Month: November 2020

It is very hot in Sydney. But it is finally summer here in Sydney. The weekend was especially hot. I could not sleep well.

Investing: The market is moving a lot these days. there is a lot of news going around. I just merely catch up them. This week I have been waiting for one of my shares to sell and trying to find the best time by using Bollinger Bands and MACD. The share kept going up and finally I decided to wait. Both chartings helped me a lot. I am hoping I could sell next week. I would like to buy gold and a gold mining company in Australia sharemarket. This one also I am waiting for the best time. A gold mining company I am trying to buy is, I believe, a good company. But it could be overvalued but anyway I would like to have gold as part of my portfolio in long term. Gold could be appreciated in the next several decades. I will keep it in long term at least as 10 per cent of my financial asset. As for the stock market in Japan, Nikkei stock is going up steadily. It has reached about 26600 something in Nikkei 225. If it reaches 30000, it could be very historical points. That means 30 years high. As a Japanese, I believe this is huge. Japanese people have financial asset mostly with cash. Why? Because people could have not felt a growth on stocks for 30 years. But this could change their minds. I can see the momentum here. Maybe I could write more sometime here in the future

Physics: I keep learning physics. This week we’re calm. I am writing a grant application to the Taiwanese government. For the next 3 years of my research plan. I would like to pursuits several important subjects in condensed matter physics by using neutron inelastic scattering and polarized neutron scattering techniques. I am not sure I can succeed it or not. I will try my best on this proposal. I would like to offer a very successful, cost-efficient, and high-quality science project benefit Taiwanese tax payers.

Reading: Reading is good. I am reading “Killing Commendatore” by Haruki Murakami. I am enjoying it. Also, “Top stocks 2021” by Martin Roth and “Investing Wisdom” by Brett Kelly. I am investing in Australia and Australian companies sometimes but I can really find a nice book on it. These two books give me starting points. I am using Top stock to list up to start the research my own. For “Investing Wisdom”, I would like to know move about investor here and their thinking. Also, they are institutional investor, their institution sometimes shares its research on the website. I can learn from them. I enjoy reading!

Music: I should have played more guitar…

Running: I kept running in the morning. But these days, it is very very hot. I had to be careful.

This week has been calm. At work, reactor shutdown goes longer than expected so we can’t experiment so I am working calculation, planning or writing manuscripts instead. I don’t check Australian share much, but I feel Australian share is coming back steadily this week, my portfolio recovers nicely because of coal price is coming back.

Physics: I have gotten a review request from one of the prestigious journal in physics. The journal covers all area of physics and new physics. I am honoured to review one of the manuscripts. In the beginning, I felt it is too early for me to review that level of physics. But I will try my best. Basically, the manuscript has been rejected by another referee before me, authors claim the referee has failed to understand the importance of physics they found. The first referee claims that there is no new physics on their work. Unfortunately, I felt the same way with the first referee. Editor asked me to reevaluate their work to see if we have a strong reason to publish the work. He already thought that even after authors claim, he agrees with the first referee. The manuscript does not have a high quality of new physics. But the journal gives an alternative view (my view?) on the paper. So I have to evaluate the paper has

1. Substantially advanced the field
2. Open a significant new area of research
3. Solve a critical outstanding problem or making a significant step toward solving the problem
4. Are the results of great general interest.

I feel honoured but I feel a responsibility now. But the feeling is not bad. I will try my best to contribute to the history of physics.

Investing: This week. fortunately, my portfolio advanced substantially, but as you know, the short term does not matter much. Anyways, I feel great. Lately, I am learning a lot about charting to analyze the market. I am using MACD to know the trend but still, it will take some time to understand this. By learning about investing in books and Youtube, I have many ideas to try but I don’t have many funds to invest. Haha. But keep learning and doing research, keep a record to invest. Maybe I can write something sometime soon.

Book: I am thinking of writing a book review again. I would start again from neutron scattering which is my expertise in physics. Currently, I am reading the autobiography of the founder of Charles Schwab. I am enjoying his story. He gave me a lot of insight on investing and how to lead life. There is always something interesting we can find in a book. Keep reading and keep learning.

Music: I havent played much recently… Oh no, I will find time.

So anways, today is on Monday, it is bit late. But this is the update from 3rd week of November.

Last week, from 9th to 13th of November, was conference week, I have attended the annual meeting of Japanese society of neutron scattering (JSNS2020) and ANBUG and AINSE neutron scattering symposium (AANSS2020). Both are online, so I could attend both meetings. I enjoyed attending while I missed the feeling of attending the conference. For this kind of conference, I just joined talks or sessions which I was interested in while working at my office. Like I am listening online seminar but I didn’t feel attending a conference at the same place, communicating people, exchange opinions. When I went to the conference, we usually don’t have anything else to do, we can focus on learning new finding from colleagues and we all feel we are part of the conference. But this time, I did not feel that way. Usually, we have an opening ceremony and ending ceremony, that gives me the sense of attending the conference. This time, I miss some of them, so it is like just a bunch of seminar started.

Reading: after “Go by Kazuki Kaneshiro”, now I am reading “How dogs love us” by Gregory Berns. I am not familiar with this kind of scientific experiment but it turns out not much has been done in this field. In addition to the contents of scientific results, the author also showed readers how difficult to set up the experiment on a dog. Firstly, administrative job, University want to minimise the risk of an experiment, and this kind of experiment is rare so experimentalist has to prepare a lot. I did not know dogs are not allowed in University campus. Even after the administrative jobs, the next challenge is how to scan the brain of moving dogs on fMRI, which is expensive to experiment with limited research funding. Authors finally got an excellent result, that shows dogs have a mental map as humans do. I am still reading the book but the understanding of feeling or thinking of dogs is quite interesting. Dogs have social intelligence and dogs communicate with humans better than apes. The book is about just 2 years of rearch of dogs, but I feel they should come more in the future in many groups around the world.

My stomach has not been good for a long time. I refuse to take any medicine for some of my stupid belief that medicine is not good to my body. Finally, I took some this week and I am feeling better than before. My quality of life is much better. So, now my feeling is back. My enthusiasm is back. I am convinced how the health is important throughout our life.

What am I building in my life? As a physicist, I have worked on creating knowledge by publishing a paper. I would like to challenge many of the scientific fields. I am experimentalist so I will perform the experiment and data analysis. Creating data is one of important work and adding value by analysing it. Publishing data could be my making product and selling them by making a presentation or sharing it publicly. As a runner, my goal is staying healthy and motivated. I think now I need to give a bit harder training to run faster. Hopefully, I can join some race next year. As a reader or English learner, I am doing pretty well. But why am I doing this? That is right, that is to improve the writing skills especially on publication. So what I need to do is reading and writing more by writing. Publishing paper, writing grants, writing blogs, writing emails. Writing is creating things. We need practice but never give up writing good ones by writing a lot.

Other things could be building financial stability. While earning some money by working, I am constantly investing shares in Australia. I don’t know the future of this country or the world but I can try to believe in capitalism to some extent….. Instead of making money solely from working, I would like to build financial stability to do what I want to do in my life. As long as I am doing these reasonable ways, I am convinced it takes a while even I can luckily find a nice company to invest in. Just keep learning business and investing. Maybe after 5 to 10 years, I can build something. Learning is always good. I am making a decision every month to invest in form salary. Less spend money now and invest more for the future. This year, it hit hard because of COVID-19, but I would think in long term.

What I am working these days. I had my health problem for several years and now my strength is back. I keep updating here what I am thinking of the field I am working on.

Physics: We got a good paper in Nov.6 from Advanced Science. We got a cover letter from the journal, that makes me very happy. Also, this paper form Taiwan where I work for. Now, Taiwan is creating top-level science with neutron scattering. I am an instrument scientist of cold triple-axis spectrometer, I am now a better understanding of the instrument and related science after I work here almost 6 years now. I would like to improve my understanding of physics. I am in the position of one of the most experienced scientists in using triple-axis spectrometer. I should do more work and I should know the neutron science better. I also got a referee request from one of the prestigious physical journal. I am honour to review the paper and give me a chance to learn more. I have made a poster presentation today in Australia. It is good to keep going to serving science community.

Investing: I am learning more about investing by doing invest. My understanding of investing is gradually better. I would think learning about money is one of the best education you can do for yourself. But the learning curve is rather slower than I expected. At the time of writing, Biden got elected as the U.S. President, things could swing in the next several months or even years. On the other hand, I am hearing record high in the stock market in the U.S., Japan, and Korea. It seems people are excited about investing in stocks. For me, it does not matter, I just research whatever the way I learned, I make my own decision, invest, take responsibility.

Reading: I just finished reading a book “Go by KAZUKI KANESHIRO translated by TAKAMI MIEDA”. The book is about the story of Zainichi in Japan. As a Japanese, I knew they exist. But I have not involved enough to know their life. I have made a lot of friends with a Korean name. To be honest, I even have never asked they are Zainichi or foreign students. I learned that they can be North-Korean or South-Korean citizenship. Maybe I just don’t know them good enough to know their hardship living in Japan. The book is good, this is a love story but basically, the book describes how Japanese society treats them and how they survive in Japan. The book gives me a new way to look at my country. What does nationality mean? What does ethnicity mean? What does race mean? I was born and raised in Japan but I have lived in the U.S. and am living in Australia now. This is the question I am thinking always.

Anything else? I am not doing much on running and playing the guitar. What else I am thinking? I am feeling great about learning English. I am reading and listening to books in English which is my second language. I am enjoying them so I just enjoying learning English by just reading books. This is great. Now, I am focusing more on vocabularies. I want to learn more, then I should be able to read more and better. Hopefully, I can speak and write Englis better. Maybe I will start writing the book review.

That’s it for today. Thank you for reading. I will keep on writing.