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...