An incident that made my day.

On Saturday, I went to a shopping at Stop & Shop.
I bought several items including 2 cereal boxes and 2 pints of Haagen Dazs.
I went to the self-service checkout line with coupons: 1 for cereal and 1 for icecream.

A big problem arose. The scanner failed to read either coupons.
Without the coupons, my total expense will be above $50 which is my upper limit.
I asked one of the employees near me for help.
She typed in the numbers into the machine because it was failed to be scanned.
Then she asked me "How many cereal boxes do you buy?"
I replied "Two."
She showed me the coupon. "This coupon is valid for at least 3 cereal boxes of purchase."
"Oh...I didn't see it carefully!!"
How nice she was! She made this valid even though I only purhcased 2.

While I'm feeling happy about this, she showed me another invalid coupon and said:
"This coupon is for at least 4 icecreams. This is absurd. Who the hell will ever buy 4!"
Again, she made this valid for me.

She was so nice. I feel fortunate that I still have human interaction at the shop.
If it was 100% computerized environment, my coupons would be mercilessly rejected.
So I probably had no chance to feel happy at the end of the transaction.
I hope people foresee 100% computerized society is actually a cruel world.

By the way, I often buy 4 icereams. I didn't do so this time because of the budget limit.

Wallpaper for Learning.

My brother taught me something clever.
It is about the wallpaper for the desktop.
I have never cared about it and I use the default all the time.
But he told me that we should change it because we look at it very frequently.
What's so clever about it?
Well he suggested me to put some crib sheet for whatever I want to memorize.
That's a sounding and convincing idea. I've never thought like that.
As you might expect, I use my computer frequently...at least as much as I update this blog.
I probably have glimpsed the wallpaper hundreds times a day.
Yeah, I should exploit the accumulation of such instant moments for learning.


Thank you for your advice!

The Squall hit NY on last Saturday.

I was going to meet someone, and I had a right to choose date and time to meet up.
On Friday just prior to the weekend, I decided  "Saturday 2pm".

Then a heavy rain falls here...on Saturday.
I had to drive through the horrible visibility due to the severe squall.
I saw at least three sites of accident during my 2 hours of round trip that day.
I was actually very happy to return home without a problem.
Next day was clear and sunny.
The sky is blue and beautiful.

I'm really impressed to myself.
These days, I'm simultaneously reading the following books.
a book on weather forecasting, a book on weather (for children), and a book on global warming.
And...I was completely unaware of the weather forecast for the weekend.
How comical I could be!

Rejecting the Sunlight...What a Gloomy Life!

I used to think there is nothing special about birthday.
"Well, birthday is just one of 365 days in the year. Why does people act strangely in such days?"
I really didn't understand it.
"Are you really sure that you're born in exactly xx years ago?"

I used to think that studying subjects such as history and geography is fruitless effort.
"Is such knowledge mandatory for our daily life?"
I really didn't have a clue why I had to study them when I was a student.
My understanding was that school is a place to establish my own studying habit/style and become an independent learner.
So....I didn't put effort on these subjects...because my style was "Do what I like, don't do what I don't like."
My style didn't change since then.
But my stance toward subjects which I used to be hated is changing.
I become more open minded to accept them rather than to reject them.



Rejecting the speciality of my birthday wouldn't produce anything good.
Accepting it might produce some happiness...maybe.

Rejecting A to Z makes my life boring and unproductive.
Rejection is an evil!

So why the devil is nested in my immatured brain?
I believed that repulsion is cool!
Ironically, repulsion made my life cold.
It's true. Learning provides me energy, and I bragged I didn't have to learn those useless things.

Knowledge Without Action

I received a spreadsheet file with small tables with students name.
This file was distributed to teachers, not only me.
All tables were in the same format.
Well I just need one of these tables to print out.

I noticed that the table was not sorted by names.
It was sorted by one of other columns which was not desired by teachers.
So what I did is resort the table by names, and printed out what I want.

...So what's this talk all about???
After a short while, a little trouble happend.
The tables were printed out and distributed for some other purpose.
Then someone found out that tables weren't sorted correctly, and the person who prepared them had to collected them and prepare resorted tables.
I inwardly felt sorry for all involved, especially the one who made the table.
If I notified my awareness beforehand, this trouble was prevented.
But I didn't do so.  I couldn't think the simple fact that the tables was not only for me but also for many others.

Although my mistake was due to my unawareness of thinking about others,
I would keep in my mind that knowledge without action is a vile act.

Graph of Sine and Cosine Function.

I just come up with the idea to momerize the graph of Sine function and Cosine function.

It is fairly easy for student to recollect that these function has wavy shape.
The harder part was apparently the distinction between these two function.
Guess which one is y=sin(x)?

Imagine the capital letter S of sine and C of cosine rotated 90 degrees.
Here is the answer.
The blue one is S, and the red one is C.

Tripodal Synergy....No...There is also Math.

While studying geography, I realized that curiosity to economics and weather are good asset to deepen my understanding about other countries.

Well to be honest with you, I don't know much about economics and weather.
I just recently got interest in them and began trying to gain knowledge on them.
Despite, the effect of possessing curiosity seems obvious.
Motivation to learn geography, economics, and weather helps to heighten each other.
I'm thrilled when I learn something that join two different field of study.
It is a positive synergy effect.  What an effective way to learn!
It's sad to see "math" is outside of this geographic learning cycle....so far....
Oh but...Wait! Today I was willing to spend time reading about "Mozambique Current" and another current on the west coast. Why? It's probably because water turbulance was a picked up quite frequently in "Chaos" which I was exposed to during this summer.
Indeed, math has some role in this learning process.
Did I forcibly involve math to make a conclusion with my taste?


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Today's adventure:

Open a magazine.
Found an advertisement about traveling to South Africa.
Check South Africa on Wikipedia and Google Image Search and get overview about the country.
Learn about ocean currents around South Africa. (this helps to understand the terrian and climate!)
Check nearby countries such as Namibia and Zimbabwe quickly.

Virtual Trip

Since the beginning of last month, I'm slowly learning the geography of the world.
My main objective is to remember names and locations of all countries in the world.

As you may know that this is merely a topic from high school geography course.
So I should say "RE-learning" instead of "learning".
But I don't remember much from the course, and I feel that I'm learning something new.

Although my goal is ultimately just learn names and locations of each country,
I want and need to gain more information to solidify such knowledge.
With help of internet, I try to imagine myself sightseeing these countries.
How is the weather there like?
How convenient the public transportation?
Where is good sightseeing spot?

After my virtual trip to several developing countries, I realized that safety is the huge issue in most countries.
For now, beautiful photos are more than sufficient to satisfy my desire.

My Bookshelf

My bookshelf is lack of variety in genre.
I felt that I should explore other field in order to widen my knowledge and to improve my imagination.

First I have to break out from my habit of being stingy.
Second I have to make free space by discarding books which I wouldn't read for the rest of my life.
That requires courage which I failed to acquire in college!

Learn the Taste of Triumph

There are instantly executable things that I'm unmotivated to do.
For example, writing a check for the monthly credit card bill could be done quickly.
Dish washing is another example. Flossing teeth is..still...such a thing.
My rational thinking brain is telling me "just do them right now!"
He knows that once I finished with these troublesome I feel good.
My brain doesn't have to think about it anymore.
However my lazy brain also often tempted me like "hey, we can do it anytime. So do it later."
From experience I really understand that deferation is not a wise decision.
So I have to fight against the temptation from lazy portion of myself.
To become invincible, I have to be addicted and starved for the savor of the triumph.

I Accomplished Something Today!

Hey this is my 10th post of the month.
What so special about it?
One of my goal for this month was to write 10 posts on this blog.
I accomplished it.
Please forget about the fact that I did it with this clumsy post which merely says this is the 10th of the month.
Anyway this gives me confidence.
This accomplishment will be the driving force for the next month!

Do It EVERYDAY!

It was a year ago that I swear...to myself...that I will brush my teeth and use flosses more frequently to prevent getting cavities.
Although I didn't flosses everyday, I did much more frequently than used be.
Acutally I had a secret confidence not having any cavity this time.
But what I heard from my regular dentist was a very brielf disappointing one.
"You have two cavities."

Darn it!
I was so shocked that I didn't want to talk back to him!

Ok. I swear that I floss everyday!
That means I have to make it my habit. Yes, brushing is my habit but flossing is not my real habit yet.

According to a recent book I read, it takes 3 weeks of practice to make something to be your new habit. Three weeks is loooong. But it is a good to have such indicator. With such a concrete number, I feel I can do it this time.

"Imagine is More Important Than Knowledge"

Imagine about how my behavior would influence the other people.
Predict how they react when I take some action.

Then take some action if not inappropriate and observe.
Now I get one sample data.
Reconstruct my model (prediction) if needed then repeat the process at different incidence.

This is a science of human behavior.
First part is essential. I think everybody do "take action" and "observe" part.
But without "Imagine" part, it's not effective.
This will train my observational skill which is good to possess for better daily life.

Get Out of the Chaos

I feel that I know nothing now.
There are too many things which I'm ignorant at.
I have desire to learn those things, but I can't learn everything.
There isn't enough time to learn all.
By thinking so, after all, I have diffiuculty sustain my curiousity.
Consequently I'm not really learning anything meaningful.
I feel that the only way to overcome this dilemma is to give up most things and focus on a few things that I really really want to know more about.
The ability to give up many things for one thing, or the skill to select one from myriad matters.

Sounds easy...why I can't practice it?

My mind is in total chaos, and I haven't figured out what I really have to do....
I guess I have to get out of this maze at first or I'm a unsolved zigsaw puzzle forever.
But once I figure out my direction, I surely can reconstruct my ruler for finer judgement and valuation.

Overcome the first week ordeal (ordeal???)

There is a moment of ecstasy when I actually can feel the improvement on what I'm working on.
And that feeling becomes the driving force to push me even further.

For example, push up exercise:
I could only do it 5 times and give up immediately.
I really hated to do push up.
Yet very recently I started practicing it on daily basis.
Just after one week of unwilling and tiresome praticing of push ups, I could count up to 20.
Not only the improvement in the duration of the exercise, my heart began to feel lighter.
I mean that now I don't feel too much pain to start doing push ups. Actually it's getting joyful (a little bit though.)

It is difficult to initiate the unwanted and painful work.
However once we get used to it and see some improvement, bright future (like I become strong enough to push up 100 times continually) seems at the graspable distance.
Am I daydreaming???
Maybe that's true...but it is better than doing nothing by giving up every hope.