Month: October 2013

Why did I start playing a electric guitar? I have to confess I wanted to be popular in school and among friends. Of course, this ended in super success!! (<- Who knows??) To tell the truth, I started singing first and I realized that playing guitar suited better for me. So I just started playing a guitar only. I would say I have enjoyed playing. But, but, but, oh my gosh!! Why didn’t I started playing a classic guitar!!! Classic guitar must suit the best for me. I deeply regret now. Oh my god.

As you know, learning instrument and language has a lot of analogies. Both need a lot of time to become a certain level of player (speaker). Both need a kind of grammar. Rhythm is important for both. And you have to confront with the fear to be embarrassed and to make mistakes. You should play in front of real audiences to be better ones. I want to emphasize here, reading is most fundamental skill for both. For a long time, I can’t read pieces. I can read TAB (which is made for special pieces to easy to understand for guitarists) though.

So, in short, I started to practice reading pieces. It is hard, really. But I am exited!! How long does it take to read without thinking? 10 years?? Maybe. But I do enjoy reading and playing now. Music is addictive. And for Classic guitar, I started to use finger picking. I still feel hurts, haha. But, it is fun.

I finished rereading “Presentation Zen”, this is one of my bibles. This book reminds me how presentation is becoming important in everywhere in the world. One thing I learned most is the concept how to use the time. Presentation is precious, because at that time, every person in the room is listening your talk, even they are working at much higher position, they would listen your talk. If your presentation time is 10 mins, and 20 audience, you are using 200 mins in total, including the time that the audiences have.

I have not watched TED so much. But I happened to listen one of TED presentations. I have never thought about listening TED, because I did not think that listening is not time efficient. But, like classic guitar. I just realized how I missed a lot of fantastic presentations. I like a lot “The happy secret to better work” by Shawn Achor. I am reading his book now. Honestly speaking, the book looks not so good though, presentation is very nice. I hope I can find more interesting presentation on TED. The problem is how I can find interesting presentation. My schedule is fully packed now. If you wanna to try to watch this presentation, just google the presentation title. You will find the presentation by Shawn Achor.

As for writing, we (I and tutor) are working on adjectives. She gave me the homework. I need to write about the place. I need to write as much elaborately as possible to improve my vocabulary. I though this is good idea. I am going to write this homework. If possible by end of the day.

I have been busy, mentally. I have been in Charlottesville, VA, U.S. for I year and almost 7 months. I really like to live here. But I am thinking of getting a job at some other place from, at latest, next March. When I am thinking of planning application, I do realize, I do not want to move out from here. Anyway, I have to say to myself “do what I can do right now.”

I am practicing writing with a tutor. She is a very good teacher. She has many ideas for practice writing. Last week, we worked on a writing method, something like, “sprint writing”. The method is just 5 minutes’ keeping writing and 5 minutes’ editing, (If possible) and again, and again. This is hard practice but good practice. For example, I wrote about the book which I currently reading.

The book I am reading is called “Looking for Alaska”. In this book, the main character is a college student. And he is kind of a weird guy. He is collecting people’s last words. Do you know Thomas Jefferson’s last words? Jefferson’s last words are “This is the Fourth?” Since the author did not mention what that means, I am so curious about it. I would love to find out before leaving the Univ. of Virginia. I also am reading the “Price of inequality”. This book is written by a famous American economist. He is claiming that inequality is growing in the U.S. Because of it, people lose the right of free choice, which is one of the best virtues of America.  

So, the time is limited. But sometime we need some kind of constrain to be creative. Someone also mentioned “Writing marathon”, his method is just keep writing without editing for 3 hours. I think I should do that sometime after I finish my real marathon. I should spare the time for it. Also, this is a version of 10 minutes’ writing and 5 minutes’ editing, writing about the education system,

One of the most viewed presentations on TED is about education. The presenter, I forgot his name though, presents the story titled “How school kills creativity”. The presenter claims how the standard education system in the world prevents children from being creative. Honestly, I was strongly against him. When I came to the United States, I could see the difference between the American and Japanese education systems. I understood the American focus on people’s talent, but the Japanese focus on perseverance. Of course, both have good points and bad points. In an education system, when we focus on the talent, because I believe the talent is given, it may lead to the state of, what is called, the winner takes all. When we focus on perseverance, we sometimes make talented people do boring training. In my opinion, we should focus on making hard working habits.  Since we actually know little about people’s talent, we should focus on the method….

I could not finish though, still I could force myself to finish which make me efficient. Why don’t you try this method. You had better be with a good teacher though.

When I am asked “which place should I visit in Japan?”, I always ask them in return “Are you a runner?”. If they are runners, I would suggest them to go Imperial palace.

The imperial palace is located at Tokyo Chiyoda and very close to Tokyo station. Tokyo station is one of the oldest and biggest stations in Japan. I believe it is worth visiting. You can get to Imperial palace by walking. You will see full of runners around there. Imperial palace is the place where Japanese emperor lives now and was the place where Edo castle was. It has a spectacular garden, history museum, and a good course to run. It is not too miscellaneous, is it? You can also find the place to change your clothes. Why not running at Imperial palace? You can learn history and see beautiful garden while you are running.

In addition to these, if you are lucky, you can see Japanese emperor. He greets people twice a day from imperial residence. You can listen speech provided by exalted personage, it would be nice if you understand Japanese.