Equation3

I drew 1006 yen from my another unused bank account and closed it. This time I had to wait over half an hour, maybe because I had been leaving that account untouched for nearly ten years.

Now the amount I have to gather for the new coffee mill is 3340 yen. (To be continued...)

Equation2

Today I withdrew all 985 yen from one of my unused bank accounts and closed it. The teller was very kind and the procedure went unexpectedly smooth.

Now the amount I have to gather for the new coffee mill is 4346 yen. (To be continued...)

Solving An Equation

Today I went to BIC Camera and bought the burr coffee mill. It cost me about 5,300 yen (55 dollars.) I am scraping together some money from my dormant bank accounts, so that I can cover the expense. I haven't used the mill yet, I will give it a 'test run' tomorrow.

Bic Camera: Ikebukuro

Bankbooks

I have decided to cancel bank accounts I no longer use. There are at least four (maybe more.) The problem is, for doing so I have to visit branches of each bank during their business hours (usually 9:00-15:00.) To avoid exhaustion, I am planning to cancel an account per week.

How to Organize Your Finances in Four Easy Steps

A Very Small Victory

I confess that I could not swallow powdered medicine without help of a (medical) wafer -- until yesterday. Since I have been suffering mild indigestion for about a week, my husband strongly advised me to take some stomachic. And we have only powder type in stock...

His instructions were:
1)Hold some water in your mouth.
2)Pour the powder into mouth.
3)Then shake your head as if you're saying "No,no,NEVER!"
4)When doing 3, do not forget to keep your mouth shut tight.
5)Quickly swallow down the mixture of medicine and water.

But it sounded too difficult for me. So I simply rolled my tongue, carefully placed medicine in the centre of the tongue and drank a glass of water--and that was it! I had succeeded in swallowing powdered medicine without trouble for the first time in my life.

Tongue Rolling Genetics?

Kingfisher

Today I saw a kingfisher for the first time in my life (see left, in yellow circle.) I had brought my binoculars so I could see it quite clear. It was so beautiful, really shining and it is a shame my photo is so sloppy. It is just impossible to take picture of birds properly with my cigarette-case camera, it takes something like below:

By the way, the location of these photos is by a pond in Hikarigaoka Park (former Grant Heights.)

Farewell, Sweet Sweeper

This week I have been working on clean up my house. At least I have succeeded to organize our 'cleaning locker,' but not so successful at organizing my papers. Somehow the most essential documents are very uncooperative to be filed!
Anyway, I made arrangements to discard some old home electronics (including a vacuum cleaner), and now planning to recycle a full length mirror and a small low table. Haven't I made some progress?

Imagine no possessions (The Japan Times)

Solfege Class (1st)

Today I attended solfege class with other 6 people, for the first time in my life. We did very basic music theory drills, rhythmic dictation exercise, then a melody dictation. I faced two big problems:

1. In rhythmic dictation (teacher plays rhythm patterns with piano using A key only), my brain tries to translate them into Morse code.

2. My hand is too slow at writing down the notes.

I hope things improve little by little...

International Morse Code

Dim Sum Lunch

Yesterday, after BSF, three friends (two ladies from Hong Kong, one Japanese) and I went for a lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Ikebukuro Sunshine City. We had a great time and the food was exquisite, but no photos because I didn't have the nerve to take out my camera in the middle of the posh ambience. What impressed me most was Chinese porridge with dried scallop -- very tasty and absolutely no trace of MSG!

Heichinrou - mainpage

Sharing Day

Today we had BSF 'sharing day' and I was inspired by other ladies' thoughts, for example:

Spend substantial time with old parents in their hometown*

Not only being comfortable receiving encouragement, but to encourage others

*An application of a 'jubilee' year.

Blisters

Today I developed blisters between my toes, and it's very unusual because I am rather fussy about shoes -- I mean, how they FEEL. Maybe it is time to update my shoes (and sandals) lineup. One of what I'm aiming for is MBT (see photo.)

MBT - The anti-shoe.

By the way, I was shocked to learn that Dr.Scholl's does not provide kind of sandals I loved most anymore.

Masked Encounter

Today I visited my doctor. It is very scary for me to enter the hospital building, because in my opinion hospital is one of the most likely places to catch the swine flu. Other dangerous place (or situation) includes public transportation during rush hour. Apart from the flu, I always hate those places...

But I must enter the 'hot zone' because I am running out of my iron pills, Valium, etc. At last, I was called into the exam room, and the doctor was wearing a surgical mask. I was wearing my respirator, too. We exchanged glances, and maybe smiled -- under our masks.

In The Subway

Today I rode the subway in daytime and found about 3 to 5 people (mainly women) out of a dozen in the car were wearing face masks. I also learned that what I bought were actually 'respirators,' not face masks. Until now, I used to believe respirator is some kind of device used for maintaining artificial respiration.

Masks/Respirators

100 Face Masks

This morning I was awakened by a phone call. My husband's boss ordered to go and get face masks but he couldn't find any in pharmacies around the office and rang me up for help. So I ran to a nearby general store and bought 100 particle masks.

What for all these masks? Of course, "To protect workers from swine flu." But the fact is the clients are getting nervous as flu spreads, and the company needs some token gesture to look as if they are doing something. Anyway, I felt quite uncomfortable taking part in this kind of mass hysteria.

Do face masks help prevent swine flu infection? (Los Angeles Times)

Last Class Day

Today was my last class day for BSF, I have completed my 7th year. It is still unbelievable that I could persevere all these years! When I first came into BSF in September 2002, I used to pray every Tuesday evening "God, please enable me to get up in time so that I can attend the BSF class," though I was a non-Christian at that time... Next Wednesday (May 27th) we are having a sharing day.

BSF International

I've Joined 43 Things.

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Tree Hugging Spiritual Extrovert

And just wondering what is this 'tree hugging spiritual extrovert.' They also told me "0.47% of the 143661 people who have taken this quiz are like you."

Twitter

This my room really needs tidying up!
I am going to turn off PC and start to clean this Augean stable...now...

Hello

I have just started to blog in English to kill time.
I have been taking vocal lessons since July 2008, and my blog name is taken from 'Suzuki' who is Madame Butterfly's maid. Bye now!