shigajet

I happened to notice the comment where England has a national curriculum (everyone one learns the same thing throughout the school year). The same thing applies here in Japan. Working in several public schools in Japan all this time has allowed me to make some observations about the Japanese school system and how it works. Compared to how I was educated in Canada, here are some things I've noticed. Note that I'm not going to say whether this is better or worse than the system I grew up in, just talk about it:The system is set as a 6-3-3-4 schedule - 6 years of elementary school, 3 years of junior high school, 3 years of senior high school, and four years of university (if the student chooses to attend) Alternatively, there is also the option of junior college, which is about two years.The school year starts in April and ends in March.Students are required by law to attend school until he or she finishes junior high school.All elementary schools and many junior high schools are provided with school lunch. Generally, the cost is around 4000 yen per month.Students are not allowed to bring snacks to school.No student repeats a grade.Students are not taught to form a strong opinion and to think for themselves, however, group work is encouraged.In junior high school, students are required to join a club and attendance is mandatory (especially in the sports clubs)I believe there is more, but this is what has come to mind in this post.

Alright...here's my history of a few sports I played (and in some cases still play) to date:Swimming - In my pre-teens/teens, I was a member of a local competitive swimming club and took part in many swim meets in the city. I wouldn't say that I was a fast swimmer, but I was fairly good. I think the only swimming stroke I struggled at was the butterfly. Still swim for leisure whenever I get the chance.Baseball - Got into this one at around the same time as the competitive swimming. Took part in the local Little League, but I really struggled offensively. At least my fielding skills were good, and I had a good throwing arm (My position was in the outfield). I gradually improved my hitting skills and became more confident in both aspects of my game, but I know for sure that would NEVER make a power hitter.Hockey - Never played the game professionally, but I took part in street hockey (large parking lot or neighbourhood street) with my friends. Apart from that, I also played some hockey on the canal near the university I attended with some friends who lived in the same dormitory.Basketaball - I took part in some local tournaments, and my ability was quite good at the time. No slam dunks, mind you, but I could do some great lay-ups. Still enjoy playing basketball even now.

Greetings, all.I was wondering if there is anyone in the community who is practicing, or is considering practicing the Japanese martial art of Aikido. If so, is there anyone who would like to share the techniques involved in it?From what I know, Aikido, unlike the other martial arts, is more about channeling your opponent's energy against him/herself, rather than relying on a full-out attack style (punching and kicking), like karate or judo. There's also an interesting philosophy behind it, as well documented by the great teacher Morihei Ueshiba.So...from here, let's talk about how your experiences practicing Aikido.

Welcome aboard, Jdeveloper! I'm one of the "veteran" members of this community. I just rejoined after a long break, and am currently getting re-acquinted with a few other members here. I figured that your favourite programming language is Java (hence, the name). I'm sure you'll find many others who share the same interests.So...I hope you enjoy your stay here and make your contribution to the community. If you have a question or need some help, just ask one of the moderators or the admin, or review the rules of the forum.See you on the boards!

I might as well add my voice to the chorus of others. It's great not to see those ads ever again - just goes to show that Trap 17 keeps on getting better and better.

Hi andy, and welcome aboard! I'm one of the "veterans" of this community (although I took a bit of a hiatus for some time) and I hope you enjoy your stay here. Just remember to read (and in some cases, re-read) the rules. Seems that you're already in good company with the background you have, so I'm sure you have a lot of ideas to share with the community. Oh, and the hosting package is great as well!Have fun, and see you on the boards!

Wow...that sounds harsh. Ideally, you would try to have something ready in case you DO get fired, even if you really like the current job you're at now. It's a tough decision, I know, but in the end if you want to resign, stay positive and thank the company for allowing you to gain some valuable working experience before you go.

Welcome aboard, m pro. I've been a Xisto member for about two years now. I went on a hiatus for a bit, but now I'm back for several reasons: a great forum community, a helpful and wise moderating team and a great hosting package (Hey! Maybe I should write an in-depth review). But anyway, I digress. Hope you enjoy your stay here, and if you abide by the rules when you post, you'll be just fine.Catch you later!

I quite like Thunderbird myself...I managed to set up a couple of accounts so that I could receive all my new messages and RSS feeds in one place. Really convenient. I use Outlook Express, too (unfortunately) but only once in a while.

I used to use Blogger when I first wrote about my daily life in Japan...before I discovered WordPress. Although I like the new Blogger and the things you can now do with it that you couldn't do before, I'm quite happy with WordPress since I can have more control of how the blog looks and functions.

Sounds like a neat idea, but perhaps too expensive to arrange. After all, I don't think any of us are multi-millionaires. (In my case, it looks like I have to fly across an ocean to get to where most of the users are). Anyway, there's always the shoutbox....unless you want to take it to the next level and add avatars (like Yahoo Mail). Just a thought, anyway.

My FTP client of choice is Filezilla (both regular and portable versions). Very effective, very fast (for most files), easy to use. FTP Commander (also free) would be my second choice for a no-frills and extremely simple client.

As much I (and many others) are afraid of things we don't know, I'd rather not know when I would die. It could be tomorrow - or next week, next year by any means, whether it be by a car accident, falling off a cliff, and so forth. At the same time, it's best to prepare before one dies. It pretty much explains why people make wills, so that they can at least pass on their possessions to relatives.

Too bad I missed. According to the map, it looks like I wouldn't have been able to see much of it in my part of the world anyway. Oh well, at least I got to see some pics of the event. Thanks for posting them in this thread!

Welcome aboard, friiks! I'm one of the "veteran" members of the Xisto community. I think you'll meet lots of great people here on the forums who are always willing to make a contribution and obtain top quality free hosting. So...it's never too late to introduce yourself!Anyway, I hope you enjoy your stay and if you have any questions, comments, or problems, post (and in some cases PM) the admin and moderators. I'm sure they'll help you out.See you on the boards!

I pretty much use Google all the time, but before they came on the scene I used to use Alta Vista...and sometimes Excite. At the time, Alta Vista was a very useful search engine that could find pretty much anything. Google is this and a whole lot more! And, sorry to say, MSN Live Search and Yahoo just doesn't cut it anymore for me.

If i had a million dollars, I would (a) quit my job and move back to Canada in a heartbeat, ( buy a new car, © buy a new computer....like a MacBookro, (d) set aside money to cover my child's entire univerity education (Canadian university) and (e) invest it stocks and/or land and have the money work for me to create more money.

Personally, I have an iPod Shuffle (the older version, which is the same size as a packet of chewing gum and can double as a regular USB memory stick to store data files.) and I'm pretty satisfied with it since I rarely fill the entire device with songs and I change the playlist frequently. The nanos are nice, but I like simplicity and a Shuffle suits me nicely. Depends on what you want, really.

I just installed WordPress 2.1 last night, and was just going to upgrade to 2.1.1 when I had some time over the weekend. Good thing I didn't. Thanks for the heads up, rvalkass.

Hello Sin, and welcome aboard!I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay here. If you know (and abide by) the rules of this forum while making your posts, you shouldn't have any problems at all. Of course, if you have any questions, just ask the moderators/admin as they're the people who know best.Hope you can stay active and make your contribution to what is already a great web community!See you on the boards!

Oops! Must have been a late night when I made that small mistake.The problem is now solved and WordPress is up and running...but I may be back if I have any trouble importing my backup file of old posts.

With Google, anything is possible because whatever application they currently have in development in their labs usually end up being a very popular tool/service. The ways things are going, there is a gradual shift with people using online services and applications on any computer - not just on the one they have at home (regardless of whether it's a Mac or PC or Linux machine).

Just visited your website. Overall, I like the design and the layout...although I think it should be centred as well so it can have a more balanced feel. I'm personally not a big fan of sky blue (or is it teal?). Perhaps indigo would make a suitable colour, but that's just my opinion.Aside from that, some content would be nice but since the site is only about a week old then it's not a big problem.

I've chosen to install WordPress manually and things were going well so far...until I hit an installation error when I tried to run the install.php file on my browser. For the record, I logged into CPanel and went into MySQL Databases, created the databases, the username and added the user to the database - as suggested in the installation procedure. Perhaps there's a mistake in my wp-config.php file that might've caused the error. If there's something I should change, please let me know. Many thanks in advance. <?php// ** MySQL settings ** //define('shigajet_blog', 'wordpress'); // The name of the databasedefine('shigajet_wp', 'username'); // Your MySQL usernamedefine('kyoto2003', 'password'); // ...and passworddefine('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); // 99% chance you won't need to change this value// You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique prefix$table_prefix = 'wp_'; // Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!// Change this to localize WordPress. A corresponding MO file for the// chosen language must be installed to wp-includes/languages.// For example, install de.mo to wp-includes/languages and set WPLANG to 'de'// to enable German language support.define ('WPLANG', '');/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */define('ABSPATH', dirname(__FILE__).'/');require_once(ABSPATH.'wp-settings.php');?>

Interesting...I also found out recently that the water vapour and dust particles reflect the rays of the sun. At sunrise and at sunset, when the sun is below the horizon, the dust and water vapour molecules reflect the longer, red rays of light in such a way that we can see them for a longer time. The more dust particles in the air, the more colourful the sunrise or sunset.