Summer is here, and with summer come the world’s noisiest insects. You can hear cicadas everywhere you go in Nagoya these days. They come out after the rainy season, but where do they come from? Young cicadas go underground after they are born. They stay underground for a few years before they come out of holes under trees. These young cicadas are called nymphs. When they climb out of the holes, they climb up a nearby tree. Then, at night, they leave their outside shell and become adults. You can find the empty shells on the trees right now. The male cicadas are the noisy ones. They make noise to attract female cicadas.   (113 words )

There was big news from the U.S. yesterday. President Joe Biden said that he would not run for president again this year. This is very unusual. He became president for the first time three and a half years ago, and a first-time president usually runs again. Biden wanted to continue, and no one could really stop him. Why did he change his mind? Many supporters said that he couldn’t win because of his age. At first, he didn’t listen to them, but then he got COVID. Many important people asked him to leave for the good of the country. I think this helped to change his mind. Saying goodbye to the most important job in the U.S. isn’t easy!  (119 words)

It is easy to dislike summer in Nagoya. It’s too hot to go outside during the day, and some nights are too hot to sleep. If I don’t use air conditioning, I can’t work or even think. However, there is one thing that I love about summer in Japan: shaved ice. You can find it everywhere. Just look for a small square flag with a big red character for “ice” on it in front of a store. Shaved ice is one of the most refreshing things to eat on a hot day. Last year I bought my own shaved ice machine and started making it at home. The machine looks big and heavy, but it is small and light, and it works very well. There is nothing as delicious and as easy to make in summer as shaved ice!    (139 words)

At the beginning of July, I was a staff member for a high school program. We took a group of students out onto Fujimae Tidal Flat. When we got to the flat, I could see something pink far away in the mud. I started walking toward it. I got closer, and I saw that it was a small suitcase. It was open, and there was hardly anything inside. I knew that it had been in the sea for a long time because the top was covered with barnacles. However, I didn’t know anything else. There was no name on it. Who did it belong to? Where did it come from? How did it get into the sea? (117 words)

Mister Donut was an American franchise, but now there is  only one store in the U.S. In Japan, there are 1000 stores. What happened? Harry Winokur, the man who started Mister Donut, was the brother-in-law of the man who started Dunkin` Donuts. They both knew that Americans liked coffee and donuts, so they decided to start their own stores in the 1950s. Both were successful. In 1970, Winokur sold Mister Donut. The Japanese stores were bought by Duskin. In the U.S., the company that owned Dunkin’ Donuts bought the American stores, and they all became Dunkin’ Donuts, all except one. Today the only Mister Donut store in the U.S. is in a small town in Illinois near St. Louis.  (119 words)