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From America_Pleasant Hill HS_May 1st_2016

Here arrived an impressing report from Oregon, USA. Ellie Goto, a 11th grade from Otsuma Nakano High School, is now enrolling at Pleasant Hill High School there.  In America, now academic year is getting close to the end… Otsuma Nakano is so highly  of her report and herself. 

 

Hi, guys! How are you doing?  I have only 2 more reports left :(, which makes me so sad. I don’t want to count how many days are there left for me to stay here. So, I'm just trying not to think about it too much.  

 

In this month, we had a couple of big events.

 

First, at the beginning of April, we were all got together for a special school assembly at the gym.  There were some people who dressed like Death.  Throughout the day, we had an event called "Every 15 minutes", which told us how dangerous and awful drinking and driving are.  In fact, every 15 minutes, an American is killed by a drunk driver.  In the gym, some students acted as if they actually had an accident caused by drunk driving and a video of an accident was showed as part of the program there.

 

Other students were watching outside of our school at the scene of the crash. Seriously it looked like a very realistic accident. Two cars were totally destroyed, and students were screaming and yelling…."Please, someone help! Please!" One of my friends was painted bloody and was shouting the names of the two guys sitting in the front seats. Those guys had their eyes closed and looked like they had been dead.

 

After a while, we saw some police cars, ambulances and one helicopter. A police asked the girl what happened and then she was handcuffed and arrested because she was drunk driving. Some of the police checked if the two guys in the car were dead, and finally one hearse arrived. One guy was carried into an ambulance and another guy was taken with the hearse.  It was so depressing but I could realize that it would be like this when there was an accident.

 

It would happen to anyone. In Japan, we can drive at 18 years old, which means we are more matured, but here in America students drive at 16.  If they choose to drive drunk then this kind of stupid accident can happen every day.

 

I felt this project was a great way to focus on traffic accident problems and drunk driving in America, so I would like you to watch the video.

Here's the link on YouTube:http://youtu.be/g4UtGIY0CVo

 

Secondly, our High School held the 41st Annual Pleasant Hill Jazz Festival!! Every year it is a big event in the school and community and I was so glad I could be a part of it. I didn't sing but I helped to sell Hawaiian Shaved Ice and helped as a stage crew hand.  A huge number of schools came and competed in both vocal and band instruments. I was very excited to say that our Pleasant Hill Jazz Choir took first place and my oldest host sister also took first place in the solo event! I'm so proud of her!  

 

Jazz festival was so much fun and people bought a lot of our shaved ice:)  These are photos of them!

Oh I just got big news for my host sister!!! She was selected to attend Grammy Camp after a long audition. The camp is for teenagers who want to be musicians and she is going to go New York this summer!!!!!!!! I'm really proud of her and so grateful that she is my host sister.

 

If you want to watch her music videos, click here and check them out on YouTube:

 

http://youtu.be/J13eLUX9BMg

http://youtu.be/agI2ZJzR8rQ

 

Thanks so much for reading my report! I'm already ready for this summer and also so excited for Independence Day 😉

 

See you all next month!

 

Sincerely,

Ellie Goto

 

こんにちは!皆さんはいかがお過ごしですか?このレポートもあと残すところ2回しか書けないのだなと思うと、とても寂しく感じます。

今月は2つ、大きな出来事がありました!

 

一つ目として、4月の初め、全校生徒が体育館に呼ばれました。そこには死神の装束を身にまとった数人の生徒の姿が。''Every 15 minutes''と言われる、飲酒運転禁止の為の有志のイベントが行われたのです。実際に生徒が血のメイクなどをして事故を起こした若者を演じ、事故が起こった時のように車が衝突しているところ、友達を亡くし泣き叫んでいる様子などをビデオに撮り、飲酒運転がどれだけ心に傷をつけるものか生徒全員にわかってもらうという内容です。

 

実際の現場では、霊柩車や救急車も校庭に到着し、脈の有無、生存者の確認などが行われました。死神の生徒たちはその飲酒運転で死んでしまった生徒達、ということです。実際に起こったわけではないとわかってはいるのですが、とても悲しくてとても心に残りました。YouTubeで閲覧ができるので、もし良ければご覧になって下さい。

 

 

二つ目、4月中旬に私たちPleasant Hill High school にてジャズフェスティバルが行われました!毎年ビッグイベントとなり多くの学校や保護者が来校するので、私もかき氷を売ったりステージのヘルプをしたりなど大忙しでした。私たちPleasant Hillは合唱にて金賞を取り、また私のホストシスターもソロで金賞を頂きました!

 

そして彼女は倍率のとても高いオーディションに合格し、今年の夏ニューヨークに歌手を目指す若者のための強化キャンプに行くことが決定しました!家族の一員として、とても嬉しいです。ご閲覧頂けると幸いです。

 

今月のレポートを読んで下さり有難うございました!夏が近づいてくるのがとても楽しみです。

 

また来月もよろしくお願い致します!

 

後藤絵里衣

 

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