February 2013 – Shinichiro Yano

Practice writing topic for TOEFL 2. Are Parents the best teacher?

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents are the best teachers. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. (30 min 300 words)

I disagree this opinion, because I believe parents can not be ultimately strict their children. The good teacher should know what he should teach and what he should not teach.

In professional sports, the player who has the parent who was a good player in sports sometimes is not good one. Genetically, if the parents is good player, their children should be good player. But actually, this does not always happen. For example, the famous director in professional baseball player Katsuya Nomura. When he was a player, he was one of best catcher in Japan. After retirement, he became the director of the professional team. As director of the team, he could teach a lot of players. Thanks to him, team players became decent players. But he could not raise his son to be good player. Why did this happen? His wife said that he could not be strict to his son.

Japanese artist Taro Okamoto had created the monument which express ‘No’. This monument stand for the importance of being denied. He believed that human being would start thinking seriously only when he was denied strictly. When we are denied strictly, we will start thinking by ourselves what was wrong, why this was wrong, what should we do. The parent can not deny strictly for their children. Parents can not keep saying no to their children. Being kind to children is relatively easy, but being strict is not easy.

Good teacher is not someone who can teach well, but someone who make student learn by themselves. That’s why, I believe parents are not best teacher.

However, parents play important role as family, when we challenge something, we will sometimes succeed, sometimes failed. When we succeed, parents would be happy with us, when we failed, parents will encourage. The parents is not teacher, but family, the closest friends.

The purpose of my life.

I don’t think I can express my feeling precisely. But, I would say something.

When I was Ph.D. student, I was always worrying about my future. As I wrote here before, Japan is one of the hardest countries to get Science Ph.D. in the world. Japanese Companies need fresh undergraduate student and train by themselves. Academic positions are not many. I borrowed scholarships and payed life expense and tuition. I didn’t have any confidence at all. I drank too much sometimes. I read a lot of book, Philosophy, classics, self-help and so on. I was trying to find answer what is purpose of my life. Finally, I could get Ph.D. thanks to a lot of Scientist. And, I realized.

My purpose in my life is “Improving my character”. That’s all.

The point is contribution. Contribution to society, physics, partner, family whatever, I do every my action to improve my character.

This thought may be similar with Buddhism, but clearly different from Christianity. It seems to be easy at first, because of its simplicity, but it is hard. Because sometimes, it is hard to tell which is correct way to improve my character.

Because I am Japanese, I think Japan is the greatest country. But there are also tons of problems. Japan is the greatest because my ancestors were great. We should keep our standard, which is not easy. The reason why I came the U.S. is building my career and widening the way of my thinking in different culture. You can recognize the distance between you and object because you have two eyes.

I have not decided yet whether or not I will be back to Japan, but I am always thinking about Japan, how to contribute to Japan, how to contribute to the world as a Japanese. I can explain you about Japan. I am looking forward seeing you Japan. And I can’t wait to see you in the U.S.

Thanks,

Japanese Lecture 4 : Using Noun and Pronoun in sentence.

Japanese, like English, has the concepts of subject, of sentence, direct object, and indirect object, but it expresses these concepts in a different manner.In English, we show the relationships between the words of a sentence mostly word order, such as,

The policeman chased the burglar.

The burglar chased the policeman.

These sentence is totally different. However, in Japanese, the sentence function of noun and pronoun is shown by additional words that are placed immediately after the noun and pronoun. These words are called particle or prepositions. The word order is also important (I will discuss this later) though, basically the sentence make sense to me.

Taro gave hanako the flower.

太郎は花子に花をあげた。taro ha hanako ni hana o ageta.

花子に太郎は花をあげた。hanako ni taro ha hana o ageta.

花を太郎は花子にあげた。hana o taro ha hanako ni ageta.

The first one is perfect, but I understand 2nd, 3rd one.These particle or preposition never vary, always remains the same.
Let’s practice using examples, these three most important particle or preposition, ga, wa, o.

1. ga が

ga usually indicates the grammatical subject of sentence or clause in which it appears

頭が痛みます。 atama ga itami masu. : I have a headache.

山崎さんが来ます。Yamazaki san ga ki masu. : Mr. Yamazaki comes.

2. wa は

wa indicates that the material that it immediately follows is to be set apart from grammatical basis of the Japanese sentence. A rough English translation that will fit in the most situation is ‘as for’

今日は海が大変きれいです。kyou wa umi ga kirei desu.: Today the see is very beautiful.

僕は明日音楽会に行きます。boku ha ashita ongakukai ni iki masu.

: As for me, tomorrow I shall go to concert.

Also you may have observed, wa is often indicate material that is subject of English translation. You may be puzzled about when you should use wa. Actually, this involve a very subtle distinction in Japanese thought. Let me tell you later.

3. o を

o indicates that preceding word is the direct object of the verb.

お土産を買いました。 Omiyage o kai masita. : I bought some souvenir.

神戸を発ちました。Kobe o tachi masita. ; We left Kobe.

It is very important that you understand how these proposition are used, since they are cement that bond together the part of Japanese sentence. They cannot be omitted in a grammatically correct sentence. You must indicate the subject of a clause, either ga or wa, and you must indicate the direct object, if there is one, by o. But as I said you before, you don’t need to worry about the word order firslty. I think Japanese understand what you want to say. The other examples are ne and ka, These are used for express questions. I may discuss later.

Japanese Lecture 3 : Noun, Personal Pronoun.

1. Noun.

Japanese nouns has only one form, which is not change to indicate number, gender, or the role that the noun plays within the sentence. The same form is used under all circumstances.

猫 neko = a cat, the cat, the cats, cats

電車 densha = a train, the train, the trains, trains.

傘 kasa = an umbrella, the umbrella, the umbrellas, umbrellas.

This will probably seem very imprecise for English speaker, and you may wonder how we are going to express our thought. We can used as we do with English words as sheep, fish, quail, or deer. In most cases, the number of things that we are talking about will be clear from context. Where it is necessary to be specific, we can always use numbers or words indicating quantity.

たくさんの自動車 takusan no jido-sha : many automobiles.

2. Personal Pronoun.

In modern colloquial Japanese the personal pronouns are usually omitted if the meaning of the sentence is clear without them.

ご機嫌（きげん）いかがですか? gokigen ikaga desuka : How are you?

元気です。genki desu : I am fine.

When it is necessary to express a pronouns, either for emphasis or clearness, use these words,

私 watashi : I, me 私たち watashi-tachi : we, us

あなた anata : you (single) あなたたち : anata-tachi : you (plural)

彼 kare : he, him 彼ら karera : they, them

彼女 kanojyo : she, her 彼女たち kanojyo-tachi : they, them

In addition to these normal-polite forms, Japanese is very rich in other words that convey great variety of shades of familiarity, or politeness, and formality. Most of these form are beyond the scope of manual.

For example, I = 僕 boku 私 watash 俺 ore 自分 jibun 拙者 seltusha 私め watakushi-me 我輩 wagahai 小生 shousei 朕 tin.

Like noun, pronouns do not change their forms according to their use in sentence.

私の watashi no : my 私たちの watashi-tachi no : our

あなたの anata no : your (single) あなたたちの : anata-tachi no : your (plural)

彼の kare no : his 彼らの karera no : their

彼女の kanojyo no : her 彼女たちの kanojyo-tachi no : their

The impersonal pronoun ‘it’, in such expression as, “It is raining”, “It’s Sunday” is not translated into Japanese.

Book Review 5 : Norwegian Woods.

Norwegian woods by Haruki Murakami

I love this book. This is almost part of my life. I have never counted, but I believe I have read this more than 20 times in English.

The story starts when the main character Toru was on board in Germany airport. He listened the orchestra version of ‘Norwegian Woods’ by Beatles unexpectedly, which reminded him his story about lover and best friend who killed themselves. He started writing his story.

Toru had the best friend Kizuki in high school. Kizuki had the childhood sweetheart Naoko. Since Naoko and Kizuki are childhood sweethearts, they are close, so close, and too close. They grew together as if they complement each other. Toru was very important for them because he was only important point of contact with outside society.

Kizuki did suicide without suicide note when they are high school students. Since then, Naoko has no idea how she interacts with outside society without him.

Naoko and Toru enter different University, they lived in Tokyo without knowing each other. They met unexpectedly, and they started dating naturally. They became close slowly. One day, on her 20^th birthday, Toru celebrated her birthday. Naoko was so talkative, kept talking and talking, so that he finally missed his last train to the dorm. On that day, they slept each other.

On that night, Naoko ejaculated so much, she desired for sexual sensation for him. But, the problem is this didn’t happened when Naoko was trying to sleep with Kizuki. Naoko and Kizuki loved each other but they could not sleep each other because she never ejaculated. Naoko did not love Toru at that time, but she sought sexual sensation for him. She was upset after having sex. She started confusing. After that night, she moved without notice to Toru.

She went to sanatorium for mental health, trying to rehabilitate. Toru visited several times to see her and talk. She could not recover. After Toru find girlfriend Midori, Naoko killed herself. She could not find the reason why she lives.

This is kind of sad story. What I learned from this book is if I love someone so much and devote all of me, sometime may remain unrequited. That is O.K. I will face with.

The other character is also important, fanny, and interesting.

Reiko is roommate of Naoko. She has cute wrinkle. Naoko talk everything to her. They are so close. She was excellent pianist when she was young but her finger became stop playing because of her mental problem. Her dream to be pianist was gone. He became a piano teacher and married her student. One day, her student who is junior high school student girl sought for sexual relationship to Reiko. Raiko rejected. But the girl was liar and lesbian by nature. After that neighbor’s rumor had spread Reiko was lesbian and force student to have sexual relationship. This made her crazy again.

Nagasawa is senior person at Dorm that Toru lived. He is student of University of Tokyo. He has legend. It was said that he had had sex more than 100 women. He swallowed 3 slugs. These legends were almost true. Toru and Nagasawa sometimes went to girl hunting to have sex. That was easy for them because Nagasawa is very rich, handsome, smart and great talker. And He has great girlfriend Hatumi. But he doesn’t care for her, sometimes cruel.

As for his personality, his self-discipline was stricter than any other person. I like his words the way I do.

1. “Don’t sorry for yourself, only assholes do that.”

2. ”Tell me Nagasawa” Toru: asked, “What is the standard of action in your life”』
Nagasawa : ”To be gentlemen”
Toru : “To be gentlemen? A gentlemen?”
Nagasawa: “You heard me”
Toru : “What does it mean to be a gentlemen? How do you define it?”
Nagasawa: “A gentlemen is someone who does not what wants to do but what he should do”

Hatumi is Nagasawa’s girlfriend, she is great girl. He believes Nagasawa becomes normal. She also killed herself.

Midori is Toru’s female friend and became his girlfriends. She is crazy girl.

Storm trooper is Toru’s roommate at dorm. He is serious person by nature. His dream is to make map at national institutions. Because of his seriousness, everyone in dorm tease him. His story is fanny, always amuse everyone.

Music.

I believe I love music. Since I am busy, I have taken only a fraction of the time with guitar and music. But I would love to play and listen music again. So, I decided to write little about music.

I am a not good player though, I used to think how I can play the guitar better. And I wanted people to be good player, which makes me frustrate so much. But playing instruments well should not be first priority. In Japanese, music is 音楽. 音 means sounds, 楽 means enjoy. And I always thought, since I am not good at playing, so I have no right to say something about music. That must be wrong. I can understand now. Tell me your music life when we meet also.

I will write music I like. Here are my favorite musicians I came up with firstly.

1. Japanese female vocalist, artist

Mika Nakashima, YUKI, Kana Uemura, bird, orange pekoe, dorlis, Klambon(I don’t know English name, but I strongly recommend you.), Shina Ringo, Perfume.

Today, I recommend you “Taiyou no Kakera” You can watch on Youtube.

2. Japanese male vocalist, pianist, band.

KUMAMI, Hirotaka Mori, Kazumasa Oda, Blanky Jet city, hide, Scoobie Do, Theater Brook, Suga Shikao, Motohiro Hata, HIrotaka Mori, Fumido, Porn graphity.

3. American (classic) rock or music

Deep purple, Eric Clapton, Eagles, Maroon5(?), Dream theater, Rage against the machine, Earth wind & fire.

4. Jazz, fusion bossa nova

Larry Carlton, Risa Ono.

5. Japanese DJ,

FREE TEMPO, Ryohei, DJ Kawasaki.

6. My ideal player is Char, Masayoshi Takanaka, Tomo Fujita.

This is very best tune I have listened, also I have played most times. “Smoky” You can also watch on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cBtBArETLQ

I will write review for each musician here later. And I will rewrite this post again. And I want to broaden my perspective based on this list. Tell me your favorite musician also!! This post written in haste, sorry.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

I will be on business trip from Feb 22 to Mar 2. I am at Oak Ridge national laboratory (ORNL) to do neutron scattering experiment at SNS which is the world strongest neutron source.

http://www.ornl.gov/

We are going to measure 11 samples for 8 day. This is really tough. I hope we can get good results. I have been to ORNL more than 5 times, however every time I learned something. Actually here is historical place for those who study magnetism using neutron scattering. Here ORNL was the place where first neutron experiment was performed.

In May 1944, physicist Ernest O. Wollan sent this letter to Richard L. Doan, director of research at Clinton Laboratories (later named Oak Ridge National Laboratory). While work on the Manhattan Project was still in full swing (and led to the classification of this letter as “secret”), he proposed an experiment on the world’s first continuously operating nuclear reactor, the X-10 pile at Clinton Laboratories. Wollan was among the first to recognize the scientific potential of high-intensity neutron sources.

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/january-2013/neutron-scattering

To study magnetism, we use neutrons. Because neutron has spin and there is interaction between neutron spin and spin in material, so that neutron scattering has been great tool to study magnetism.

The experiment was scheduled from tomorrow. Fortunately, we could start experiment today, because there was extra time today. My boss asked instrument scientist to come to help us. He came lab to help us starting experiment, even today is Friday night. We are very happy, we appreciated it.

First sample contained Ir element, what is called 5d transition metal. However, this element absorb neutron, this is not good for neutron scattering experiment, but only SNS can do this. I am really excited!!

We drove here from Virginia to Oakridge, it took 6 hours. So I am so tired today!! And also experiment has just begun. We already set up temperature scan finish tomorrow noon. I hope we could get good results. See you then.

Beyond Counting Sheep.

Math is the hot new bedtime reading.

This is from article, ’’Beyoud Counting Sheep’’ Time / The Culture / Education

Laura Bilideau Overdeck, a Princeton trained astrophysicist. She is founder of the nonprofit Bedtime Math, and she wanted kids to fall in love with numbers. As a part of that mission she wants to change the way parents put their kids to bed.

The core of Bed time Math is simple. You will ask children to solve the problem on bed, which is from a free diary problem, geared to one of three level of math problem. The subjects tend to be ones that especially appeal to children.

1. Weeones – prekindergarten

2. Little kids – kindergarten and second grade or so

3. Big kids – second grade and up

For example (from text)

1. Weeones- Alaska was the 49^th state to join the U.S. How many states has already joined?

2. Little kids – Of the 20 tallest mountains in the U.S., 17 are in Alaska. How many of them aren’t’ in Alaska? BONUS: There are 200,000 moose are 900,000 caribou in Alaska. How many more caribou than moose are there?

3. Big kids – Alaska covers 660,000 square miles If Alaska cut itself in half, how much bigger than Texa’s 268,000 square miles would each half be?

Bedtime Math is part of project that a lot of people are working on, which is aiming at cultural shift that will get kids coming into school already comfortable with math.

I believe that Bedtime reading is also important. But keep in mind, research shows that early math skills are better predictor of academic success than reading ability. Why don’t you using math problem, instead of just counting Sheep?

One mother who use Bedtime Math says when her child’s zest for Bedtime Math enables her to use it as a threat; “If you don’t brush your teeth now, no math tonight”

You can get the daily math problem by email!

Home

Practice writing topic for TOEFL 1. Ignite University.

1. People attend college or university for many different reasons (for example, new experiences, career preparation, increased knowledge.) Why do you think people attend college or university? Use specific reasons and example to support your answer. (30 min, 300 words.)

People attend college or university to build friendships with classmate without any benefits, which helps people’s dream coming true. When we are college or university, of course we have to study hard though, we have plenty of time to share our thoughts. We can discuss our dream, future, what we learn freely. College or University has a lot of course, which means there are various kinds of idea, study, professor and student.

For example, I am working for Univ. of Virginia as a physicist. I was invited student to attend some events which was titled as “Ignite Univ. of Virginia”. One student made presentation about how we can succeed. And student talked each other about their dream. I found the girl who wants to be cultural anthropologist and work in Japan because the relation between Japan and China is getting worse recently. I am an only Japanese there. But I was very happy to hear that. I had decided to teach Japanese to her.

My definition of young people is “Someone who believes he can do everything, but who don’t know what he can do.” In this definition everyone can be young. But talking their dream is important. If we express our dream, someone might show you the way. You have use all 20’s for pursuing your goal.

After graduation, sometimes it is difficult to talk our opinion freely. Because we have to make money for living, and work for company or institution, so that we tend to gather who has same culture. We sometimes are skeptical for colleague.

We might realize what we were heading was wrong or right later, but, whichever, still what we have done is invaluable. I believe we need 10 years devotion to get to dream. It is long way, but friends who we met in college or university always get our back, kept encouraging us to finish the goal. (42 min,318 words)

Types of prepositions.

For nonnative speaker, it is difficult to decide which position we should use on the writings. Why don’t you review type of prepositions? List is from ‘’Eye on Editing 2’ written by Joyce S. Cain’

1. Prepositions of time.

month/year in : She was born in May.

This university was established in 1993

day/date on : We have class on Monday.

Why don’t you start field research on June 5?

Specific time at : The class started at 9 a.m.

General time in : We have meeting in the afternoon.

Approximate time about : I will be at home about 5:30 p.m.

around : I will be there around 6:00 p.m.

between : I am coming at the Hall between 9 and 10 o’clock.

duration for : I have lived here for six years.

through: I have thought of you often through the past years.

2. Prepositions of place

city/country in : He lived in the U.S. for ten years.

street on : He bought his house on the Wall street

address at : He lives at University Heights.

motion to : He went to National institute to do experiment.

toward : He walk toward me.

3. Prepositions of position

on : This book is on the desk.

in : The camera is in my bag.

at : Let’s meet at library.

beside : The dog is sitting beside its owner.

between : My office is between Smith’s and Jason’s.

4. Prepositions of reason

for : I do my job for living.

by : He was pleased by her kind words.

about : We are concerned about the news.

5. Preposition of manner

by : He can understand what she is saying by listening carefully.

at : He is good at playing the guitar.

with : They fisnished the test with ease.

6. Preposition of comparison

like : We are so close that he is like my brother.

as : I play guitar only as amateus.

7.Preposition of possession

of : She is a good friend of mine.

These are basics proposition and examples. Let’s check these out!!