"You become more beautiful in the place where I am not."

I hope everyone had a good Obama Day! Even here people feel some of the excitement - one teacher said he downloaded the inaugural speech and listened to it on his drive in. "It is good practice," he said solemnly. "He uses many big words." Another printed a copy with "a slightly strange" Japanese translation, that he plans to use in the third-year English elective.

I know the nay-sayers are nay-saying that everyone who voted for him will see the truth once his inexperience, secret-Muslimness, etc. inevitably comes to light. The thing is, even if he's a totally commonplace president I'll be satisfied on some level. Even if electing him was a mistake, at least it was a mistake we made for ourselves - versus the last election which felt like nothing but a mistake that was forced upon us. Maybe we're young and easily swayed by pretty words, me and my peers - but let us have the chance to figure it out for ourselves.

I wanted to put up Martin Luther King's famous "not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" on the English board with a translation. But to my distress, I was having difficulty finding a Japanese version that stayed true to the original. Most of them - and Google found many - are similar, but all of them have something different for "but by the content of their character." One had "but by rank." What does that even mean? And one just had "but by their contents." I think I finally found one that works.

 

The promotional video for Kinki Kids' new single is out! It's essentially a glorified screensaver (and also made me think, "My goodness, is Koichi's head really that big?")

"Yakusoku" or "Promise" is not my favorite song of theirs. Though a waltz with a pretty, old-fashioned quality, it also sounds a little like the composer trying too hard. "I can make them sing in counterpoint! I can end on a suspended chord! Key changeseseses, precious!" But these two could make a phonebook sound good: