my profile

Free climbing -I've done this excellent and a little bit dangerous sport for more than 10 years. I'm not bored with rockclimbing itself, but I'm losing interests in rockclimbing in Japan, because I have been to almost all the rockclimbing areas near Tokyo. Thus I usually go to indoor rock climbing gyms in Tokyo now. However, when I go abroad I can feel excited with rockclimbing again. Actually, I went to Yosemite this summer and it impressed me so much that I'm going there again.
swimming- I started swimming finally after 30 years of shame. Yes, it's a shame not to be able to swim in Japan. And I felt like swimming when I went to Pucket in Thailand. It's pity that you can just look a beautiful beach. Swimming is totally different from climbing. It has no thrill but it is difficult to breath. Both are kind of torture in a way, though.
computer - I bought a computer around 5 years ago, at the same time when I started TeX. For the first 10 months, I was really crazy about TeX (esp. TeX's macro) and Internet, but I rarely touched the computer recently. However, at the same time when I started writing my homepage I feel my passion for computer coming back, although I don't know how long it'll last this time. Of course,I also use my computer to make handouts for my students.
traveling - usually twice every year, about for one month in total. My favorite destinaions so far are Patagonia, Mt.Kilimanjaro, India, Nepal and Yosemite. However, the most impressive and exciting things are having a chat with local peoples and visiting friends living abroad. I can feel young when I stay abroad, because everything is new and challenge even sendind a snail mail. Honestly, I was required to show ID when I ordered a beer at a pizza restaurant in Minneapolis this summer.
Books - I have been interested in psycology, since I was a college student. As for psycology, there is not a theory which can apply to everyone in the whole world. Rather, it differs from person to person,society to society, I guess. I think the most important thing for psycology is to provide the explanation for "me" which can explain this reality. Of course I read other books too. My favorite writers are "Haruki Murakami"," Yuji Shimokawa", "Nitta Jiro", and " "Masahiko Fujiwara".I prefer essays to novels.
Music - I mostly listen to Baroque music, esp Bach and Handal. I have all the CDs of Glenn Gould's Bach and Carl Richter's Kantatas. Sometimes I listen to Palestrina or Gregorian chants, which make me feel really relaxed.I like popular music too, such as Nakajima Miyuki (Japanese singer), Enya and ABBA. ( A-teens is also cool. "Our last summer" is my most recent favorite.)
English - I think it sounds strange to native English speakers, but for Japanese it's definitely very demanding to learn English because of the huge differences between Japanese and English. I started learning English when I was 12 years old , but it was not until when I first went to Patagonia by myself , that I started learning English seriously. That was my first self organized tour and the third trip abroad. I noticed that I could feel very free when I thought in English then. You might think it shows how free English is, in other words English speakers think and live more freely than Japanese do. It may true to some extent, however, I think it is mostly because when you learn a foreign language , you can be free from the culture which has been binding you from childhood. A sense of values and language are ingrained in you at the same time, so it is difficult to separate them. One of the effective ways of building a new sense of values is to learn a foreign language. In that way, non-native Enlish speakers are lucky to be forced to learn English.
Chinese- I started learning Chinese from this April through radio program. I also have a private teacher for the pronounciation, cause Chinese pronouciation is really tough. Probably one of the toughests in the world. It has four tones and if you make a mistake in the tone , you want to be understood. The reason I started this is that I want to correct my bias. I mean Japanese kept learning western cultures since Meiji era for the last 150 years. So our way of thinking is very much influenced by the West. This is what i call bias. Thus I want to learn or respect Asian cultures again. For that purpose, i thought it would be best to learn Chinese culture. Anyway China has 4000 year old history which rivals the western civilazation. And it had lots of effects on Japan before. We imported chinese letters, architectures, buddism and so on. And we modified them to fit them in to our own way of thinking. So I hope I can have more neutral and non biased mind in the near future ..

I finally got a degital camera(Canon IXY 200) and a scanner (canon D646U). So if you want to see my photo, click here. And to see more, please visit "traveler's room."

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