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The Ironing Man

  ‘ She hated all kinds of housework. Full stop. ’ (p. 7)   Tom and his wife Marina live in a small village outside London. He works in London, but during the day, she is left bored and alone at home. Their relationship is almost loveless. She only does the housework and wants somebody that can help her with it, especially the boring ironing. One day, when she is doing ironing on her own, the doorbell has rung. There is a tall, good-looking man in a white T-shirt and jeans. He says ‘I’ve come to do the ironing for you.’ He has done the ironing for her, talked to her, and drunk a coffee with her. When Tom has heard about this, he has become worried that she may be going mad and seeing another man. To know what is going on with her, he has hired a detective and had him follow Marina. However, the detective has mistakenly followed a masseuse, who has given a massage to Marina and had his boyfriend pick herself up at Marina’s place. The detective tells Tom that ‘Marina’ is seeing anoth
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4. Where is Hollywood? (Chapter3: The Big Five)

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In 1916, he helped form a New York talent agency called Metro Pictures Corporation. (p. 36)      This book has ten chapters covering how Hollywood was founded and some fun facts about the best known film industry.      Louis B. Mayer owned a large number of movie theaters in New England. He also owned a company which rented films to movie theatres. To make a buck, firstly, he bought the rights to rent out The Birth of a Nation, which he had not seen although he was certain it would be a moneymaker. Secondly, he helped establish a NY talent agency named Metro Pictures Corporation. Secondly, he signed up writers, directors, and actors to deal with new films which he would produce. Thirdly, he moved his company, renamed MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) to Southern California, where he was able to set up a complete studio. On the back lot by the studio were big sets for filming scenes outdoors. As a result of his dedicated efforts at filmmaking, MGM began churning out award-winning films with the
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3. Where is Hollywood? (Chapter2: Making Movies)

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Movies were a new thing and just starting to become popular. (p. 22)      This book has ten chapters covering how Hollywood was founded and some fun facts about the best known film industry.      There was a great migration to Los Angeles in the early 1900s, and some filmmakers in the East wanted to move there. At that time, an action-packed thriller film titled The Great Train Robbery of 1903 was released, and it was a landmark although it lasted for only 12 minutes. Some directors in New York and New Jersey were after a better spacious place for filming where there was no weather-related problem so that filmmakers could do a lot of filming outdoors. No other place could not be epitomized except for Los Angeles. The weather was great even in winter, and LA had various kinds of scenery: mountains, canyons, deserts, The Pacific Ocean. In 1877, Thomas Edison, one of the most famous inventors, invented the phonograph. By the late 1880s, he was inventing a camera which could take moving p
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2. World War Ⅱ

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 In Germany, in the early 1920s, the government printed more and more paper notes to try and make up for the lack of money. (p. 21)      This book has eight chapters talking about the general history World War Ⅱ with some humorous jokes.      From my point of view, chapter 2, "The Charging Rhino" interested me a lot. The title compared German to a charging rhinoceros, which is hilarious. The chapter mainly covers the offense and defense between Britain and Germany. Four weeks after Hitler's army invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939, the entire country was under German and Russian control. Then, the Germans tore through Belgium, Holland, and France, whose towns and cities were thoroughly bombed by German planes. The Brits could not help but retreat not to be wiped out. Here is a famous escape story. In May, 1940, there were hundreds of thousands of British and French soldiers who were trapped in Dunkirk, which is the French coast in a seaside resort. In fact, the British
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1. Where is Hollywood? (Chapter1: Hollywoodland)

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 On September 9, 1850, California became the thirty-first state in the United States of America. (p. 15)      This book has ten chapters covering how Hollywood was founded and some fun facts about the best known film industry.      The chapter 1 is about the history that Hollywood was founded and merged with Los Angeles. After gold was discovered in Northern California, a whole host of people around the world came here to make a fortune. However, most of the newcomers settled in the northern part, and there were not many settlers in Southern California. As a matter of fact, the weather there was warm and the sun shone bright day after day, which meant the place was perfect for farming. Because of the Transcontinental Railroad constructed in the 1860s, traveling for distances became much easier. One day, Harvey and his family, who were tired of harsh and snowy winters in Topeka, Kansas, took a train to Los Angeles, and bought acres and acres of land. For some reason, he was sure people
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6. Presentation on July 18th

1. Each presenter talked about their own topic. 2. Presenters (1) Mako Mako talked about her reading. According to her, she was not good at reading because she was guessing the meaning of word unknown to her and this made it slower for her to read. However, when she was a second-grade pupil, during the summer holidays, she read one book again and again, and as a result, her reading problems were solved, and this made her find enjoyment in reading. When she was a high school student, she belonged to a brass band, so she didn't have enough time to read books. And then she decided to read editorials of some newspapers for her university entrance examination.  Now, she adopts some useful ways of reading like this. Firstly, after reading a book, she picks up some points about the book and reread it answering her questions. Secondly, she compares its story with other books or movies. She finds several advantages in these steps, and she is thinking of making use of the skills that sh
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5. Presentation on July 4th

1. Topic ・My strengths and weaknesses ・My goals for the future ・An experience that I've learned from 2. ⑴ Saya The presenter Saya talked about her strengths and weaknesses. She was not sure what they were, so she asked her mother about them. Then she told her that Saya is hasty, a worrier and doesn't hesitate. Firstly, according to her, it takes her 15 minutes to go to shcool, but she makes it a rule to leave home 1 hour before the beginning of school. Furthermore, she's a worrier, so just in case, she always carries a lot of things in her bag such as band-aids, contact lenses and some ointment. Judging from this, it's very safe to say she's an absolute worrier, but I think being prudent is good. Secondly, she told us a person who Saya respects. Her name is Emiri Aizawa, who used to be a hostess, but now she's the president of a company. She says "Everything is up to me.", "Don't compare yourself to others." (I paraphrased.) Saya
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