New year’s day

The year 2017 ended followed by 2018. Writing this way may sound like this year is simply a seamless continuation of the last year. Not quite another year. Well, actually it is not. I was reading a novel, a Sci-Fi titled Solaris the New Year's eve and finished this morning. It was a good book the way it suggests what an absolute alien intelligence is like.
Anthropomorphism is the word for us always interpreting everything we first met from human's aspect. However, another intelligence, if any, should not necessarily be the one we can be familiar with.
Solaris is a planet in a double star system. A bloody red sun rises and sets, then a dazzling blue sun rises. No life had been considered to survive in the planet in such a system since the orbit is unstable and unpredictable (well-known as the three body problem), resulting in the drastic change of climate and weather that would never allow any form of life to be born. After the discovery that the planet Solaris follows a regular orbit, intensive exploration began. The ocean was found to be controlling the orbit in an unknown manner. It looked like the ocean of the Earth； in the way it consists of liquid, occupying most of the planet. However, as we read the book through we get to know it is not something we can understand in our terms of common knowledge. You can call it a form of life or just a material having unique natures. Strangest of all was its capability of mimicking anything. Yes anything including our thought. It seems to reproduce what we have in the deepest of our mind. Weird, right?
The protagonist is sent to the station in Solaris to investigate what is wrong with the staff out there. Something extraordinary must be happening in it.

[:large]

On losing uncle

When I was around 20, I had a reason to drive a car. A girl I got to fall for asked me out for a drive, the moment she knew I'd got a driver's license, for which I used all the money I had. Flat broke I couldn't afford to rent a car. I was at a complete loss.
Then it dawned on me that my uncle owned a car, the stylish Skyline Hardtop 2000GT. I went to his place and asked if I could use his car for two days. He gave a shy smile avoiding eye-contact, his signature look, and handed me the key with warm "good luck". So kind of him.
The drive to the foot of Mt. Fuji was great. We, just like decent young couples, went deep into a forest road, looking for a "romantic" place. I pulled up at what seemed an ideal spot and spent some time in the car looking out at a shining water surface of Motosu lake through the lush green of trees in the dark forest. So far so good. Then we decided to head for our hotel. I backed the car. No, I THOUGHT I backed the car. We heard a strange high-pitch sound coming from under, every time I stepped on the accelerator. I asked her to see what was happening. She walked around the car once and stood beside me. she moved her forefinger in a circle a couple of times, a sign to open the window. When I did by winding the lever anticlockwise several times, she reported to my right ear in a sexy whisper "the back wheels were spinning VIOLENTLY". Now I got it. After the heavy rain the day before, the ground was soft and slippery and my attempt to move the car had gotten the matter worse because the spinning tires had dug 10 cm deep trenches into the ground. I tried to get the car out of the trenches by tapping the peddal one way or another only to make the wheels spin freely while the car moved a little backward and then adamantly returned to the original position. Left alone in a romantic-turned-desolate jungle, we were at a loss.
In the meantime, a sporty black car came up from nowhere. A godsend. In it was a young couple apparently with the same purpose as ours. The driver came out and came up to us. He looked a bit older, a lot sturdier and taller than me. With a quick glance he took in the situation and called out loud for his partner who was still inside the car. When she was out unwillingly she turned out even sturdier than he.
"Hi... Just as you see." I said.
"We'll push the car while you try backing it up." He said.
Back to the driver's seat, I changed the gear to the reverse and stepped on the accelerator , hard this time. The wheels made a screeching sound and the car got out of the ditches. I kept backing the car watching the pushers, the guy and his sturdy girl friend and my delicate-built girl friend, moving further and further away. We made it! I thought. The car gained speed and then with a big "bang" it stopped suddenly. I felt a shock and had my head struck hard onto the headrest. For a moment I didn't know what happened. I looked back. There was a big tree just behind the car. The couple were standing agape with my girlfriend.
Feeling dizzy I managed to get out of the car and staggered over to the rear of the car. There was an ugly, big dent in the fender which propagated into the back of the main body. I was at a loss.
Repairing the car would cost arms and legs. I was totally broke. Maybe I should pay it back in installments. All the worries aside, I thanked the couple anyway who had become quiet.
Perhaps I've written too much and gotten sidetracked. I have to quickly get it straight back to my uncle.
We drove back home that night instead of staying at the hotel. I canceled it with some cancellation fee hoping it could help compensation. Next day I drove the miserable sporty car to my uncle's place. He seemed a bit surprised at my early return. I stuttered out to him what had happened in the forest elaborating on how muddy the ground was after the heavy rain the day before as if the rain must take responsibility for the accident. My uncle listened without uttering a word. Then with a delicate smile without eye-contact, he said
"That's good. At least you didn't get injured."
"But I damaged your car"
"Don't worry. I'll take care."
"I will pay....though in installments."
"You don't have to. I have major responsibility for lending my car to a young man. And I guess the insurance will cover most of the repairing cost."
Thirty years passed and I quit the company I worked with for 28 years when I got an unexpected call from him. He asked of me for some loan. I was dumbfounded because this "some" was something without which I would have had to give up building my new house. It was when I was about to reject his request that I remembered the above episode of my youth. I lent him the money he requested. Of course he paid it back all with some interest in a matter of 3 years.
This is all about my uncle and me. No more or no less.
Two weeks ago he passed away at the age of 83. He suffered seriously from hallucination before he died. He refused any kind of life-support measures.
Rest in peace my dear uncle.

Why

If I write for myself why should I try to write better? The answer came all too simple and easy. To be able to write better English.
My interest has been centering around the improvement of my basic ability and skills, come to think of it. Writing English is one of those skills, which cannot get better without writing it, just like speaking English without speaking it. The difficult part of writing seems that you can't tell whether the stuff you are writing is good or bad.
But rest assured. You will come to know it as you READ English more. You will get to know which word, which expression or which style to use according to the occasion, place, and context. It may be a slow process. So slow that sometimes you'd doubt if it really works.
Believe it. You are also training your power of believing. The power of trust. This must be more fundamental than just acquiring language skills. Belief in goodwill and love of others, of yourself, God's invisible hand....

Morning Sun Light thrusts deep

Good

Good, I decided yesterday to write disjointed articles again; I mean to write whatever crosses my mind. But to whom? For what? Why in English?
During my absence, I guess I lost all the readers who at least visited this website as many as 280000 (enormous number, to think) times in total. Once lost they will never come back, I am sure. With all the blogs teeming increasingly in the Internet universe, why should they work their way to my blog? Fat chance.
Then I will write for no one. Perhaps for myself.
Stone-paved road in the Roman city of Pompeii. In the middle and to the left were meant to be stepping stones with flat top when the road was flooded. Between them you can see a rut.

Hi

Hi
What a surprise! I believe I deleted all this blog about a year ago. But today I happened to find it was still left intact. As I embrace the power of fate, it doesn't seem a bad idea to resume the blog.
Four years have past since I posted the morbid article. As a matter of fact I have been sick in a way and quite healthy in another; sick as a dog during night and fit as a fiddle during the day, that is. In short I was suffering a serious insomnia. Serious because when I fall asleep, I got a hot flash with plenty of perspiration and woke up with shivers.
Ok, enough of whining. I'm fine now anyway.

What’s happening to me?

It's been some time, again, since I wrote last. In the meantime, I was going through something of a predicament.
In the middle of November last year, when I was talking with my clients at a meeting, I felt a hot flush in my face. I didn't care so much then, but when I went to the restroom and looked into a mirror, I found red rashes in my neck. "What's this?" I wondered but forgot about it until I was back home. The moment I took off my undershirt to take a bath, I was shocked to see the rashes spread all over my body. Something was definitely wrong with me!
The next day I went to see a doctor, who told me there were three possible causes for this type of rashes, the last one of which shocked me.
"Something might be wrong with your internal organs."
"What possibly might it be?" I asked him. Instead of answering my question he said.
"You look thinner than I saw you last. Don't you?"
"Now that you mention it, yes, I somehow lost my weight by 1 kilo in a matter of a month without doing anything special."
"Hmmm, You need to take a blood test."
"For what?"
"For something like liver functions and......"
" and what!!!?"
"And cancer markers."

• • • to be continued ----

Now three of them

Here are 3 electronic book readers. Bred itself? Here's the purchase history.
It began when I bought Rakuten Kobo-touch on the day it was launched. It really enlightened me and opened my eyes to the world of a new reading life. But this particular device had problems I mentioned in the last post. I consulted Kobo help-desk staff on its terribly slow response. After several suggestions over one thing or another which I tried all in vain, they decided to replace it with a new one. However, as I talked with the Kobo staff and got tired of it, I gradually wanted to give up on the use of this Kobo tablet.
In the meantime, Sony released a new book reader, type PRS-T2. I was quick to buy one before Kobo staff sent the replacement. It was 2 thousand yen more expensive than Kobo-touch but it turned out worth it. It was simpler and faster in sorting downloaded books, its firmware and PC application software far faster and easier to use and it came with a stylus pen (It doesn't have to be this pen. You can use anything with a pointed head, while Kobo cannot). I liked it, so much so that, looking at my indulgence, my wife wanted another sony too ( the red one with a stylus pen and book cover). Then the new Kobo-touch came (middle in the picture), this time without a slow response problem. So... I can use it too.
In conclusion Sony PRS-T2 is better than Kobo-touch in every respect but one serious drawback for me. The e-book store run by Sony (named Reader Store) does not deal with English e-books. What a shame, considering that the reader tablet has a good English-Japanese dictionary (when to use it if there's no English contents?). Kobo e-book store boasts a broad range of digital book contents in English (Perhaps because Rakuten bought a Canadian company the name of which was Kobo). Unfortunately and naturally, the books downloaded on the Kobo tablet cannot be read with Sony readers (the reverse is also true).
So I am using both of them. The three readers are all needed after all. Now I'm reading Somerset Maugham. "The hero" was really good. You can download his books from Project Gutenberg for free^^;