以前ドイツ語会話がナチュラルスピードだったので、Sprechen Sie bitte langsamer.（もっとゆっくり話して下さい。）と何度お願いしても、速度は変えられないようでした。ところが今日聞いてみたら、ちゃんと速度の調整も普通に出来るようになっていました！これは画期的なことです。今後はSieではなくDuで話すことになりました。😊
以前ドイツ語会話がナチュラルスピードだったので、Sprechen Sie bitte langsamer.（もっとゆっくり話して下さい。）と何度お願いしても、速度は変えられないようでした。ところが今日聞いてみたら、ちゃんと速度の調整も普通に出来るようになっていました！これは画期的なことです。今後はSieではなくDuで話すことになりました。😊
取られても平気なふりをしています。pawnはチェスの駒で一番数が多く、キングやクイーン等を守る為に犠牲にされることが良くあるので、a pawn in the gameは「I refuse to be a pawn in your political game.」（あなたの政治的な駆け引きの駒になるつもりはありません。）など比喩的に使われています。
My favorite pawn.
（私のお気に入りのポーンだったのに・・・。）
さっきは、「ただのポーン」を言ったばかりなのに。。。
How could you?
（よくもそんなことを！／なんてことをしてくれたんだ！）
これはHow could you do that?を省略していて、非難・ショックを表す定番表現です。「You ate my cake! How could you?」（私のケーキ食べたのね！よくもそんなことを！）
feedは餌をやるという意味で、彼は自分を三人称で表現して、「オスカー、相手に餌をやる。」と実況しているわけです。feedは動物だけではなく、人にも普通に使います。I have to feed the kids.などです。又、別の意味で、feed paper into a printer.（プリンターに紙を送り込む）でも使われます。
(Although I had finally achieved my dream of becoming a secretary at a foreign company, the reality was extremely difficult. God allowed me to go through this trial in order to draw me even closer to Him.)
Through a recommendation from the secretarial school I was attending at the time, I finally had the opportunity to work as a secretary for a European company. The head of the office was Japanese, and although I had no previous experience as a secretary, I was assigned to work for the person in the highest position in the office. He was extremely demanding and very difficult to work for. Day after day, I was told that I was a poor secretary, and gradually I began to lose confidence in myself.
Within a month or two of joining the company, even the sound of the internal phone ringing when my boss called would make me react with fear. My voice would tremble, and so would my hands. I was almost like “Pavlov’s dog.” I was no longer myself and was on the verge of becoming ill.
This continued for about a year and two months. There was even a time when I wondered whether my boss might be Satan himself. But after praying about it for some time, I came to realize that the real problem was not him, but my own weakness.
If I had never met that boss, I might never have become aware of my pessimistic way of thinking or of my own weakness. One day, feeling almost desperate, I went to a Christian bookstore. I normally do not read how-to books, but for some reason, one particular book caught my eye. It was The Power of Positive Thinking, written by the American pastor Norman Vincent Peale.
Throughout the book, one Bible verse appears repeatedly, almost like a key phrase:
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
I was constantly on edge, afraid of how my boss might react to anything I did. I had developed the habit of expecting the worst, always wondering when I would be criticized again. My negative thinking had become deeply ingrained in my subconscious.
I had become afraid of almost everything I did. I had developed the habit of expecting something bad to happen, always thinking that I might be criticized again. My negative thinking had penetrated deep into my mind, even into my subconscious.
Following the advice in the book, I decided to stop using negative words altogether. Negative words enter through our own ears and are recorded, as it were, on the tape recorder of the subconscious mind. From that point on, I had to begin the work of planting positive words in my subconscious instead.
I consciously chose to use positive and encouraging words. Whenever I worked, I thought of my work as something I was doing together with Jesus. Because the Almighty was with me, I was able to believe that there was nothing I could not do. By myself, I could do nothing, but because the Lord was with me, I no longer needed to worry.
After about six months of living this way, I had become myself again. But I had also gained something more: I had become a positive thinker, and my trust in God had grown to one hundred percent.
When we finally realize that there are things we simply cannot handle by ourselves, we reach the point of surrender. I raised the white flag of surrender to God. Through this experience, I learned to entrust everything to Him and to trust Him completely.
There is something I have become firmly convinced of through observing the people around me. Regardless of whether a person has faith or not, it is ultimately that person’s own state of mind that can make life unhappy. Those who habitually view things negatively and pessimistically tend to live unhappy lives, while those who approach life positively and with hope tend to live happier ones.
------ to be continued -----
p.s.
These testimonies are written in chronological order. Testimonies ①–④ tell how I came to faith in Christ, and the testimonies that follow describe my walk with Him. Please see the link below.
(A little over a year after I started working there, the nature of my job changed, and I was no longer satisfied with it. I decided that working for Japanese companies was no longer for me and set my sights on becoming a secretary at a foreign-owned company.)
I could never fully understand, with my limited human mind, the plans God had for me. I believe that every Christian is led through different experiences and trained by God in different ways. In my case, I feel that most of my breaking and learning took place through my work and relationships with people in the workplace.
At that time, all I could think about was advancing my career. Perhaps, without even realizing it, I was trying to find my identity in my work. As I grew older and remained single, there were moments when I suddenly wondered what I existed for and for whom I was living. I was still running constantly, unable to stop and look around me.
When I first joined the company as a sales assistant, I was responsible for the American market. I handled international trade operations, including a moderate amount of shipping work, as well as translation and business correspondence in English.
I had never formally studied business correspondence, but at my previous company, I had learned by borrowing expressions from letters written by the secretary and other people, and that experience proved very useful.
When the company was preparing to launch a new game, I translated the proposal into English, and an American colleague used my translation as the basis for an English-language leaflet. When the game was unveiled to the public for the first time at a trade show, I felt almost as if I were sending my own child out into the world.
But those fulfilling days changed completely after about a year.
A woman who was responsible for the European market suddenly decided to leave the company, and the division manager told me about it only three days before her departure. After just a few hours of handover, I found myself responsible for all of her work as well.
Shipments to Europe were almost nonstop. Until then, I had found my work rewarding and had been able to work at a relatively comfortable pace, but suddenly every day became as hectic as a storm. The company decided not to hire anyone to replace her, so my workload tripled overnight. Even if I had ballpoint pen marks on my face or my hair was a mess, I had no time to look in the mirror. I spent my days almost as if I had given up being a woman altogether! 😅
One evening, I came home and said, “I’m home, Jesus. I’m exhausted!” I sat down, somehow ended up lying down, and fell asleep. The next morning, I woke up on the tatami mats, still exactly as I had been when I came home. This happened three days in a row.
The first two or three months, while I was getting used to the workload, were extremely demanding. Yet even during that time, Jesus was faithfully guiding me.
At the time, I had been deeply hurt by a personal matter. Under other circumstances, I might have spent my days crying, so in a way, it was good that my mind was completely occupied with work. Before I knew it, my wounded heart had healed.
After a while, I found various ways to streamline my work and was able to reduce the workload.
I had left my first company because an organizational restructuring had divided the work into smaller tasks and made my job monotonous. Now the same thing happened at this company.
Japanese companies tend to organize work so that it does not depend on one particular person and can continue smoothly no matter who takes over. As a result of another organizational change, the company decided to eliminate the sales assistant position.
My job was reduced to typing away like a machine gun, producing shipping documents one after another. I had worked in international trade for many years, and I was deeply disappointed—and my pride was hurt—to find myself sharing exactly the same work, side by side, with a young woman who knew nothing about international trade. If I ended up doing less challenging work, I felt there was no point in having changed jobs at all.
However, through my experience as a sales assistant, I had discovered something important about myself: I enjoyed supporting other people in their work, and I was good at it.
Without hesitation, I secretly made up my mind: I’m going to become a secretary—and I’m going back to a foreign-owned company.
I realized once again that, even if the environment was more demanding, a foreign-owned company would give me better opportunities to make use of my abilities than a comfortable Japanese company.
I may take a long time to think things over, but once I make up my mind, I act quickly. Without telling anyone at work, I enrolled in an evening secretarial school. I told my boss and colleagues that I was studying “to prepare for my old age.” 😅
I felt I was starting rather late to pursue a career as a secretary, but looking back, moving from international trade to sales support and then to secretarial work seems like a very natural progression.
Sometimes I sighed and wondered in the back of my mind, Why do I have to keep changing jobs? But all the while, God’s plan—a plan I could not yet see—was steadily unfolding.
(It was through the severe training God gave me at my next workplace that my wavering faith finally became firm. Amen.)
These testimonies are written in chronological order. Testimonies ①–④ tell how I came to faith in Christ, and the testimonies that follow describe my walk with Him. Please see the link below.
The other day, I tried making mizu manju, a cool Japanese sweet filled with red bean paste.
Put the ingredients listed below in a saucepan and stir over low heat, being careful not to let the mixture burn. Once it starts to thicken, spoon some of the mixture into small molds, add some red bean paste, and cover with the remaining mixture. Then chill them in the refrigerator until set.
By the way, I bought a pack of Yukimi Daifuku just so I could use the plastic tray as molds. 😅
I also used some other small containers I had at home, but if you use molds about the size of Yukimi Daifuku, this recipe should make about six.
<Ingredients>
Potato starch — 40 g
Sugar — 30 g
Water — 400 ml
Red bean paste — as needed
You can also make milk mochi by changing the proportions and using milk instead of water: 35 g potato starch, 20 g sugar, and 250 ml milk. It’s delicious served with kinako (roasted soybean flour) sprinkled on top.
If you eat it with red bean paste, you can leave out the sugar.
当時はカセットテープで、その後CDを購入しました。落ちたと思っていた会社も採用されて、嬉しかったという忘れられない思い出です。下記は彼女が歌っている歌詞で、これはKing James Versionそのままです。何度も聴いているうちに、英語の「主の祈り」をいつの間にか覚えました。
･･･Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
(Matthew 6:9-13 KJV)
かなり久しぶりになりますが、「主の祈り」の原書を調べてみました。古典ギリシャ語の原書（聖書アプリのTHGNT）は下記テキストに書いた通りです。word by wordの直訳は「Bible Hub」を使いました。下枠のNKJVはNew King James Versionで、私が個人的に原書に近いと思っている英語の聖書です。
黄緑色のフォントは動詞、オレンジ色は名詞になります。なお、文法的な詳細は、「Blue Letter Bible」をご参照下さい。（Blue Letter Bibleの英訳はNASB95ですが、対訳にブランクが多いので、NASB95は使っていません。）
