My everyday step forward

Hi, puzzle friends!

Well, I know you are expecting subjects that are related to puzzles, but this time, I'm writing about how I'm struggling to acquire English skills.
I'm going to write about how I'm struggling with puzzles, next time.

I have been writing this blog for improving my English since 24th February 2018, so it's been five months now. I'm still not sure if this blog is helpful for improving my English. What at least I know is, if I wouldn't do anything, my English ability won't improve. I believe it's better than doing nothing.

I have met and heard the cases of several people who have been overseas for a long time and cannot speak, listen, read or write the local languages. These facts show the difficulties of learning foreign languages for adults, especially languages that have different backgrounds.

Some people who have never been overseas tend to think that if they live in, for example an English-speaking country, they can speak and write English naturally. I can say it is not that simple.

If you live in a foreign country, you can learn a foreign language during your daily life. When you go shopping, order a hamburger or buy a postage stamp at a post office, there are lots of opportunities to talk to local people. You can improve a local language little by little. However, this is important, there's a pitfall. If you don't make a SPECIAL effort, you cannot go over the constant level. I realised it strongly.

What I mean by constant level is the level that can buy whatever you want at a supermarket, can order a hamburger that you want to eat and can buy postage stamps you need. Actually, buying something is not very difficult, if you cannot say what you want, you just point out the product with your fingers.

photo credit: razgriz2520 Stories Inside via photopin (license)

I read several puzzle blogs which are written by native English speakers and noticed that there are so many expressions that I have never used myself. Oh, I'm jealous. I want to write like them, write better, sophisticated sentences with wit and a little sense of humour. To acquire the skill of writing needs reading, yes, it's obvious. Reading gives me chances to encounter unknown words and expressions that I have never seen and used when I go shopping, buy a hamburger and buy postage stamps at a post office. Therefore, currently, I think that the most effective way to improve my English is reading.

I have decided that I will read books every day. I promise. I know I fail easily, so I wrote this blog just for my memorandum.
I'm looking forward to how my English ability will change in a year.

Miscellaneous goods with scientific tastes

I like science and something that has scientific taste. I pay attention if I see some scientific designs, even if it's a thing that I usually am not interested in, I cannot control my curiosity. 

For example, I don't have much interest in accessories, but if it contains scientific ideas or designs, it's a different story. I use Twitter and I follow one Japanese (I don't know if it's he or she) who is on a doctoral course and makes very awesome accessories. Please take a look at his or her website (written in Japanese with photographs) below.

Hakusi-Katei
http://monolis.wixsite.com/hakusi-katei/creations

One of the accessories on the website I want is a "spectrum cube." This is a prism necklace. *It's the photograph fourth from the top on the left side on the above website. I've been wanting to buy it, but every time I notice it, unfortunately it's sold out. I also want to buy a "volvox necklace." I'm interested in biology, as I wrote before, I like to observe plankton or algae like Volvox by microscope and it would be nice if I could get one of those necklaces.
The second website I'll show you is "The Best Geek and Science Gifts."

https://www.geekwrapped.com/

This online shop sells not only scientific miscellaneous goods, they sell funny tools, and cutting-edge or useless but funny goods. It looks like a shop which is in a science museum. I haven't bought any on this website yet, maybe someday I'll buy something as a Christmas gift for myself.

The other things that I cannot resist are T-shirts that are printed with some kind of scientific symbols, numbers and pictures. One of my favorite T-shirts is the one that is printed with prime numbers. 

https://www.cafepress.com/+prime-numbers+t-shirts

I know this is my bad habit. I tend to think that T-shirts can be useful some day in the future even I don't need them now. I know I'm not a fortune teller, how can I predict that I will need them someday? So, I promised myself not to waste money for these kinds of T-shirts.

If you have an opportunity to see me and if I'm wearing a prime number T-shirt at the International Puzzle Party (IPP) or somewhere, please don't hesitate to point out that I broke my promise.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to attend the IPP38 this year. If you are going to attend it, it's a bit early to say from now but, enjoy your time in San Diego!


photo credit: hine Book cover Design: The Music that Prime Numbers Play via photopin (license)

Experiencing physics by physically

There are lots of opportunities for re-recognition in everyday life what we have learnt at school and it suddenly came to me four days ago.

I was working in the backyard planting vegetable seedlings. I needed more soil to fill the garden bed in, so I went to where I keep my gardening tools. I looked for a big shovel and found one, then went one step forward to grasp it. That was a big mistake. I stepped on the edge of a rake which was leaning against the house wall and the long handle hit my forehead just above my left eye. It happened very quickly, and I couldn't avoid it. Luckily, it didn't hit my left eye.

If this were a scene in a comic, stars would have flown around my head. It was like a scene of an old comedy movie. I think I have seen a scene like this in an old silent movie, maybe it was a Charles Chaplin movie or a Buster Keaton's. It was hurt, but it was a bit funny.
While I was standing in utter amazement, three words came up in my mind: fulcrum, point of effort, working point.

Now, I realised the power of lever. What a teacher said to us pupils was correct, it can make a huge power using lever. I wonder who was the first person who found the mechanism of lever? Was he/she hit on his/her forehead by something and noticed it? Maybe it was not.

Experience is a better teacher than textbooks, but I don't want to experience physics physically anymore.

I love Stairs

I love boxes. As I wrote in the blog on 26th of April, I made lots of paper boxes when I was small. When I made paper boxes, I lived on the fourth floor of a 5-story housing complex and used stairs every day. The view from the veranda was very nice and I could see the beautiful night view of Tokyo, which was beautiful as if a jewel box had been overturned and scattered jewels.

I loved night views and there was one more thing I loved; stairs. Just so that you won't be misunderstood, I haven't exercised and am not a sporty type, so, I don't like going up stairs; I like stairs themselves. I don't know why but I like something that gives me a feeling of three-dimensional space, and stairs are one of them.

Cups which have stairs inside

About seven years ago, I was surfing the net and found interesting cups. You see the picture below; this cup has stairs inside. Isn't it strange? I like this nonsense idea of making stairs in a cup.

I bought four cups of these. Until I received the cups I didn't notice that this cup is a little inconvenient when I stir sugar because the spoon always hits the stairs, but I still like it. I love stairs but it's not like other hobbies, it's difficult to collect stairs, you know? The only thing I can do is taking pictures. So, this is a precious stairs collection for me.

The dead-end staircase

Speaking of staircases, there is one I should write about. In 2009, I attended the IPP29 (the International Puzzle Party), in San Francisco. I think some readers of this blog should have been to the IPP29. During the party, I was on a tour of the Winchester Mystery House the famous huge mansion in San Jose. 

This mansion is famous for being kept under continuous construction for decades by Sarah Winchester. Here are some pictures I took. I saw several stairs there and one of them was dead-end stairs. It looks weird and stimulates curiosity. I have no idea what the dead-end stairs were made for. It reminds me of Escher's works. This is one of my favorite places I've ever been to.

I wonder myself why I love stairs.
At least I know that stairs stimulate my imagination. I like to imagine a space that is spread after going through the stairs. I had a friend who also loves stairs in Japan. I think I was lucky I even met one and I wonder if there are people who love stairs somewhere? The world is huge; I hope I'm able to meet someone who loves stairs someday through this blog.

A gingerbread which deviated from the norm

Gingerbread is cut out from a man-shaped cutter. They all look the same, but please look carefully, there are differences, some wear a bow tie and some wear a skirt. If you were a gingerbread, what would you be? If I were a gingerbread, I think I'm a gingerbread which deviated from the norm.

I was a kid that loved brick toys, mechanical things and handicrafts. My favorite plaything was paper crafts, especially, making tiny paper boxes. I was obsessed with making boxes and my bookshelf was filled with tiny boxes and it looked like as if dwarfs prepared for gifts hard for Christmas that was coming soon.

As I wrote in the blog on 26th of February, "Cannot stop watching mechanical linkages", watching machines' moving was one of my amusements as well. Every time I went out, I stopped in front of a Japanese traditional sweets shop window and watched the machine working until my mother became bored. For my mother, I did not apply to the definition of girls whom my mother thought of.

Looking back at other girls in my childhood, most of them loved to collect pretty things like hair ornaments with ribbons, Hello Kitty's stationery or something coloured pink and they preferred to play with these pretty things and enjoyed talking, and they were talkative. I liked pretty things too, but those things were not attractive enough to grab my heart.

I remember when I was seven or eight years old, a woman gave me a colouring book. A boy was given a book that had printed patterns of a car which could be cut and assembled as a three-dimensional car. I was disappointed because I wanted the book that the boy was given. I wondered why adults assumed what I liked? I was a girl who was tired of being labeled as a stereotype girl.

As I grew up, the difference between most girls and me were getting more obvious. When I was a high school student, my classmates were crazy about singers and movie stars, and me, I was like still an elementary school boy, interested in insects and animals. For instance, while they went to a movie theater with little fancy clothes and gazed at a movie star with moony eyes, I worn an ordinary T-shirt, and watched ants curiously in the backyard. If my neighbors saw me watching ants on the ground, maybe I should have been thought of as a weird person because they couldn't see ants, but me.

I wondered if I was an eccentric?
One day, when I thought about such a thing, I found a book of Richard Feynman at the local library. While continuing to read his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman", I found a description that he was watching ants, unexpectedly. Actually, he analyzed the behavior of ants, and I just watched ants, so it's not exactly the same, but I still had a sense of closeness with him. It's not only me!

Even after becoming a full working adult, I was interested in plankton, puzzles, handicrafts and 3D graphics. As you can guess, friends around me, nobody was interested in these things and I was a bit lonely. Rarely, did I pay attention to fashion and accessories, yet still I didn't know famous brand names.
One day, I saw a nice bag with a logo mark. I asked my colleague "Is again b a brand name?" She suddenly laughed and said, "It's not again b, it's agnès b!"
Well, if you have been believing that the logo was "again b" you must be on my team.

It may be a little harsh expression, but since I was small, I've been having a feeling that I'm like a gingerbread which deviated from the norm. When I was young, I took its meaning negatively and gradually I changed the idea. Having differences from others can be an advantage.
Gingerbread is not all the same and I believe the differences make this world attractive and tasty.

photo credit: Cousin Dirk Gingerbread Men via photopin (license)
photo credit: vpickering Gingerbread men via photopin (license)