Lesson 10

Dear Sue Garreis

Long time no see! How's life treating you?

I have been busy preparing for my dissertation now because I have an oral examination at November.

Dear Mei,

Thank you so much for your tenth message. My comments follow. Grammar corrections are in italics.

Sincerely,

Prof. Sue Garreis

⇒Wow! You had a busy summer. Best of luck with your orals. How long (in hours) are they? How many professors will examine you? Scary, but you will do well. Are any part of your orals in English?

Summer vacation has already closed. And our pleasant exchange begins today.

⇒I look forward to it too!

How hot did it get during summer?

⇒It was *hot*! Records were broken several times.

The mercury was over one hundred (thirty-eight Celsius) several times. That is very unusual for this part of the country. We had many sustained days in the high nineties (thirty-six Celsius). Very hard on everyone.

In Japan, it was sweltering hot every day. And it's warm for September, now.

My sympathies! The heat has broken here. It feels good, actually. I hope your heat breaks soon, too.

September 22 was a night with a full moon. On this day we originally look up at moon and eat dumplings. Though some Japanese observe such custom, we don't observe much now. I like to look up at moon or stars, but I don't like dumplings. Do you have such custom in your country?

⇒We have a similar custom. The full moon at this time of year (September or October) is called the Harvest Moon. Its light lets the farmers work long into the night. Here is an interesting article about the names of the full moons: http://www.farmersalmanac.com/full-moon-names/. The November full moon is more frequently called the Hunter's Moon now, because guys grab their guns and hunt deer in the woods. The long light lets them see better. But I guess the deer can see better, too! We don't have any particular foods associated with the full moons. And we stare at the moon, simply because it is so beautiful.

BTW, we are going to boot up our homepage at November 19. So I want to make arrangements about it with you throughout our exchange. As I have never booted up my homepage, I don't know what I should do. If I need to prepare something, let me tell.

⇒Please let me know the URL of your homepage when you get it done. Or while you are working on it, if you want to. Profs. Shiina and Kaneko will have the specific requirements for you. In the past the students have included a transcript of our email correspondence. However, they have been undergraduates. I guess the requirements would be a little more for you. You can practice putting up pictures or clipart or music (if not copyrighted) even videos on your website. Photos you have taken can be uploaded. Please be careful about using pictures or music from other websites on your website. Some of the pictures are protected by copyrights, especially US ones. Feel free to use any image that appears on my pages. They are all free and are not copyright protected. It is always ok (under US law) to put up a link to a site that has a picture or music that you like. The link address is not copyrighted. Feel free to ask me any questions you want about your webpage. The finished product will be worth the effort.

Looking forward to receiving an answer from you.

Sincerely,

Mei

⇒This week the lesson consists of two pages. The first page, Welcome Back, http://msgarreis.com/WelcomeBack2010.htm, gives an overview of the next topic. The second page, http://msgarreis.com/summervacation2010.htm, tells you what I did this summer. Feel free to ask any questions you want about my activities. I am sorry this come so late to you. I helped my daughter move this weekend. I thought I could get the pages up fast. I should know better! It was an awful time getting them to upload to the server. Sorry about the lateness. I have supreme confidence in your ability to handle the load, though. That's part of the fun of being a graduate student. If you have to prioritize, read Welcome Back first.
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