Cant' See The Forest For The Trees

This English sentence is from an English test at high school.

"Whale is no more mammal than snake is mammal."

What on earth is the matter with the teacher who made this test?
It doesn't give even a definite article.
No wonder my English didn't improve at school.

Resolution For This Year

There are only TWO months left this year.
I feel like I celebrated the new year for 2016 just two months ago.

What's going on ?!

As I get older, time runs on faster year after year.
I have not made my new year's resolution yet so I made it now.
I will study my specialty hard and won't waster more of my time!
It doesn't seem difficult to stick to my resolution. :)

How To Not Be Affected By Something Bad

I'm relatively a positive person and usually pretty good at
not being influenced by people's bad behaviour,
but when I get slight series of misfortunes,
which are not serious such as continuous lack of sleep or bad health and so on,
I tend to take others' bad moods in a bad way.
Do you know what I mean?
It has probably been a long time habit of mine to absorb emotions/moods of those around me.

How would you keep your mind calm after when you accidentally
meet disagreeable or moody people or just something bad?

First, I thought the best way is to get me busy not to give the time myself
to think something like this, but this doesn't seem to work, and I may be more tired.
I need some time to practice not to take others' mood.

Sooooo Shocked!!

Over the past two months, my friend and I have been planning a surprise party
for a mutual friend, and we were going to hold it tomorrow,
but a typhoon is coming, and it will hit Tokyo tomorrow.
That's why we decided to cancel.
What bad timing!
I know we will be able to do it on another day though.



... sigh....

My Latest Realization

There was something that I had wanted to forget for a long time. 

Over time, that memory is fading and then, 

I realized it had been myself who unknowingly tried to keep it.

What I had been wanting to forget was that I didn't want to forgot.

That was why I couldn't forget that memory.

That makes sense. 

Become friends with people who aren't your age. 

Hang out with people whose first language isn't the same as yours. 

Get to know someone who doesn't come from your social class. 

This is how you see the world. 

This is how you grow.

A woman who is currently talked about a lot in Japan

The woman was born and raised in America, but her parents are Japanese.
After she graduated from Brown and Harvard University,
she worked as an intern in the office of former U.S. President Clinton, and then Interpol.

Furthermore, she passed an employment tests of CIA and FBI.
(Do you know that the CIA's employment test takes two years
because they do an employees' background check?)
The FBI gives prospective employees a lie detector test right before they enter the FBI.
She had already taken this kind of test many times, but she failed it with this question
"Have you ever taken illegal drugs?"
She has never taken any illegal drug so she was disappointed at this fact
that the detector test considered as the highest quality was failed.

Isn't this scary? This result means that it has the potential to generate false accusation.

She wanted to eradicate terrorists to make the world peaceful,
but after this accident, her passion was gone.
She decided to do the same thing by becoming a COMEDIAN. instead!!
I really respect her high ambition, but I think she is not cut out to be a comedian
because nobody was laughing at her performance.....

The Memory Which Doraemon Reminds Me Of

FYI: Doraemon is a famous Japanese anime character.

This is a story from the dormitory in my school days.
One morning, the girl who lived in the room next to mine
put her Doraemon doll on the doorknob outside her room.

A few days later, the Doraemon doll had some gashes,
and its cotton stuffing was coming out from the each of gashes.
She kept it there for a while.
It's too bad that I forgot to take a picture.


This eccentric girl sometimes did things like this.
Even now, I don't understand what it was for.

What a nice Doraemon memory!

Contradictions on TV

Nowadays film and TV makers can't include a cool smoking scene in case
it encourages young people to smoke.

Societies around the world have been spreading anti-smoking campaigns to promote health.
On the other hand, showing people being killed on TV isn't a problem.
When bank robbers make their getaway by car, they have to fasten their seatbelts.
I think this makes it turn into a comedy all of sudden.

I'm not sure whether this is true or not, but I've heard that
German TV shows can stream naked bodies including the male organ,
but they can't steam the hand gesture meaning f*ck.
Does this mean that the male organ is not offensive, but a hand gesture is?
Even then, to swear words with much worse meaning is allowed.
I don't understand why they don't know that
giving bread and circuses makes another problem.

What an ill-advised solution!

The Cause of His Death

I dreamt that a friend of mine died.
I didn't know the cause of his death so I asked it someone at a funeral service.


Me: what happened to him?

Her: A fire broke out from a house next to his.

Me: (... Ah so….he got caught in the fire.)

Her: And he was trying to take a picture from a tree and fell down. That's how!



What a nightmare!

To End Something is To Make it Exist

"I'm going to stop being with your friend."

This is a line form a book. A guy ended his friendship with a girl
in order to make himself keep existing in a girl's mind.
If you dare speak out something like to someone, in this book's case,
your existence will come to the front.

If you just want something to end smoothly,
I think the best way is to let that just fade away,
because a sudden, abrupt breakup of a relationship leaves a longer and
deeper impression of your existence on someone's mind.

The Most Unnecessary App To Me

Have you ever heard of a birthday countdown application?

It's very popular among young Japanese people these days.
The application starts a countdown from some point that you set
until it reaches the date of your birthday on SNS.
A girl said, "I was worried about my birthday because if nobody celebrated it,
I would have been sad, but thanks to this application, my friends held a surprise party."


I felt it was quite weird though as she has yet to even notice
that she might have forced her friends to celebrate it.
I think birthday parties are meaningless unless they are heartfelt.
Although the girl's birthday party might not have been like that.

As for me, if someone remembers my birthday, it's really enough, but at the same time,
I feel sorry for them because I'm not so interested in my birthday nor in others' too so
I can't memorize theirs, the only exception being people I'm really close to.

Temporary Motivation to Improve English

I missed a rare chance!!
I declined an interview from Russian National Broadcasting on the spur of the moment.
Since the interviewer was speaking English,
I was probably afraid to speak English in front of a camera,
but there are seldom chances like this so now I regret it a little.
Afterwards, I felt like I wanted to study English more to
have more confidence in my speaking ability.
I will probably forget what I felt today soon after I post this note because
I know that I always have the recurring thoughts only right after this kind of event.



How regrettable I asm in both ways....

The Beginning of Romantic Feelings in Psychology

After you have a special feelings towards someone,
you start feeling irritated or upset because of them.

In the field of psychology, those feelings are defined as a “fancy”,
which means you are in love with the person.

I'm not sure whether this makes sense or not though.

To only be attracted or have special feelings for someone 

does not seem like enough to be called “fancy”.

I know American people rarely use the word "fancy", 

but I can't find the suitable word. I meant it 恋 or 恋愛感情 ,not love, in Japanese.

Friendship

An honest enemy is better than a false friend. 

When in doubt, pay more attention to what people do and less to what they say. 

Actions not only speak louder than words.

They are more difficult to fake.

Friendship isn't about whom you've known the longest. 

It's about who walked into your life, said "I'm here for you" and proved it.

Life is Subtraction

"You think you have many chances to do many things whenever you want, but in fact,
life is subtraction. When you meet someone once,
it will be subtracted from the set number of times in your life."


This is a saying that my Taiwanese friend told me quite long time ago.

Every time I meet my mother these days, I feel like that she knows this.

When I was a kid, my mother used to say that she wants to live at least
until the age that her mother passed away.
She will be the age in four years. I usually talk with my mother a few times in a week,
but we live far away so I can meet my parent only once or twice in a year.
If my mother passed away at the same age as her mother,
the remaining of times that I can meet her is only seven times at a maximum.
My mother cares about me very much, but I sometimes take if for granted.
Spending time with my parents should be more precious,
and I feel I have to show my appreciation more.
Next year I'll be the age that my mother lost her mother.

For these reasons, I'm thinking about my life a lot recently.

A Trick Art Museum

I took my friend, who was saying that trick arts were for children and 

he wouldn't be fallen for them, to a trick art museum.

 

Soon after he entered the museum, he tried to pick up a bill 

which was painted on the floor. That was so funny!! 

He looked like he enjoyed it a lot so I have to take him another one to laugh again. :))

My Complaint in Public

-------------------------------------------

I'm proofreading the draft of an interview that I got for a magazine.
As the writer's personal opinion affected it too much, it's hard to edit.

-------------------------------------------


After I tweeted something like this, the writer seemed to have found my complaint.
Soon after, I regretted my words, though only for the moment as I thought
it was good for her - profile writers should not write transcripts subjectively.

By the way, I often see twenty thousand letter interviews in Japanese magazines these days.
It seems to be the right size to read interviews. I'm not sure though.

The Things Which Money Can't Buy

Love, kindness, sincerity, trust, truth and so on....
Truly important things are invisible, and money can't buy them.
Conversely, it's dangerous to judge people or things only by surface appearances.


I read something like this somewhere today and translated it. :)

Isn't this scary?!

A friend of mine met a guy at a party.
She thought that she was getting along with him extremely well.
When he went to a station to see her off, he asked her to exchange their mobile phone number,
and she said, "Okay, call this number. I'll add it"
When he was calling her, she got frozen because her cell phone was displaying "STALKER?"
While keeping up appearances, she said good-bye in a normal tone and left there.

Some months ago, she slightly felt that something was weird in her apartment
and sometimes got silent calls.
Then, she added that number on her phone under a name of "stalker?".

As you could imagine, he was stalking her and approached her friends so
he finally could meet her in person at a party.
Before meeting her, he had been researching her hobbies or
her favorite type of guys thoroughly for a long time.
She couldn't help avoiding to have a feeling like that. Of course!

It was really good that he didn't follow through.
If he changed his number, she had no chance to unmask him.

Scarrryyyy >_<;

Disappointed

The other day, I worked with a broadcaster 

who used to work in national broadcasting. 

She was sexy and attractive, but since her way of speaking was very vulgar, 

it diminished her attractiveness.

I think as personality affects sexiness, no matter how hard you change only your appearance, 

it seems difficult to become a truly attractive person unless you change your inner beauty. 

As soon as you speak, people guess what you are like. 

Locution is as important as appearances.

Scared

This past Sunday, it was cold and I saw someone faint at a platform in Shibuya, Tokyo.
When he got off the train, he fell down while leaning on a woman.
When I saw this, I thought to myself that
"I need to save him! Oh wait, can I really do that? What if he is dead?
I have to call 911 too.
OH Nooooo..... my friend is talking on my mobile phone way over there so I don't have it.
Ummmm many people are closer to him than I am
so should I say in a loud voice 'Is there a doctor?' instead of helping?"
The next moment, i thought "what am I doing???"
I should save him first without thinking!!!"
After I tired checking his pulse and breathing, tapping him on the shoulder,
talking to him loudly and tapping his face,
he wake up and walked away without saying anything,
even though I told him he shouldn't have moved yet.

I can't even imagine how long it lasted because
every single moment felt like it was in super slow motion.
I think there were around 40 people there.
They were just staring at him lying on the floor and
did nothing even that woman who must have noticed him first.
I was disappointed at them and even at myself
 because I couldn't save him soon after he fainted.
I feel like I was thinking too much until I approached so
I hope I didn't talk to myself for so long time.
This phenomenon is very Tokyo-ish.

I've seen some people on a train who went into convulsions or were foaming at the mouth.
They were already given aid so there was nothing I could do.
I'm still scared because there's a chance that I might run into a similar situation again
and won't have the skills to help.

Water is Invaluable

"Owing to repair work on the service pipe, water supply will be cut off 

from 10 p.m. on January 21st to 10 a.m the next morning in these areas."

I found that notice in my mailbox after coming back to my apartment from an overseas trip. 

It was midnight and I was exhausted. 

I really wanted to take a bath -- by any means -- 

because I was not able to take a shower the previous day due to my flight schedule. 

I started to think of ways to make me feel refreshed and 

finally decided on wiping my body with a wet towel. 

I thought about boiling water and soaking the towel wet, 

but I only had two bottles of water in the refrigerator.

Since I did not want to use up all the precious water that I had, 

I wet the towel with just a little bit of cold water and heated it up in the microwave. 

I then used the warm towel to wipe my body! Don't you think it was a good idea?!

That night, I thought, what a great idea!, but after putting that idea into writing, 

it doesn't seem special at all. ^^;