so I have always had cats. If you are a cat person you’ll enjoy these.

“In a cat’s eye, all things belong to cats.” - English proverb

“As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat.” - Ellen Perry Berkeley

“One cat just leads to another.” - Ernest Hemingway

“Dogs come when they’re called. Cats take a message and get back to you later.” - Mary Bly
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I think everyone has heard of the earthquake in New Zealand by now. Of course it is terrible but it is also a wake up call. (This is something that makes us think about our lives and our plans more carefully.) How many of you are really prepared for a disaster? Do you keep putting off getting ready until “later”. (“Putting off” means to delay doing something that you should like going to a Doctor.) What would you do after a big earthquake? How would you go home? Do you know how to go home on foot? I normally don’t. Disasters often bring those thoughts and worries into focus. (“Bring into focus” means makes us able to see something more clearly.)
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Easy to mix up words: Stuff, stuffed, stuffed animal, stuffy,

Stuff can mean unnamed things. Ex: That is my stuff on the desk. (I don’t want to name each thing.)
Stuffed means the feeling after eating too much food. “I’m stuffed after that big dinner.”
Stuffed animal is many of the soft toys that people like, for example: Mickey Mouse.
Stuffy is the feeling when the air isn’t fresh. “The room was stuffy after the long meeting.”

Ok, I have to get my stuff ready to go to my next class.

Have a great day,

Randy Miller
Email: randymiller@randys-cc.com
Blog address to pass to friends: randyscc.journalspace.com
RCC class schedule address: www.randys-cc.com
Email classes available. For information contact me at: randymiller@randys-cc.com
Problems or questions about English or email communication? Drop me a line.
Skype: randymillerr4804

Murphy’s Law is strong. We’ve had great weather for two months but this Friday, a holiday, rain or snow is forecasted! My family and were planning to go to Yokota this Friday too. Murphy’s Law.

I mentioned this before but theNippori tour is amazing for shrines and you’ll love it if you aren’t already burned out on them. (Burned out means for example: you have done something so much that you hate to do it again. In this case, some people have seen so many Shrines or Temples that they do not want to see any more. They are burned out!)

The Nekomachi café has five cats that are very pretty and boss seems to be very nice. I mentioned it before too. It is in the Neko town area around Ginza. On a nice day the Nippori Tour I found in the Frommer’s Travel Guide for Japan is very relaxing. I plan to go back during Cherry blossom time as the cemetery at Nippori station area looks to be a rival to the beautiful Aoyama cemetery.
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Easy to confuse words: feeling vs feeding Several students had trouble hearing the difference in these two. “Feeling” can be pronounced like this: fee and ling (like a pandas name Ling Ling). “Feeding” can be pronounced like this: fee and ding (like in “ding dong” the sound of a door bell in English).
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Don’t say Doz say dozen. We often see dozen (12) abbreviated as doz. But we do not say it as Doz. That sounds like “does”. Ex: What does he do?

New Japanese English word I heard: cosme for cosmetics. I had no idea what “cosme” meant until my wife explained it.
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Words I heard on CNN:

IN DEPTH This is used to mean more deeply. We could say: We need to look at the contract in depth. (Very deeply or carefully at every detail.)

CLOSE A DEAL This means to secure and agree to a deal/contract/agreement. We could say: We all agree to the details of the contract so we can close the deal today. (ie: sign the contract)

Live out of a suitcase
This idiom is used by people who do a lot of traveling. It describes how they live on what they have in their luggage as they go to a different country or place.

Stuff I notice around town:
It is amazing to see some super made up American muscle/sports car parked in some old fashioned house area. Makes me think somebody’s son out grew it and now it collects dust. Made me wanna knock on the door and offer to buy it.

QUOTES: (Can anyone explain these?)
“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get back up.” — Vince Lombardi

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
– George Bernard Shaw

Go out and create yourself.

Randy Miller RCC
Email: randymiller@randys-cc.com
Blog address to pass to friends: randyscc.journalspace.com
RCC class schedule address: www.randys-cc.com
Email classes available. For information contact me at: randymiller@randys-cc.com
Problems or questions about English or email communication? Drop me a line.