Maitta! Always - Daily Amazing Confusions -

Today before supper I tried to turn off air conditioner with a remote controller, but it wouldn't turned off how many times and how close to the air conditioner. After supper I looked up manual, changed batteries of the remote controller, and turned off the air conditioner's switch by pushing the switch inside the front cover, and turned on again. When I pushed a button on the remote controller, it worked well. I'm not sure what is the problem exactly, but there are cases in which although the display of the remote controller works it won't work properly, in that it won't transmit signals properly. When the display of the controller work but the controller itself won't work the manual advised us to change batteries. Many electric appliances these days is mainly controlled by a remote controller and operating switches of main unite is sometimes non-standard way of using those appliances, for example, only used in case of troubles or maintenance. In this r...

Recently I've been transcribing newscasts spoken in English. I do this on the train to work and when I have a seat the train from work. It's 20 to 40 minutes a day. The average progress for a day is only one or two minutes a day. In some days I progress by 3 minutes. One thing I noticed while transcribing is I stop my iPod word by word or at most two, three or four words. At first I played a phrase or clause before transcribing, ending up in playing back many times, sometimes more than ten times. Now I stop word by word, write words, and play back a word or two or a little more again. Playing back word by word is what I didn't do when I was crazy about getting a high score in an English test. In the listening part in an English test, participants have to answer questions after listening to a passage just once. Basically, stopping the playback and listening again is not allowed in a test. This made me think that it's useless to practicing listening to English speeche...

160 words, 14 syllables ... The numbers I've perceived through the work of transcribing a newscast. 1. 160 words  I transcribed a part of a newscast, and counted words for 1 minutes the speakers said. It was about 160 words. Probably it may be some larger number. I was surprised that this is even faster than my reading speed when I want to enjoy a book, and I'm also surprised that the words they spoke are more than my typical daily blog post. 2. 14 syllables  Not only letters of the words they speak, I record their breathes. It was interesting that I'm most likely to find about 14 syllables between breaths. Sometime it become about 27, but probable 14 syllables are the number a lot of narrators comfortable speak. As well as I review language, I find several interesting numbers when I transcribe a newscast.

Today when I left the office building right after I finished my work, outside was a little bit lighter. Until yesterday it became totally dark by the time I left my workplace after work. It rains sometimes in this week, although the weak earlier, we had snow rather than rain. It may be still cold and take longer for us to see typical sign of spring, there have been already seen some signs of spring. It is a little bit regrettable that cherry trees along the junior high school near home is being cut down, to widen the sidewalk beside the school.

As I told earlier, these days are the busiest period of the year. Thanks to actual helps and efforts to keep the workplace in a good mood, I'm relatively in a shape. But some sign of tiredness is appearing. Especially it appears in my ankles. Probably due to the accumulated tiredness, I have small trouble in adjusting muscle tensions to sustain a good posture. I'm inclined to stretch my ankles, which causes pain in its joints. I'd like to keep a good tension to keep my ankles in shape, but minutes later, I feel my ankles are stretching unconsciously again. I'm thinking that my sign of tiredness sometimes appears in an unexpected part of my body. Sometimes, I feel pain in my right elbow when I'm stressed. It may be real pain because when I use the keyboard and mouse of my laptop at work, I actually use my elbows. I wonder why my ankles this time. When I work on my laptop I don't directly use my ankles, but, interestingly, I unconsciously tense my ankles whe...

Yesterday the Senzan line, which I take to go to work, had much trouble. The train I took to work in the morning was delayed. Fortunately I had a seat and the delay was not so much as to be late for work. The more trouble was when I go home after work. I thought I needed to take a train later to have a seat, but when I got to the station, there was already a lot of people on the platform. The train I usually take, bound for Yamagata, was suspended, and they were waiting for the next train. I heard that the trouble of the line was due to an avalanche. According to another announce it was due to a rockfall. I wasn't sure which was right, or both. One thing certain for me was that my plan to have a rest on the train back home was ruined. Fortunately, up to today, I haven't been so tired as to feel some mental troubles, but I'm beginning to feel some sign of tiredness in my body.

I use a ballpoint pen a lot to take notes and sketch. Sometimes I use up the ink in half a month. At first, after using up the ink I bought another pen, but soon after I come to buy refills. Today after work I bought four refills of the pen I'm using. Although I don't sketch much on the train to and from work, I transcribe news podcast so I use as much ink anyway, and I feel so busy that I feel there's not so many chance to go shopping for stationery. Besides of pen refills, I bought a bundle of five notebooks. I bring two notebooks and one sketchbook to work. A notebook to write to remind schedules, and one to write down ideas related to work. I use my sketchbook to sketch cars and humans sometimes in order to cope with my stresses. I also use my sketchbook to transcribe newscasts and write down ideas and anything in my mind. I bought the notebooks because I wanted another notebook for writing down ideas of the work of future and just knowledge related to my hobbie...