Maitta! Always - Daily Amazing Confusions -

There are a lot of textbooks, handouts and notes in my room. There are tens of thousands of pages or sheets of piece of writing, by other people or by myself, for the purpose to learn English. As for other subjects such as mathematics or information technologies, things are similar. I admit that there are a lot to learn, and there are many things I learned when I was school but have forgotten and want to learn again. I, however, also have to admit that I have to limit and choose carefully the sources from which I learn things. Otherwise, I might be going to be stuck with huge piles of paper which may be informative but much less important for my life ahead, especially for next year. Learning English and other subjects is fun, even though when I have to learn, it take a lot of energy, courage, will power, and sometimes time to begin learning, and even though much of my learning experience is much challenging and stressful. Choosing things which I really need and enjoy will be...

I was cleaning up my room a little bit because after I removed wax from my skis, a lot of wax  remaining on them left as dust. I was shocked at what a mess my room is. I have known that my room is really untidy. As I clean room once in a while, my room clutters 10 time the pace I clean up. This means, I have to clean up 10 times harder than I do now. Realizing the fact, I'm thinking of getting rid of unnecessary things from my room, making my cleaning up more efficient.

Today and tomorrow. I will have posted something every day for 2 years, if I post something on today and tomorrow. Today, I'm writing this post, and tomorrow, there will be no problem... I really hope so. Sometimes in this year I felt it hard to post even a word or two, and spent a few hours in front of the screen of my laptop. Contents are far from what I want to be in the future, regretfully. Having said that the problem is that I also have noticed that I don't have no clear picture or words to describe my future dream. This subject will probably be a theme for me for next year.

I plan to go skiing for tomorrow. Skiing ground I go to the most will open on that day. To be honest, I'm still hesitating, being overwhelmed by preparation. My action and my decision is much slower than when I'm fully fine. I hope skiing will be a good refreshment for me. Reaching the mountain whatever time would be good for my mental health.

The things I enjoyed this year. Remembering what I enjoyed is good for my mental health. 1. Eating out in the lunchtime on Saturdays. 2. Drawing automobiles, trains, and practicing drawing some persons. 3. Playing games - atelier series and touhou shooters. 4. Listening to musics, some of which are hi-res. 5. Enjoying learning English, especially listening to some podcast services. These are what I enjoyed this year. I think there are more. I also have things I enjoyed at work. I hope I will be able to tell some days later.

Touhou Kanjuden ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom This is what I got the day before yesterday. It's for the first time in 5 years that I buy a brand-new Touhou Project game. I retried 874 times before I beat the normal level. Bullets there are even more severer than the Lunatic (hardest) level of Touhou 7 Perfect Cherry Blossom, which I often play even now. Now I'm going to try Extra mode, but before then I feel like playing older Touhou games I'm used to playing.

Yesterday, I reported that I had worked through this year without a big trouble, but to be honest, I have been feeling burnt out at the end of this year. I guess I feel much better than last year because I don't hear noises of big sounds of a siren, an alarm or a bell. Still sometimes I feel find myself flapping and clapping my hands without a special reason. This is not critical sign, but still I sometime think that I could be better. I could be thinking more, going out more, editing more source cords and writing more blog ideas. Controlling my activities according to my condition is one progress I made this year, and being aware of and admitting being burnt out is the key to spend the next coming year without big trouble.

Today was the final work day of the year. Thanks to support from family and workplace, I have managed to work through this year. Next year I hope I will have more energy at work and in activities off duty.

Smiling calmly, being there, this is what I can do at best on Christmas. Actually being calm is one of the hardest things for me to over come.

Today was a holiday. I wanted to spend today at slow pace. 10 minutes before noon I left home and took a bus, went to a ramen shop and had one serving, then I went to a batting cage. I practiced batting for 30 minutes and spent about 700 yen. I had been thinking of going swimming after, but I gave up because from the batting cage where I was at that time, it would take more than one and a half hours just by taking a bus and waiting for a bus. Instead, as an exercise I walked home, taking one runabout hillside route along the river. I played a jazz music album I had bought at a hi-res music distribution site on my Walkman. I also had god a pair of earphones designed for hi-res audio. While walking I felt as if I had been in a cafe, where musics of this kind is typically played. I enjoyed the detour walk very much, and I also thought that it may be first time I first enjoy Walkman as Walkman, as a music player with which we can enjoy walking listening to our favorite musics.

I saw a few friends from support group of developmental disabilities and had dinner. I had a nice time for the first time in months, having nice conversation. These days, I have fewer and fewer times to enjoy conversations so this kind of occasion is really precious.

I like to go to work, although I tend to be tired when I leave workplace having finished the day of work. The reason I like about my job is I can find a few aspect I would never find when I'm home. At work I often find that I'm unexpectedly kind and nice. At home I have thought myself as rather self-centered and powerless. Finding myself as being able to serve to other people help me improve self image, which also help me hang in there when I'm almost giving up from everyday stress.

It was not until just now that I came up with the idea that my reactions to different motivations, especially to learn English has been mistaken. Why didn't I motivate even more English learners with different motivations? I have been cynical about those English learners of different type. Actually my motivation is non standard and those people are with typical motivation of learning English. They want to talk a lot, fluently and with many people, or they want to travel abroad. Some people (a lot of people) learn for business purpose. I didn't resonate with the motivation that they want to talk fluently, more, with more people because I had found that having communication with other people was stressful, even in speaking in Japanese. Now I'm thinking that even though I don't like to talk with a lot of people, and I'm not really prone to go abroad, I may want to understand the motivation that they want to talk fluently, a lot, with a lot of people, and widen thei...

One, two, three, four ...... Advent candles are lit one after another day after day. This is how I felt as if December flew. Isn't it a fast express train of advent candles which are passing by in front of me at a Shinkansen speed, 200 mph.

"Many Japanese wants to be fluent in English, so you also should have the same goal." > In fact I know some people like to talk frequently and with many people, and some people like to talk once in a while and with fewer and closer people. I know not every people even in church understand my way of behavior, even though they are basically nice. I find it hart to enjoy conversation with people who don't have smallest sympathy of my panicky behavior from my anxiety with communication with other people. "Who would be interested in stories of a person on the autism spectrum English is whose second language, now that there are a lot of stories from adults on the spectrum whose first language is English." > The real problem is that my attitude that I only want to talk and much less ready to listen to other people in similar situations. It takes disciplines to share stories around my experiences and ones of some other people. "You may feel misera...

Yesterday I was frozen for 2 minutes when I was at the counter to make a purchase. It was a question about packing. Plastic or paper bag. I didn't really care about that. I even didn't need any package because I had a backpack and some plastic bags. There was a long line behind me waiting for being checked out, for it was a weekend day near Christmas holidays. I could have said, "I leave it up to you." Instead I was at a loss what to say. My face blushed, and became hot. It was embarrassing. This experience reminded me of my weak point that when I was asked an unexpected question, I tend to be frozen. 10 years ago when I came to Sendai, I was frozen more than 3 times a month. I even couldn't say my name. I'm not sure I can say name now if I am in the same situation as I was. Things may not have been improved much, but things may have only been that I'm much less frequently the situation where I tend to be frozen.

I learn vocabulary automatically to relief the frustration I feel when I encounter many unknown words. An experience while I was browsing books for French learners today reminded me of this. When I was in university, 12 to 13 years ago, I was into learning French as well as English. I bought those books one after another, and took some proficiency tests. I haven't really mastered French, so now I know some of the words, but there are lots of words I don't know, which prevent me from finding smallest clues to solve problems on those books. I wonder, 12 years ago, I was almost able to answer those questions, and wondered how I knew then most of those words. I listened web radios spoken in French when I was in a computer room of university and read out loud texts from the books when I was in my room. I was curious about matters in Africa, because in a few learning classes, they dealt with matters in Africa as well as in France. I didn't really seriously read the reference ...

After I got a Hi-Res Walkman, I spend more time listening to music, and less time listening to English newscasts. When I listen to English newscasts these days, I take advantage of the functions of Walkman, divide a newscast into small parts of 20 seconds, and listen by parts, with each parts listening to about 20 times. Doing this has enabled me to get much clearer picture of news, especially its 5W1H. I wonder how I listened to news without much attention of 5W1H, before I change the way of listening to a newscast.

I wonder how fast time flies. It's the middle of December. In this time of the year, usually, I have already gone skiing for a few times. This year, I have just begun to prepare for skiing. The weather has been so warm that I haven't been feeling like even preparing. Waxing and removing wax, preparing skiing wear, and adjusting skiing boots. Probably next Wednesday, a holiday will be my first skiing this year.

Keeping to a slow pace consistently while jogging is not easy. I always feel this when I jog in the morning, and when I jog after supper. At first, I jog slow, but when I warm up, I'm tempted to run a little bit faster. This isn't bad when I want to run fast, but in a jogging at night, when I want to sleep a few hours I would like to keep to a slow pace consistently. I once before thought, "Jogging at a pace I like is fine, after all I would be tired and get sleepy in a few hours in the end". In fact, however, jogging at a fast pace at night tend to prevent my sleep, in my experiences in recent months. A month ago I got advice that, "In order to have a nice sleep, walking 30 minutes a few hours before you sleep is desirable. When you walk, you take deep breathes. You may think jogging would also be fine, but when jogging you tend not to breathe very deeply, which is bad for your sleep." I then thought, "After work, I'm not patient eno...

After I bought Walkman NW-A16, I've been interested in Hi-Res audio. I bought the audio player for the purpose of learning languages, rather than listening to Hi-Fi audio. The sound from the player was unexpectedly good, so these days, I have been absorbed in playback Hi-Res audio files with what I have now. I have been satisfied with the sounds of MP3 files, but when I heard Hi-Res sources, I "felt" that they were pleasant sounds. It may be a placebo effect, and I think, months later , the sources I frequently listen to will be MP3 files of my favorite game musics. Still seeking some possibilities to listen to high-quality audios motivate me to do my daily work more actively.

When a person from the Earth engages in an operation in the space, he or she wears a space suit to adjust to the environment. I sometimes feels as if I were from another star and needed an Earth suit to adjust to the environment. I often feel this way when I feel lonely or alienated although I choose to or I have to participate in a social occasion. My classmates often said that I was from the Mars, when I was in elementary school, junior high school, and high school. Of course I hated it very much, because I felt that by saying that the classmate refused for me to get into their inner circle. As a matter of fact, I was born from my father and my mother, in Japan, on the Earth. If I denied this, I would dishonor my parents! Yet, with many frustrating and discouraging experiences in the period I was in those schools, I've been sometimes tempted to give in to that nonsense delusion that I had been from another star than Earth, feeling that I would never be able really to be a m...

Christmas is one week away. Sunday morning, I feel time is flying faster than usual, until the service begin, the worship service begin before I'm prepared. I'm restless and sometimes draw pictures of nonsense. It may be nice to have a fun, but before having a fun, I sometimes feel I need a lot of time of doing nothing. I will prepare for lord coming as much as I can in in the state of my mind now.

I went to a batting cage after my mental clinic visit. I practiced batting there for more than 30 minutes. Recently, I go to a batting cage almost every weekend. Swinging a bat is one good way to beat stress. Moreover, I've been learned tips of meet the ball, making my swing as compact as possible, which make me spend more time batting practice. Today I practiced so hard that when I came home I was too tired to go swimming. Swimming, or batting practice, both are good ways to beat my daily stress, so I'd like to find a good balance between them. Usually this time of the year, another fun thing cuts in. Skiing. This year it is much warmer than usual, and news of snow hasn't been arrived yet from the mountain I go every weekend. Once I go to the mountain and experience the first skiing of the year my motivation would be inclined to skiing than these two fun things above I have been enjoying.

I recalled a word, flashback. It's for the first time in a month or two. Around six months ago, I was always using the word "flashback". I often used this term also in this blog. Mental tiredness was so severe, at that time, that I recalled embarrassing memories of the past and horrible ideas which could easily destroy myself. These days, I'm still not totally free from tiredness. Especially I suffer from soreness in my eyes, from work on the computer. My condition, still, has much been improved in that I have become much more stable mentally than the first half of the year. Now I can make decisions much more easily. I can get off a train after checking my property only twice or three times. 3 months ago, I checked even more than five times before I get off a train. I recalled the word flashback today when I also recalled terrible mistake in an interview test of an English test 13 years ago. At that time I had much smaller vocabulary than now I have, and was...

Had negative image of myself and frequently spoke about it to my friends when I was in cram school at age of 19. I always got response that "Don't be so negative about yourself." I always responded "It can't be helped. I hate myself. I can't overcome my shortcoming of my personality, my studying habits and my academic performance." Now I don't hate myself so much as 20 years ago. This is because, I suppose, I have found the pleasure to give something to other people from what I have. I have learned that I'm satisfied from what I have.

I'm doing fine these days, except that I often suffer from sore eyes, with long time in front of computer screen. To relieve my sore eyes, I'm making it a rule to be away from computer for 10 minutes after I continuously worked 50-60 minutes, but when I'm too absorbed in a task I often forget it. Keeping to the rule is the key to take care of my eyes.

Slowing down is the natural way of my activity before I go to sleep. This is the reason I shouldn't pace up in my jogging at night. I may want to slow down instead if I want to sleep in a few hours. Having said that, slowing down takes patience. When I start jogging after supper, on weekdays, I have typically already been tired, especially mentally, so tired that I want some stimulus to begin something, then I'm tempted to jog faster. When jogging, I find myself lack of patience trying to slowing down. This lack of patience may be the same root of my sleeps with bad dreams recently. Thinking this way, I was jogging, making a effort not to speed up, tonight, just 30 minutes ago.

My obsession about blogging every day is another word for anxiety. I've been blogging every day since the beginning of last year. The resolution I made almost 2 years ago have had a great effect in that I have continued blogging and made more than 800 posts since then. This has also a positive effect on my English proficiency. At least I have made efforts to communicate in English every day, through putting something down on the blog. On the other hand, the quality of my blog hasn't been much improved. One problem with my blog is it lacks focus. I haven't been succeeded to give clear picture of who I am, what I have gone through, and what I like to focus on and think deeply about. In order to tackle this problem, making article on daily basis may not be a good idea. Although thinking about and editing blog articles every day may be good, finalizing a post every day may prevent me from think deeply about one subject a blog article is to be about. Next year, re...

I have noticed that my priority to be on the Internet is not so high, although so fer I spend more than an hour a day in front of my laptop in my private time. There are two problems with spending a long time surfing the web and posting something to social media. Sore eyes and less time to do my housework. Making my post brief and to cutting the time of browsing news articles unimportant to my real life, I'd like to take care of my eyes and make time for do my housework like cleaning my room and other places in my house.

I got new year's greeting cards at the post office near my workplace today. I'm going to send three to five greeting cards. I'd like to finish sending in two weeks.  Since I don't have a printer, I'm going to write greeting messages and some illustrations with my pen. 10 years ago I had lost contact with people who were with when I was in high school and in university, so I had hardly anyone to send, and I didn't care much about it because I was so accustomed to be lonely and I was so annoyed with difficulty with communicating someone else. Now I'm thinking that giving greetings is important even though I have so few people to give.

I'm asking to myself. How has this weekend been. Basically I spent the time slowly. There are things I wish I could have done, but the weekend has not been bad. One of the best things is I haven't caught cold during the weekend of strong wind and occasional rains of December. My first action tomorrow will be go to my workplace with smile showing that "I'm fine", even if I sometimes think that I could have done better.

I go to an indoor pool nearby almost every Saturday to take exercise and relax my body stiffened from desk work on weekdays. The pool I go regularly has 5 lanes, and 2 lanes are open for walk or swim freely. The rest 3 lanes are for swimmers who can swim at least 25 meters.  Swimmers there are supposed to be swim without stopping or standing in the middle of the pool, and should keep to the right so that more than two swimmers can swim back and forth in one lane. When the pool is crowded, four, five or more people are in the same lane, so the swimmers have to adjust paces for every swimmer can go smoothly. One or two courses are often closed for visitors, exclusive for swimming classes, so sometimes the lane for visitors become even more crowded. These days I swim from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. because the pool isn't so crowded. I can swim relatively at my own pace. Another factor, however, still prevent me from swimming at my own pace. When there is a swimmer is in th...

Train images in the page of the link below, a great train picture. No, this is not a picture but a painting. I was really surprised when I first saw the works of Fukushima Hisashi. まるで写真！自閉症の画家が描いた表紙が話題に　作者の父に思い聞く - withnews（ウィズニュース） http://withnews.jp/article/f0151205000qq000000000000000W00o0401qq000012810A This article written in Japanese introduces a railway artist with autism with some of his works, and with an interview with his father. I haven't heard of him for four years since when I first knew of him, so I was greatly relieved and amazed that he has continued his art works. I first knew the artist 4 years ago. I was so surprised that I visited an exhibition of his works in Komagawa, Saitama, from Sendai taking a paid holiday. Images through the internet was amazing enough, but seeing the real things amazed me a lot. I have known that he has been in the news again because the visitors to my Japanese blog has been increasing although I haven't posted new article...

It's December. Winter is coming. This year, due to warmer climate, snowfall is delaying. I planned to go my first Skiing for this coming Sunday, but the plan was suspended because Snow in the mountain wasn't enough. In winter I go skiing almost every Saturday. I get up 5:20 a.m., leave home 6:20 a.m. and take the train of 6:30 a.m. Usually I arrive at the mountain around 8:30 a.m. On Saturdays in winter I get up even earlier than weekdays. Now I'm thinking that I'll wake up the same 5:20 a.m. on weekdays. By doing so I have some time to clean my room, study something, or thinking about something suitable for blog posts. To get enough sleep the time to go to bed is important. More than 7.5 hours sleep a day is desirable for me, so I would like to go to bed by 9:50 p.m. Now I'm thinking when to write blog posts. At night or in the morning? Although I have continued to post this blog every day since the beginning of last year, posting every day is not this ...

This time of the year before last I was reading a biography of Edison. This time of last year I was studying web programming. What am I doing this year? Restart recording my blog posts I have suspended for a few days? I don't feel like doing so yet, but why don't at least I turn on my recorder, turn it on, and just yell ah, if it's too embarrassing my writing or it's too tiring to think about a script to read?

"How Are You?" "I'm Fine, And You?" This is probably one of the first conversations you learn if you learn English as your second language. As is also the case for me, I learned the expressions when I first leaned English when I was in the first year of junior high school. I have learned for several times since then, whenever I learn the basics of English conversation. There was a problem. I wasn't really fine whenever I learn this basic template of conversation. The first year in university, I was really afraid of having conversation with anyone, and years later, when I took free English conversation course, I was battling serious mental depression. Whenever I learn this expression, the only answer to the question "How are you" is "I'm fine", I wasn't really happy with the teaching. "Why do I have to say 'I'm fine' when I'm feeling bad and need some help?" The real problem was my selfish attitude t...

Just a few hours ago my laptop wouldn't connect to the Internet. It was fortunate because I wasn't at work, getting a paid holiday today.  The network troubleshooting program reported that it was the broadband router, so I reset the router and connected the Internet again.  When I visited an Internet site, I only get a message "Server not found.", and trouble shooting tool reported the router problem again.  When I saw the router, it seemed to work correctly, from the state of indicators. I turned on my PlayStation 3 and browsed yahoo.co.jp and my Japanese blog. On my PlayStation 3 there was no problem with browsing Internet sites. Then the problem was not the router but the laptop. I rebooted my laptop and connected the sites I wanted to visit again. This time the connections were successful. After all this time, there wasn't a better troubleshooting than rebooting my laptop.

I often write blog posts after I have a bath. I'm thinking that blog posts after I have a bath should be short. Here is a reason. If I spend a lot of time writing an article or two, I may get cold. Having said that, it is also likely to happen that I have one idea after another when I was set to blogging after I have bath. To tackle with this problem, typing ideas of future posts should be brief, and if they are not well organized up to the quality to be published, saving as draft may be a good idea. The important point is, I quit blogging before 30 minutes after I begin to write a post or a draft, to prevent me from getting cold.

Let's Replay Tearful Scenes for Healthier Eyes This is what I thought last night after I couldn't shed tears when I was topping slices of onion which stimulated my eyes a couple of days before. I wanted to shed tears by all means, to prove my eyes are healthy and not too dry. I seldom see movies, and don't watch TV so ofter, so most tearful scenes I have experiences are from video games. The scene I replayed was from Atelier Totori. An episode in which Totori found her mother's grave after she beat a huge sea dragon, crossed the ocean and reached another continent. Another tearful scene I remember very well is from Ar Tonelico 3, level 7 Cosmosphere (her spiritual word) of Saki. There the hero Aoto acted as if he were cold and lost interest in the heroine Saki, thinking that it wasn't good to be with her because it may prevent her from fulfilling her role. I sometimes replay these tearful scenes when I want to become emotional, to get catharsis, good for...

I'm obsessed with particular thoughts, sometimes wrong thought, so often that I sometimes say these thoughts to myself, or feel as if these thoughts were echoing in my head. Sometimes, I think that this make little difference from I'm hearing voices although no one is speaking. I sometimes think, I have thought, "Do I have serious mental illness?" for hundreds of times since I was in high school. I now wonder that "Do I actually hear voices when I'm obsessed with a particular thought and can not help saying to myself or the thought echo in my head?". I don't think that I "actually" hear something related to my thought. Still, it's horrible when I can't get rid of some horrible (and usually wrong) thought such as everything I speak is valueless or all that I can give to people I can relate to is only harm. To cope with my obsessive thoughts, I'm thinking that there are two keys. One is to recognize my wrong thought as wrong...

This morning, I put sliced onions on salad. The onions stimulated my eyes so strongly that I couldn't open my eyes for a few minutes feeling as if I were in tears. My tears didn't flow actually, although my eyes got sore. It was probably because of dried eyes. Most of my daily work is done in front of my laptop screen, so I would like to take care of my eyes after work.

Many of the posts here have been a little bit negative and selfish. This is my weakness to be overcome. My disposition, especially in this my introverted, a little bit negative and selfish nature hasn't much changed, although I have continued to post more than 800 times. Still there is a few upside in my tendency of acting and my blogging. Of course, continuing blog post, not giving up totally, is one of them, although I wish I could encourage or entertain readers with my posts more. Another upside is the improvement of my pattern of saying something negative. When I feel down, as is often the case with me, I repeatedly say to myself that "I want to die" or "I want to commit suicide." It's really horrible when I put them into letters like this, but it has been part of my real life, and fortunately I am realizing that this shocking phrase usually doesn't describe precisely my state of mind. In most cases, I don't really think so far as to wis...

Yesterday I participated in an event, so this morning I was really tired. I was so tired that I couldn't walk straight and sit still. I went to Sunday worship service, but I could hardly behave. I couldn't speak (Japanese) at a normal speed, so I felt heavy thinking of the idea to see someone else in that condition. All that I could do was to stand my upset feeling near the entrance of the chapel, in order not to in order to interfere with the church members who want to listen to the sermon. My pain was a little bit terrible, but I didn't strongly hope someone to take care of me. All that I hope was that my upset feeling would pass as soon as possible.

These days, after I write a blog post, I read it out loud, record it and listen it back. When I find something is wrong or missed from the post, I correct the part with the problem. I also consider revising when I can't read the post smoothly. There may be some better ways in which I can tell the same thing more easily. I would like to continue this habit, and hopefully, do every day. The problem is what to write. With my English proficiency, it's not so easy for me to explain briefly everyday what I go through or what I think. Anyway I'm thinking that I would like to begin with telling small stories in my blogging and its recording.

Coping with my day-to-day work, my motivation to learn more about creating web pages has been declined. Months earlier, I was ardently reading books about web programming languages like php or Javascript. I also tried to understand rules of CSS box models. I haven't been reading for months the books I once read enthusiastically. Now I would rather like to rest as long as I'm permitted to do, but I hope my motivation will come back not so long after, for these days I have learned a lot I hadn't be known about html5 and css3, and earlier versions of html and css, preparing for a competition.

What is your dream? As most people were asked when they were children, I was asked this question several times in my childhood. When I was asked that question in kindergarten, I couldn't answer by myself. I asked the teacher for help. There I got an advice:  "How about Prime Minister?" I asked: "What is Prime Minister?" The answer was "The greatest person in Japan." From then on I answered "Prime Minister" to the similar question until I enter university. Then I made efforts to get better grades and enter better university. The problem was that this was not a dream but just an obsession. I didn't really understand the job of Prime Minister and politicians. Time passed and now I have gotten a glimpse of how hard it is to play a role in charge of a large number of people. I have become 40 years old and it is not until recently that I have understood what a person or people have a dream and realize it. Some dreams may be too ...

I enjoy music with my Walkman I bought in the beginning of this November. I originally bought for the purpose of learning languages, but since its sound was much better than I had expected, I listen to musics more than to podcast. The problem was that the original earphones seems to leak in my current listening style. When I listened to a podcast episode on a train, a few passengers looked at me with a face as if they had wanted to tell something to me. When I returned home, I took off the earphones and played the podcast episode at the volume I had listened to on the train. I heard the earphones leaking. Operation beeping sound was especially loud . Passengers nearby may hear these unpleasant beeps If I wouldn't take any measure. It may make a little bit smaller sounds when I actually wear the earphones, but to take care of the problem of earphone leaking, I learned that I have to turn down the player with lower volume than I had expected. The problem was significant esp...

Shoes Repaired When I left my workplace after work, I dropped by a shoe repair shop, and received two pairs of business shoes. I had had the shop repair the heels of the shoes. One pair had been repaired a half year ago and their heels had worn up again. When I saw the heels of the shoes, they were obviously worn out, and I could see the scenery through the spaces of the worn up heels when I put the shoes on a flat ground. It looks like that this worn up heel is giving much more fatigue in the soles of my feet. Another pair "revived" finally, 3 years after it became out of use. The pair had already been so worn out that the heels of them had a few holes. When small stones enter the holes, the shoes made unpleasant noises. 2 years ago, I brought the pair to another repair shop, but I was said that the shoes couldn't be repaired. I almost gave up the pair, but kept them in the locker anyway, instead of abandoning it. When I went to the shop I have been using since t...

How have you been today? It was a rainy day today in Sendai, on the holiday of thanksgiving for labors. The rain continued all the day, but fortunately the rain was not very strong. Some people (including me) were so lazy that they didn't bother to take their umbrellas and put them up. Although I had some embarrassing experiences and something was a little bit wrong with my eyes and my back, overall I had a good time with church members and my family during recent weekend and this holiday. By the way, I have been so shy that I haven't been used to asking someone "How are you?", "How's it going?", "How have you been?", etc. etc. I am changing my mind hearing, in some newscasts or programs, expressions like "how are you today", "keep you warm in a November cold rain" or "Please take care and be careful not to catch cold", in which speakers are caring for listeners . Now I'm thinking that I'll also be...

The difficulty in Breaking Ice Here to Stay. I was a little bit disappointed, because I thought I had acquired some communication skills through my daily work. Today I went a lunch meeting with church members. We enjoyed a great meal, and it was also great time to have nice conversations. In the beginning of lunch, ice-braking game was held. Each member took a card with a list of questions such as "Are you born in a Christian family?", "Do you have more than two brothers?", or "Did you live in Sendai when you were in elementary school?" Each member met somebody else, asked some question from the question list, and if they got the answer "yes", the wrote the name of the person they asked the question. The first person to fill the question list with members' name would be the winner. I almost understood how to play the game, and I did understand the question, but I was so scared of being questioned by someone else, I asked the game mast...

"Stereo is still wonderful" I shouted today afternoon. 10 days before, I had purchased a bluetooth speaker which cost less than 1,500 yen. When this wireless speaker arrived and tried, playing music with my Walkman, another newly arrived item, I was surprised at its unexpectedly good sound although it was monaural. At that time I even thought that I was almost completely satisfied with this monaural wireless speaker, except its loud sound when I turn it on and when a bluetooth connection is established. I used this speaker in the first 5 days after it arrived, and almost forgot about a low budget DIY stereo system I made 2 years ago. I even began to look for another bluetooth speaker more expensive, having good reputation, better sound quality, more convenience in managing power, and still monaural. I even began to think that monaural audio can be good audio and I didn't even need stereo when I enjoy listening to music.  Today, I turned up the volume of Lepai LP-2...

I record my voice a few times a day from a few days ago. I hope I will be able to record my speeches and have a collection of speeches in one year. I had made similar attempt a few months ago. At that time, I tried to record my speech in front of a microphone, speaking whatever I like. But in front of the microphone, I felt like speaking nothing. Whenever I turn on a recorder, I became silent in front of the microphone after I turned on a recorder to record some speech. In this way, my attempt a few months ago failed. This time I hope that my recording habit will be more likely to continue. To realize this goal, I changed my approach. I prepare a script for a recording. To do this, I think it's much less likely for me to become silent in front of the microphone while recording. The reason I thought of beginning to record is for motivation to make more speeches. Listening to my speech is as useful as listening to newscasts, in terms of improving my speech. It make me think ho...

When I go out, I don't care much about what to take with me than before. Last year, my Kindle reader and my sketchbook were musts, to kill time on a train. Now I feel time is flying so fast that I think the time to do nothing special, especially on a weekend, is precious. Two or three hours can easily pass on my desk in front of my laptop even if I'm not looking for nothing special. The time to take a nap on a bed in the afternoon, and to lean on a seat on a train of weekend or sofa at home is really precious to me. I still like video games, but the desire to do nothing and have a rest or do things on my own holiday slow pace surpasses the desire to actively play games. I don't know why. It may be because of aging, and it may be tiredness. Tiredness of what? Every day's work? Trouble shootings on apps on newly introduced Windows 10? The news of incidents every day a person or sometimes more than a hundred people die in one? Anyway, I'm thinking that shut...

I enjoy a Bluetooth speaker, playing back musics and podcasts on my Walkman. Today, I brought the speaker into the bath room, and listen to podcasts and musics with it. It isn't water proof, so at first I covered it with a plastic bag. I enjoyed this style very much. I enjoyed with small pleasant surprise that now I hear BGMs where I never heard. Sound quality was not so important. Listening to musics in the bathroom was unexpectedly refreshing and relaxing. Listening to music where I have never listened to gave me unexpected pleasure. This time I brought a speaker not water-proof, but when I really like to listen to music in the bathroom, I may want to consider buying one water-proof.

Desirable time for sleep. It looks like that I'm long sleeper, so sleep of more than 8 hours a day is desirable. I often hear that a cycle of sleep is one hour and a half, so 7.5 hours a days may be better. Considering that I want to wake up by 5:20 a.m. I may want to go to sleep 9:50 p.m. If I want to take a sleep as long as 7.5 hours.  I also hear that the quality of my sleep is important. These days I see strange dreams, so it looks like that I haven't taken deep sleeps. To make the quality of my sleep better, I walk for half an hour after supper. Whether this is having an effect is to be seen, but I hope for better sleep than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today, recovering from mental and physical tiredness.

I have seen strange dreams 2 days in a row. I wrote yesterday about the dream that I had been chased by a dark-blue bear in a strange situation. Last night I saw another strange dream. I was trying to call telephone an old friend of mine through a laptop, but I had no response. I made calls a few times. I couldn't remember where I was. Was I in Sapporo where I was in when I was a university student? Or was I in Iwate where I spent until I became 18 years old? At least it was not likely that I was in Sendai. A thing strange about my dreams these days was the time I spent in every dream. I felt as long time as I was asleep, and at the same time I felt as if I had spent tens of years. So things were rapidly changed in those dreams.

Last night I was chased by a dark-blue bear and running through a tunnel on a highway, and a campus. Sometimes I had conversation with the bear disguised in a form of a fellow student, but I was scared, because his nails were big and sharp. I ran at the top of my speed and sometimes negotiated with him, but finally I was tired out and collapsed. Then I knew it was a dream.

Looks like I'm hearing and seeing on a channel which makes me unhappy. I may want to choose one which makes me happy from the choice of channels in my mind just as you have a lot of option on your channel on TV or on the radio, or you may also have ones in your mind.

It looks like lack of sleep in these week has a bad effect on stability of my mind. I have sleep more than 6 hours every day. It also looks like being online for a long without clear purpose lowers my sleep quality. Sometimes it took more than an hour to actually fall asleep after I go to bed. Sometimes I have a bad dream. Recently I had dreams of flood more than three times. Also, I had dreams several times in which I was driving a car, but the brake or steering didn't fully work and bumped into dangers, and I awoke realizing those were dreams. On Saturday and Sunday, I spent most of the afternoon lying on my bed. My temper has been a little bit improved.

It rain ed heavily today, so I literally didn't go nowhere. Yesterday I had been thinking that I was maybe going to swim at least. Cold heavy November rain prevented me from doing that.

Where do you go in this coming weekend? I asked myself. I would answer "nowhere" this time. In these weekends I walked to hot spring area 10 kilometer, visited mental clinic and went shopping for MP3 player accessories. This time I would rather have a lot of sleep in the day, in addition to regular sleep at night. I'm thinking that one reason I feel these days time flies so fast may be lack of sleep (or low quality sleep even if I sleep more than 7 hours at night a day).

I'm feeling that time flies so fast. When I have a rest or sink into thinking, I feel the next schedule or sometimes even the next day comes in a few minutes.

"Of course I'm going to practice pronunciation to make it perfect, but how long does it take until my pronunciation becomes perfect? In a few years? Maybe, but maybe not. It is even probable that my entire life may perhaps be too short!"  I shouted to myself in my mind, after I noticed that I was unconsciously practicing movements of tongue in pronouncing some sounds very slowly.  Suddenly I felt that someone was asking me that "Aren't you talking with anyone until you make your pronunciation perfect." Actually it is a voice from my own mind. With remark of the leading passage, I answered no to the question. I would like talk with someone sooner, probably within a year. Meanwhile I have found out that how I   want to enjoy a conversation. I need to choose carefully who to talk to, because topics I'm ready to speak and I really like to talk is really limited and partial. I would like to talk about subjects about railways for hours, but if someone wa...

I took a paid holiday and went to Tokyo today. Riding Shinkansen was one of the purposes, because I like to ride on trains as a hobby. I hope my tiredness will be relieved from tomorrow's work.

Dyslexia of Line Breaks? I have seldom thought that my reading ability is impaired. Although I don't like reading books really enthusiastically, my reading ability I think is fair enough. I think I don't have any problem with reading through book. But when a line break is between important information, my reading ability decline terribly and make it really hard to regain my concentration I have initially had. In this respect I may have a dysfunction in reading when there is a line break between important information.

I thank that I'm treated kindly at work and I can have meals three times a day. I'm so tired that it's hard for me to show emotion, especially when I listen to a lot of news. I think I should have some emotion and have some comment, but to be honest, now, I'm just overwhelmed every day news pouring on me, and I let the news pass with emotionless facial expression. Sleeping time is an hour or two shorter than ideal so I could expect more sleep to recover my emotion. Now I state the word of thanks but without much emotion. I need to retrieve emotion by recovering from stress and fully express thanks.

I plan to use my new Walkman as a voice recorder. I bought a microphone for Walkman and tested some recording. The problem was that; When the microphone is attached you can't connect headphones . Hear, I realized one need I require for a voice recorder. You can easily listen to the result of my recording after you record. This encourage me more recording, which will motivate me for more practice with self-feedback. Here I found out another need for a voice recorder. You can easily manage recorded audio files, editing track information and album information either manually or automatically.  I found out this need because I found it burdensome to manage my first few recordings with the Walkman. Each recording belong to independent album, which take a lot of efforts to arrange my recording.  I could use better authoring software to manage my recordings, but I also thought that you can easily manage recorded audio files within voice recorder without transferring gi...

I played some musics and newscasts on Walkman I purchased a few days ago. Sound is fine. User interface is not so refined as iPod nano; I have to push arrow keys many times to find my favorite music searching over many albums I put into the player. I miss iPod's click wheel when I have to select a music from so many options. (An iPod these days has a touch panel instead of a click wheel, and I'm not so sure I like to operate a touch panel to listen to music.) A set of repeat functions intended for language learning the feature which finally make me choose a Walkman.  1) A-B Repeat: You can choose any two points in an audio track to repeat from one to another. I haven't take fully advantage of this, but I guess that this function will be useful if I want to listen to one topic repeatedly, in tens of seconds to a few minutes, in a newscast audio track over tens of minutes. 2) Quick Replay: You can rewind your audio track for approximately 3 seconds. I have wished my i...

Yesterday new Walkman arrived. I haven't take it with me yet because it because I haven't found a case and a strap with me. I probably have to look for headphones right for my style. The problem is cord length. When I use my iPod nano, I put in a case, connected it to a strap, and hang it from my neck like a pendant. In this style, 1.2 meter, typical cord length for headphones is too long. 50 to 60 centimeters would be suitable. I checked headphones at Amazon, and saw a few options, but I couldn't see the length of the cord of headphones until I see detailed information of each entry. I hope that I can search headphones by cord length, or a pair of headphones and its cords would be separated so that I can choose suitable length. Besides obtaining items fit for my style, I'm thinking of getting a microphone to record my speech. I searched for information of the recording function of Walkman, and I found some sites implying that recording with Walkman would be ATRAC...

Goods I had ordered arrived today. They arrived earlier than I had expected, and they are likely to be better than I expected them to be. One thing was business backpack. It is, against my expectation earlier, much the same size of the bag I use when I go to bag. It's even slightly smaller, but has enough space to carry things I had carried to work. The other thing was a music player. Now I have iPod nano, and today Walkman arrived. I lost no time in putting musics into it. An official app for Walkman, Media Go, was not so bad as many users have low opinion of it in their reviews, at least in importing Podcast stories. I wish I could check major functions of newly arrived Walkman, but it was too much for me, just having finished the work for today and with much tiredness to be recovered from. One interesting feature of Walkman was noise canceling function. The first time I put phones in my ears, even though I haven't played anything I hard something like a white no...

Am I OK? I asked myself a question. I shampooed my head but it wasn't until after a while I had already shampooed and this was the second time. The other day, I got on an elevator and pushed the button of the current floor. Of course it lifted me neither up or down. It took for a while for me to notice that I had to push the button of the destination floor as I usually do if I want to take advantage of an elevator. Recently I also find myself much more impatient with unexpected noises and bad news on TV, which even make me feel like I might as well smash a TV remote controller. If I did actually, anyone find me insane as well as I have been beginning to feel recently if I mistreat my mental tiredness and let mental problem progress to much more severe state. These are just a few examples of how I'm fighting against problem with my ability to judge. I want to believe that these misjudgements are temporary and if I cope with this problem with care and make efforts to reco...

Absorbed in websites narrating history of video games even making me forget about my game play. I spent Culture Day Holiday, November 3, this year this way. Years before, I indulged myself in viewing such websites, losing hope for more job hunting, tired of little progress in vocational rehabilitation. Viewing these site, and spending the whole day over weeks, I even felt that no one can find that I'm capable of doing any job, and neither did I believe, and viewing myself as complete dropout unable to find joy except for information about games and videos I played and I knew information of more than 10 years before. Today I spent the holiday as lazily as I was at that time, 6 to 7 years ago. One thing different is I can find hope in the work for next day and future.  One thing I found it funny about spending this holiday is the way I strayed into sites of video game history. At first I sought information of atelier series to make my game play more enjoyable. Gradually, I was ...

When work for Monday ends successfully, I feel weekend has ended successfully. In Monday mornings, I tend to be nervous because I'm uncertain if I'm going to do well at work, after refreshment of weekend. My worry typically begins from Sunday evening, and ends when the work for Monday ended successfully.

50'39. About 2'30 minutes faster than last year. I did unexpectedly well because I had thought that I wasn't able to run no faster than 55 minutes. I jogged less than last year, and I had felt bad last week that I had hardly able to exercise in the last one week. In 2 months before the race, I jogged near 10 kilometers three times, and I walked more than 10 kilometers twice. This year I swam a lot on Saturdays. This showed that swimming a lot can cover the shortage of jogging to some extent.

In the latter half of the week I had to cope with flashback. I have forgotten any flashback for months, but it looks like that a small event still can trigger a flashback. I may have to come to good terms with flashbacks and my nature in which small events can easily trigger a flashback. Today I went on swimming and exercised hoping that my flashback would let up. Now I feel slightly better. I hope I will feel much better by next Monday.

Don't Take It More Seriously Than You Have To This is what I have been saying to myself repeatedly in the recent 3 minutes to cope with the stress remembering the fault I made at work. Before I arrive home, I thought and said many ideas, good and bad, to myself. It hurt when I cope with stress from my fault, which make me think lot of things to fight against and find relief from the stress. After all, I reached the final idea when I arrived home and about to write this post.

I'm looking for a bag to carry things when I go to work. I found a few items which are backpack type and go with business suit. I checked two items I'm most likely to choose. Checked dimensions so that I can hold one comfortably on my lap when I have a seat on the train, and checked spaces to see if the items I like to take with me when I go to work including my sketchbook on which I sketch when I'm stressed, and my vacuum flask to make soluble coffee as well as things essential for work.

Today at work I was OK. In the morning I was almost wreck, so I was greatly relieved. I'm home now again, and I'm so weary that it takes really long time to shift to the next action. As a result, I'm viewing Internet news sites one after another although I prefer to playing video games. It seem to take a little bit more energy to even play video games. Maybe listening to game musics may take little energy and one feasible option of what I'm going to do next.

From the beginning of this week, my obsessive behavior got much worse than weeks ago. This morning when I left the train, I checked 40 times the seat if I didn't left something on and around it. Is it due to hidden mental stress I couldn't notice last week?

I think I'm doing well, especially with mental management, at work and at home, for a person who suffers mental disorder. Yet, sometimes I feel lack of energy after I finish the work of the day and on the train home. I make quite a lot of facial expressions and sometimes I flip my hands. Usually I'm patient enough not to cry out loud, (but sometimes I do silently ), but sometimes I make sound a little unable to cope with anxieties or flashbacks. Once in a while I think that I could be better, but I also think that this is what I'm doing well with mental disorder is like.

This morning I went a vote for prefectural assembly. Before I went to vote, I took a little more walk. A few old cars I saw on the bus from hot spring motivated me to walk more. Old cars war in front of a house in a residential area on a hill 3 kilometers from home. This time they were, Nissan Sunny B210, models of middle 1970s. Because it had round shape and I liked, (and like even now) straight and horizontal shape, I didn't like the model very much. Probably it's nostalgic point of view, but 30 years later after I saw many car of that model when I was a child, this shape wasn't so bad. I was also surprised that it looked even smaller than a contemporary k-car parked side by side with cars of more than 40 years ago. Actually width is almost the same, and the k-car is much shorter in length, but as to room space I guess k-car has much larger one. Now let's turn back to the election, I struggled to find clue to find out who to vote, for it was only dealt with loca...

I took a walk for Akiu-Onsen Hot Spring. The hot spring area was almost 10 kilometer from home, so it was an ideal target for exercise walking. These days, forests on the way was in autumn color, which motivated me even more. I took a walk to the hot spring area, bathed at the public bath, and took bus home. Today's walk gave me a great chance to use my camera for the first time in months. The last time I took my camera with me was, if my memory serves this year's May or June. This is a public bath in Akiu-Onsen Hot spring It's much hotter than the bath I have at home. This is a bridge into the hot spring area.  

Today I updated anti-virus software. Sometimes it takes hours and several reboots to apply security updates. It's fortunate that it's Friday evening and I don't need to hurry. I also updated my main web browser, but I haven't been informed of Windows Monthly Update by the OS. Of course I click the "update" button to modify this blog post, although the button is "publish" when I first publish a post instead of the "update" button.

I'm thinking that I love cars, but cars as data instead of real things which I would drive. Although I hope I will be able to drive again, for I have been away from driving because my mental state hadn't good enough until a few years ago and have been too busy to drive, now it's time to enjoy cars as data.

It does not refer to Solid-State Drive here, although I wish I had one instead of my hard drive. It, "Short Slow Distance", is kind of a pun, modifying the word "Long Slow Distance", slow and long jogging over a long time. Some say that "how slow" is important. Some people jog in a speed so that most walking people can overtake the joggers. According to them, jogging this slowly helps improve your performance in long distance running and actually make you able to run a long distance faster. So I wished that I could have jogging longer, but time and tiredness didn't permit me to do so. Jogging extremely slowly only a few hundred meters in about five minutes, I said to myself, "This is SSD instead of LSD, Long Slow Distance, because I could afford to run only less than a kilometer and still it takes me more than 10 minutes." Of course, I know better than to believe this term does make any sense, but this is how my mind and body turned out...

At work I believe I did well today, but the problem was on the way home. I made a few mistakes and also encounters a few stressful situation. When I got off the train I had no choice but walk in a odd way, feeling that I was almost crying out loud from the stress. I also almost sprained. Overall, my way of thinking has become much more positive than when I entered my current workplace, but even now there are times I'm almost going to mad out of stress. Well, one way out of stress may be not to take these stressful things too seriously and to have a rest as long as possible, and as good quality as possible.

My memory is becoming a little bit weaker, but in a fortunate way. It take a lot of effort to recall stressful experiences when I was in elementary school. At first I'm worried about this tendency, but years later I realized that my memory getting weaker is contributing to my mental stability. Another way I find it fortunate about changes in my memory is that I remember automobiles and railroad cars when I was a child. The memory is even enhanced because some of resources of information of these cars are available mainly on the Internet. In this way, I still enjoy what my memory provide me with.

I got Atelier Marie, the first game of Atelier Series, and this is the fifth Atelier Series game I played. I got the game in PlayStation Game Archives in the beginning of last week, hoping that it would be a good pastime, just I had done with Atelier Elie, the Second Atelier Series game one month ago. In Atelier Elie, I reached many endings of higher rank, and by chance I viewed a video of BGM of the first Atelier Series game. The musics was unexpectedly fine. It was so fine that it made me want to play the game myself, not just getting the soundtrack. Since, before I play Atelier Marie, I have played four other Atelier Series games, I have had how to behave as an alchemist in a game of this kind. The games I played before I play this game was, Atelier Rorona, Atelier Totori, Atelier Meruru (these three games runs on PlayStation 3), and Atelier Elie (which runs on PlayStation 1 but available in PlayStation Game Archives). When I played these atelier games, the first game play o...

I'm thinking of my focus when it comes to I tell something on the Web. One thing I've come up with is stress issues. I have had to fight with stress since I entered elementary school when I was at the age of 6, almost 35 years ago. I've been fighting with stress from tension of human relationships and troubles from behavioral changes from stress ever since. Large part of my life is subjected to stress, so I'm strongly convinced that stress issues in childhood and these years is one of the subject I'm prone to address. The problem is it is to be seen that writing about stress issues has good effect on readers' and my mental health.

I managed several phone calls in the latter half of the week. Now I feel as if inside my ears is ringing like a bell. On the way home, I held my ears with my palms to plug them in vain. It had no effect the (feeling of, and probable illusion of) sound come from inside. I perhaps need cooling down of the "burn" of my mind which probably cause me to feel the illusion of alarm sound from inside of my ears or my head.  

When I was in university, I used the expression "I went to pieces." a lot of times. Not only in English conversation, but also in Japanese conversation, I was so easily lose words. Perhaps, me today evening at the train for home after work may be such a situation. When I look at myself in the mirror, now that I'm finally home, I found myself blank face with dents in my upper eyelids. I have done my best at work these days, and still I sometimes find myself running out of energy and find it difficult to behave calmly like other people I see.

I need to do exercise to lose weight, so I jog in the morning and in the evening weather permitting, and go swimming on Saturday. Yesterday I began jump rope too. I was shocked when I failed to jump 100 times consecutively, and became breathless when I jumped 200 times. After I do such exercise, I have to be careful enough not let my body chilled with sweats, which may cause catching cold. When I was in elementary school, I jumped thousands of times without feeling tiredness. I feel my aging in such a change when I do exercise.

It looks like that I made a good start for this week. It's getting colder and colder these days, and it is reported that in Hokkaido it's going to snow even in plain areas. Last week I almost catch cold, spending a long time in front of my laptop after I bathed, chilling my body. I'm wrapping up tonight's task in front of my laptop, before long time passes, avoiding making the same mistake as I made last week.

I'm going to work again from tomorrow. It's good idea to begin my work for the coming week with smile. I may be physically tired, but smile help me take a good start.

It seemed me that today there was nothing interesting to me. In the past, I tended to appeal how shy I was and how I could afford to behave only poorly. If I think carefully, this would only end up in making people less happy by my writing and make me even poorer. I could have disclose my obsession about old cars, and pleasure of looking catalogs and picture books of such nostalgic cars. (I especially like cars about a 40 years ago around when I was born and I was a child. I could have also tell about how I enjoyed viewing railroad near the elementary school, picture books of trains. Also how I was excited when I road on a train by chance in my childhood, because there weren't not so many opportunity to ride on trains, unlike now I have to take trains to go to work. Today may not be interesting to me at all, but how can I forget the pleasure of viewing what I like to see, and why don't I expect there will be many excitement, if not every day, in the future?