English Recordings

“Food combining” is a commonly accepted notion in the Orient. This suggests that we eat only specific combinations of foods in the same meal that are suited for each other. This is because a certain type of food has effect to neutralize a digestive problem caused by another, making our body balanced, which is based on the concept of “yin and yang”. Therefore, we naturally welcome a beverage which has a function of cutting the grease when eating fatty foods. Oolong tea is a well-known beverage which helps burning fat in Japan. However, judging from western people’s point of view, they seem not to accept such an idea.

The women on the 6th Floor is a French film, set in Paris in 1962. The women in question are Spanish maids, working for middle-class French families, when Frenco is still in power in Spain and de Gaulle still rules France. The traditional values of both cultures remain strong, even among the Spanish refugees coming to France. The maids are devoutly Catholic, rather more so than the French people they serve. They are less educated, more earthy, more "communal". They are Spanish people as the French generally perceive them.

Maria arrives on a bus to find a job. She will stay with her aunt, the mother figure of the group. Maria is in her late 20s, younger then most of other maids. She is pretty and shy, but they make her welcome.
Theire toilets are blocked and there is no hot water in this part of the building, but they make do.

Last Titanic survivor gets donation from "Titanic" movie stars.

Movie stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, and the director of the 1997 movie “Titanic”, James Cameron donated £22,000 (about $30,000) towards the nursing home fees of the last Titanic survivor.
Millvina Dean is now 97 years old. She was the Titanic’s youngest passenger at nine weeks old when the liner sank in 1912. Her father perished after saving his wife, young son and baby daughter and his body was never recovered. Miss Dean's mother returned from New York with her children to the UK where she has spent most of her life.
Miss Dean has been struggling with monthly bills of £3,000 and is in danger of losing her room at her nursing home. She never married so she has no family to take care of her.
An Irish author and photographer, Don Mullan, publicly asked the "Titanic" stars and director of the movie to give their support to the last Titanic survivor. "There are people including director James Cameron and actors Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, and Canadian singer Celine Dion who have made enormous profits from the Titanic story and I believe they can and, morally, should help," said Mr Mullan. He is still waiting on a response from Dion, who won an Oscar for performing the film’s theme song, “My Heart Will Go On”.

How Stretching Can Improve Your Fitness Level

Many people skip stretching after a workout, but there are very good reasons for completing even a few stretching exercises.

With all the emphasis on cardiovascular exercise and weight training, it's easy for stretching to be an afterthought to your workout routine. But putting some effort to it consistently can help you in many ways.

Benefits of Stretching

The obvious benefit of stretching is improved flexibility. This helps your muscles perform better even when doing regular, everyday activities. Stretching does more than just this, however.

Stretching improves the range of motion in your joints, which can help prevent injuries.
Stretching improves the blood circulation,　which can help your muscles heal faster after injuries.
If you've just done a difficult workout, stretching the muscles you just used can reduce soreness.
Stretching is relaxing and feels good. Taking the time to stretch after a workout helps bring down your heart rate, loosen your muscles and melt stress away.

There's an interesting story.
Some time ago I met a person who had been dedicating himself to spreading Japanese tea ceremony for about 40 years in New York.He said he had a surefire story which makes American people understand how wonderful Japanese tea ceremony is. Houses in America are generally much larger than those in Japan. However, no matter how big a house they may live in, they feel crammed if they always have quarrels with their family.
A Japanese tea house is physically very small, but has a harmonious atmosphere among those who attend the ceremony. In other words, they even feel infinite space in such a small room.
Even high ranking samurais were never allowed to bring their fighting equipment such as swords, Katana in Japanese, into a tea house. Similarly, when we design, we tend to balance the overall designs instead of highlighting an icon, I suppose.

I think American package designs seem to be based on a strong and easily-deployable icon.
On the other hand, in many Japanese drinks, the whole package design, which is made up of various elements such as a bottle shape, color, and a logtype seems to become an icon for the brand.
There are some factors causing this difference in their design methods, I suppose.
One of the factors is, I think, that we don’t divide design work among us designers. As it’s often the case in Japan that one designer is responsible for the entire process from a bottle design all the way through to a label design, we tend to create a distinctive brand identity by effectively using each element such as bottle shapes, color, and logotype.Therefore, the icon itself in our design isn’t unique that much, but the entire design turn out to be distinctive in the end because all the elements are combined well with each other.
Another reason is I think that our designs are strongly influenced by the notion of harmony.
We have valued harmony since early times.
Japan is a small country, and plains cover only 27 % of the total land area.
We have no choice but to harmonize with people and nature in order to live in such a limited space.

May: The Rose Season

We(/ Some people) / call May the ‘A rose season’. I stopped by my sisiter`s house on my way home in the late afternoon yesterday. As I was walking to the elevator after parking my car, I saw the roses swaying lightly in the May breeze. Yay, now it`s rose season. It`s a really amazing that beautiful flowers are blooming after starting life from a little seed. It`s one of the secrets of nature .

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

(Yesterday, my laptop computer was out of order, so I borrowed my husband's laptop while he wasn't using it. It's inconvenient to write my diary entry with it.)

Today, I read the transcript of Steve Jobs' speech at the Stanford commencement. Actually, this is the first time I've read it from beginning to end.(I had just read parts of it.) The main reason why I read it in its the entirety is that my husband was inspired by it once again, and urged me to read it too.

Steve Jobs' speech is well-organized and consists of three stories from his life. In a nutshell, he had to drop out college due to the high tuition, so he could sit on the typeface class which he was interested in, as a result, he used it for the multiple typefaces of Mac. Thus, he urged the graduates to trust themselves to connect the dots for their future. When he was 30, he got fired by someone whom he had hired while his company, Apple, was growing well. Even though he was very depressed, he realized that he still loved what he did. Then he started two other companies, NeXT and Pixar. He grew from this experience. Therefore he urged the graduates to keep searching for what they love. In addition, he got cancer and almost died. Through surgery, he was cured. He insisted that not waste living someone else's life, and not live according to what other people think, and just have the courage to follow their own inner voice because time is limited. In the end, he finished his speech with this quotation, "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish"

After reading it, I came to respect him more, because he overcame his fear of the future and discovered that he wanted to do when he was down. He went through tough time, but he used what he learned to grow stronger. Whenever I feel depressed or hopeless about my future, I'd like to remind myself to his speech.

(May 14th 2010)a ball game
These kids are playing a ball game.
They are raising up their arms high and passing a ball to the back (of the line), then after, they have to pass that ball back to the front by passing it under their legs.
All of the kids are playing very seriously.
This is a picture of children playing the game today.
Oh, Tomorrow is the last day that I teach them.

"I have bags under my eyes, don't I?"

Situation :

You didn't sleep very much last night. Today you think that you look tired. You ask your friend to find out how bad you really look.