For no particular reason, I decided that I would poke around to learn more about a language called Python. What is great about this language is that it is an interpretive language with variables that can be dynamically be typed. What is means in normal English is that Python is a language that doesn't need to be compiled into a .exe program before running, but actually be run as a text-file that can do a very wide variety of tasks. In addition, the language intepreter automatically knows how to deal with what data you put into the program instead of you telling what kind of data you are putting into every variable.
Why is this good? This isn't just good, but it's excellent because you don't need to keep lists of your own modules and compile them into a .exe program to run. If you need to make changes, you don't have to recompile the program-- you just make your changes and run it immediately. It's quick and good... and getting things done quick and good is always a good thing!
My first introduction into an interpretive computer language was Matlab, a math simulation software package which I've used for image and acoustic processing. I would further my work with this software by implementing robotic tracking algorithms (using probability), simulating differential equations and even writing my own poker game as extra projects (or class inspired projects). But this is a slight tangent...
What I would find today while surfing on net is a company that developed a packaged software to make installing python and developing code easier by a bunch of people running a very successful looking company out of BC. More interestingly the CEO is an Engineer, the CTO has BA in Physics and a PH.D in cognitive science, the business and project management guy has a physics degree and there are a bunch more with degrees in Computer science and physics.
What first struck me first is how did a a large chunk of senior management people out of physics make it into a computer software company? Then it struck me that people don't necessarly have to be exactly the things they were trained to do.
For even me as a person that studied Engineering Physics with a specialization in electrical engineering in my undergraduate life, I have so far looked at various problems that are not directly in my field of training. I have worked in a robotics lab building circuitry for a motor control system (unfortuately it didn't work 100%), I've done image processing work (including tracking targets in 3D), I've programmed a robot tracking technique out of description out of some research paper and a few other things that I haven't been directly trained to do.
As I realize now, that my background (as much as I didn't understand it at the time) is providing me with the tools to leap into other problems that are not directly related to my specialty, as I have noticed from these people. This is important, because you can't be trained for problems in the real world-- there are always going to be ones popping that you've never seen before all the time. But what you can be, is trained with experience in dealing with problems you've never seen to deal with more of the same. That is exceptionally empowering because you're never going to be working on the same thing forever; and when something new pops up, you'll have enough background to get started and work in many different fields.
My hat is off to these guys.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Attracting, Creating and Keeping Educated People is Essential
More Money isn't the Solution
There has oft been talk about ways of improving the economy, develping new technology and improving life in general. Governments often talk about spending more money at problems, more money to health care, more money to infrastructure, more money to all sorts of programs. What if, one day you stripped society of money-- simply, what if money stoped existing, what would you have left? What is left is the people that do the work to make things work. Money isn't the resource that its key, it's people.
It's Human Resources
Simply having money does not generate wealth. Financial managers realize this the best. When these people look at investing the hard earned money of other people what they are looking for are the right group of people with the right kind of ideas to make them reality. We are talking about people, it has always been about people and it will always be about people. There is a specific reason why the US in the past has been so innovative in terms of technology-- it was for the "American Dream" and the open immigration policies that attracted people to the States. The important thing was that America at the time attracted all sorts of people because it had the image of a desirable place to live, most importantly, it also attracted highly determined and skilled people. If it were not for the right kind of people, the States would not be where it is today.
I am fortunate to say that I have had the opportunity to study in a different educational institution in a totally different country. I studied at the University of British Columbia which is currently ranked 37 th in the world and I am currently at Tohoku University which is ranked 73rd in the world (source). There is a significant difference in world rankings and after coming to this University I realize why. The university and student culture is totally different from where I was before. The students in terms of background knowledge are significantly weaker compared to those at UBC. In fact it is of my humble opinion that the university educational system is signficantly inferior compared to the North American model in terms of producing knowledgable students. When it comes to producting good and interesting work, the culture of people around you is essential.
For anyone that has worked on group projects or part of a team, it is evident that the quality of the members have a signficant impact of the quality of the finished product. This is something that everyone since junior high school knows-- either you partner with friends or you partner with people that you know have a history of doing good work (the collary is true for deciding which people you will not partner with). When it comes to University research, starting a company or working with people on a good will project--the deciding factor is the people that get things to work.
The Compounding (or Positivie Feedback) Effect
For people that studied control theory or differential equations or have a bank account, you will understand this. In terms of money, if you have money in your bank account, you earn interest on that money. You take that money and the interest to earn more interest. What happens is that the growth of your money is exponential and it explodes over a period of time. This is the what is known as compounding. This is true in theory, but we get shafted on the interest rates. People on the other hand, have far better compounding rates and let me explain why (and no, I'm not talking about reproductive compounding).
When I talk about skilled people, I am going narrow the discussion of highly applied and educated people. Let me pose this discussion in the frame of universities. There is a reason why good universities are the breeding grounds of successful companies (which are the result of skilled people). Good universities are the hub where skilled individuals converge. The better the university the more skilled the people there.
Places with skilled people attract skilled people. There are 2 reasons why this occurs. Firstly, skilled people want to learn from skilled people (ie. their professors). When you choose a university institution you usually want to go for the best possbile because the better the people are the more you will learn from them. People with less knowledge and skill will obviously have less to teach. Secondly, what most students may or may not realize is that going to good universities will allow them to interact with other skilled people (ie. their peers), possibly learning and working with them. Putting it this way, suppose that you had a group of 10,000 very skilled people, every person would be able to interact with 9,999 other very talented people, not that they would interact with them all. Being exposed to a large pool of talented people only further increases the the amount of interesting things they may learn. If people are resources, then this is important.
As a reminder of warning, simply just being at a good insitution does not mean that you will automatically become a highly skilled individual. There is an element of personal drive which I have not mentioned but assumed that everyone carries.
The end result is that good universties attract skilled people, which in turn trains these people to become even more skilled. This is the compounding effect. But what of other institutions that aren't near the top? Unfortunately, for these institutions, the few skilled people they create often move on into better institutions. These places face the opposite compounding effects or negative feedback.
Success is Achieving Positive Feedback
When you want to build anything successful, whether it be a company, university or a country, you need the right people and there are only 2 ways that you can get them-- either creating them or attracting them. The second problem that needs to be addressed is keeping them. When these two conditions are achieved then you can achieve whatever in your grasp and keep going from there. This is the creation of a successful system-- the founders of Google understood this. If there is one shortage that Silicon Valley faces right now, it's skilled people that are outside of Google, because they've been getting their hands on the most skilled people-- it's the people that makes them successful; search and web advertising was done before, its the way they do it that makes them successful! The question that needs to be addressed is the creation of an organization that attracts skilled people-- places like MIT, Harvard, UofT, Google and more.
Creating a place of skilled people first starts with training skilled people. Where this begins is the education system, more in particular the secondary education system and to an extent the post secondary system. What is needed is an environment where people can become skilled. Schools don't teach people how to be skilled nor do they make skilled people (or even people that want to be skilled). People organically become what they are, the things that they currently do are learned outside of school. Most people that got good at the things they did so through this route, whether it be programming, music, painting, math, design, whatever. The real winners are the ones that knew what they liked, what they wanted to be good at and went off and did it on their own.
If this is the case, then what is the point of the education system? Most of the information taught is largely useless, atleast in the context of the secondary education system. I did write a small talk about the value of knowledge and it's applicability. If the education system is to have any purpose other than being an elaborate day care of children, it is going to have to train people to be useful. For these reasons alone, a good education system is essential to creating a successful society.
Good Teachers are Essential
How does one create a good education system? Again, it boils down to the people-- you need good teachers (and perhaps, students too... but this is often beyond the scope of teachers). If there is one thing that is worth its weight in gold, its good teachers. In the lifespan of a teacher, a teacher will teach over 1,000 students. That's 1,000 people that this teacher will impress upon. What if these 1,000 people were taught exceptionally well? What if 300 of them went off to become successful people as a result of their teachers? That's what the effect of a good education system could have on a society, assuming these successful people stick around.
How do we get good teachers? Again, this boils down to the problem of attracting the right people; and to attract the right people, you are going to need people and the environment to attract them.
There has oft been talk about ways of improving the economy, develping new technology and improving life in general. Governments often talk about spending more money at problems, more money to health care, more money to infrastructure, more money to all sorts of programs. What if, one day you stripped society of money-- simply, what if money stoped existing, what would you have left? What is left is the people that do the work to make things work. Money isn't the resource that its key, it's people.
It's Human Resources
Simply having money does not generate wealth. Financial managers realize this the best. When these people look at investing the hard earned money of other people what they are looking for are the right group of people with the right kind of ideas to make them reality. We are talking about people, it has always been about people and it will always be about people. There is a specific reason why the US in the past has been so innovative in terms of technology-- it was for the "American Dream" and the open immigration policies that attracted people to the States. The important thing was that America at the time attracted all sorts of people because it had the image of a desirable place to live, most importantly, it also attracted highly determined and skilled people. If it were not for the right kind of people, the States would not be where it is today.
I am fortunate to say that I have had the opportunity to study in a different educational institution in a totally different country. I studied at the University of British Columbia which is currently ranked 37 th in the world and I am currently at Tohoku University which is ranked 73rd in the world (source). There is a significant difference in world rankings and after coming to this University I realize why. The university and student culture is totally different from where I was before. The students in terms of background knowledge are significantly weaker compared to those at UBC. In fact it is of my humble opinion that the university educational system is signficantly inferior compared to the North American model in terms of producing knowledgable students. When it comes to producting good and interesting work, the culture of people around you is essential.
For anyone that has worked on group projects or part of a team, it is evident that the quality of the members have a signficant impact of the quality of the finished product. This is something that everyone since junior high school knows-- either you partner with friends or you partner with people that you know have a history of doing good work (the collary is true for deciding which people you will not partner with). When it comes to University research, starting a company or working with people on a good will project--the deciding factor is the people that get things to work.
The Compounding (or Positivie Feedback) Effect
For people that studied control theory or differential equations or have a bank account, you will understand this. In terms of money, if you have money in your bank account, you earn interest on that money. You take that money and the interest to earn more interest. What happens is that the growth of your money is exponential and it explodes over a period of time. This is the what is known as compounding. This is true in theory, but we get shafted on the interest rates. People on the other hand, have far better compounding rates and let me explain why (and no, I'm not talking about reproductive compounding).
When I talk about skilled people, I am going narrow the discussion of highly applied and educated people. Let me pose this discussion in the frame of universities. There is a reason why good universities are the breeding grounds of successful companies (which are the result of skilled people). Good universities are the hub where skilled individuals converge. The better the university the more skilled the people there.
Places with skilled people attract skilled people. There are 2 reasons why this occurs. Firstly, skilled people want to learn from skilled people (ie. their professors). When you choose a university institution you usually want to go for the best possbile because the better the people are the more you will learn from them. People with less knowledge and skill will obviously have less to teach. Secondly, what most students may or may not realize is that going to good universities will allow them to interact with other skilled people (ie. their peers), possibly learning and working with them. Putting it this way, suppose that you had a group of 10,000 very skilled people, every person would be able to interact with 9,999 other very talented people, not that they would interact with them all. Being exposed to a large pool of talented people only further increases the the amount of interesting things they may learn. If people are resources, then this is important.
As a reminder of warning, simply just being at a good insitution does not mean that you will automatically become a highly skilled individual. There is an element of personal drive which I have not mentioned but assumed that everyone carries.
The end result is that good universties attract skilled people, which in turn trains these people to become even more skilled. This is the compounding effect. But what of other institutions that aren't near the top? Unfortunately, for these institutions, the few skilled people they create often move on into better institutions. These places face the opposite compounding effects or negative feedback.
Success is Achieving Positive Feedback
When you want to build anything successful, whether it be a company, university or a country, you need the right people and there are only 2 ways that you can get them-- either creating them or attracting them. The second problem that needs to be addressed is keeping them. When these two conditions are achieved then you can achieve whatever in your grasp and keep going from there. This is the creation of a successful system-- the founders of Google understood this. If there is one shortage that Silicon Valley faces right now, it's skilled people that are outside of Google, because they've been getting their hands on the most skilled people-- it's the people that makes them successful; search and web advertising was done before, its the way they do it that makes them successful! The question that needs to be addressed is the creation of an organization that attracts skilled people-- places like MIT, Harvard, UofT, Google and more.
Creating a place of skilled people first starts with training skilled people. Where this begins is the education system, more in particular the secondary education system and to an extent the post secondary system. What is needed is an environment where people can become skilled. Schools don't teach people how to be skilled nor do they make skilled people (or even people that want to be skilled). People organically become what they are, the things that they currently do are learned outside of school. Most people that got good at the things they did so through this route, whether it be programming, music, painting, math, design, whatever. The real winners are the ones that knew what they liked, what they wanted to be good at and went off and did it on their own.
If this is the case, then what is the point of the education system? Most of the information taught is largely useless, atleast in the context of the secondary education system. I did write a small talk about the value of knowledge and it's applicability. If the education system is to have any purpose other than being an elaborate day care of children, it is going to have to train people to be useful. For these reasons alone, a good education system is essential to creating a successful society.
Good Teachers are Essential
How does one create a good education system? Again, it boils down to the people-- you need good teachers (and perhaps, students too... but this is often beyond the scope of teachers). If there is one thing that is worth its weight in gold, its good teachers. In the lifespan of a teacher, a teacher will teach over 1,000 students. That's 1,000 people that this teacher will impress upon. What if these 1,000 people were taught exceptionally well? What if 300 of them went off to become successful people as a result of their teachers? That's what the effect of a good education system could have on a society, assuming these successful people stick around.
How do we get good teachers? Again, this boils down to the problem of attracting the right people; and to attract the right people, you are going to need people and the environment to attract them.
Past the first hurdle
Today I completed my fluid mechanics exam. I got off easy and wrote the exam in English. I feel like a bit of a cop out but I still don't have the vocabulary of getting through on the fly on an exam with technical terms (not to mention kanji), I asked for an English translation of the exam and was fortunate to have my professors comply.
I have lept over my major hurdle for this week. My next major hurdle will be my controls exam next week on Wedensday and after that, I will be done with all my classes.
After coming home at 3:30 am, I would sleep restlessly till 7:30 am. Walked with Cindy to my lab (up the mountain with my scooter) to give her a tour of the place before seeing her off at the bus stop 20 minutes before my exam. By the time my exam was over, I grabbed lunch and came home to catch up on sleep. I would sleep for 4 hours then run off to teach my final English class for the summer.
I loafed around the home till 9:00, cooked dinner and then proceeded to prune my music collection as my hard drive was running low on space. I nixed about 5 GB of music. In the past, I used to be an avid collector of whole albums for the sake of completeness, but from here on in, I'll be focusing on just the songs I like out of an album.
Time to get to work on my final assignments.
I have lept over my major hurdle for this week. My next major hurdle will be my controls exam next week on Wedensday and after that, I will be done with all my classes.
After coming home at 3:30 am, I would sleep restlessly till 7:30 am. Walked with Cindy to my lab (up the mountain with my scooter) to give her a tour of the place before seeing her off at the bus stop 20 minutes before my exam. By the time my exam was over, I grabbed lunch and came home to catch up on sleep. I would sleep for 4 hours then run off to teach my final English class for the summer.
I loafed around the home till 9:00, cooked dinner and then proceeded to prune my music collection as my hard drive was running low on space. I nixed about 5 GB of music. In the past, I used to be an avid collector of whole albums for the sake of completeness, but from here on in, I'll be focusing on just the songs I like out of an album.
Time to get to work on my final assignments.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Still at lab?
There were many times in school where I wondered what life would be like outside of school, where summer vacations didn't exist and days wouldn't end till 5 pm. To me in school these thoughts were inconcievable-- I couldn't believe that I could live in a world without summer vacations and long days.
Before coming to Japan, I heard about lab life at the particular lab I was going to. I got an e-mail back from an American guy telling me that it wasn't uncommon for people to come in at about 9 am and not leave till 10 pm. Before coming to Japan, I thought I would be in for some serious hell when I started lab life here. Back at my old job where I worked at some really boring satellite imaging company (my job was pretty much manual labour for fixing satellite pictures!), I dreaded going to work everyday. I couldn't wait until lunch time to take my 30 minute break and then for the clock to hit 5 pm to jet out of the office. Staying for a second more would have been unbearable.
It is now 3:30 am... I slept in till 11:00 am today after staying up late with my roomies, oh and Cindy is visiting too! I didn't have classes at all today, but I've been running around handing in paper work for my internship program, fixing up an article that will be submitted for publication in a magazine (in Japanese... after much editing), teaching for 3.5 hours how to use a silicon wafer cutting machine then coming back to start studying for my fluid mechanics test "tomorrow," where I started studying at about 10:00 pm today. I'm not really keen on how the material was taught, but I was just introduced into Electro and Magneto hydrodynamics which are very cool topics after doing some searching on the internet. But anyways...
I never thought I would be living the life I would be right now with these kinds of hours but the funny thing is that I've gotten used to it. The one thing that's really nice about doing a master's is that you work at your own pace. I have on several occasions came home to take a nap and found myself programming until the wee hours of the evening because I thought what I was doing was interesting. Because, that is what really counts.
I should go home sometime...
Before coming to Japan, I heard about lab life at the particular lab I was going to. I got an e-mail back from an American guy telling me that it wasn't uncommon for people to come in at about 9 am and not leave till 10 pm. Before coming to Japan, I thought I would be in for some serious hell when I started lab life here. Back at my old job where I worked at some really boring satellite imaging company (my job was pretty much manual labour for fixing satellite pictures!), I dreaded going to work everyday. I couldn't wait until lunch time to take my 30 minute break and then for the clock to hit 5 pm to jet out of the office. Staying for a second more would have been unbearable.
It is now 3:30 am... I slept in till 11:00 am today after staying up late with my roomies, oh and Cindy is visiting too! I didn't have classes at all today, but I've been running around handing in paper work for my internship program, fixing up an article that will be submitted for publication in a magazine (in Japanese... after much editing), teaching for 3.5 hours how to use a silicon wafer cutting machine then coming back to start studying for my fluid mechanics test "tomorrow," where I started studying at about 10:00 pm today. I'm not really keen on how the material was taught, but I was just introduced into Electro and Magneto hydrodynamics which are very cool topics after doing some searching on the internet. But anyways...
I never thought I would be living the life I would be right now with these kinds of hours but the funny thing is that I've gotten used to it. The one thing that's really nice about doing a master's is that you work at your own pace. I have on several occasions came home to take a nap and found myself programming until the wee hours of the evening because I thought what I was doing was interesting. Because, that is what really counts.
I should go home sometime...
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Modeling
These last few days have been kind of interesting, I've ditched my experiments for the time being and working on some assignments for my classes. More like final assignments that I've to turn in. Recently, over the last few months, I've been finding myself modeling a few differential equations here and there. Did you know that you can model 1D differential equations in Excel? It's kind of cute but that's what I did for my controls classes, which are all about differential equations. I kind of felt bad for my labmates that used things like Mathematica to solve these equations. I was done in about 5 minutes. I also did it once for my 4th year math 400 class.
I've gotten back into modelling for my numerical analysis course. The professor told us to go model something using differential equations and I decided to model the concentration of an electric field around a sharp point. If you ever applied a strong voltage to a needle, it will either emit a plasma or an electron beam (if it is in a vacuum).
Turns out that my project is to make an electron beam using these things called carbon nano tubes. Suffice to say, they have incredibly small diameters, on the order of several nanometers for the smallest tubes. As I have read a bunch of reserach papers in the field, I've heard all about this concentration of electric fields on carbon nanotubes and after a while it started to make sense and I decided to model it to see if my hunch was right.
For you people that studied physics out there, do you remember how to calculate the electric field inside a parallel set of plates (ie, the parallel capacitor)? Now imagine if you added a big stage in the middle of the plate. The electric field from the stage to the opposite would look like if you had the plates closer together, the electric fields from the region far away from the stage would look like it was from a set of plates with a wider gap.
Now imagine what happened if the stage got narrower and narrower and turned into a long line? What would happen is that the fields everywhere in the parallel plates will want to look a normal parallel plate capacitor leaving a strong electric field concentration at the tip of the long and slender object. You probably won't understand this just be reading this because it's the kind of thing where a drawing is necessary. Fortunately, I was up till 2 am running simulations.
The purturbed capactor potential
The above image is a model of a plate with a stage. The stage is in dark red and it's kept at a high voltage, the color changes represents a decreasing voltage as you move away from the high voltage region.
A figure of the the carbon nanotube potential is illustrated below.
The second image, is a figure of what happens if you attach a long slender object to the plate at the bottom, for instance a Carbon nanotube. Going straight up from the tip of this object, you will notice that the color gradient changes the fastest at the tip. Regions of strong gradients in voltage represents strong electric fields, this is the property that electron emitters take advantage of when emitting electron beams.
How did I model this? There is something called Poisson's equation that can do this. The problem is that you can't find a simple function to model these equations. What Poisson's equation talks about its how things change... or how something should be distributed through a space following simple laws. Unfortunately, math books do not do a good job of explaning these ideas and most people that do figure it out, are also bad at explaining it (which explains my professors when they were teaching me differential equations).
I will have to do a better job of explaining this since I am planning on doing a seminar on numerical methods for my lab group this weekend.
I've gotten back into modelling for my numerical analysis course. The professor told us to go model something using differential equations and I decided to model the concentration of an electric field around a sharp point. If you ever applied a strong voltage to a needle, it will either emit a plasma or an electron beam (if it is in a vacuum).
Turns out that my project is to make an electron beam using these things called carbon nano tubes. Suffice to say, they have incredibly small diameters, on the order of several nanometers for the smallest tubes. As I have read a bunch of reserach papers in the field, I've heard all about this concentration of electric fields on carbon nanotubes and after a while it started to make sense and I decided to model it to see if my hunch was right.
For you people that studied physics out there, do you remember how to calculate the electric field inside a parallel set of plates (ie, the parallel capacitor)? Now imagine if you added a big stage in the middle of the plate. The electric field from the stage to the opposite would look like if you had the plates closer together, the electric fields from the region far away from the stage would look like it was from a set of plates with a wider gap.
Now imagine what happened if the stage got narrower and narrower and turned into a long line? What would happen is that the fields everywhere in the parallel plates will want to look a normal parallel plate capacitor leaving a strong electric field concentration at the tip of the long and slender object. You probably won't understand this just be reading this because it's the kind of thing where a drawing is necessary. Fortunately, I was up till 2 am running simulations.
The purturbed capactor potential
The above image is a model of a plate with a stage. The stage is in dark red and it's kept at a high voltage, the color changes represents a decreasing voltage as you move away from the high voltage region.
A figure of the the carbon nanotube potential is illustrated below.
The second image, is a figure of what happens if you attach a long slender object to the plate at the bottom, for instance a Carbon nanotube. Going straight up from the tip of this object, you will notice that the color gradient changes the fastest at the tip. Regions of strong gradients in voltage represents strong electric fields, this is the property that electron emitters take advantage of when emitting electron beams.
How did I model this? There is something called Poisson's equation that can do this. The problem is that you can't find a simple function to model these equations. What Poisson's equation talks about its how things change... or how something should be distributed through a space following simple laws. Unfortunately, math books do not do a good job of explaning these ideas and most people that do figure it out, are also bad at explaining it (which explains my professors when they were teaching me differential equations).
I will have to do a better job of explaining this since I am planning on doing a seminar on numerical methods for my lab group this weekend.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Return from a Seminar Camp
I was invited out to a seminar camp with a pair of laboratories this weekend from Ishinomaki University, which is a ways out from Sendai. The 2 labs that went did work in Nano-Micro technology and another is in Micro-biology. The aim was to get an exchange of ideas going by having the students make presentations to each other.
One of the professors at the university was a graduate from our lab and wanted an English speaker to do a presentation in English at the seminar. As for me, the professor told me that could present anything I wanted. I decided to do a talk based on my language essay to make my talk something completly different.
The students I was presenting to were undergrads, mostly in their 4th year doing their graduaion projects. At first, I thought I made a mistake on my presentation topic because initially, I thought I would be presenting it to masters students that would participate in international conferences. But it turned out to be a good topic anyway.
What I have so far learned from my experiences in Japan is that for the most part, Japanese students can't present well at all. I sit through 4 presentations every weekend and attend more presentations by students in other labs during classes (ie. paper presentations). What bugs me the most about presentations from Japanese students is that they have a horrible tendency to either read from a script (or even straight out of a paper) or they memorize what they want to say. Either way, when they present, their brains are off and this is a bad thing... especially when it comes to audience interaction (ie. answering questions or checking to make sure they understand what they are talking about).
So anyways, I did make my presentation and the response was well recieved. I would go on to explaining them how learning a new language is also about learning how to think in that language. They were exceptionally intreagued at the question I posed at them on how they think in Japanese. The argument being that not every word they want to say is chosen in advance but selected in a flow as they speak.
Understanding this flow in a new language is imperative to learning a new language. It also requires that the speaker to think in that language, which something that does not happen when you memorize particular lines from a text book... which is exactly how students in Japan are taught English. I do feel somewhat fortunate that I am a product of the Canadian education system (in the sense that students are encouraged to think, more so than places, say in Japan).
It seems that as a resut of my presentations, the professors from each respective labs have decided that they are going to implement either an "English hour" or "English day" in their labs to encourage students to speak English using my technique. The students, at first were cold to the idea, but in the end they were pretty enthusiastic about it-- they would be dropping the old method of learning English behind them and looking forward to immersing themselves in the English language. I am very glad that they've been inspired... because everything starts with a little inspiration. I can only hope that their linguistic ambitions becomes fruitfuly prosperous.
One of the professors at the university was a graduate from our lab and wanted an English speaker to do a presentation in English at the seminar. As for me, the professor told me that could present anything I wanted. I decided to do a talk based on my language essay to make my talk something completly different.
The students I was presenting to were undergrads, mostly in their 4th year doing their graduaion projects. At first, I thought I made a mistake on my presentation topic because initially, I thought I would be presenting it to masters students that would participate in international conferences. But it turned out to be a good topic anyway.
What I have so far learned from my experiences in Japan is that for the most part, Japanese students can't present well at all. I sit through 4 presentations every weekend and attend more presentations by students in other labs during classes (ie. paper presentations). What bugs me the most about presentations from Japanese students is that they have a horrible tendency to either read from a script (or even straight out of a paper) or they memorize what they want to say. Either way, when they present, their brains are off and this is a bad thing... especially when it comes to audience interaction (ie. answering questions or checking to make sure they understand what they are talking about).
So anyways, I did make my presentation and the response was well recieved. I would go on to explaining them how learning a new language is also about learning how to think in that language. They were exceptionally intreagued at the question I posed at them on how they think in Japanese. The argument being that not every word they want to say is chosen in advance but selected in a flow as they speak.
Understanding this flow in a new language is imperative to learning a new language. It also requires that the speaker to think in that language, which something that does not happen when you memorize particular lines from a text book... which is exactly how students in Japan are taught English. I do feel somewhat fortunate that I am a product of the Canadian education system (in the sense that students are encouraged to think, more so than places, say in Japan).
It seems that as a resut of my presentations, the professors from each respective labs have decided that they are going to implement either an "English hour" or "English day" in their labs to encourage students to speak English using my technique. The students, at first were cold to the idea, but in the end they were pretty enthusiastic about it-- they would be dropping the old method of learning English behind them and looking forward to immersing themselves in the English language. I am very glad that they've been inspired... because everything starts with a little inspiration. I can only hope that their linguistic ambitions becomes fruitfuly prosperous.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Better than nothing and my schedule for the next 2 months
Today is again, my lab's really long bi-weekly meeting. It's currently 9:15 pm and we started at 6:30 pm. We are closing in to the 3 hour mark and we have 3~4 people left to present which will probably run the meeting to 10:00 pm.
Fortunately for me, I haven't been sitting here idly for the last 3 hours.
Tomorrow I have a presentation for my oxides class, which covers the oxidization of metals at high temperatures, a somewhat benign topic. Last week, I did a presentation for that class and for bonus marks, the professor asked if anyone would be willing to do a second presentation for the last few chapters (as of last week, we have rotated through all the students). "Sure, why not" I thought. Turns out I was in for a busy week.
I skipped out on 2 assignments for my numerical analysis class and thought that the final assignment would be due on the Tuesday. I figured that I would burn through Monday and finish all 3 and hand them in (it seems, that most professors are OK with students handing in their assignment late... as for me, I totaly forgot that we had the assignment when they were due).
Tuesday and Wedensday would be experiments days-- last week I was quite busy with bringing 3 new exchange students up to speed at the lab when they arrived. Helped them out with registration and adminisration and getting them settled in and one of them would be working with me on my project. Since I've been helping everyone out, I hadn't much time to do much experimentation on my own. The lab report meeting for my group was today, giving me 2 days to churn out some preliminary results. They weren't pretty (well one of them was) but I got something done.
Tomorrow (Thursday) is my presentation for the oxides class and I just started reading my chapter for presentation and finished making my slides. All that's left is to scan some pictures from the book and put them in.
On Saturday and Sunday I'll be skipping out of my weekend lab meeting to attend a seminar camp held by another lab to do a presentation in English by request of a professor acquaintence of mine (who is also a friend of my supervisor). Apparently they want to learn how a native English speaker presents and to learn from me. As for me, I'll be learning about their research topics over the weekend at the retreat.
After the weekend, I have 2 simple simulations to program for my numerical analysis class, a seminar presentation for my lab the next weekend (hopefully, I can kill 2 birds with one stone and present about simulation techniques), prepare for 2 exams for my classes and write a simulation for my controls course for an assignment.
For August, I need to hit the experiments hard and prepare a for a 1 hour lab presentation which sumarizes what I've been doing for the last 4 months. I need more data and results to talk about and then head off for an internship for 10 days.
So, that's what I've got on my slate for the next 2 months. Oh and I have to fit in some fun in there... some how.
Fortunately for me, I haven't been sitting here idly for the last 3 hours.
Tomorrow I have a presentation for my oxides class, which covers the oxidization of metals at high temperatures, a somewhat benign topic. Last week, I did a presentation for that class and for bonus marks, the professor asked if anyone would be willing to do a second presentation for the last few chapters (as of last week, we have rotated through all the students). "Sure, why not" I thought. Turns out I was in for a busy week.
I skipped out on 2 assignments for my numerical analysis class and thought that the final assignment would be due on the Tuesday. I figured that I would burn through Monday and finish all 3 and hand them in (it seems, that most professors are OK with students handing in their assignment late... as for me, I totaly forgot that we had the assignment when they were due).
Tuesday and Wedensday would be experiments days-- last week I was quite busy with bringing 3 new exchange students up to speed at the lab when they arrived. Helped them out with registration and adminisration and getting them settled in and one of them would be working with me on my project. Since I've been helping everyone out, I hadn't much time to do much experimentation on my own. The lab report meeting for my group was today, giving me 2 days to churn out some preliminary results. They weren't pretty (well one of them was) but I got something done.
Tomorrow (Thursday) is my presentation for the oxides class and I just started reading my chapter for presentation and finished making my slides. All that's left is to scan some pictures from the book and put them in.
On Saturday and Sunday I'll be skipping out of my weekend lab meeting to attend a seminar camp held by another lab to do a presentation in English by request of a professor acquaintence of mine (who is also a friend of my supervisor). Apparently they want to learn how a native English speaker presents and to learn from me. As for me, I'll be learning about their research topics over the weekend at the retreat.
After the weekend, I have 2 simple simulations to program for my numerical analysis class, a seminar presentation for my lab the next weekend (hopefully, I can kill 2 birds with one stone and present about simulation techniques), prepare for 2 exams for my classes and write a simulation for my controls course for an assignment.
For August, I need to hit the experiments hard and prepare a for a 1 hour lab presentation which sumarizes what I've been doing for the last 4 months. I need more data and results to talk about and then head off for an internship for 10 days.
So, that's what I've got on my slate for the next 2 months. Oh and I have to fit in some fun in there... some how.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Flexible Hours and Productivity
Here's something interesting that sleep taught me.
On Sleep and Productivity
My sleeping schedule has gotten quite strange recently. What is means is that I've been going to bed say at 3~4 am regularly and getting up at about 8 or 10 ish depending on the day (equates to about 4~6 hours) of sleep a day.
I seem to be operating allright through the mornings and I get rather tired by the afternoon (ie. sufficiently tired that I lose focus) where I require a nap for about 1~1.5 hours before my mind is refreshed and once more at at about 7 pm ish. There are some nice rows of padded seats in the building in some of the lounge areas which are ideal for naps.
After realizing how nice it is to take a nap while working to refresh myself and bring back my effectiveness, I've come to realize how impossible doing this would be for certain companies where you earn a hourly wage, a method that I think should be re-evaluated for certain job sectors.
In what I do... well reserach and homework at the moment. I have found that working while tired is more detrimental compared to not working at all. Suppose you spend an entire day preparing a sample and during one of your process steps you mangle the sample up by washing it in the wrong chemical or something. Immediately, the sample is toast and I would have to start over again. This has happened to me a few times.
This doesn't necessarily just applies to experimentation, but also working. There have been times where I've been working on homework sets while fatigued. I can spend hours trying to wrap my head around it but get absolutely no where. I've found that with a much more alert mind that I can hammer these problems much more efficently, say in 2 hours instead of 4 for example.
Time and Productivity
Unfortunately, working in an hourly wage system does not appreciate the concept of productivity nor does it promote it... short of discrete promotions that occur or salary raises which occur at irregular intervals. Why be efficient when you can get time and a half working overtime?
What would be an interesting paradigm shift in the working world is a shift from hourly to productivity compensation. Productivity based consumption exists in the realm of people working for their own company or what they earn is directly related to how much they can sell or produce. I would have to say that it is ironic that salary based pay still exists in the capitalistic market economy-- not all services and products are made equal, nor is the productivity of a person.
Where do productive people go?
Productive people, move into positions such as project leaders or as of recently, into start up companies where they can work on their own. Both kinds of positions are inherently similar in the sense that produtive people end up into directive positions where work occurs on their own terms.
For people in start up companies, or those working for themselves, productivity is far more important than working long hours... and in reality, very productive people tend to be very productive and work long hours, *especially* when working for themselves, the reason being is that they are doing their best to leverage their productivity to make the most gains out of it. I would bet that you would not find highly productive people working on salary in any organization, but instead out on their own and if you want to work with them, you too should also be in the same environment.
On Sleep and Productivity
My sleeping schedule has gotten quite strange recently. What is means is that I've been going to bed say at 3~4 am regularly and getting up at about 8 or 10 ish depending on the day (equates to about 4~6 hours) of sleep a day.
I seem to be operating allright through the mornings and I get rather tired by the afternoon (ie. sufficiently tired that I lose focus) where I require a nap for about 1~1.5 hours before my mind is refreshed and once more at at about 7 pm ish. There are some nice rows of padded seats in the building in some of the lounge areas which are ideal for naps.
After realizing how nice it is to take a nap while working to refresh myself and bring back my effectiveness, I've come to realize how impossible doing this would be for certain companies where you earn a hourly wage, a method that I think should be re-evaluated for certain job sectors.
In what I do... well reserach and homework at the moment. I have found that working while tired is more detrimental compared to not working at all. Suppose you spend an entire day preparing a sample and during one of your process steps you mangle the sample up by washing it in the wrong chemical or something. Immediately, the sample is toast and I would have to start over again. This has happened to me a few times.
This doesn't necessarily just applies to experimentation, but also working. There have been times where I've been working on homework sets while fatigued. I can spend hours trying to wrap my head around it but get absolutely no where. I've found that with a much more alert mind that I can hammer these problems much more efficently, say in 2 hours instead of 4 for example.
Time and Productivity
Unfortunately, working in an hourly wage system does not appreciate the concept of productivity nor does it promote it... short of discrete promotions that occur or salary raises which occur at irregular intervals. Why be efficient when you can get time and a half working overtime?
What would be an interesting paradigm shift in the working world is a shift from hourly to productivity compensation. Productivity based consumption exists in the realm of people working for their own company or what they earn is directly related to how much they can sell or produce. I would have to say that it is ironic that salary based pay still exists in the capitalistic market economy-- not all services and products are made equal, nor is the productivity of a person.
Where do productive people go?
Productive people, move into positions such as project leaders or as of recently, into start up companies where they can work on their own. Both kinds of positions are inherently similar in the sense that produtive people end up into directive positions where work occurs on their own terms.
For people in start up companies, or those working for themselves, productivity is far more important than working long hours... and in reality, very productive people tend to be very productive and work long hours, *especially* when working for themselves, the reason being is that they are doing their best to leverage their productivity to make the most gains out of it. I would bet that you would not find highly productive people working on salary in any organization, but instead out on their own and if you want to work with them, you too should also be in the same environment.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Will our blogs stop one day? Why did we start?
I have a short list of blogs I go through daily. All of them are blogs of friends. At one point or another, the frequency at which they post has either slowed or come to a stop. What I wonder, is what causes people to stop?
Everyone starts blogging for different reasons. Some people do it to stay in touch with friend, others do it for attention, there are even people out there that do it for money. But for the case of my friends around me that blog, they mostly post little blurbs of what they're doing online. For what reason did they start? and for what reason do they stop?
There are times when I haven't been able to post. Most of the time, I don't post because I've been too busy. Mainly because of labwork or heading out to all sort of events in my spare time. Quite often, I don't find the time to make the detailed thoughtful posts like I used to before becoming an official member of this lab. I still would like to write none the less when I do have time... but I do have a reason for writing.
For most of my friends that started blogging, it started as a social movement. It's something that friends did and online communities resulted from it. If you were to look at many blogs on the internet, you would find that most blogs have links to other blogs. Blogging is a social phenomena. For what reason do most people blog? I would say that most people start either to join social networks or for personal attention (not that personal attention is a bad thing, blogs are ment to be read!). Your friends would read your blog, sometimes they'd leave you a comment or even chat about what you've been posting. Blogging is about attention.
But what if one day, you were bored of the attention online? Perhaps after a while you were getting none? Would you still blog? It depends... if attention was what you wanted (or even, if you still wanted it). In the general cases, attention is why most people started and likely the same reason they stopped.
I started writing for different reasons. I started because I was inspired by other well thoughtout writers on the net and for reason that I wanted to improve my writing. I used to be a horrible writer before.
I have learned much about writing along the way. Writing is a tool to solidify incoherent inklings of ideas into something concrete. Most ideas that remain in my mind atleast, are exceptionally fleeting -- almost immediately gone when I start thinking about something else and they only subconsciously exist. Writing prevents that from happening. I have touched on this topic before.
There is more to blogging than just getting your ideas on to "paper" (or rather the "web" in this case), publishing online does force one to write more coherently that one would normally in say a notebook of random ideas. I know that what I post online will post one day be read by someone and what I write must make sense to others. In the case of my notebook, it just needs to make sense to me (and there are times when I look back at it, that even I can't tell what I was thinking before). Writing for me, is a way of refining ideas and offers me the opportunity to scrutinze them more closely than I would usualy if I were scribbling them into a book. This, to me, has been a very important feature to blogging.
Everyone starts blogging for different reasons. Some people do it to stay in touch with friend, others do it for attention, there are even people out there that do it for money. But for the case of my friends around me that blog, they mostly post little blurbs of what they're doing online. For what reason did they start? and for what reason do they stop?
There are times when I haven't been able to post. Most of the time, I don't post because I've been too busy. Mainly because of labwork or heading out to all sort of events in my spare time. Quite often, I don't find the time to make the detailed thoughtful posts like I used to before becoming an official member of this lab. I still would like to write none the less when I do have time... but I do have a reason for writing.
For most of my friends that started blogging, it started as a social movement. It's something that friends did and online communities resulted from it. If you were to look at many blogs on the internet, you would find that most blogs have links to other blogs. Blogging is a social phenomena. For what reason do most people blog? I would say that most people start either to join social networks or for personal attention (not that personal attention is a bad thing, blogs are ment to be read!). Your friends would read your blog, sometimes they'd leave you a comment or even chat about what you've been posting. Blogging is about attention.
But what if one day, you were bored of the attention online? Perhaps after a while you were getting none? Would you still blog? It depends... if attention was what you wanted (or even, if you still wanted it). In the general cases, attention is why most people started and likely the same reason they stopped.
I started writing for different reasons. I started because I was inspired by other well thoughtout writers on the net and for reason that I wanted to improve my writing. I used to be a horrible writer before.
I have learned much about writing along the way. Writing is a tool to solidify incoherent inklings of ideas into something concrete. Most ideas that remain in my mind atleast, are exceptionally fleeting -- almost immediately gone when I start thinking about something else and they only subconsciously exist. Writing prevents that from happening. I have touched on this topic before.
There is more to blogging than just getting your ideas on to "paper" (or rather the "web" in this case), publishing online does force one to write more coherently that one would normally in say a notebook of random ideas. I know that what I post online will post one day be read by someone and what I write must make sense to others. In the case of my notebook, it just needs to make sense to me (and there are times when I look back at it, that even I can't tell what I was thinking before). Writing for me, is a way of refining ideas and offers me the opportunity to scrutinze them more closely than I would usualy if I were scribbling them into a book. This, to me, has been a very important feature to blogging.
The Game of International Friendship (sarcasm)
Today was a long day. I was out with friends till late, woke up early for my weekly Saturday meetings, taught English after the meeting and off to a Tempura Garden party with a vounteer friend of mine. The group for the evening was a bunch of international students from Iran, Netherlands (I think), Austrailia, Mexico and me (from Canada).
So with an international bunch of people what game did we deem appropriate to play? But of course! The game of world domination-- RISK! What else? I thought that was mildy amusing. Don't you?
So with an international bunch of people what game did we deem appropriate to play? But of course! The game of world domination-- RISK! What else? I thought that was mildy amusing. Don't you?
Electrical Cost Analysis (and how much it costs to run a webpage!)
I have never paid my electrical bills directly before, since moving out of a dorm from a dorm into an appartment. For the past few months, the total electrical costs for an appartment of 3 people costed approximately $76 bucks per month. Actually, last month electrcity costed us about $90 between 3 people. Which equates to $30 bucks/person. When I used to live in the dorms I only paid about $22 for electricity for some and up to $30 in the winter seasons when I used electric heaters in the winter. The thing about living in the dorms is that everyone gets a combined itemized bill, but the amount of power I used was never listed so I didn't know how much power I was using at the time.
Personally, I automatically assumed that pretty much all utility costs would be somewhat cheaper when moving in with roomies. The one thing that (obviously) shouldn't scale down on the per people count is electricity. There are other costs that do scale down however, things like "basic charges" which utility companies charge you regardless of the amount of energy you use. For example, listed on my energy bill is a $10 "basic charge" which is divided by 3 between us.
I made a quick estimate of energy usage at our home and I'll present my results below.
Cost per KWh (kilo watt hours in Japan) ~ 6 cents
Note: I guessed at the number of hours we used each electrical applience. Monthly costs are estimates!
Light bulbs (fluorescent):
4 bulbs * 70 watts @ 6 hours/day= 1.68KWh/day = 50.4 KWh/month
Cost/Month ~ $3 for lighting between 3 people ($1/person)
Fridge:
336 watts (estimate) @ 24 hours/day = 8.064KWh/month = 241.92 KWh/month
Cost/Month~ $14.50 for a fridge
Computer (laptops) :
70 watts @ 6 hours/day = 1.26KWh/day = 37.8 KWh/month
Cost/Month ~ $2.27 for notebooks between 3 people ($0.70/person)
Estimated Energy Use = 330 KWh/month
Measured Energy Use = 322 KWh/month
Error in estimate = 2.5%
These numbers look reasonable.
Hot water bill (electrically heated):
Measured power consumed: 179 KWh/month
Calculated wattage --> 247 Watts (this number is within reason)
Meaning that the water boiler uses as much power as say 2.5 100 watt light bulbs!
Cost/Month = $28 (the KWh/hour is on a different, but higher rate for some reason)
Question: What does it cost to host your own server/web server from home?
I am considering putting together a server for the home using old desktop computer parts I salvaged from the dump site at the university (note: Desktop computers, generally use more power). I currently have an operating 1 Ghz computer on hand. So, what does it cost to run my own server at home for 24/7? Assuming that the computer runs at about 200 Watts (at about 50% load of a 400 Watt power supply) for 24/7 the total works out to $8.64/month just in electricity costs!
Here's the interesting point: According to some webpage host providers, the cost to buy webspace is approximately $4/month! Assuming that you're hosting only 1 webpage from home, it's cheaper to leave the computer off.
Personally, I automatically assumed that pretty much all utility costs would be somewhat cheaper when moving in with roomies. The one thing that (obviously) shouldn't scale down on the per people count is electricity. There are other costs that do scale down however, things like "basic charges" which utility companies charge you regardless of the amount of energy you use. For example, listed on my energy bill is a $10 "basic charge" which is divided by 3 between us.
I made a quick estimate of energy usage at our home and I'll present my results below.
Cost per KWh (kilo watt hours in Japan) ~ 6 cents
Note: I guessed at the number of hours we used each electrical applience. Monthly costs are estimates!
Light bulbs (fluorescent):
4 bulbs * 70 watts @ 6 hours/day= 1.68KWh/day = 50.4 KWh/month
Cost/Month ~ $3 for lighting between 3 people ($1/person)
Fridge:
336 watts (estimate) @ 24 hours/day = 8.064KWh/month = 241.92 KWh/month
Cost/Month~ $14.50 for a fridge
Computer (laptops) :
70 watts @ 6 hours/day = 1.26KWh/day = 37.8 KWh/month
Cost/Month ~ $2.27 for notebooks between 3 people ($0.70/person)
Estimated Energy Use = 330 KWh/month
Measured Energy Use = 322 KWh/month
Error in estimate = 2.5%
These numbers look reasonable.
Hot water bill (electrically heated):
Measured power consumed: 179 KWh/month
Calculated wattage --> 247 Watts (this number is within reason)
Meaning that the water boiler uses as much power as say 2.5 100 watt light bulbs!
Cost/Month = $28 (the KWh/hour is on a different, but higher rate for some reason)
Question: What does it cost to host your own server/web server from home?
I am considering putting together a server for the home using old desktop computer parts I salvaged from the dump site at the university (note: Desktop computers, generally use more power). I currently have an operating 1 Ghz computer on hand. So, what does it cost to run my own server at home for 24/7? Assuming that the computer runs at about 200 Watts (at about 50% load of a 400 Watt power supply) for 24/7 the total works out to $8.64/month just in electricity costs!
Here's the interesting point: According to some webpage host providers, the cost to buy webspace is approximately $4/month! Assuming that you're hosting only 1 webpage from home, it's cheaper to leave the computer off.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
A Crash Course in English (and German)
I've been teaching English in Japan for about a year now... and now I've got a stronger understanding of the mechanics of grammar. The point that you'll never start understanding something until you start teaching rings absolutely true. Quite a long time, I've always taken my ability to speak the English language for granted-- it was always second nature, something that I never took the time to think about. Now that I've spent countless hours teaching my students the mechanics of the English language, I have now come to appreciate the mechanics of grammar (something I never bothered to learn as a child). After developing an appreciation for the mechanics of English grammar, I realized that is becomes significantly easier to learn new languages and use more complicated structures.
Let's start by understanding how we use english. In English we use a Subject-Verb-Object structure for presenting our ideas. For example, "I ate cake" is a grammaticaly correct sentence. The subject is "I" the verb is "ate" and the object is "cake."
As grammatically correct as "I ate cake" is, it is quite a boring senctence. So, how does one advance from the most rudimentary sentences in English? Simple, we start adding more detailed information to make sentences more interesting. For example, "I ate cake with my friends at the park." Now we are starting to get to the level where most of us speak. What is the difference here? I used the words "with" and "at" to include more detailed information into the sentence. Interestingly these words do not count as verbs, but rather, they are prepositions. Prepositions are words that you use to add additional information. Which in the case of my previous sentence was "with my friends" and "at the park."
It is my understanding that prepositions are just like verbs. Meaning, for example my sentence "I ate cake" becomes the new subject the "with" becomes the new verb and "friends" is the new object. As a result, prepositions can be chained to add additional information to a sentence (indefinately... and if you do it too many times, it becomes the famed "run on sentence").
Taking a quick look at the class of prepositions, we have words such as "with", "at", "for", "before", "after", "so", "because" and etc. To start taking the steps away from the most basic sentences into more advanced English, the usage of these prepositions are absolutely necessary. So I immediately thought "what if I started using these words in another language? Would be immedately be able to speak more complicated sentences in a different language?"
I experimented in German today with some of my German lab mates using this thought process. First I started with a simple sentence "I drank tea." I asked my German friends to translate each of these words in to German and srung them in the same English grammatical structure. It worked!
Now I asked for my German friends to give me the German word for "with" and I inserted my labmate's name and I could immediately say "I drank tea with Jan" (Jan being the name of one of my labmates). And my German friends were immediately impressed. Sure my grammar wasn't 100% correct, but I could immediately start communicating more detailed ideas.
Now the real trick is to start understanding the purpose of some of the major word groups and understand their relation to communicating ideas. If you can get this down, then learning new languages should be a snap!
Let's start by understanding how we use english. In English we use a Subject-Verb-Object structure for presenting our ideas. For example, "I ate cake" is a grammaticaly correct sentence. The subject is "I" the verb is "ate" and the object is "cake."
As grammatically correct as "I ate cake" is, it is quite a boring senctence. So, how does one advance from the most rudimentary sentences in English? Simple, we start adding more detailed information to make sentences more interesting. For example, "I ate cake with my friends at the park." Now we are starting to get to the level where most of us speak. What is the difference here? I used the words "with" and "at" to include more detailed information into the sentence. Interestingly these words do not count as verbs, but rather, they are prepositions. Prepositions are words that you use to add additional information. Which in the case of my previous sentence was "with my friends" and "at the park."
It is my understanding that prepositions are just like verbs. Meaning, for example my sentence "I ate cake" becomes the new subject the "with" becomes the new verb and "friends" is the new object. As a result, prepositions can be chained to add additional information to a sentence (indefinately... and if you do it too many times, it becomes the famed "run on sentence").
Taking a quick look at the class of prepositions, we have words such as "with", "at", "for", "before", "after", "so", "because" and etc. To start taking the steps away from the most basic sentences into more advanced English, the usage of these prepositions are absolutely necessary. So I immediately thought "what if I started using these words in another language? Would be immedately be able to speak more complicated sentences in a different language?"
I experimented in German today with some of my German lab mates using this thought process. First I started with a simple sentence "I drank tea." I asked my German friends to translate each of these words in to German and srung them in the same English grammatical structure. It worked!
Now I asked for my German friends to give me the German word for "with" and I inserted my labmate's name and I could immediately say "I drank tea with Jan" (Jan being the name of one of my labmates). And my German friends were immediately impressed. Sure my grammar wasn't 100% correct, but I could immediately start communicating more detailed ideas.
Now the real trick is to start understanding the purpose of some of the major word groups and understand their relation to communicating ideas. If you can get this down, then learning new languages should be a snap!
Monday, July 03, 2006
My Best Canada Day
My best Canada Day was in Japan. Kuni and I decided to host a big Canada day party in Sendai. Kuni, having spent nearly an entire year in Canada, has many fond memories during his stay there. That, me and our other roomie, Olympia, being Canadian, we figure that it would be really cool if we put a big Canada day party together where the 3 of us would call in our friends and celebrate together. What transpired was awesome.
After some planning, we had decided on hosting a big BBQ in a park by a river. We supplied the drinks and our guests would bring their own food to grill and we even had fireworks too boot too! Me, Kuni and Olympia all came out in "Canadian t-shirts," ironically all borrowed from Kuni! Oddly I didn't bring any Canadian t-shirts, just my Roots back pack.
All in all, about 50 people came out to the event. I even managed to invite another Canadian I met randomly in Sendai out (and she brought in Maple syrup cookies!). We belted out O'Canada, some Japanese friends belted out the Japanese anthem and some of us even also belted out the American anthem too (well their day is on July 4th!).
The party did have a few hitches though. It poured in the evening. Fortunately there was a bridge near by that we relocated to and had a great time. It stopped later at night and we had an unexpected guest-- a firefly (amazingly beautiful... and it glowed green!).
Unfortunately, most of my friends didn't have cars or BBQ equipment on a large scale. But , fortunately Kuni did. Kuni, awesome job on the organization! Ps. Sorry about forgetting the aluminum wire and gum tape :P
We celebreated until midnight, packed up the tables, booze, equipment and garbage. A cop patrol car came by and was wondering what we were doing. They took my ID just incase we left garbage behind or something and were left unhassled.
Pictures below:
Friends and I
Nothing wrong with a few pretty faces!
Everyone at the grill
Here's the grill, without flash!
Everyone's all smiles!
Need a sparkly smoke?
Fireworks bonanza!
Kuni with a "Canada Eh!" shirt!
Hope you guys had a great Canada Day back home!
After some planning, we had decided on hosting a big BBQ in a park by a river. We supplied the drinks and our guests would bring their own food to grill and we even had fireworks too boot too! Me, Kuni and Olympia all came out in "Canadian t-shirts," ironically all borrowed from Kuni! Oddly I didn't bring any Canadian t-shirts, just my Roots back pack.
All in all, about 50 people came out to the event. I even managed to invite another Canadian I met randomly in Sendai out (and she brought in Maple syrup cookies!). We belted out O'Canada, some Japanese friends belted out the Japanese anthem and some of us even also belted out the American anthem too (well their day is on July 4th!).
The party did have a few hitches though. It poured in the evening. Fortunately there was a bridge near by that we relocated to and had a great time. It stopped later at night and we had an unexpected guest-- a firefly (amazingly beautiful... and it glowed green!).
Unfortunately, most of my friends didn't have cars or BBQ equipment on a large scale. But , fortunately Kuni did. Kuni, awesome job on the organization! Ps. Sorry about forgetting the aluminum wire and gum tape :P
We celebreated until midnight, packed up the tables, booze, equipment and garbage. A cop patrol car came by and was wondering what we were doing. They took my ID just incase we left garbage behind or something and were left unhassled.
Pictures below:
Friends and I
Nothing wrong with a few pretty faces!
Everyone at the grill
Here's the grill, without flash!
Everyone's all smiles!
Need a sparkly smoke?
Fireworks bonanza!
Kuni with a "Canada Eh!" shirt!Hope you guys had a great Canada Day back home!
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