Do it yourself!

I have always had an addictive personality. By this, I mean that I easily become ^★addicted to things. As a young boy, I would stay up all night playing a board game; in high school, I played sport whenever I could; and when I discover a great new TV show, I watch as many episodes in row as I possibly can - the online streaming service Netflix is both a ^★godsend and a ^★curse. In the last few years, golf has become my passion with most of my free time spent practicing, playing or watching golf.

While these pastimes have all brought me a lot of enjoyment, there is generally little to show for them. It is this point that makes my new addiction to DIY (Do-it-yourself home improvements)
^★superior. I recently bought a house. It is an old house that had been renovated (or “reformed” in Japanese-English) before I moved in, and I love it! However, there are still a lot of things that I can do to make it even better. So far, I have only completed a few simple projects: installing a handrail for the stairs and building some toilet shelves. But I know that I have ^★caught the DIY bug!

I am definitely not a master craftsman, and I make many mistakes that have to be thrown away. But each time I do something – good or bad -I learn a little more, and I get a lot of satisfaction from making something by myself. Also, I can ^★customize everything to suit my specific purpose. So, now much of my free time is spent thinking of new projects for the house, such as new shelves and a workbench for the garage, and walking around home improvement stores. I’m lucky a Homac store is so close! And I’m already looking ahead to next spring when I plan to build a deck and much, much more.

Put simply, why spend time looking and money on cheap, poor quality items when you can do it yourself?

～～～これ知ってた？～～～

★addicted:　楽しくてしょうがないものなどに 「はまっている」時、または薬物などの「中毒になっている」時に使います、easilyと合わせるとすぐ何かにはまりやすい性格ということになりますね！みなさんも自分は今何にはまっているかを考えて“I’m addicted to～”と一文作ってみましょう！

★a godsend:　「天の恵み、思わぬ幸運」を表します。面白い新番組をどんどん配信してくれるNetflixに対して神様が自分に送ってくれた恵だと表現しているのですね！

★curse:　上記のgodsendに対して、自分を抑えられず連続で見てしまい、夜更かしをしてしまう「不幸［害悪］の元凶」でもあると言っていますね。

★superior:　名詞では「自分より上のもの」、また「上司」などを指すこのsuperior。形容詞ではこのように「優れた、 勝る」などの意味でも使います。反対のinferior「下の、劣る」も一緒に覚えておきましょう。

★caught the bug: (been infected with the virus/disease)　「 病気やウイルスに感染する」という意味にもなるこの表現ですが、ここでは中毒になりやすい性格の筆者が今度はDIYに「取り付かれてしまった」ということになりますね！

★customize:　あまり器用な方ではないという筆者が、DIYをしていく中で少しずつ何かを学び、自分で何かを作る満足感を得られると述べ、それに加え、自分の目的に合わせて「直す、カスタマイズする」ことができるとDIYの良さを表現していますね！