I said goodbye to two pleasures this year.

1. Email Diary and Tripartite Talks

It was on May 28, 2014 that N-san gave me an English e-mail. She was a classmate of the English conversation class sponsered by Urayasu International Center (UIC). My reply was surely in English, too.
This commucication continued day after day for a month or so, when I thought it was wasteful only to email each other everyday and decided to keep mine as a diary.
With N-san's acceptance, I started the "English Diary Corner" in the English Edition Square.
One year was passing while I was surprised with and thanked her for her durability.

Around that time M-san, another friend of the English conversation class, had a wonderful proposal to us. It was to have a tripartite meeting mainly in English conversation once a week. Both of us were surely OK.
As for myself, a mere male senior with little ability, it would be a time of paradise surrounded by two beauties. We started the meeting with my feeling of embarrassment and unsuitability by such a fortune.

Three of us met together every Friday at 5:30 p.m. at a small room of UIC, following M-san's work-closing time.
The first half of our one-hour meeting was spent and livened up by the free discussion mainly on each lady's latest news with English articles they brought respectively each time.

We chose a fairy tale "I am Pea-chan, the Parakeet" as the text for the second half. This tale is the English version of my novel translated by the help of the senior lady Julia, a friend of mine at D Sport Club. After this tale, we adopted "Spoken American English, Advanced Course" published by Kenkyu-sha, which I had used a long time ago and has many notes on most of the pages. Thankfully, the two ladies were pleased to buy theirs.

The ending time was forgotten every time until I said so. The staffs of UIC were so supportive to overlook some overtime unless there were other plans.
Sometimes a special guest joined us. The talk on the two-year stay in Uzubekistan by A-san, UIC staff, the talk on the working days in South America with a projector by Chief W of UIC, .......

This tripartite meeting was held every week unless any important inconvenience for more than 2 years and a half. I thank them for their enthusiasm with no tiresomeness from the bottom of my heart.

However, both the tripartite meeting and my email diary were unpredictably suspended this March. As for my email diary with N-san's help, it had continued everyday for 3 years and 8 months since then except for such communication-impossible time like trips and illness.

The suspention of email diary was caused by N-san's serious illness, and no English email from her made me lose the motivation of the English diary.
As for the suspention of the tripartite talks, it was wholely due to myself. The limit of my ability really came home to me. Too shameful, but every Friday time with two beauties became a burden to me, though I didn't know why.
The meeting began at 5:30 p.m., which is 30 minutes after my usual drinking dinner time. Never because of such a reason.
It might be due to the peculiar illness of seniors like laziness and a stay-at-home for everything.

N-san's illness seems so serious that nobody knows when she will be able to leave the hospital. She is really sorry for her situation, and M-san looks at a loss.

- - - - -
Eight months have passed since the suspension. M-san gives me email at times, but I haven't heard from N-san yet.

2. Current English Class

While I am stuck in a rut and feel my limit of ability about English conversation, I am still attracted to reading and writing, that is both translations into English and Japanese. Though the ability has fallen down with the passing of time, my will has not become so weak. Rather than that, if I say it is one of the precious hobbies left for me, it may tell something to the point.
Until a couple of years ago, I was working on the English translation of my domestic travelogues and my own novels, and also sometimes the Japanese translation of English articles.

It happened at such a time.
I attended the briefing session of Urayasu International Friendship Association (UIFA) on the start of "Current English Class from October 2016." I expected there might be some connection between this coming class and my hobby.

Mr. T, lecturer, in his forties?, was also going to be in charge of English Interpretation Class. He looked cheerful with a rich voice. I had a good impression in him.
He told the attendants that the class would use as a text such articles like English news flashes about various events and different cultures around the world.
Though not confident of following the class, I applied for it, thinking my will would be satisfied.

The class started in October 2016 as 15 times for half a year, every time from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday with 15 students.
The class goes this way.
The text of an English article is handed out right there, and each student reads through. Then they read each paragraph in voice and try to translate it into Japanese by the seating order of the round table.
Everything does not always go well?
I almost decided to give up the class when one month passed and the 4th class ended, because I felt too hard to follow this way of the class, that is, to translate the text handed out on the spot, though I thought dropout was not only myself.
Before the 5th class, several female students were chatting, and I heard some lady saying, "I will ask the teacher to hand out the text beforehand." I agreed with her unconsciously.
Mr. T approved our request and promised us to attach the text for the next class in his email a couple of days before.
And then, the texts of Current English News Articles were delivered in such a way, so my worry was totally solved.

After a couple of times of a comfortable class since then, I honestly thought that it would be a big waste to quit each hard work of Japanese translation from the English text carefully selected by the teacher. Therefore, I set up the corner "Current English Class" in my homepage "Viva, Seniors!", and my translation work with the English text began to be carried there two days after each class.
It might have been too pushy, but I handed out my Japanese translation to the teacher T before the class and said, "If you please, ..." Mr. T answered, "I am glad. Thank you."
In addition, I said "Will it be OK if I do this way from now on?" Mr. T answered in smile, "I will be glad."

Just getting off the track, ......
"Rome was not built in a day" or "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
Every little step would sometimes lead to an inconceivable point to the person himself.
Even with fickle personality, I have just one pride inside. Needless to say, it is my homepage "Viva, Seniors!" started about 20 years ago. It consists of 12 squares, including a square of "travelogues, essays and novels" called "Zakki-cho" and the English translation square of my original works called "English Edition". Most of the works both Japanese and English are with my hoarse voice reading.
"Viva, Seniors!" is so full in dozen squares in present that there are actually many works not in my memory. Whatever is the workmanship, while looking back on each square, I recall many of them out of my memory and so, I am very glad in mind, thinking it will serve to kill time in my next life, too.
And now, my sad story on this Current English Class.

- - - - - - -
Supported by Mr. T's encouragement, Current English Class Corner was added to the square "English Edition", and it included 56 stories from December 2016 to September this year.
But the sky was not brilliant forever.
At the beginning of this year or so, I felt discomfort in the palpitation of my heart. I took electrocardiography under the direction of the neurology doctor and the peripheral abnormal pulse was found.
I was moved to the cardiovascular medicine and its doctor directed me to take holster electrocardiography and other various examinations.
In the result, the hypotensive drug, one of the medicine-chest items, was diagnosed as the cause. So, I stopped taking it right away. It would have been happy if everything were solved then, but things did not go so well. Even now in November the doctor recommends me to have a pacemaker in body.

This irregular pulse became an obstacle to my voice reading in the Current English Class. I got conscious of palpitations. It was unpleasant, making me oversensitive.
For this reason I was absent from the class from May to September, the end of the first half of this year, and continued to email the teacher with the attachment of my translation for each class.
All the translations of 56 articles until then are carried in the Current English Class Corner.

I decided to leave the class from October, the beginning of the second half, with painful reluctance. However, I did want to continue the Japanese translation of the text articles. I sent to Mr. T a long email as follows.

"I am sorry I have decided to leave the class for a while because it is a burden for me to attend the class with irregular pulse not completely recovered yet.
But the Japanese translation of the English news articles of your selection has honestly been one of my challenging jobs.
I really admit that it would be an unreasonable demand for a non-student to ask you to send the texts from now on too. Nevertheless I would very much like to continue to try the translation work as long as my will lasts. I am ready to pay the suitable charge by your instruction.
Under your consent, I'd like to carry my translations with the text in a new corner of English Edition Square strictly after each class."

Though no answer from him, I received the text for the first class of the latter half from him by email, saying "I will be happy if this way is helpful to you."

Since then his favor has been going on, and I have surely been sending each translation with struggle as my reason for living.
The results are in the "Current Topics in English Articles" Corner until the 6th class on November 16 under his consent.
The 6th news article was "The midterm results highlight Trump's and Democrats' electral map challenges" by Washington Post, November 7, 2018.

Happily I could carry the 9th article in the corner yesterday, and am looking forward for the 10th after the New Year's days. (as of December 17)