Author: sin0928yano@gmail.com

What I am reading.

I love reading. Sometimes, I think how many books I can read in my life. If I read a book a week. I can read only 54 books a year, 540 books in 10 years. maybe about 2000 books before being 70 years. Just only 2000 books. Oh my God. Life is short. So I do not want waste time. I believe that reading is basic skill. How can I speed up reading? One of my answer is reading several books simultaneously. I have done in Japanese, but it seemed difficult to do that in English. But situation is becoming better. To review, I will write down what I am reading.

1. Principles of Economics by N Gregory Mankiw : This book is basic text book for undergraduate student who is economic major. Frankly speaking, if you are not economist, just like a business person, this book include everything you need to understand in economics.

2. Introduction to solid state physics by Charles Kittle : This book is also basic text book for 3 – 4 year undergraduate who is going to major material science. Topic is well chosen, which give you widen idea about solid state physics.

3. Modern history of Japan by Andrew Gordon : This book describe Japanese history from Tokugawa times to the present. One of the most interesting era is end of Tokugawa times to Meiji times in Japan. Japanese was struggling for forming the future of own country, but, at the same time, Japanese could focus on pursuing their ideal country. Japanese worked the best at this time.

4. Presentaionzen by Garr Reynolds : In 21st century, presentation is one of most important skill. Everyone is aware of this fact. But few can do good on presentation. If you want to improve your presentation skill, you can find a lot of hints from this books.

5. Predictably irrational by  Dan Ariely : I am an experimental scientist, so I am aware that how easily we are deceived by the data. Science is relatively easy to make decision, but real life, there are so many variable to make decision. We believe we are rational, but truth is not. To know ourselves, why don’t we read this book?

6. Fifty shades of Grey by E L James : This book is very addictive. I can not help reading this. Erotic, amusing and deeply moving romance story, I can not stop turning pages. I just realized how reading is fun. When I found amazing book, I realize I love reading. I can not stop reading and finding new interesting books.

I have to admit. Now, I could not concentrated on one book recently, I write this post for me (Every posts is for me though.) , to review what I am reading, and to read forward.

The Economist 3/30

I like reading the Economist. Thanks to this journal, I can know about what is going on the  world. I will write what I am interested in from this week’s the Economist.

India Economy : Nobody doubts that China has joined the ranks of the great powers. But, nevertheless its huge potential, India does not show their strength so much.  In my opinion, as far as soft power is concerned, India is one of powerful countries.  While China is aging rapidly and worker’s population will decrease, India has relatively young and also growing. However, they have also several problem, such as the right of women, unstable periphery.      I would like to know more about this country which can become a great power undoubtedly.

Global Warming : Some Recent several terrible natural disasters may remind us Global warming may be one of reason. But some scientists are arguing that man-made climate change is not quite so bad a threat as it appeared to be a few years ago. It is difficult to judge whether this is true or not. However, we have already started several projects and we could not go back to. The world still needs to deal with it.

Heathrow Airport : Last year, when Britain’s government was being lobbied to revive controversial plan to expand Heathrow airport. For me, surprisingly, having predicted just before the financial crisis that 495m passengers  a year would want to use Britain’s airports by 2030, it now puts the potential damand by then just 320m. More than 100m would pass through British airport, however, we can tell how hard the financial crisis damage of this area. Among the developed countries, the number of passengers is expanding. I actually don’t understand the relation between the number of passengers and economic development. Why the number of passengers keep growing? Especially like in Britain, Japan, there seems to be few chance to grow.

The Economist give me the idea what I would like to know next. These topics are interesting. I will survey further.

Nothing special.

Chinese : My second foreign language is Chinese. I am learning Chinese from the language partner. It is hard to learn. Are Japanese and Chinese similar? I need time to conclude but it seems to be totally different. We use the character (Japanese calls Kanji) both. Chinese consists of the character but Japanese is the combination the character and Kana. When we Japanese read Chinese, we vaguely can understand what they are trying to say, But problem is we can not pronounce at all. For me, it is difficult to remember the sound, how to make sound by myself. The structure is understandable but it is hard to pronounce. But, I would like to speak Chinese. Let’s learn Chinese. Learning the foreign language is exiting. It takes time though.

University student in the U.S. : Is studying at University in the U.S.  hard, compare to Japanese? It is hard to say. The one of indicators is how many hours they spend for study in a day. Compare to Japanese university student, American student study more. Why? I believe that American student has a lot of home work during semester. Japanese students usually are not given home work so much. Why? I assume that the Professor in Japan is extremely busy, they can not give homework and have no time to check his assignments. And also library in the U.S. university is open even in late at night, some library open 24 hours. American student have good envelopment to study. I envy them actually!! haha.

Reading books : I used to read a lot in Japanese. So I would love to read more in English also. I just realized how can I read more. Reading is not race but the capability of reading is basic skill of living life. So I am going to read a book a week for fun, and for study. 2 books a week at least. How can I prove that? Oh, I will review these books on this blog. Let’s do this.

Almost 1 year.

I have been in the U.S. for 1 years. I did not realize that I spend 1 years. I came here 1 years ago. I was exited but also afraid. I started working as a physicist, in the foreign country. I was not sure I was eligible to be a physicist.

1 years past, is what I am thinking different from what I used to think? I actually can not say. But it should be different.

I have enjoyed working here. I need to do more I think but I love working as a physicist, enjoying experiment, analysis, discussion. 5 days times 8 hours = 40 hours in week, I spend working for the project we are working on. And I could spend time to study or learn physics after work or weekend which is the investment for my career in the long term.

I got a lot of friends. My friends are so sweet. Kindness I got from them is invaluable.  Unfortunately, I think I could not find the true best friend in the U.S. One of reason is language, maybe, I could not express my idea, what I am thinking fully maybe 30 percent of what I think. And, I can not spare so much time to be with him or her. What we concern the most is different.

Language. Learning English is harder than I expected. But finally, I could formulate what I should do. I can do that and it will take time. Learning something new is the older, the harder.

Family. I realized the importance of family. I would like to be with them, especially when something happen for them.

Country. I am a Japanese. I could realize the good or bad character of Japanese. Someone says, you need to go abroad to be a Japanese. That is correct. We need to know different culture to know our culture.

I would like to write more, but I need to go today. See you later.

I want to believe. Does intelligent extraterrestrial life exist?

I do not post as a scientist. Haha.

I have been watching X-files. I love X files. When I was a high school student, I used to watch X-files on TV during the dinner. The main character is a special agent Fox Mulder who is working for FBI. He is Oxford educated smart competent investing officer, but he is obsessed X-files which are unsolved the cases in FBI. He has a partner called Scully who is medical doctor and scientist, she plays devil’s advocate (as a character) from scientific or rational point of view in the story. In Mulder’s office, there is famous poster for fan, it says ‘I want to believe’ with the picture of UFO. I want to buy this poster.

Does intelligent extraterrestrial life exist? I don’t know. haha. But promising the star in the solar system is Europa, one of the Jupiter’s largest moon. What we do know is that Europa has water.

ICE SHELL : Europa is covered by an icy rind with a temperature of about -210F.

INTERIOR : As Europa moves through its orbit, it is gravitationally plucked by its sister moons. This leads to what’s known as tidal heating.

OCEAN : Water is kept liquid by interior heat, that may be 100 miles deep.

GEYSERS : Water from below sometimes bubbles or bursts through fractures in the ice. These cracks also allow surface material, including organic compound, to filter back down.

Sodium chloride : The planetary scientist Mike Brown of Cal Tech found, there is not only magnesium sulfate salt on Europa’s surface but also likely sodium chloride which is you know ordinary sea salt in the ocean.

Comets : Europa has been attacked by many comets in its long life, and comets are known as carriers of organic or carbon-containing, compounds.

The important 4 things,

Salt + Organics + Warmth + Water = ????

Are you ready for the truth? I am not expert on life. But we should find something on this planet.

Practice writing topic for TOEFL 6. Fukuoka city.

If you could change one important thing about your hometown,
what would you change? Use reasons and specific examples to
support your answer.

My home town is Fukuoka city which locate at north Kyushu island in Japan. Kyushu island’s GDP is 460 Billion US $ which is almost same these of Poland and Belgium. The Fukuoka is the largest and most important city in Kyushu.

In history, Fukuoka was one of the most important cities to communicate with the rest of the world.

The Mongol tried to Invade Japan for 2 times in 1274 (Bunei no eki) 1281 (Kouan no eki), and Mongolian army landed from Kyushu.  However, Gokenin around Kyoshu fought against Mongolian well and Kamikaze saved both of fights. Even now, there is huge wall to fight against them.

But also, because Fukuoka is the nearest city to Asia, Fukuoka was open to Asia and world. Hakata (Almost same meaning is Fukuoka) merchant did worked well. People are open to meet the people outside of the country. 

Because Fukuoka located at middle of Asia. Fukuoka has good access to main Asian cities like Seoul Taipei and Shanghai, which takes a few hour to get there by airplane. And also education in Fukuoka is very good. Several university is good source of intelligent workers in Kyushu.

But, I believe Fukuoka could not take advantage of these factors. Like as the other cities in Japan. Economically, Fukuoka is going not so well. I believe that is because the working population is decreasing and the city is getting older. Fukuoka needs to open again to get young Asian people ask them to help find the way to new economic growth.

Being open to the world and Asia again is key. Like I said before, Fukuoka is good access to Asia, has a chance to meet 1 billion people in Asian people. One thing I want Fukuoka to change to take measure to access to highly fluid labor market in Asia, which would help Fukuoka vitalizing.

Book Review 8 : Losing it.

Bliss Edward was about to graduate from college. She was a only virgin among her friends, she decided best way to deal with the problem was to lose it as quickly and simply as possible – a one-night stand. So she hit the bar and found the gorgeous guy Garrick who has sexy British accent. He likes reading Shakespeare and Bliss also does. Finally, Bliss and  Garrick agreed to go to Garrick’s house.

At his house, they were going to have a sex. Everything was going smoothly, however, just before having, Bliss said that she needed to take care of her cat. This was a lie. She had never had cat. She was upset with having sex for the first time. She at lat ran away from his house in the middle of night with almost naked. If this was only a night stand, that was good.

However, next morning,  when she arrived for her first class of her last college semester, she recognized her new theater professor was the man who she met last night in the bar. Wow, what would happen this semester??

She has also best male friends. Cade. But he liked her. But She liked him, but only as a friend. Here, I saw kind of selfishness of her and about her relationship. She likes him as a friends, not boyfriends. She also does not want to lose him. The relationship sometimes is difficult. There were several incidents between Bliss, Garrick and Cade. What would happen among those people?? If you are interested, you should read this book!!

I enjoyed this story. I understand the first sex have special meanings. Someone may feel the fear. Someone does weird things. This book just reminded me my stories and when I was high school and college. I understand what she wanted to do and what she felt.

The author is Cora Cormack, this book says that she is a twenty something writer who likes to write about twenty something characters. If you are interesting, you will find something from here!!

http://coracarmack.blogspot.com/p/about-sisterhood.html

 

Practice writing topic for TOEFL 5. New factory coming.

A company has announced that it wishes to build a large factory near
your community. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this new
influence on your community. Do you support or oppose the factory?
Explain your position (300 words, 30 min)

I will discuss advantage of building a large factory first. New factory needs new workers, so that, they will hire workers from our community. They will pay salary for them. New workers can consume the production that the community produces. Also some workers come from outside of the community. They need new house and spend money in the community. The population of the community will increase. These changes help vitalizing economic growth the community.

And also some company has willing to communicate with education institutes like school, university, college and so on. They will offer internship, giving students a chance to learn higher level of skill.  And they may be able to collaborate for research with University. So that education level of the community may be better.

The company need to pay taxes for municipal. These taxes will help the municipal to give the community the better services. It is difficult to maintenance of all of property only from tax the small community payed.

There are also disadvantages. If new factory and the company which hold that factory is too large compare to the community, the community tend to be depend on that company or factory to stabilize the economy. And because of the changing population and income in community dramatically, it is hard to adjust.

Some factory need to throw the chemical which is not good for natural environment. Some factory hires mostly from foreigner. They have totally different culture. These new things may bring about the problem between inhabitant in the community and immigrant form outside.

I suppose that the new factory come to the community. We need benefits of economic growth.  There may be conflict based on the cultural difference, we need to take measures to solve the problems.

 

Music 3.

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 revised from the previous post.

1. Japanese female vocalist, artist

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

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, Eikichi Yazawa, Tokyo Ska paradise Orchestra, Cool Drive makers, Fumido.

Today, I will recommend Bird ’ Souls’ 　She is good at singing funk music. I like actually the guitar sounds what her band make. I like to play ‘Cutting’ in the band. My goal is making comfortable sounds in the band like what the guitarist in her band does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJloRKG2x8E

Today, I also will recommend Crazy Ken band ’Hirugao’ 　They are the band who play mainly at Yokohama. They consist of relatively elder persons. But each person in the band know their own role. They make so comfortable sound.

3. American (classic) rock or music

Deep purple, Eric Clapton, Eagles, Maroon5, Dream theater, Rage against the machine, Earth wind & fire, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Limp Bizkit, Lenny Kravitz, Jamiroquai.

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 from Tomo Fujita. “Just funky”. I published famous DVD guitar lecture. I always practice based on his textbook. He focus on the basic techniques. He is now associate professor at Berklee college of music

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!!

Wasting time

I have been writing this blog for 1 and half month. I prefer quantity to quality for the first year, because I believe the quantity would turn into the quality. So I am going to write more on this blog. But I need to improve writing skill in long term, maybe 1 year to 10 year’s span. Some says that there is several grammatical error on this blog. Several person offered me to help improve. Thank you very much for helping me.

Today, I was just tired. So I got up late, practiced English as usual and ran as usual. I took lunch with my friend. I talked about my career.

I have been thinking about my career. After this postdoc program end, what should I do? One thing my boss advised me is getting a job at ESS. ESS will be next generation of spallation source. Since I had worked for J-PARC when I was Ph.D student. I may be able to have  something to do to build next generation spallation source. So, next I may go to Europe.

ESS

http://europeanspallationsource.se/

J-PARC

http://j-parc.jp/index-e.html

But, I don’t know. There are other options, One is staying in the U.S. One is going back to Japan. One is going to China. Of course, Japan may be best option, if I get a good job position in some physics institute.

How about the U.S.? Studying in the U.S. is much fun. We can concentrate on studying and also we can have free time to spend time for our interest. China has a chance to get Job because the neutron source in China is kind of new, there are still something need to be improved. I can find something I can do.

Either way, it is important to write good papers during this program. I am always thinking about time limit. I don’t want any wasting time. I hate wasting time. I am in hurry, always in my life. I just realized what I am. I could do more. I will do more.