23 April 2020

No one is too small to make a difference

f:id:masaya-09-11:20200423095419j:image

Yesterday was 50th earth day.
I did know that and I wanted to publish my article yesterday, but I couldn't do that.
This article is my first book review on this blog. (To tell the truth I posted several book reviews in my Japanese blog...) 

This book is written by famous teenager environment activist Greta Thunberg.
This is the story of collection of her speeches which she did in 2018-2019 around the world. 
Since she and world leader’s couldn’t reduce CO2 emissions, but COVID-19 reduced them significantly. That what a irony...

Some sentences which I highlighted. 
I have a Asperger’s syndrome, and to me, amidst everything is black or white. 
I'm not expert on Asperger, but is it true? Is her aggressive speech related to this syndrome?

When I told my parents about my plans, they weren’t very fond of it. They did not support the idea of school striking and they said that if I were to do this I would have to do it completely by myself and with no support from them
If my daughter would told me like this, I will desperately to stop her to do this. And I believe most of parents would do so. But I think they are supporting you.

I want everything to be absolutely correct so that I dong spread incorrect facts, or things can be misunderstood. 
I checked some of sources, and I think this is true. This might help understand why she refuse to get funded by other environmental activist groups.

I want you to act as if your house was on fire. 
She wants us to be panic at climate change. She told this phrase quite a lot of time in early speeches. Not mention in later speeches I though. 
I think, she felt people are acting too slow and she want us to act more quickly like we are in such condition.
But you must not spend all of your time dreaming, or see this as some political fight to win. 
This is great phrase because the speech held in United States Congress and she used famous Martin Luther King Jr.’s phrase “I have a dream...” that reminds me this is new movements. 
And also this is right after the story of J.F.K's "choose to go to the moon" speech.

We are the change and change is coming. 
This is the title of her speech in Montreal. She started her speech with French this time.
Anyway, our small change might lead to bigger change.
I also doing small changes these days. I try not to buy PET bottles, and try to use my own bottle to bring water or coffee or tea. I also try to choose environment friendly products (such as FSC labeled paper). We are in tough time, but it might change our world significantly not only for environment. Hope you are doing fine.

Thanks,
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Posted by Masaya at 23:37
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14 January 2020

2020 New Year Resolutions

Hi nice to see you again!
It’s 2020!
Since I couldn’t update my blog last year, I hope I can update my blog more in this year.
It’s already fortnight passed since new year begins, but I believe it’s ok to showing off my new year's resolutions.
But before that I will review my last year's resolutions and quick reviews.

2019's new year resolutions and its review

I set 5 resolutions last year, and I achieved 3 of them. But 3 of 5 is not suitable for showing in this blog, then I chose 2 of them. In this 2 resolutions, I achieved 1 of them.
  • Read 5 English written books
I set this resolution for 2019 because I need time to read English written books, and I wanted to read them more quickly. But unfortunately, I could read only 2 books in 2019. Which is Murder on the Orient Express and Clash of Civilizations. I believe my read time got a little faster. 
  • Run more


Yes, I could run more than 2018 but it was only 20km. So this year I will run 100km more than 2019. Actually, I could run only 75 km last year.

2020 New Year Resolutions

This year I put 17 resolutions (!?). This year my resolutions are more specific (last year's one are not so specified...). Here's some of my new year's resolutions.

  • Read 6 English written books
Yes, it's similar to last year's one, but I put more challenging 6 English written books. I need to read 1 book in every 2 months, but I believe I can do it.

  • Run more than 200km

Yes, it's similar to last year's one too. I put them in more specified. I will run more than 200 km in this year! (But it will start in April, because I cannot run on icy snow road...)
Check my result on Strava!
  • Reduce the use of PET bottles

Trying to be more eco-friendly. I also donated some money for MyMizu(https://www.mymizu.co/home-en) Japanese start up which help people to find water refill station nearby.
I don't know how many PET bottles I bought in a year, but I believe I bought quite a lot PET bottles. And I'm going to reduce the use of PET bottles. Now I'm counting the number of PET bottles I used since 1st January.

  • HelloChinese

I wanted to learn Chinese, but I couldn't continue them. This year I put this onto my new year's resolution.
Currently I'm learning Chinese with iPhone app which called HelloChinese(https://apps.apple.com/app/id1001507516), and I've just achieved 7th day.


I will update these resolutions!

Thanks,
Masaya
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Posted by Masaya at 00:50
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05 May 2018

Rainy in cherry blossom roads

As I mentioned last article, yesterday we went to famous cherry blossom spot.
Nijukken road("二十間道路") is famous for cherry blossom and selected as one of 100 beautiful cherry blossom spots in Japan.

 Nijukken road is located in Shizunai southern part of Hokkaido island, and which about 140 km away from Sapporo (where I'm currently living).



Unfortunately, yesterday's weather was not good, but cherry blossoms were really beautiful!!

The cherry blossom trees are located in next to horse farms. In this week, there's local festival called "Shizunai Cherry Blossom Festival(しずないさくらまつり)". Because the cherry blossom here got very famous and we are in national holidays, then there's a lot of tourists!

There's so many people and most of them come with their cars, then there's traffic jam. We took about an hour to park my car at parking lot. Also, it seems like bus package tour and I saw some people from other countries.

Thanks
P.S.
I also updated my Japanese blog with similar story, if you have interested please visit my Japanese blog. 
http://bfb.hatenadiary.jp/entry/2018/05/05/225233
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Posted by Masaya at 22:37
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01 May 2018

Where two flowers bloom at same time

Where two flowers bloom at same time

It's spring and we are in "Golden Week(ゴールデンウィーク)" which 4 national holidays are gathered in a week.
Today is labor day, but most of Japanese companies are not holiday. So, labor day is not one of 4 holidays in this week. (But for me, it's holiday).

Spring is start of fiscal year in Japan. Most of schools, colleges, companies and governments start their fiscal year in April. Typical image of new fiscal year in Japan are new employees and new comers join to welcome events of schools/companies under cherry blossoms. That because cherry bloom between end of March and beginning of April in most place of Japan.

 My hometown also bloom cherry in end of March or beginning of April.
Also there's another flower which bloom in similar season, Japanese plum bloom few weeks earlier than cherry in most of places in Japan.

 I mentioned "most of places in Japan", because there's a few exceptions. In places which located north Japan such as Sapporo(where I'm currently living), these flowers bloom a little late.
In Sapporo, cherry bloom at around beginning of May. And Japanese plum in Sapporo bloom in similar season. Which means we can see these two flowers bloom at same time.

 Yesterday, we went to nearby park to enjoy these flowers and visit art museum close to the park.

Parks

Yesterday was national holiday, so there's a lot of people at park to enjoy cherry and plum blossom. Most of people are drinking beer or some other kind of alcohol, and eat something. One of the difference between my home town and Sapporo is BBQ. People here seems they love BBQ. There's place which we can enjoy BBQ inside park. When we walked around I've got very hungry because of smells.

I wish I can do BBQ soon...

Art Museum

There's art museum very close to my flat, and currently they are exhibiting "Masterpieces from Bridgestone Museum of Art". Bridgestone Museum of Art is located in Tokyo and which is founded by founder of Bridgestone.

I couldn't have time to visit these exhibit these days, but fortunately I could have time to visit here. Since there's a lot of masterpieces, I could enjoy them and the exhibits included some famous pictures.

I found some favourite masterpieces there, but the most favourite one is "Dusk in Venice, San Giorgio Maggiore by Twilight" by Claude Monet.
Of course, I could not take photo of them, but I though I wish I could buy replica of that.

I'm planning to go to different place to see cherry blossom later this week. So, if I could go I might upload different story.

Thanks.
P.S
I uploaded Japanese version of similar blog post here. If you are interested, please visit following link. Thanks.
http://bfb.hatenadiary.jp/entry/2018/05/01/232858
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Posted by Masaya at 23:14
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08 January 2018

Large, but not so big

Just few days before new year comes, I accidentally clicked the button to buy iPhone X. 

 Since I was using iPhone 6 Plus for about 3 years, my iPhone have some problems. Most severe one is ring/silent switch on left. 

My iPhone's ring/silent switch works mechanically, but it sometimes back to ring mode without touching it. I acknowledge them when I see the screen as soon as I changed to silent mode. But most of cases, I know that when I got message or phone call from some one.

 Anyway, I bought iPhone X at the end of 2017. And I got them day before new year's eve.
Here it is my iPhone X!

My iPhone X with Apple shaped Death Star wallpaper
I chose 256GB model of space gray iPhone X, and that was really expensive!! And I thought I cannot renew my phone for next 3-4 years... (Same as my previous iPhone 6 Plus)

I chose 256GB model because I had 128GB model of iPhone 6 Plus and I was using nearly 100GB.

So, I need to choose model with more than 100GB capacity, and which means I need to choose 256GB model.

I thought if there's 128GB model, I would choose them.

Unfortunately, there's no 128GB model iPhone X, then I chose 256GB model.

Good thing

I had some problem when I was using iPhone 6 Plus.
That is BIG!
I compared my iPhone X and my old iPhone 6 Plus.
iPhone X on left, iPhone 6 Plus on right
Both of them are big enough, but iPhone X is a little smaller. And this difference make me feel good, because it fit to my pocket with no pain.
To tell the truth, I had pain during sit on chairs when I put my iPhone 6 Plus into front pocket of my trousers.
Now I don't have to care about them.

Another good thing is ApplePay. Because iPhone 6 Plus is not supporting ApplePay in Japan, I cannot use them. But finally, I started use them and it's very useful!
Paying with ApplePay is very quick and smart!

New gestures


I had strange feeling when I first touch iPhone X, because there's no home button. Every time when I back to home screen, I tried to touch home button but it won't work. Obviously iPhone X doesn't have home button, but just swipe up from below means new home button.

But since I started to use iPhone X and get used to the new gestures, I liked them.I acknowledged that I like this new gesture when I used this gesture on my iPad and nothing happened.

One not good gesture is screen shot!On iPhone X, you can take screen shot with clicking side button and volume up button simultaneously. And that made me mad, because sometimes I click this two button when I put iPhone X into my pocket. So I have many screen shot picture on photo app...

That's my brief review of iPhone X in a week of use.

I may upload late review some time.

Thanks.
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Posted by Masaya at 23:24
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