listening again

42nd day 23September2007 Sunday
1. I concentrated on listening training again.
There was one problem. I couldn’t have confidence on my method. Now, my main exercise is dictation training. At first, I thought it’s very effective to improve my hearing skill, but It’s just a little stressful and I can’t feel the effect clearly. Of course, it’s impossible to improve it dramatically in a short term, but I sometimes wondered whether there are more effective methods anywhere. Maybe, keeping training itself is the most important…

Listening

41st day 22September2007 Saturday
1. To concentrate on listening training.
I just practiced English listening in that day, but the desire of sleeping is very strong and captured me easily… I was always fighting with it.
2. I thought investments
One book says that investments are good because it makes you more sensitive to social situation. Of course it is bad to be obsessed with investments, but I basically agree with the opinion.

Go to a bar and MA exhibition

40th day 21September2007 Friday
1. To drink with some friends of mine.
A friend of mine invited me to go to bar with him and a friend of his. The bar had a open space and I came to like it. After that, we went to their flat and drank a little more. The friend of his was unemployed at that time, but he worked in Asia before. He had a lot of stories about his experiences in Asia. It’s very good little party.

2. I visited the exhibition of MA in my course.
What I felt were two things:
1. Concept!
2. God is in the details.
The former is very simple. I didn’t strongly feel the difference between each works in the technical aspects. Of course, as I agreed in this second point, visual effect is quite important. If you can draw pictures very well, it’s strong advantage. However, it hardly becomes the absolute differentiation, because everyone can express their works neatly to some extent, and when I saw the works, they naturally made me think about the concept at first. I don’t know everyone see the works in the same way, but many works of interior design are apparently too complicated to understand it easily, so I think designers have to answer the question in the brain of audiences. I think the designer can explain the concept clearly, audiences must get a good impression.
The latter is similar to the former. I think visual impact is not important unless the quality is outstanding. God is in the details. I felt the work that has a good detail is good, but on the other hand, even if the main part is good, bad details make the works looks bad…

twentytwentyone and my career

39th day 20September2007 Thursday
1. I’ve got the information for selling stock options.
My colleague in Human Resources Dept replied e-mail.

2. I went to see my agent.
I asked some question about finance and my career. About the former, he advised me to send the amount of money that I could expect to use in London because the interest rate in London was very high and that in Tokyo was very low. I completely agreed with that. One more advice of his was that the most reasonable money transfer agent was Lloyds.
About the latter, he suggested that I should work in Tokyo better than in London because London is very attractive as ‘Hub’ but it was not as a market. I also sometimes felt the same thing when I went around London because it’s smaller than Tokyo and very mature city.

3. I went to tweintytewntyone’s show room.
In the gallery, the exhibition about ‘eco-bag’ was held and there were some leaflets about fair trade. I feel more strongly that many designers and people who are related with design are deeply interested in environment problems in London than in Tokyo.

twentytwentyone
http://www.twentytwentyone.com/

Money trouble

38^th day 19September2007 Wednesday

1. Try to send money from Tokyo to London.

At first, I thought it was easy, but actually it’s not.

I thought I could send money online, but the most online services of Japanese banks didn’t provide overseas transfer online. I’ve already opened my bank account but I actually couldn’t use it now, so I tried to send money to post office’s bank account of my aunt’s, because the post office’s service was more reasonable than private banks’ in Japan, but there were another problem that the online services of my banks didn’t support transfers to post office’s… so I changed my plan from sending to post office’s to sending to her private bank account and I decided to go to my agent to consult about it the next day.

2. Try to exercise my stock options

But I didn’t have the information for identifying me enough, so I couldn’t complete it. I’ve contacted my company and checked the information, so I’m going to try it again today.

Riverside at night

37th day 18September2007 Tuesday
1. Little party
I held a little party with two friends of mine.
The restaurant “amano” was quite good place.
The Italian food was good taste, price was not so expensive, interior also had good taste.

2. Riverside at night.
After the dinner, we walked along the Thames. It’s quite beautiful.
I like that at night better than that at day. The lighting was really fantastic.

Amano cafe
www.amanocafe.com/

V&A museum

36th day 17SEptempber2oo7 Monday
1. Enrollment
In the morning I went to my college and did the process of the enrollment. Some other students were rejected even because of lacking just one paper for showing their admission.
While I waiting my turn, I saw a student, who majored in the same course with me. He is a Thai and like quite good guy. He has lived in London since the last year, so his good was good. He gave me his telephone number and e-mail address. After I went back home, I sent him e-mail for saying I was happy to see him.

2. V&A museum
After the enrollment, I went V&A museum at South Kensington. It showed some fashion style. At that time, it especially focused on New York style. Honestly speaking, I don’t know well about fashion. There were some clothes that have been quite popular, so if you now saw it you may not be surprised. But when I thought it was the start point, it came to look a great thing because now they are all over the world!!

3. Leister Square
Then, we went to Leister Square for shopping. There was a big department, Peter Jones, and a fashionable shopping mall including Zara etc.

The picture is a statue in South Kensington.

Open House day 2nd

35^th day 16September2007 Sunday

Open House day 2^nd

1. I went to Allies and Morrison Studio.

The interior was very modern because most of the surface was concrete. The guide said it absorbed the heat at day and it cooled down at night. The colors in the building were coordinated with similar colors, which were based on gray. My favorite place was the top floor. That was partially no roof and open.

2. I went to YRM Offices.

This building was the renovation type. The old material were used effectively.

Open House day 1st

34th day 15September2007 Saturday
Today was Open House day, so I visited some places, but I couldn’t enter some of them ‘cause one required me to pre-book, and another had been already full.
1. I visited King’s Place
It had been under construction yet. At first, I thought it was a rare opportunity that I was able to enter the constructed building, but it was difficult to enjoy it ‘cause some ability to imagine the completed image was required. So if you have expertise about constructing building you can enjoy yourself with it, but I didn’t have, it was a good experience though.

2. I visited Barbican Centre and 10 Queen Street Place, but…
The tour in Barbican Centre was a pre-booking type. I overlooked the information on the leaflet. I would like to have seen the inside well because the exterior was interesting.
Then I went to 10 Queen Street Place, but when I arrived there, the tour had been already full. The design of the entrance was very curious, so I felt I lost the good opportunity…

3. Second Life
I saw some news about Second Life, which is the largest online game, in several media in the UK. I wondered if it was focused in London.
In Japan, online games have been getting popular too, but the popular games are based on Japanese language.

Open House
http://openhouse.org.uk/
King’s Place
http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/
Barbican Centre
www.barbican.org.uk/
Queen Street Place
http://www.jra.co.uk/projects/refurbished_offices/queen_street.html
Second Life
http://secondlife.com/

The network bothers me...

33th day 14September2007 Friday
1. To repair my wireless network, but how?
I sent e-mail to my service provider. I don’t know thanks to that, but I could connect the wireless network in the evening. However, I can’t connect it now… My expectation about the cause is IE7.o, so now I use mainly Firefox.

2. To purchase my cell phone.
Not yet. Why? I’ve not needed it yet. And I can’t decide which payment type is better for me, pay as you go or monthly. At first, I thought monthly was better because it was reasonable in general. But do I use a phone as a lot as average people? In Japan, I used it a lot because I had a job and a lot of friends (really?), but now the situation has changed. It is difficult to estimate how long I call.

3. Planning… just this weekend.
In this weekend, Open house, the event that many buildings are open to many people, is held, so in advance I picked up some buildings I’d visit. In order to enter some popular buildings you need pre-booking, but I didn’t because I didn’t know that… I would like to have entered 30 Mary Axe, the building called “Gherkin”.

Open House
http://openhouse.org.uk/
30st Mary Axe
http://www.30stmaryaxe.com/index2.asp

Geffrye Museum

32nd day 13September2007Thursday
1. To go to Geffrye Museum
A friend of mine told me the museum.
It is very good place. I like the open space in front of the museum as well as the collection.
There, you can see a lot of historical lifestyle from the 17th century to the 2oth century. And admission free. You can use also a locker for free. What I was interested in was that as time went by, the design of furniture was getting simpler. Why did that change happened? If space aliens see it, they must strongly wonder about it.

2. To go to 20/21
I couldn’t find it… You should check the road name before your voyage… it is usual thing though…

3. To repair my bicycle
It cost 10 pounds. Just a little expensive…

4. To send e-mail to some friends of mine.
The wireless network in my room hadn’t been working well yet, so I sent them from my favorite coffee shop.

5. Planning
I didn’t…

6. I started dictation training.
For improving my hearing skill.

Bad day..........inspired by Daniel Powter

31st day 12September2007Wendsday
1. Just a bad day.
When I woke up and turned on my room light, the light valve was broken.
When I got out and tried to ride my bicycle, it had got a flat.
When I came back to my room, I couldn’t access the wireless network.
Oh, Fxxx!!

Zaha Hadid

30th day 11September2007 Tuesday
1. I went to the housing services again.
I went there again. I showed my receipt, the staff admitted her mistake and she said that she called the hall manager later.

2. I went to Design Museum
The exhibition about Zaha Hadid who is one of the most famous architects was held. Many works were introduced here, and what I was interested in was the works in eighties. Her drawings at that time looked like polygon models in computer modeling. It reminded me of the image of cyber pank, such as “Nuromancer”.
But most current projects of hers are streamlined. The change is interesting, because I think one of the reasons of her success is her eighties accomplishment. That is, she got attention with the polygon style at first, but her style in nineties and two thousands were changed. The fact that is curious is that she was interested in Velner Panton at the late eighties.
http://www.designmuseum.org/

Offices operations are terrible...

29th day 10September2007 Monday
1. I went to the Japan Embassy to register my address, but…
I forgot my legal address on family registry (In Japan, we have to register it, but there isn’t such a kind of thing in the U.K.), it was required to register my address in London though.

2. I went to the housing services of my university, but…
The reason was that they sent their invoice that included fee that I’d already paid. When I told it to the staff, she reduced the amount, but there was another problem. I had already extended my contract of my room, but she said to me that there was no evidence to have I paid the prepayment. Oh Jesus…, she asked me to show the receipt, but, of course, I didn’t have it because I didn’t expect that problem happened. I have to bring it bring it today.

3. I went to my agent office
This was the first time to visit there. There were some Japanese students and they talked with some staffs about their situation. I didn’t have particular problem to consult them, but now I think I should have thought something to ask.
One staff advised me to take English tests periodically because if you had better score than now, your opportunity got bigger in the future.

4. I went to the National Museum
The main parts had been already closed, but I could enter the center space. The space was huge and the roof was glass. I like that space, because the light from sky was very beautiful.

Home Party!!

28th day 09September2007 Sunday
1. We walked around Primrose Hill.
We went there in the early morning by train because a friend of ours said that we could see “a rich pocket in London”. Around there, there were a lot of houses which looked very expensive. The atmosphere was very quiet.

2. We went to the market of Camden Town.

3. We went to the market of Brick Lane.
We went to a Japanese-food stand in Brick Lane, which a relative of a friend of mine ran. The main menu was Okonomi-yaki. It was a little different from standard type because they contained cheese instead of beef.

4. We went to 30th Mary axe.

5. We joined a home party of a friend of mine
A friend of ours invited us to her home party, so we visited her home. The participant was five, her mother, a friend of hers, her and us. That was very cheerful party. It was very rare for me to be able to enter usual British homes. The friend was a musician and we heard some tunes of hers. They were quite melodious and I felt comfortable during hearing it. That’s really fantastic party!!

What makes some works art

27th day 08Sep2007
The plan of action
To help the moving of a friend of mine.
At first, my friend planned to move in the morning, but the hall keeper wasn’t there in the morning, so the plan changed into the afternoon. I helped her just only with bringing her large baggage.

To guide my friend around London.
After I helped the moving, I went to Piccadilly Circus to see a friend of mine. It took me one and a half hour to get there from my hall on walk.
Since he had already walked around Piccadilly Circus while he was waiting for me, I took him to Big Ben. Then we moved along the Themes and we saw a dancing event. At last, we reached Tate Modern, where the Exhibition of UBS Collection. I expected it was closed, but in Friday and Saturday it was open until 10p.m. I entered there and saw some works, which included Francis Bacon, Marcel Duchamp and Liechtenstein etc.
The friend was interested in why such kinds of works were famous and succeeded. I also have same curiosity and we talked about it during seeing them. He said that he thought the reason of their success was not their skill of creation but that of presentation of their concept.
After that, we went to a restaurant, which has the same name with my family name! I expected the owner of the shop had the same name with me, but the origin was Italian and the name had other meaning. I thought I’d like to be patronage of the bar.
http://www.tate.org.uk/


Hearing training. 26-27
I didn’t finish it…

Clean up my room.
I did. I have to keep it for long time.

Guinness & Retgents Park

26th day 07Sep2007 Fri
What I learned:
1. Margarita is good. Guinness is best.
Yesterday was the last day of my English Class, and it was in Cheer’s bar in Piccadilly Circus. I drank Guinness, Budweiser and Margarita. My favorite is Guinness.
The event (?) was a joint event with another class which the same teacher with us taught. I got to know a Korean girl in the other class.

http://www.budweiser.com/
http://www.guinness.com/gateway/

2. Regents Park in Camden Town is good.
After the event, I moved Regents Park in Camden with some classmates. It’s very good place, some girls did strange dances there though…

3. It is very important to control myself.
I talked with my teacher in the event. When I told her for a laugh that I always drunk too much, she said to me that I tried to control myself. I think so.

4. It is difficult to list what I learned.
I gradually feel this format is not good, because it’s hard to find what I learned sometimes. Mmm…but the problem is that I have no learning point, so changing format is not a proper solution.
I think I should set the goal of the day in advance.

Today’s action:
To help the moving of a friend of mine.
To guide my friend around London.
Hearing training. 26-27
Clean up my room.

Work on appearing more confident

25th day 06Sep2007 Thu
What I learned:
1. Work on appearing more confident. Try to prepare well.
My teacher gave me the feedback about my assessment. In that, she pointed the problem. I was too nervous during my presentation. Good point was my self-criticizing.

2. Double spaced
I didn’t understand the meaning of double space. It means to put space enough to see it clearly and write some comment between lines.

The feeling of funny is mutual around the world

24th day 05Sep2007 Wed
What I learned:
1. Internet Shopping more reasonable than shop in London?
I looked for some websites that sold mobile phones, and I found it and they were very reasonable! Why? They have a great power as selling channels?

2. Stools were symbols of states in ancient ages.
I read "Space Planning" a little. It describes that stools were symbols of states in ancient ages. It is incredible from the current stand point.

3. The feeling of funny is mutual around the world?
I went to pub with my classmate. At first, I worried about the feeling was quite different from each culture, but it was not a big problem.

20st day - 23rd day

20th day 1stSep2007 Sat
What I learned:
1. I watched “Transporter 2”
I think it's better than the first one, but honestly I can't say it's excellent!
Luc Bessons' movie has something very unique. It works sometimes good but sometimes bad.

2. AutoCad2005 doesn't support Windows Vista.
3. Maya has Personal Learning Edition for free.
4. I read a book authored by Papanek
I found Papaneck's "Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change". He was one of designers who were interested in environment problems early.
What I was intested in was the part about education.
He(1st ed. 1971, 2nd ed. 1985: 286) says:

“Surely a student entering a design school of university in September of 1984 must be educated to operate effectively in a professional world starting in 1989, and foreseeably he will reach the height of his professional competence sometime around the year 2009.”

When I apply it to my schedule, I must be educated to operate effectively in a professional world starting in 2008 or 2009, and foreseeably he will reach the height of his professional competence sometime around the year 2028 or 2029.
2029!! What the world will be? But I should think about the future nad set my goal for the long term.

New vocabularies:
ergonomics
study of working conditions.
carnivore ( Cf. hernivore, insectivore, ominivore)
any animal that eats meat
(based by OALD)


21st day 02Sep2007 Sun
1.A struggle with Maya
I had to make some work for my oral assessment, so I tried to do it with Maya. My version is Personal Learning Version, so it has some limitation. For a beginner, it was too difficult to make a good work with it soon, it was good experience.
When I was a high school student, it is about 10 years ago, I had used 3D software called Strata. Maya had a extremely higher performance than that. The progression of Technology is Excellent. But I felt the basic concept of 3D modelling software had not been changed. There are some primitive models, some modelling tools and textures. I don’t know how important the skill of using such kinds of tools is for you, but I felt I will come to create my mages more freely if I master it,
http://www.strata.com/

2. I saw “Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason” for exercising listening British English.
It’s just for girls, so it’s not very interesting for me, but I thought a lot of things.
I had not thought about a gap of status seriously, but if I face the situation that I strongly feel it, what will I think? Embarrassment? In Japan, I had not met that situation, not because I’m in higher class, but the gap is not so important in Japan. (Of course, it may be just my opinion. Other people may have other thought.)
But if my girlfriend is a sort of Celebrity (it seems to hardly happen), what do I have to do?
And Colin Filth’s English is very British.

New Vocabularies:
Shag vt.
To have sex with sb.
At large
(used after a noun) a whole
(of a dangerous person or animal) not captured)
Seduce Cf. produce, deduce, induce, introduce, reduce)
To persuade sb to have sex with you, especially sb who is younger or who has less experience than you.

22nd day 03Sep2007 Mon
What I learned:
1. Preparing for the oral assessment
Today, I used most of time for preparing for the oral assessment. I planed how to use the 10 minutes of the presentation, focused on the main point, repeated rehearsals. You cannot do practices too much.
2. This list must be written as soon as possible.
Otherwise, your memories have vanished.
3. Common knowledge and specific knowledge
Thanks to listing up what I learned, I noticed one thing. That is, in knowledge, there are two types, common knowledge and specific knowledge. Of course, both of them are important, but if I can, I consciously acquire common knowledge.

23rd 04Sep2007 Tue
1. Do practice well and prepare enough for the presentation.
My presentation in the assessment was terrible…but it’s my first presentation in English, so it’ was natural that I became too nervous. The problem is ,that was expectable, so you had to prepare it more carefully.
-Good points:
-To use the example of my class mate as a great artist. He was just a little glad.
-Prepare for the structure and time schedule.
-Bad points:
-I became so nervous that I lost the room in my heart to check the note.
-I skipped some topics.
-At the stage, I changed my expression, but it was a mistake. I couldn’t say it correctly.
-Solution
-10 times rehearsal.
-Training to speech in front of many people in English. (It’s difficult to get chances though)
2. To remove scum before you eat beansprouts.

New vocabularies
lol
Lough out loud
combustion
the process of burning
congestion
the process of becoming crowded
erosion
the process of gradually being destroyed

Push up 380

English Pronunciation in Use 12

The Schedule is very important!

19th day 31Aug2007 Fri
What I learned:
1. The Schedule is very important!
Today, a teacher gave us a print for homework. It is a shot article and humorously explains how significant scheduling your plan is. The author says ‘It is useful to think of yourself as “investing” time’(Andrew Northedge, Managing your study time).
“Investing time”!! It’s a good massage. I’ll try it NOW.
2. Rei Kawakubo – avoiding trend, preferring accident.
I watched a video about fashion history in the English class. In that, Rei Kawakubo, who established Comme des Garcons Co., Ltd, said that the progress of society needs someone who trys new things. In order to do it, you should avoid trend and look for “accidents”.
3. I watched “CRANK”!!
That’s cool!! Now, it’s one of my favorite movies! I like the characters, the rhythm of the move and visual effects.
4. I heard “You know my name”.
It’s the theme song of “Casino Royale” , whose singer is Chris Cornel. It’s very powerful song.
5. I tried carbonara again, but…
I mistook little bit… I tried to warm up my pan, which I think I use for mixing up with pasta and source, with warm water from outside, but water entered inside!!! Oh my god…. It was better taste than yesterday though.