Kakuta Haruo---Decoding Japan---

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Location: Sakai, Osaka, Japan

Saturday, February 20, 2010

January, 2010

Friday, January the 1st, 2010

The New Year's day is very windy and cold.

Saturday, January the 2nd, 2010

The second day of the year is much warmer than yesterday.

Semantic memory may be what episodic memory has been universalized to be, or what episodic memory has been proceduralized to be. Or, it might be what we have made good use of both episodic memory and procedural memory to work out abstract cognitive activities, or to meet academic affairs.

Semantic memory might be what episodic memory's entries have been abstracted to be to meet academic needs.

Sunday, January the 3rd, 2010

The first Sunday of the year is a rather warm day. This year's first CD I hear from the Bach's complete works is the first disc of Matthew's Passion (in 3 discs) conducted by Helmuth Rilling. What a coincident! I might be lucky this year.

Monday, January the 4th, 2010

The first workday, after 6 days of New Year holidays, clearly revealed the eastern mountains. The air is clear without the 6 days' industrial activities. During the 6 days, however, service industry was quick to start again. Many opened on the 2nd; some even on the 1st. I wonder if we can still call it a holiday season, when the society has been tertiary-industrialized. During the season, most hotels are, as a matter of fact, open. Most chain restaurants are open.

Tuesday, January the 5th, 2010

I found a fractal in the east sky, the shining edges of the winter clouds.

The second work day of the new year has ended with the cold and hard winds.

Wednesday, January the 6th, 2010

Eastern dark gray clouds are divided into two: the upper ones and the bottom ones. The bottom ones conceals the eastern mountains which used to be clearly seen on New Year holidays. The industry activities have started. So have our educational industry activities.

Thursday, January the 7th, 2010

Today's winter gray clouds have narrower zigzag breaks, which don't show the sky. Yet, there should be a clear sky above them all.

Such being the heaven, the world is not so bright. With a fewer students on the platform yet, the world seems a little bit dim. When will the world really start, if it is ever to start?

Friday, January the 8th, 2010

The morning winter clouds were, of course, gray, but had brightly orange-colored edges around them. I could even find white-colored clouds above them. Even the winter has its bright side.

Saturday, January the 9th, 2010

How can I improve my English communication both quantitatively and qualitatively? I have focused on improving my English proficiency, and have made a certain progress. How can I make more progress? Or, what is the next step of the progress?

My first club Saturday of the year finished closing school buildings and gym. Not so bad. Not so bad.

Sunday, January the 10th, 2010

It's a fine morning.

We walked out of Oe-bashi Station to find the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka is still a station away. As it was fine and not so cold, we made up our minds to walk eastward along the Naka-no-shima Island toward the museum. When you walk along the island, you can find some retro modern buildings. The Osaka Prefectural Nakanoshima Library and the Osaka Central Public Hall were on our way.

Monday, January the 11th, 2010

It's cloudy this morning.

Celadon is pottery or, more specifically speaking, porcelain known with its light (sometimes greenish) blue color, the color of jade. As Chinese court people loved jade, they valued the earthenware highly. Those of Ru Ware were appraised with their sky blue color.

Tuesday, January the 12th, 2010

It’s overwhelmingly cloudy. The heaven is almost a cloud. The cloud is dotted with orange-color street lights, not with the orange-color morning sun light.

The first class day of the week has finished with the end of the cold rain. I wonder if it will be warmer tomorrow. No hope?

Wednesday, January the 13th, 2010

A cold morning. Colder than it used to be for a week or so. It is the dead of winter. I doubt if it will be better in the day as we are told to have a couple of colder days ahead.

The tram is crowded again, as we have entered our second school week after the winter holidays. The Coming-of-age Day weekend has finished, and we are supposed to work in full throttle.

Thursday, January the 14th, 2010

Gray. Gray. Gray. Even the winter cold winds look gray. It's a relief to find a few tops of the clouds shone in morning orange colors.

Friday, January the 15th, 2010

The socialization of non-elite rising generation is an agenda. I think that of non-elite non-poor rising generation should be an agenda.

Saturday, January the 16th, 2010

It's off today, although I have to go to school to take care of the club. Anyway, It's a relief to have an off.

I'm waiting for the 13:22 train at Mozu Station. The wind is cold, but still lets me feel it's daytime.

Tuesday, January the 19th, 2010

The east bottom deep purple gradates into light grayish blue toward the top of the winter morning heaven. Is Shu Uemura's eyelash curler another new type of Four Treasures of Study?

Four Treasures of the Study is an expression used to denote the brush, ink, paper and ink stone used in the literal traditions in Chinese and other East Asian countries. The name appears to originate in the time of the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589 AD). Classical scholars had more than just the Four treasures in their studies. The other "Treasures" include the brush-holder, brush-hanger, paperweights, the brush-rinsing pot, and the seal and seal-ink.

Bookmen and penmen in East Asia used to love beautiful stationaries like those. The love has not been severed even by the modernization, but rather might have been passed on to today's young ladies, who love a toilet set in her vanity bag, treasured like FTSs.

Wednesday, January the 20th, 2010

Epistemological errors could be found anywhere. They are unavoidable when the society is so complicated that anyone needs to make deductive cognition to be socialized. Some biased ideology might steal into the cognitive process.

Fight or flight? Some high school graduates are actually fighting; the others are making their flight somehow or other. Beyond the psychological conflict between fight and flight, can we expect the development of today's humans?

Thursday, January the 21st, 2010

A rainy morning with the less occupied tram. Because of the rain? Or because of the delay caused by the rain?

Friday, January the 22nd, 2010

I saw the homeless DVD and NEET 30s' TV program yesterday. It was a good timing. The doctrine or mantra of self-responsibility is at issue. I don't think we can return to the communalism.

Saturday, January the 23rd, 2010

A fine morning with no class gives me a little bit of relief. If "once a social category has been activated it plays an important part in subsequent information processing." (Miles Hewstone and C. Neil Macrae, 'Social Cognition', "The Blackwell Dictionary of Cognitive Psychology", 1990, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK, p.338)

We can say memorizing vocabulary along themes, that is employing “Content-based Vocabulary,” has a significant meaning.

Learning to read and write English is to be socialized into English-speaking communities. When you read or write, your lexicon will be utilized especially along the theme-line you are reading or writing. Lexicon will be activated by the category. If you remember lexicon by the category, they might be activated more easily.

Sunday, January the 24th, 2010

A fine morning with the last night's stressful dream.

The words and idioms learned, or lexicons, or lexemes, are naturally clustered along themes, or under categories. Will learning words and idioms by the category help their storage and retrieval?

"Finally, errors reveal that the different levels of planning are largely analogous; all involve inserting elements into frames." (Carol A. Foler, 'Speech Production', "The Blackwell Dictionary of Cognitive Psychology", 1990, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK, p.346) This "inserting elements into frames" might be the reason why native speakers' errors can be "understandable" for other native speakers, while those of non-native speakers are hard to be understood by native speakers: we make errors even in "frames."

"Writing is only 5000 or so years old, and until recently the skill of writing was possessed by only a small minority of individuals, even in literate societies. Only within the last hundred years has the expectation arisen that all members of an advanced society will be able to both read and write. When considering the problems children now experience in learning to spell, we should bear in mind the fact that the English spelling system was not designed with ease of learning for the general population in mind. Given that we spend perhaps a dozen years learning to write, then 60 practicing the skill, it could be argued that the design features of writing systems should still be biased toward the expert rather than the novice writer." (Andrew W. Ellis, 'Spelling', "The Blackwell Dictionary of Cognitive Psychology", 1990, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK, p.347)

The same could be said even about learning Japanese writing system.

Monday, January the 26th, 2010

Eastern clouds are not those of winter any more. They are shone more brightly than they were a week ago. The big tangerine can be seen through winter bare trees. It is a morning rather than a dawn.

Tuesday, January the 27th, 2010

Even the purple clouds in the east, shone with bright tangerine colors, suggest the spring is coming in the heaven. How about on the ground?

Wednesday, January the 28th, 2010

The clear Eastern sky reveals its preparation for the New Spring. According to the Luna calendar, we are having the New Spring or the New Year with after a couple of weeks. We should be under the preparation traditionally.

Friday, January the 29th, 2010

Grayish purple clouds are floating over the grayish purple eastern mountains. In between are filled with light orange colors.

Saturday, January the 30th, 2010

A rather warm morning we have on the second last day of the first month of the year 2010. Is that because I woke up later than on weekdays?

Where should we visit in spring holidays? Himeji or Tomo-no-ura in the west? Kasagi-yama or Kitabatake's castle ruin in Mie in the east? Maybe, one of those museums in the north? No south, by any remote chance.

Sunday, January the 31st, 2010

The last day of the first month of the year is cloudy, which implicates … nothing.

The way to Makiochi, Mino is the one I took several times. That has the one between Umeda and Ishibashi en route. Even today, I miss the route.

It had started raining on the way to Osaka along the loop line, and I was a little bit showered on the overpass between JR Osaka Station and Hankyu Umeda Station. It was OK. I walked without myself under the cover of my umbrella. Can Japan walk without the cover of the US someday?

The winds of brass have blew through me, and I'm sitting on a seat at Makiochi Station. On my right, I can see the mountains of Mino which has a waterfall in them.

On my way back, I dropped in Bagel & Bagel for lunch, instead of dining out in Hankyu International Hotel. The change is that of between 780 yen and 2000. If it were not raining outside, I might have chosen the hotel lunch. However, the bagel chicken and burdock sandwich I had was delicious enough not to feel regret. The bagel was that with soy milk and green soy beens.

They didn't sell doughnuts with bean curd refuse in the Umeda branch of Ikari Supermarket. Why? It's not clear. I had no choice but to buy 5 loafs of bread and some Danish pastry with almond chocolate in them.

"A network is a system of nodes and pointers; the nodes represent concepts, the pointers represent the relations between the concepts." (Wietske Noordman-Vonk, "Retrieval from Semantic Memory", Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 1979, New York, p.4) "In the most parsimonious version of a network model, semantic similarity between two concepts is represented as the distance between the concepts. The distance is expressed by the number of intermediate nodes between the concepts. Similarity is inversely related to the distance." (do., p.4/5) Those mean that each concept is not only a concept node but also a node which connects other concept nodes. They are connected, and are connectors as well.

December, 2009

Tuesday, December the 1st, 2009

The whitey tangerine sun light is beaming toward me. Can my brain be activated or vitalized as an advertisement in the tram station suggests? Or is it possible only for younger brains?

I'm taking a three-hour paid leave, and taking a train for Hineno in the warm sunny afternoon. Passengers are scattered in the seats here and there on the train. The sun dipping westward gives us soft warm beams. A beam shoots an old woman's cheek. Another beam puts a spotlight on my PC.

It is very important to determine how we see the world, as “what you measure is what you get.”

Wednesday, December the 2nd, 2009

Today has today's burden. The morning has the morning burden, while the afternoon has its own. Why should I worry about the burdens a couple of hours away?

Thursday, December the 3rd, 2009

The second day of the exam week is cloudy. Some of the patterned leaves have started falling. No wonder the season is called fall. Although my brains has kept being cloddish, that has given it some break.

When we talk about English literacy or English proficiency, we are talking about industrial one and academic one. In other words, we have Industrial English Literacy and Academic English Literacy. The former has 10-year span of outlook; the latter 5-year.

Saturday, December the 5th, 2009

The day after health check. Barium has become troublesome in my fifties. When I take it, I feel choked. Later, I feel it moving along my intestines.

The non-productive day has passed, annoyed with the barium. When I die, I may die with barium.

Monday, December the 7th, 2009

It's a cold morning with the bright golden sun shine beaming into every Eastward leaf. I'm sitting Eastward on the tram with the backlighted Winter clouds in my sight. The directions and seasons sound proper nouns this morning.

Tuesday, December the 8th, 2009

The orange colors are vaporing in the east, having autumn-colored trees more colored.

Or: The orange colors are vaporing in the east, with the autumn-colored trees more colored.

Either way, the season is making its way into the next version, winter.

Wednesday, December the 9th, 2009

I sat westward in this morning's tram, ans had seen a beautiful dream before the midnight. Cherry blossoms were full with some young green leaves. I could see them through the inner gate, and, when I went though the gate, I found them in panorama. Today is the first class day after the exam week.

Thursday, December the 10th, 2009

Warm orange colors are rising up in the brownly-shed tree leaves. They are the reflection of the huge candle light one astronomic unit away.

Friday, December the 11th, 2009

Rain drops. The autumn leaves drop as it drops.

Monday, December the 14th, 2009

After the day, when I am taking a tram, the darkness is pressing to the windows, with some cold air passing through the cracks.

Tuesday, December the 15th, 2009

Autumnly shining leaves have fallen with their trees prepared for the coming winter. Yet, even the winterly gray clouds have their shining sides. The high rises in the morning aureole have even brighter windows reflecting the sunshine.

Wednesday, December the 16th, 2009

20 years have passed, canopied with today's winter rainy heaven, whose brighter center is surrounded with the darker blueish lower sky.

The time it was.....

The time has come to retreat: retreat from this, and retreat from that; while others are still hoping me to advance.

Thursday, December the 17th, 2009

The first day of the 21st year is a fairly cold day. Long ago,it must be...

Yes, it has been so cold today. It's almost freezing. Once, it even snowed a little. Can I keep on working hard even tomorrow?

Friday, December the 18th, 2009

Such a cold morning is it! It's almost mid winter. Wintry grayish sky has almost reached the heaven with the tiny top brightly lit by the morning sun from their reverse. As I run northward on the morning train, it has become brighter and east mountains have revealed their ridge lines. It is a morning.

Saturday,December the 19th, 2009

Another freezing day with bitterly cold winds.

Sunday, December the 20th, 2009

Another windy day.

Monday, December the 21st, 2009

The heaven looked densely crowded with wintry grayish clouds without any open which lets sun shine come through. As I walked to the station, I found the north heaven open with several groups of shining clouds, shining whitely and orangely with the morning sun light. In Ten'noji, another building was revealing itself, with or without hope for its prosperity.

Tuesday, December the 22nd, 2009

The bloody red rowan tree is dimly lit by the sun light through bony withered trees.

Thursday, December the 24th, 2009

A foggy morning with the mountain ash tree dimly giving off its own light. When can I get at peace and bright?

Friday, December the 25th, 2009

Just about an hour's drive brought us into the parking which we had planned to park our car. We got off the car, and walked for a while toward the station to find a rental properties agent, which was not the one we had planned to visit though. We didn't care, but called by into the office.

A young male salesclerk, who was making a phone call, recognized us and passed his recognition onto another middle-aged female clerk. She welcomed us with a cup of hot roasted tea, and our quest for lodgings started.

Monday, December the 28th, 2009

A cloudy morning with some rain earlier at the dawn. On my way to school on a tram, the dawn finally broke, and the sun brought some light onto the world.

Thursday, December the 31st, 2009

A very windy day. The last day of the year 2009, or the last day of the first 9 years of the 21st century, is a very cold windy day.

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Rokuyo

The rokuyo are 6 days on the traditional calendar. Traditionally, we have 2 ways to divide a month into some parts for the convenience of counting: jun and rokuyo. When we divide a month into 3 parts with 10 days, the parts have the names: jojun (the first 10 days), chujun (the middle 10 days), and gejun (the last 10 days). When we divide a month into 5 parts of 6 days, each day of the 6 days has its own name this time, and the days usually come in the following order: sensho, tomobiki, senbu, butsumetsu, taian, and shakko.
The 6 days used to not have anything to do with determining good or bad luck. Superstitious fortunetelling data, however, was prohibited to be written in calendars by the Meiji Restoration Government from the viewpoint of modernization, while rokuyo were kept untouched, being considered as a counting system. The fortunetelling-loving Japanese people picked up the rokuyo system to determine good or bad luck.
Sensho (also pronounced senkachi, sakigachi, or sakikachi) is said to be a good day for urgent tasks and lawsuits. The day is also said to bring you good luck in the morning, and bad luck between 2 pm and 6pm.
Tomobiki is said to be a day on which nothing should be settled, but is also believed to bring you good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon, and very good luck in the evening. As tomo sounds the same as the Japanese word friend, and biki sounds like pulling, there is also a tradition of avoiding funerals on this day. It sounds like a typical old-guy joke.
Senbu (also pronounced senpu, senmake, or sakimake) used to be believed to be a lucky day, but, from its sound again, is said to be a bad day for urgent tasks and lawsuits, or to bring you bad luck in the morning, and good luck in the afternoon.
Butsumetsu is said to be a completely unlucky day. The day is usually avoided for weddings and other celebrations. As Buddha prohibited fortunetelling, this belief has nothing to do with Buddhism.
Taian (also pronounced daian) is said to be the luckiest day, and people often choose it for celebrations. Many weddings are held on Sundays that are also taian. Some say that the day used to be considered a rest day, something like the Sabbath.
Shakko (also pronounced shakku, jakku, jakko, or sekiguchi) is said to be an unlucky day, with only noon (between 11 and 1) being a lucky time.
There is a rule to decide the rokuyo name of each day. The names’ order is, as already shown above: sensho, tomobiki, senbu, butsumetsu, taian, and shakko. In the traditional lunar calendar, January and July start with sensho, February and August with tomobiki, March and September with senbu, April and October with butsumetsu, May and November with taian, and June and December with shakko. When you find the 6 names on today’s solar calendar, they sometimes, as a matter of course, skip, which has made the system more mysterious-looking.
This school year finds our school’s entrance examination to be held on February 23, butsumetsu, and its graduation ceremony on March 3, shakko. Do you find them lucky, or unlucky?