Here finally starts the snow session.

With little and almost no snow on the mountains until late Dec this season that was far from last year what we had, I had been so disappointed with no snow-falling and myself not going to a skihill. Who cares? Most people are happy with no snow on the road or wherever they drive in.They don't have to be a killer car. I've seen a few days ago the day we had first time snow falling however, some car got slipped down to outside the bank road or some jumped onto the brink at the intersection. I supposed they maybe skidded. I gave them my a little sympathy. I had a similar one before and how embarrasing it was..

Anyway, the day after we had certain amount of snow I headed up to the Gokuraku by myself and was so excited and was expecting powderly snow there. When I got there I was putting on my gears, and I jsut ran into my friend-Yacchi(Mr).

After I had a stepup run for one time, we did an amazing snow ride. We got on a chairlift to the top and move toward the sideway, but we saw the red poles which always described no-more-enter. So we killed our existence and went it through and plod toward the area where we knew.

It was the way too hard though to walk onto the deep snow. Every single step I had, my feet got buried so deeply into the bottom and my energy was being lost for sure. In 15 minutes, we finally got the destination and had a break with ragged cigarette and pissed, we started doing it with full blast. It was just fun for ride.

Terrain park, jibbing,halfpipe is one thing, one of the exciting stuffs, but powder run is something else. It's both a lot fun but different fun. I like them both. We did that routine 4 or 5 times and got totally exhausted. After a long break, I did some runs and went home. Now the muscle pains are all around my body.

Now can't wait til Seaside opens the halfpipe. They need more substantial snow to build it up. Fortunately I didn't eat it so much on the powder run but always make me feel scared to get messed with a terrain stuff since it always really hurts. Concussion wouldn't be appreciated, let alone damn fracture. Gotta be careful..

出張 シカゴ編

シカゴへ出張。

成田から10時間半、シカゴのオヘア空港に到着。時差ぼけにも程よくかかり、タバコを吸うが、瞬時に酸欠状態に。。頭がふらふら。。
気温は予想に反しかなり暖かい。18度の温度標識を確認。ジャンパーは必要ないと思われた。

が、しかし翌日夕暮れ時にかけて急激に冷え込みついには雪がちらつく有様。翌日はご覧の通り一面マイナスの銀世界。その日は飛行機のフライトすべてがキャンセルに。うちらの帰国日に重ならなかったのでまだ良かった。

スケジュールは終止、ホテルと工場の行き来のみで楽しみにしていた町並み散策はできなかった。お金もほとんど使ってない。何も見てない。シカゴ郊外の田舎街に4日間滞在しただけ。でも、食事はおいしいものも鱈腹食べれたし満足満足。ロブスター、ステーキ、寿司、中華、イタリアン。。ご満悦です。

仕事時は専門用語を頻繁に話されたので訳すのにかなりの労力を使った。あと、feetとcmの計算もややこしくて計算機と格闘。間違いは許されないので何度も確認。余計な神経を使った。

ダウンタウンを見れなかったのは残念だったが、自分なりに同行者の役には立てたと思うし、仕事上大いに勉強にもなった。

仕事を通じて海外に行けるのは非常にありがたいこと。流暢に通訳できるのに越したことはないが、専門分野における知識が必須なので流暢さよりも機能的に受け答えできる能力が必要だと思った。要は通じれば良いってこと。もともとネイティブの用には喋れないんだから自分流の英語をしっかり身につけてスムーズに事が進行するよう努める。これが大事。