Evernote

Since three weeks ago, I have been using Evernote to improve how to study my English. Every time when I come across an unknown word in daily life throughout conversation with colleagues and watching movies, I check its meaning as well as pronunciation, and write down it to my note with some example sentences. This is a basic manner which every one does, but I feel a little bit cumbersome because it takes time to do do that. On the other hand, I have heard before that writing down something to a note enhances memorizing it deeply in my head, so I have continued to do it for more than one year. At the same time, we are living in the internet world where the internet is available at many place and its cost is almost free. So I have been always wondering if typing something in PC enhances remembering process as well. Once in a while, I have seen articles in the web about Evernote which seems to allow me to do what I wanna do for my English study. So I stalled it soon and started to use it.

Evernote is amazing for my purpose because notes in Evernote is stored in local PC as well as in cloud manner, so I can look at my notes anytime and anywhere, as long as the internet and PC type devices are available. Unlike a real note, I can enlarge words and highlight words in colors to help me find new words when I review notes every morning. Additionally, I can edit sentences and add some information later.

Besides this usage, I use Evernote by clipping web pages which I wanna remember and store. You can clip entire page as well as some parts of pages by installing a Evernote clipping extension in your browser. Amazingly, the function of clipping entire page automatically excludes web advertisements.

I`m now using free version with a limitation of storage per a month like 25MB, but this is enough for my purpose for the time being. However, I possibly upgrade my account for premium later if I can find more useful usages.

One year anniversary of Japna devastating earthquake

At last March 11, It was one year since the devastating earthquake in Japan. If I look back, it began from the largest earthquake in recent years, and the large tunami devastated the coast of the north part of Japan. Finally, nuclear disaster came out soon. A lot of people died because they could not escape from the tunami. The tunami took away many life and swept out a lot of town totally. We have to keep in mind this forever for the future and have to make a strategy for next earthquake. We never be able to avoid natural disasters. U.S does not have so many earthquake, but instead of that, U.S. always suffers from hurricanes very year especially at the south part of east coast. A lot of people lose their life every year because of that. Now Japan is facing the nuclear problem caused by the earthquake. This problem is not easy to solve because spread nuclear materials stay on ground and continue to emit nuclear radiation for more than 20 years. So we have to deal with the problem for long time. The destroyed nuclear power plants are far from my hometown close to Tokyo, but non-negligible amount of radiation have been observed. So I have been thinking what I should do when I come back to Japan someday.

What I am relieved about is that people in Japan are still concerned about everything related to the earthquake because I was afraid at first that people forgot the disaster one year later.
Generally, human is a animal which gets used to anything, get less concerned, and take it for granted, but current situation is not so.Even in U.S, I could watched TV news about the earthquake in Japan, and news caster said strongly that we must not forgot this and world is flat now throughout internet, and we, human being , are connected together, and we can help each other and get through it together.

Brushing tooth tip

Do you brush your tooth just after every meal ?
I did it to prevent cavity and plaque from accumulating on my surface of tooth . However, I  have changed my way to brush my tooth since I red something article about misunderstand of when to brush tooth.

A few months back, I happened to look at an article about dental caution in Japanese which was scientifically proved. It warned us how bad it it to brush tooth just after a meal. According to the article, when you eat something food which contains acid, which is usual case, it softens our enamel which protects our tooth from cavity, and make it weak. If you brush your tooth soon, it does damage to your tooth because enamel does not works well.  This softened enamel usually harden again for around one hour, so it is good idea to wait for one hour before you brush tooth.

I tried to find a similar article about how to brushing tooth. I finally got it and put it below.
reference

A few years back, I was suffering cavity which made me awake during night because of  its strong pain. So I really take care of brushing tooth since that unforgettable incident.

Who moved my cheese ?

Do you know this book, "Who moved my cheese ".
This book is one of bestsellers which is very famous popular around the world to let us know how to deal with changes. There is a strong reason why many people love this book. It is because this book describes human behavior against changes very well, and we are strongly reminded of how people react against changes badly, but it also tells us that it is important to recognize changes of situation, react to them well, and take an action for them, otherwise situation goes worse in any case. This book teaches us with a cheese as metaphor which can be what you want, what you improve, what you keep, jobs, or important things.

This is a story about two mice and two small peoples. The story begins inside maze, and firstly they could find a big cheese for them in a cave. They built their houses close to the cave in order to commute to the cave easily every day. They spent their time there with secure mind because they believed that the cheese was theirs forever. As you can easily imagine, amount of the cheese is limited, so it got less gradually day by day. Two mice noticed its fact instinctively, and they got out of the cave to look for a next cheese before the cheese was gone. They could take an action quickly regardless of whether we can find a next one or not immediately, because a mouse typically thinks simply and does not want to consider anything seriously. On the other hand, two small people noticed something was happening to the cheese in mind, but they believed and hoped that nothing changed in mind somewhere by using complex brain, until the cheese was gone actually, even though the cheese was apparently getting less. Even after finding that the cheese was not left any more, they believed that someone just hided the cheese and returned it back finally. One of them could realize that the cheese never come back and they had to get out of the cave to look for new one, and did it finally. However, another small people still continue to think optimistically, stay there, and wait for the cheese coming back. In the story, the former small people could find new one with delightful, although I believe that it is not always so. The later small people behaved like typical human who resists to changes, do nothing for them, and finally blame someone by looking for a scapegoat, or something in wrong circumstance.  

The point is that it is very bad to do nothing even while noticing changes, and it is important that we must not resist to changes, have to accept changes at once, adapt to them positively and take an action finally to get better. This cheese story can be applied to everything of our daily life and help us to understand how to deal with changes. 

Sleeping problem

A few weeks ago, I got a visitor from Japan who came to U.S branch as a business trip. I met him after more than 1 year interval since I moved here, but I came to know that he is suffering from sleeping problem, what is called, insomnia. I am really sorry about that because he can do his jobs very well and he is one of senior engineers which I can respect. According to him, he can not fall asleep at night without sleeping pills. If he can fall asleep finally, he wakes up around twice during night. Every time when he wakes up, he has to take a pill in order to fall asleep. Generally, insomnia is one of problems which comes from stress, mental insecure. However it can not be solved totally even by recent advanced medication. Regardless to say, recent medical is getting better but it can only cure alleviate sleeping problem. In the case of him, it might be coming from mental issues, but I could not dig into it deeply. My concern about this is that his body is already used to take pills. For example, if we drink a few cups of coffee and get caffeine in order to avoid sleepiness or stay focused every day, then our body get used to caffeine and its effect get less gradually. I am afraid that same thing will happen to his case of sleeping pills. We are now working together on same project in different places, so if I can help him throughout jobs, I will do whatever I can do for him.

Regarding sleeping problem, everyone can suffer from it suddenly, so it is important to notice and sense even a little symptom of others about mental issues and talk to them. From my experiences, it is better to open and share mental issues with others than to keep them inside own mind. I have not suffered from sleeping problems, so I do not understand them totally, but I want to try to understand them from now. 

Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve

 Two weeks ago, it was rainy weather at Saturday, so I could not go outside for hike, but the following day looked fine as far as I could see around the area where I am living. When I look at sky, it was totally fine weather, so I could not help but go for hike at new place immediately. Every weekend, I try to walk at new place to explore the Santa Cruz mountain running from south of SF to Santa Cruz. This time was Purisima Creek Redwoods open space which is close to Half Moon Bay. There are manly two gates available. One is at the high way 35, in other words, Skyline blvd. Another is located at side of Half Moon Bay. I, off course, headed for the closest gate at the highway 35 from the distance point of view. I took highway 280 at first, but I came to have bad feeling as I approached to the destination. It obviously looked foggy along a ridge of  the mountain. However I still wanted to go there to see what was going on actually while thinking that I never know until I get there because this open space is at other side of mountain. When I actually got there, It was slight foggy as less as sun shine can come through fog. So I decided to try this trail with some expectation that fog goes away gradually as I walk. As I mentioned before, my start point was at the highway 35, and my plan was that I go from the start point to the gate of other side which is a middle point and return point coincidentally, and come back to the start point by a different trail clockwise. I was noticing soon that it was difficult to walk that day because ground was really mad due to the rain of the previous day, but I could manage to do that by trying to step one by one on less mad ground. On the way to the middle point, it is downhill all the way from 2000 feet to 500 feet, which shows me flat way and steep way. Especially at this day, it was really difficult to walk at steep down hill because it was easy to slip, so I had to pay attention to that one step by one step. On the way, surprisingly, I could see a banana slug at first time which is unique  at North America pacific coast. This is large type of slug, and the color is really bright yellow which is the reason why it is called banana and also I could fined easily in the forest. The size of which I saw was amazingly more than 20 cm. On the return path, as you can know easily, it is obviously uphill all the way. At this time, it was already 4pm, and it was dark due to fog, which was against my expectation. So I tried to walk briskly to get back earlier while fearing of darkness even though it was really hard to go up along steep uphill. On the middle of way, suddenly, I could hear something approach us with some noise. At first I could not figure out what it was and I was really afraid to come across dangerous animals in the slight darkness due to fog. I finally recognized that they were a white and a black big dogs which were as big as their face is close to my waist and turned to be Labrador retriever later. At first, I was scared of those dog, but they were surprisingly friend with me by wagging their tail. A problem was that my wife is really scared of a dog because she has a trauma before. She actually saw her friend bit by a dog in front of her. So she still have such fear in her mind. Therefore what I did at that time was to attract dogs` attention to me and let her walk 3 meter behind me. As I walked by doing so, I say a guy come from the opposite direction, and I asked these dogs were his, but his answer was no. According to him, they were following him from the gate which were heading for. He noticed my wife was scared and kindly took them with him by calling "Common guys !"

Finally we got back to the gate which was starting point, and time was almost 5:30pm, and it was really dark. As far as dogs are concerned, I do not know why they were there. I figured out later that dogs are prohibited at the open space, so I guess that someone intentionally left them here because of some reasons.

Unexpected thing is that my wife was scared of a dog, but dogs I came across was friendly to us. It seemed so impressive to her, and she is starting to say finally that she wants to have a dog. For the time being, she has nothing special to do at weekdays, so it is good idea to have a dog for her, but we have not had a dog, so we definitely need to check and know a lot of necessary things.