Speechless shock

The seven o’clock news by NHK made me really shocked. After the Tohoku earthquake, there have been a lot of things that made me angry with the government, TEPCO and the committees for nuclear power, such as the Nuclear Safety Commission and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, but today’s news was the worst ever for me. The news was about the Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC). In today’s committee of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the NSC revealed that when the earthquake occurred, only a few investigators for an emergency measure were assembled on that day even though they have forty investigators. That’s because the NSC tried to contact them on with emails to their mobiles but they could not contact almost all of them and some who could receive the email could not get there because of stopped transportation. So, only a few people who were able to walk could gather at the office. What were their contingency plans? 
Furthermore, the NSC is supposed to dispatch the investigators to the spot immediately, but they dispatched only one member of staff. They didn't dispatch the investigators until a month after the earthquake. I couldn't believe it. For the clumsiness of the NSC’s response, the chairman said that he thought they had failed to respond well enough, and this reflected on themselves. As I heard it, I was speechless at his statement. 
As I mentioned before, there have been a lot of problems, but I thought they had tried as hard as they could but just not in the right way. However, the NSC did nothing. I understood why many people doubted the significance of the existence of the NSC. I want them to say that they will give back their remunerations and contribute them to the people who have suffered. I heard they received over ten million yen a year. 

It was too difficult for me to write about a thing like this. I tried to write it by consulting a dictionary. I wonder how far I can say what I think.

Weight problem

Recently I’ve been getting tired easily from walking. Today, first, I walked my dog after breakfast. Then I went to Harajuku to meet my friend and walked around. After my return home, I walked my dog again. So when I got home, I was too exhausted to do anything. Why have I been so tired? I know the reason. I’ve gained weight! I reached the weight I must not reach and I'm not losing it. Oh my God! I really have to try to lose weight. And yet I ate a bag of Kappa-ebisen alone as I watched TV. What on earth did I do? The problem is that there are some snacks in my house. I try not to buy snacks but my husband buys them for a midnight snack. Yeah, my husband is overweight! He always says that he wants to lose weight, but he never stops buying snacks. Once I threw away all the snacks that he had bought, but he started to buy them again after a while. What can I do to make him stop doing it? Oh, there’s another fat guy in my family. It’s my dog. He reached over eleven kilograms even though his vet recommended that I keep him under ten kilograms. Umm, we all have a weight problem! What will I do? It will be hard but I should try to be a good example by losing weight.

Nogawa Park

After yesterday’s rain, it was crisp weather today. We, my husband, our dog and I, went to Nogawa Park which we like very much. It is a really big park and has a lot of giant trees, and the Nogawa River runs through the park. We had McDonald’s hamburgers for breakfast, walked, played with a ball and lay on the grass. Of course, we took a lot of pictures. We enjoyed ourselves very much and our dog was the most satisfied maybe. He seemed to be very tired, so, on the way home, he fell asleep on the rear seat of the car, even though he usually hangs out of the car window. We are going there again during Golden Week, and we are going to take a lot of rice balls for breakfast and lunch. 

After supper, I watched Dr. House, the sixth episode. I tried to read the English subtitles but I was too tired to read them tonight. It’s better to go to bed early. My dear dog is waiting for me to go to bed with him.

Dr. House, again

My friend bought a bread maker and invited me to lunch. When I visited her place the room was filled with a good smell of fresh bread. She had baked it for me for when I visited. She also made a salad and some soup. The bread, salad and soup were all delicious! We really enjoyed lunch.


By the way, we Japanese call “a bread maker”, “a home bakery”. “Home bakery” is Japanese English, but it is a good name, isn’t it? What do English-speaking people imagine when they hear the words “Home bakery”? 


My corrector gave me an answer. To her, it means that someone is baking cakes and bread etc, in their home and selling them, there could be a shop at the front of the house where people come to buy their home baked goods. 


As I was saying, as we had lunch, we were talking about a TV show “Dr. House” as usual. Season 6 has not started to run in Japan, so I haven’t watched it yet, but she has already watched it in English. According to her, season 6 was really interesting. The first episode was especially good as the story had a bit of a different atmosphere from other episodes. She has wanted me to watch it as soon as possible. Of course I have wanted to watch it, so I made up my mind to borrow the DVDs from her and try to watch them in English. 
That night I watched the first episode immediately, with English subtitles. Even though I had prepared for the possibility, it was so hard for me to understand, but I got the gist of the story using my imagination. It was exactly as she said. Yeah, Dr. House was intriguing, as I had expected. Now I have been tackling the second episode.

iKnow!

I’ve been learning English words by using iKow!, an online English learning service. They have a lot of courses for learners’ various goals. It had been free for about two years but they started to charge for it this April. I guess they had accumulated the users' data, such as age, purpose, skill, how and when to learn and so on, by offering their service for free. The data helped them offer better and more sophisticated services. I think iKow! is an excellent service. Since I knew about iKow!, improving my vocabulary hasn’t bothered me at all, aside from remembering the words or not. I’ve tried to do it for one hour a day. 

Now I’m mainly enjoying tackling a TOEFL course because there are many words that appear in school textbooks, for example, mammal, reptile, molecule, hydrogen, equation, gravity, current, equator, tropical rain forest, conifer etc. I forgot or didn’t know most of them, so I can’t understand even a junior high school textbook. When I tried to do an SAT course, it was too much for me! They seemed to be magic formulas. 

Anyway, now I like learning English words. I have two nieces and one nephew, and they are students, so I always show them how useful iKow! is, but they never try it out, just as I didn't take any advice when I was a student.

I had my hair cut

I had my hair cut last Friday. It was a simple short hairstyle this time and I liked it very much. I’ve been wearing my hair short recently. Once it is short, I won’t let my hair get long again because it’s really easy to set my hair, but the problem is that I need to cut my hair very often and to choose a skillful hairdresser. I think that short hairstyles need a higher skill of cutting. 
Actually, I’m not a woman who is careful about my clothes or my makeup, but I am particular about my hairstyle. So, I was cautious in choosing a beauty salon and now I make a special trip to a beauty salon in Ginza, which takes over one hour. The salon was my friend’s recommendation. There must be some good beauty salons around my area, but I don’t have any information of which salons are good and I never want to go to a hair salon that doesn’t have a skillful hairdresser. 
Anyway, from the outside, this is a trivial matter… 

Well, my husband also had his hair cut yesterday. I always ask him to have the hair on top cut shorter but he doesn't. I wish he would count on the barber for his hairstyle.

Today's Lai - He likes drinking water like this.

Presentation

When I worked, I had a hard time presenting my arguments. It is not too much to say that the reason I quit my job was my poor presentation as a manager. I recognized that I was required to have a high level of presentation skills, but I could not become a good speaker. I deeply regretted that I had not seriously improved my presentation skills. 

Now as I watch a news conference of the government, the Atomic Energy Commission and TEPCO, I can only remember my failure. Virtually everyone of them had a really bad presentation. Their presentation content was incomprehensible and pointless, and there’s nothing concrete about their content, especially about the prime minister’s interview, but the biggest problem is not to have the power to appeal to people. I can’t feel their motivation, sincerity or a firm faith. Of course everyone is now working to rebuild, but I can’t feel it. I think the reason is their poor presentation skills. Well then, why? At the root of this problem is the Japanese Education system, I guess. I heard that in the U.S. children practice speaking in public from elementary school. Training one’s speech is absolutely important for children. Japanese like to copy Western society ways, but it is to be regretted that we had a different method in the educational aspect.

Nonsense!

It was a combined local election today and I went to vote in the Tokyo governatorial election. This time there were four strong candidates and I expected a close battle; so I looked forward to watching a newsflash on the election returns that started from 7:55 p.m. on NHK. At just 8:00 p.m. the announcer surprisingly said "the election closed at 8:00 p.m. and it's certain that the incumbent Governor of Tokyo, Mr. Ishihara, was elected for the fourth time." What? The vote counting hadn’t yet begin at that time. They said that they judged it by the result of their exit poll. It’s a common occurrence that they estimate the result from an exit poll, but today’s too early announcement was really nonsense. That was a mere competition which the media announced first, I thought. When Mr. ishihara gave an interview, he also pointed out this type of announcement. I didn’t vote for him, but I give him credit for speaking frankly like that. Now I listen to the news, but they cut the scene of Mr. Ishihara which indicated their odd way. 


Anyway, when I went to the zoo, I bought a stuffed Yabu-inu (bush) dog for Lai. I call it Yabu-chan. Lai liked it but now Yabu-chan is ...

Zoorasia; Yokohama Zoo.

I went to the zoo to take pictures with my friend the day before yesterday. We went to Yokohama Zoo and its popular name is Zoorasia. I heard that Zoorasia is a compound word of “zoo” and “eurasia”. They said that they exhibit seventy different kinds of animals, and there are four hundred animals in total. Their strong point is having a lot of rare animals like an okapi, an Asiatic lion and a douc langur. 

Douc langur

Actually, we were supposed to go there on April 5th, but my friend had a cold, so we went on the 7th. We were completely right in going on the 7th, because most of the elementary schools started back on the 6th. It was not crowded and we could watch the animals and take pictures leisurely. A little problem was that animals looked tired after the children’s spring vacation, so most of them were lying down or turned their backs to us. However, we had a really good time. 

Clouded Leopard's back

Sleeping Sumatran Tiger

Idle Polar Bear

I took more than two hundred pictures! The best photo from yesterday was a photo of the okapi. It was difficult to take photos of the monkeys or birds in their cage, but after getting the knack, I could take them well. I much prefer to take pictures of animals than views or flowers. I get the feeling that I’m going to get hooked on going to the zoo.

Red Panda

Steller's Sea Eagle

Bush dog: I love them!

Okapi

Chimpanzee

Cleaning

I used to hate cleaning but now “hate” has changed to “don’t like”. When I worked, I thought that it was a waste of time and labor to clean, but after retiring, cleaning up my place became not so bad. Especially after I moved to my current apartment, I like to keep my place clean. So do I like cleaning? No, I want to keep my place clean, but I don’t like cleaning. However, it was fine and warm today so I cleaned my place; vacuumed the rooms, mopped the floor and cleaned the windows. After that I felt really comfortable. 

The thing I don't like most is cleaning a wet area. I hate the slime of an outlet. I don’t know how often others clean a wet area but I am ashamed to say that I only clean a wet area once a month. I don't want to touch the slime so I try to postpone it as long as I can. Recently, I remembered my friend’s sister who died last year. I heard that she had neat habits and cleaned the outlet everyday. I couldn’t believe such a thing, but I have tried to do it since last month and found it a really good way of keeping a wet area clean. It doesn’t become slimy! Now I do it in only the kitchen sink but I will try it in the bathroom, too. 

Sorry, it was a little unclean topic today.

A community center

A new community center opened near my place on April 1st. It is one of Tama City's community centers and it includes a cultural center, a library and a children’s hall. I’ve been really looking forward to it opening since it was built. It has gently curved exterior and rooftop garden, and I had been interested in its design. So I visited it immediately. Wow, it was a fantastic place, as I had expected. The exterior of the building is concrete but they use a lot of wood inside, so I felt comfortable and warm. I liked it very much. Actually, I am just starting my fourth year of university so I have decided to study at the center as much as I can because when I’m at home I tend to watch television or do something other than studying. I really need to study hard this year. So, to put my plan into action, I will try to go to bed before midnight, wake up at seven o’clock and finish walking my dog before nine o’clock. After that, I will go to the center to study. I will do housework later for the time being. I wonder if I will do such a thing… 

Spring

My corrector gave me a kind message which bolstered up my spirits. I changed my way of thinking. I think I will never forget what happened but shouldn’t dwell on it. 





Today I walked my dog, Lai, with my husband after a long 
time. He always tries to avoid walking but he followed me
today. Lucky! I can carry my camera and take a lot of pictures!
When walking Lai, I want to take pictures but it is pretty difficult to do it with Lai. So I was happy today, but Lai seemed to be a little unhappy. It seemed that Lai found it hard to walk because Lai and I make a perfect pair but he doesn’t. Lai walked as he took a look at my husband dubiously. What a pity! 
Thanks to Lai, or my husband, I could take many pictures of spring flowers today. I especially like magnolia, spirea, 
Japanese quince and of course cherry blossoms. 
Spring is beautiful, isn’t it? It seems a change from 
monochrome to color. 
If I didn’t have hay fever, I would like spring more and more.

 

Things I think now

It has been three weeks since the devastating earthquake occurred. I greatly appreciate a lot of aid from all over the world. 

After the earthquake, my routine began to go out of kilter. Though the victims try to make a recovery from the earthquake and many people try to volunteer their services, I have been feeling a little lethargic. I always think about various things about the earthquake, but I can’t find any answer to them. 

How are the children who lost their parents in the tsunami? 
How are the pets that lost their owners? 
What did the patients think who were unable to get out of bed when the tsunami came? 
How did the staff feel when they had no choice but to leave the patients? 
How did people feel whose valuables such as houses, cars, fishing boats, etc. were carried away by the tsunami? 
Can I survive the harsh way of living as an evacuee, and in the very cold weather? 
If I were a tsunami victim, would I live in the same place again, near the sea? 
What will become of the nuclear accident? 
Are the workers who work in the nuclear plant safe? 
… 

Umm, I can't express my feelings well. Now I can’t do it even in Japanese.