24 miles a week. Phase 1.

I am a runner but not good one. I want to improve my running skills. I have two objects to achieve soon in this regard.

1) I would like to be able to run 24 miles a week, constantly.

2) I would like to complete my first full marathon.

I can run 24 miles a week, but I cannot do it every week in row. I want to be strong enough to run 24 miles a week all the time. Also I have completed a few half marathons but never tried a full marathon. I would like to challenge a full marathon in the very near future.

I will write how the training is going in this blog.

Comments

I transiently hide comments on this blog. I will open comments again when the traffic of this blog becomes more than average 100 accesses/day.

Until then, please e-mail any comment to the following address:

Big flow

Now I am standing on the big turning point of my life. It is too big to write about it right now, but in a couple of months, I will write what is actually going on in my life. This flow I am facing right now is too strong to resist. Therefore, I decided to go with this flow as far as I can. I really have no idea where this flow will take me to, but I would call this a fate and go wherever it takes me.

Language is your brain's OS. -Part 1

As people around me know, I have a weird fate. I was born and educated in Japan but eventually started to work in the United States in my middle 20s.

As everyone can image, I had to change my main language from Japanese to English during my 20s. It was really difficult trial for me to completely shut down Japanese from my mind. I really struggled and still struggling to deal with the language. But during my trial, I found one essential principle about a language: Language is your brain's OS (operating system), and the brain needs functional OS to stay healthy. In this blog, I will write what really happened to me when I installed new (not properly functioning) OS into my brain at middle 20s. It was really life threatening experience for me.

Brain position for optimism

From nature:

Neuroscientists have pinpointed the areas of the brain that help us to look on the bright side.

The group asked people to imagine positive and negative events that had either happened in the past or might happen in the future. Then, the volunteers rated their levels of optimism (as a general personality trait) using a standard psychological test.

Imagining positive events in the future was accompanied by activity in two areas of the brain that usually regulate how emotion affects memory and decisions: the amygdala, buried deep within the brain, and the front portion of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which sits just behind the eyes. Conversely, activation in both these areas dropped below average when the volunteers thought about future negative events.

The more optimistic people considered themselves to be, the greater the activity in the ACC. The results are published in Nature ².

I think being optimistic is critically important to survive. This study may help to overcome depression or pessimism in the future.

Favorite minor web page. Seeqpod music

You should try Seeqpod music web page where you can find any kinds of music. It is an excellent site.

Vegan -day 6-

I wrote:

Write things that no one else knows as everybody else can easily understand.

To achieve this, I will descriptively write what happened to me after becoming a vegan. Because I am the only one who knows what happened to my body.

4 days after I had started vegan diet, there was a striking change in my body. At day 4, I felt really terrible due to severe headache. I did not understand what was going on and my body was so weak at that day. My pee smelled really badly all day long. It smelled really stingingly, which I have never smelled in my life before. I was confused and became really anxious that I might get sickness due to unusual foods.

However, at day 5 morning, everything was cleaned up. My headache was gone and my pee did not smell anymore. Indeed, I felt real health in me. I've never felt this health and happiness before. I think around day 4, I was going through detox process in which the liver cleans up the poison accumulated in my body.

Picuture of the day

Work harder for less reward. Then.

You can walk your lonely way as an elephant in a forest.

Vegan. -day 3-

Since I grew up in Japan, I was strictly told to eat as many kinds of food as I can. Indeed, I was strictly taught to eat everything served for me no matter whether I like them or not. Since it is culture, I do not blame it. If I go to Japan again, I would try to eat everything they will serve me.

But here in the States, situation is much different. I would die if I have to eat everything served for me in restaurants all the time. They usually serve the way too much for my body.

To protect myself, I decided to be a Vegan from last week. I do not know how long I will be able to continue this diet, but I will write what will happen to my body. What kind of change or desire will occur to my mind and body.

What to write in your blog. III. Why you write it.

I am now thinking why should I write my blog. What is the benefit of doing it?

First, writing is learning. Human brain is designed to learn things in an output dependent manner. Writing is a good output, therefore you will learn more as you write more. I would like to keep learning things, and this is the biggest motivation for me to write my blog.

Second, writing blog will advance my reading skill, I believe. You need to read a lot to write. It is like breathing: you need to inhale air a lot to exhale them. It is also like breathing for me that I need to keep reading and writing all the time to be alive. I would like to breath well to stay healthy. Indeed, breathing in English is a big exciting challenge fore me.

Picture of the day.

Read what this road construction sing says. Isn't it amazing?

Of course it is a fake one and you can make custom sings like this at the web site.

Favorite minor web page. Musicovery.

I recently found musicovery where you can discover favorite musics in a very unique way. Check this out.

http://musicovery.com/

Moon light sensor

From Science:

Moonlight triggers the synchronized spawning of reef-building corals; however, the mechanism underlying detection of moonlight by these animals is largely unknown. Levy et al. (p. 467) now demonstrate the presence of ancient blue-light-sensing photoreceptors, cryptochromes, in the reef-building coral.

I think this is cool. However, how these photoreceptors distinguish sun and moon lights? Sun light must also contains blue color that the moon emits. Maybe the photoreceptors are only expressed during night.

What to write in your blog. II. Create expectation.

In his blog, Randfish said that Create Expectations and Fulfill Them to make your blog better. I was totally impressed by his idea and was convinced. I should create the expectation for my blog, and this is the way to establish my own brand in the blogsphere.

Geek T-shirt.

After I got my iPod Touch, finding a hot spot for WiFi in the city became a part of my life. I really would like to get this cool T-shirt which indicates how strong is the WiFi signal around.

Papers, the best browser ever.

I do not watch TV. A lot of people around me also do not watch TV anymore. I used to watch TV all day long when I was a kid, but this habit is getting out of date. We think information should be transmitted via reciprocal communications but not by one way broadcasting.

I do not read printed newspaper. It is easy to imagine that it will take too long to print articles on a paper and deliver it to your home. Meanwhile publishing the articles online takes only a second (Just click the button). I would say printed information is pretty old to catch up. But I still think printed New York Times is worth to read because it contains many informative articles, and the printed paper is much easier to read.

I read books. I like very old novels such as "The great Gatsby" which is available online. However, I still paying money for these old novels because it is easier to concentrate on reading with books. I wish somebody will develop a better browser which will not damage my eyes even after long time reading.

Similarly, I read many online journals. But I usually buy three kinds of printed journals, The New Yorker, Science and Wired, because I want to read them more carefully. Although I can read most of articles online, printed papers are still more suitable for critical readings for me. They are definitely worth for a few dollars, because thus far printed papers are the best browser to read. I just want to read good articles with the best browser.

Will you be quiet, please?

Oh boy, the song "Fly me to the moon" is running in my head endlessly today, all day long. Could anyone stop this music in my head?

Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars
In other words hold my hand
In other words darling kiss me

Fill my life with song
And let me sing forevermore
You are all I hope for
All I worship and adore
In other words please be true
In other words I love you

Novel Prize in Literature

From New York Times:

Doris Lessing, the Persian-born, Rhodesian-raised and London-residing novelist whose deeply autobiographical writing has swept across continents and reflects her deep feminist engagement with the major social and political issues, won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature today.

Ms. Lessing, who turns 88 later this month, never finished high school and largely educated herself through her voracious reading. She had been born to British parents in what is now Iran, was raised in colonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and now lives in London. She has written dozens of books of fiction, as well as plays, non-fiction and an autobiography. She is the 11th woman to win a Nobel Prize in literature.

I would love to read her novels to know how good she is.

Welcome to the world.

My mother e-mailed me that my sister just delivered her son. Wow, he looks like my sister. This means I just become an uncle. Of course, I feel very happy that he was born safely. Welcome to this world!

But son, as you will see, this world is a mess, there is no doubt about it. But boy don't worry, we all will teach you what we learned, so that you can have a higher chance to survive, so that you can take after this planet. I hope you will be a strong man.

We all are wishing good luck for you.

Cover - The cranberries- Ode to my family

I found a good cover of the Cranberries on Youtube. This is the best cover I've ever listened. She has such a lovely voice, check this out.

Experiment with reddit.com

I wrote:

"Write things that no one else knows as everybody else can easily understand. "

To achieve this purpose, I undertook one experiment. Since only a few people were reading my blog, I asked what will be happen if I advertise my blog on reddit.com or digg.com? I submitted my previous entry to them at the same time with an identical title.

The outcome was significant. As you see in the graph, I got more than 180 hits within a day. But I noticed that digg.com only gave me 9 accesses while reddit.com gave me almost 20 times more accesses.

from reddit: 178 accesses/ 1day
from digg: 9 accesses/ 1day

The conclusion of this experiment will be that reddit.com is a better place to advertise your personal blog.

Unbroadcasted scene -Nirvana Plateau-

The beginning of this scene was not broadcast on MTV, I think. Kurt's voice was always great, and makes me feel good.

What to write in your blog?

What should you write in your personal blog? This is the question I am thinking right now.

I thing a good blog is written abut things that only its author knows, and the author writes the blog as everybody else can understand. In other words, "Write things that no one else knows as everyone else can easily understand. " What are things only I know? Hum, I have to think about this more.

Alien's drawing?

I do believe that there are other intelligent creatures in this universe, maybe in many galaxies away. But I personally do not believe that the other intelligent creatures or aliens have ever visited the earth. All of the reports about U.F.O. were fake, I think.

But when I initially found this huge drawing on google map of Australia, I thought this may be written by an alien.... As you see, this drawing is too big to be drawn by ancient human beings.

Take a look at google map!