Maitta! Always - Daily Amazing Confusions -

These days I often visit LingQ. Besides English, I listen to several foreign languages; French, German, and Chinese. Whether I'm really going to communicate in these language I'm not sure, but by the progresses of lessons, I know I'm capable of understand more than one language, which makes me freer, even if I'm not really going to communicate in these languages. This has been the motivation with which I learn English even if I don't have any concrete plan to communicate with anyone.

I slept for 3 hours in the afternoon. I needed to do this to recover from the stress, and today was the only day I could this in a few weeks.

On Sunday I have to participate in a lecture on skiing. If I don't sleep well today and tomorrow, there's no chance for recovery from fatigue from the trip to Nagoya for Abilympics and work after the trip.

So far I've been OK in this week, but I've find it hard to make any idea now. Probably I've been overloaded these days with Abylympics in Nagoya and making a lot of communication at work and people with disabilities of same category as I have. It's not a good idea to tell something by pushing myself too hard when I'm really tired. I hope that my vigor will be recovering soon.

Recently I've been doing well at work. The other staff member looks like struggling with business communications. We both are categorized to developmental disorders, but the way of do things and communicate are quite different. Fortunately I have been able to acquire some tips of business communications, but, as many with developmental disorders are likely to do, the other member seems to struggle with how to effectively communicate in typical communications like making a report, making a question, and taking orders.

Yesterday, on the last day of this holidays, I encountered an ad. It was about an English learning program which focuses on pronunciation with a goal to acquire speech speed of native speakers and understand what is spoken on a movie. My goal wasn't really joining a conversation with a native speaker, so I wasn't one who buy the program. I, however, was interested in the English teacher the ad recommends to take a course of. Seeing his video, I learned that making right sounds is the first step to learn "power-saving" pronunciation native speakers are said to use in their daily conversations. I adopted some of program. When I practiced pronunciation with super slow speed, I was able to be much more conscious of each sound I was to make than ever before. Unfortunately, I noticed that I couldn't really tell the difference of the pronunciations between "L" and "R", or "see" and "she". On other videos, I learned to mak...

As one of people with developmental disabilities, I've believed that we needed some technical terms in order to describe our difficulties. On the other hand, some English conversation programs focus on typical patterns you are most likely to hear or see. One program I saw a little while ago focuses on 60 patterns. I complained to myself that with these 60 patterns I can't describe my difficulties. On second thought I decided to explain some of our difficulties, with developmental disabilities, in expressions I think which is basic. Problems in Input / Output : What you see and hear / What you speak and write Very limited short time memory : When we are told several items or to do several things, we tend to easily forget what is told at the first. Single task : We basically do one thing at a time. Typical office workers can do several things at the same time and often requires co-workers to do so. We're likely to have a trouble when we have to / try to do more...

Now I've been set in front of my Computer at home in Sendai for the first time in four days. Never had I imagined that I continued to post to this blog during the 4-day trip in Nagoya without missing a day. It's thanks to Kindle and free wi-fi access at the hotel I stayed. Although I wasn't as comfortable as on my PC when I post on my Kindle, it showed several suggestions of words when I type the first few letters, which help me completing my daily posts.

Today Web page making for the contest. The competition has been done. Now, waiting for results. My performance was far from perfect, but barely satisfied minimum requirement. There were a lot of features I gave up, but at least I managed to appeal the point I most wanted to tell. I hope my approach will please the judges. One of the competitors was from a famous game manufacturer and he looked like high skills of programming and design softwares.

I'm in Nagoya to participate in the Abilympics, national vocational skill contest for disabled people. I'm going to make a website in the competition. Today was the opening ceremony and inspection. The opening ceremony was unexpectedly entertaining, although its audio environment was a bit too loud for me, which made me a little tired. In the afternoon, I was on the inspection. I imported the site I had made, and made some modification to make my work more efficient. Many things, I think, are missing to make it tomorrow, but I'll do my best anyway.

Thanks to the wi-fi service "mobilepoint" I'm online and can post to the blog on Shinkansen the superexpress train. I struggle with activating the connection, partly because of the purchase,  of the account, and partly because I wrongly took the note of my account.

I'm going to Nagoya tomorrow to participate a technical competition for disabled people called Abilympics. I'll stay there for 4 days. I thought that I'd be offline and wouldn't post blog posts during this stay, but I've found that there are some ways to connect to the Internet there. I'm not sure I'll post articles during the stay, but thinking about the options isn't bad.

For the competition in a few days, I go on making sample web pages based on which I work out on the day of the competition. Participants are supposed to make a few sample web pages to appeal to the make-believe customer, an NPO client who tell information about the city of the venue. I've been struggled with the appeal points and contents. Later, I've noticed that having been a blogger for several years can be appeal point to the client in that I can communicate grass-root information about for example details of local restaurants of sightseeing spots. I have been not so good a blogger, most of what I tell is daily struggle with my mental condition and my work, but thanks to many supporters in real life and on the Internet, I've continued my blogs in two languages.

I have a lot I want to try before a web page building competition just a few days away. I've learned a lot through reading several books on web design and web programming, and I have a few idea of what is the problem with the web sites I'm most likely to see. It's too short to implement all the idea, but I'd like to implement an idea or two to show new suggestion on web pages for elderly people.

To prepare sample pictures for web pages, I'm making some images using Adobe Illustrator. Since I couldn't take photos appropriate for the theme, making artworks with paint or draw software is a practical choice for me. During the work, I've noticed that I knew little about basics for Illustrator. I couldn't even alter handles for a corner point. Sometimes I moved the entire path instead of adjusting one anchor point. With some help on the Web I managed to make a few artworks, and I learned quite a few about the basics of Illustrator.

I've learned a lot about parts of web pages through reading books about HTML, CSS, and a few web programing languages. Although I've grasped a rough image of how web page parts work, but creating a web page is another thing. I'm struggling with what design and programing component to adopt, and how to organize elements of pages and their style. It's really a good opportunity to work out how to compose web pages with what I've learned in recent few years.

I'm preparing for my work for Abilympics, the vocational skill contest for disabled people. I have to make several web pages prior to the competition, and I'm struggling with implementing some features required for the web pages.

Thanks to a lot of sleep, air conditioner in the workplace, and a cold medicine, my cold has been cured in a day. Be careful not to chill my body again.

It looks like I've caught a cold. This is probably because I couldn't keep myself warm at my workplace. Today, I brought extra socks to keep myself warm. Fortunately, the heater was on today, so I didn't feel so cold. By the end of today I felt so sick that I was unsettled even after I had a seat the train home. Now I'm home, I need to go to sleep in an hour to go to work tomorrow feeling much better.

I visit many web sites and blogs. To view a website and to edit something on the computer at the same time, my browser window is usually narrow. I've noticed that many of those websites require wide window size or full screen. When I view one of these sites in the narrow window size in which I work comfortably, I usually see the side scroll bar which tells there are contents beyond the right boundary of the browser window. A site design which requires a wide window size looks inconvenient to me. I wondered why many websites adopt such a design, and searched for the web. The main reason is likely to the issue of the places for ads from which the sites get income. Usability and income. The balance of these seems to me that many web designer are thinking of.

To prepare for vocational skill competition named "Abylympics" 10 days ahead, I have to prepare sample web pages. It's not easy coping with tiredness from work, but I hope I'll be able to use period in the morning before breakfast and start for work.

Today when I had a bath I counted down numbers again. I was hoping that I wanted to pronounce at least one number like a professional like a news anchor or an actor. Counting numbers may be one of the easiest things, and most of language learners think that they are able to. However, doing this regularly is not an easy thing. This activity may be almost meaningless in order to improve your language proficiency, but at least this can be a suggestion that very entry level learners who have only small vocabulary. I continue this because I like doing things that is rather nonsense but I still find fun, and I believe that this is one of the best ways I'm likely to pronounce English vocabulary like a professional even though with really limited range of vocabulary.

Uneasy? Worried? Restless? Angry? Envious? Mixed feeling? I don't know what I feel today. Maybe all of them. It would be wonderful that some one care for me and I can talk to something about my feeling when I'm down. If not, still I'm OK. I don't take rash action, or decide my feeling without much thought. It's not so simple. I can still focus on have a rest.

 I've become a bit nervous and restless in two days.  I'd borne the stress from communication to teach how to be specific when our team member has to report something to the team manager.  When your boss tells you your mistake, you may want to show you understand what your boss has intended to tell by expressing in your own words, for example, telling a specific action you are to make to meet your boss's demand.  I myself, months or about a year ago, I was struggling with my poor report to my boss. I had been repeatedly told that my report be specific, brief for my boss to know what action he or she is to take.  I feel for the mental stress my colleague feels in the middle of stress, struggling with improvement of communications, especially reports being required.  I'm not sure what to do, what is priority to improve communication, encouraging her to think specific and brief from the most familiar and the smallest task, or should I first wait her ...

Since this summer, I've been counting numbers whenever I have a bath. Soon I also practice pronunciation and smile while counting. I've noticed that I smile many times as many as the numbers I count. I especially look smiling when I'm pronouncing "i" and "e". Therefore, for example, when I say 765 or "seven hundred and sixty five", I smile 5 times. Today I counted from 300 down to zero, 500 down to 300 and 800 down to 500, so I guess I smiled more than 2,000 times while I was counting all these numbers. This is a bit tough exercise and at last I feel a little bit weary in my lips and tongue, but this hard exercise surely will help me speak in a more pleasant way.

It's 630 meters from home to the nearest station. It takes about 10 minutes on foot, but usually I jog from home to the station in 5 minutes when I go to work because I'm usually in a hurry then. When I'm jogging, a meter for a step is a good pace, approximately 6'15 minutes, but with my business suits and business shoes on and with my bag, this pace is a little bit hard.

The weather report on TV said that winter begins tomorrow on calendar. Temperature in reality is getting lower and lower, so you want to be careful not to catch a cold, the announcer continued. I think that this time of the year, beginning of winter is the period I feel coldest. Of course, January and February temperature is much lower than November, but in the beginning of winter, my body hasn't fully adjusted to the cold weather. In January and February, I enjoy skiing so much that I perceive that the cold weather of this period is more bearable than the beginning of winter when skiing season is yet to begin.

The lack of sleep last night made me short-tempered. Having an enough sleep seems to be more important than I've thought for my mental health. I stayed up one hour later than usual hoping to sort out a problem of a study web program I made recently. I walked up at 5am and had a cup of coffee. It seemed to me OK because I didn't feel sleepy throughout this morning. I was wrong. I didn't feel sleepy, but I was much easier to be frustrated. I was sorry for my colleagues. Tiredness after an exercise may affect my temper. When I overwrought on the exercise, I'm likely to become short-tempered too. Managing my physical and mental tiredness is a key to manage my temper.

I'm building a small web program which add comments on a web page. When I was testing how the program run, there were unexpectedly many entry for comments. 2 to 5 insert requests were made by a single page request intended to insert one comment. I tried to sort this out, but I spent hours in vain. Finally, by comparing the source file which apparently run correctly, I've found out that empty references may be suspicious : like , or which is initially written in the html5 template I used. I'm not sure what mechanism is working, but I've realized that what and how many requests are to be made when a user make request a web page.

I'm filling in the form for year-end tax adjustment. I have to fill in information about the disability certificate and the premiums paid for life insurance. I also have to attach evidences of them. A copy of the disability certificate and the premium receipts.

Today I went to Kakuda city to run a road race. I run 10 kilometers in 53 minutes. I run a road race for the first time since I run a Sendai International Half Marathon one and half year ago. I registered for the same race last year too, but I couldn't participate because I caught a cold a week before. I used to run 10 kilometers in about 45 minutes when I was around 30 years old. At that time, I practiced much more than now, and I was younger. It's discouraging that I was only able to run much slower than when I was younger, but at the same time, I did well in that the pace at which at run didn't fall throughout the race, even though it was much slower than I had been able to about 10 years ago.

I've recently reading The Non-Designer's Web Book on my Kindle. This tells much about designing of business cards, newsletters, posters, pamphlets and web pages. I'm interested in The Non-Designer's Web book introduced in this book, because part of my job is making web pages. Unfortunately this web design book isn't available on Kindle. I'm also interested in The Non-Designer's Illustrator Book. Last year I bought Adobe Illustrator CS6, but I didn't use it so much, which is available as a Kindle version. It seem to have good reviews and good for a beginner to learn how to use the software. I'm hoping to make use of this graphic software with a helpful guidebook like this.