Small update

A small update to the blog design.

日本代表応援ソング Victory by EXILE

You hear this very often recently on radio and in convenience stores.
It's the cheering song for the Japan team in the world cup. Nice song and nice PV!



頑張れ！！日本代表～！o（＾▽＾）O

またやろう。 Please do it again

A new series of the Tokyo metro manner posters. Instead of "please do it at home", this time it's "please do it again". No bad guys in the posters anymore, all good guys!

See others here http://www.tokyometro.jp/anshin/kaiteki/poster/index.html

Understanding Fourier transform with..MANGA

[In the lab]

-Amani what you are doing?
-(With full confidence) Reading a manga!
- ^^; ??
-... but don't worry it's about Fourier transform (^_^)

This is a book that I found in the lab's books shelf. The title says "understanding Fourier transform by Manga"..I love it!
I "understood" Fourier transform in my undergrad days once but I'm ready to "understand" it 100 times if you offer it in the form of Manga! （＾▽＾）

The face of the girl to the left in the middle part is hilarious!

The series also has books for many other subjects like Differentiation, Integration, Statistics..
Actually you can find almost anything explained by manga here, but today was the first time I get my hands on one of these.
Now excuse me, I'm busy with manga reading so see you next post!

満開！Full bloom!

Some pictures I took today in Ueno park and the area around it.

Kyuudou .. me want..

cutest thing ever （≧ω≦）

That's all for today!

Two years old!

I'm exactly 2 years old in Japan now. Time really flies!
It feels like yesterday, the day when I wrote the post celebrating one year here!
Will anyone tell the time to slow down a little bit? T_T

One semester to go! wish me luck, I really need it!!!

春よ来い 早く来い～♪ :: Come spring, come fast

This is a very nice traditional children song that sticks quickly to your mind the moment you hear it!
It talks about waiting for spring and looking forward for the joy it brings.
See the video and the lyrics below. I'll provide a rough translation between brackets.


歌詞 Lyrics：

春よ来い　早く来い (oh spring come, come fast)
あるきはじめた　みいちゃんが (Mii chan, that started walking )
赤い鼻緒の　じょじょはいて (Wore the sandals with red straps )
おんもへ出たいと　待っている (waiting "I wana go outside")

春よ来い　早く来い (oh spring come, come fast)
おうちのまえの　桃の木の (The peach tree in front of our house)
つぼみもみんな　ふくらんで (all the buds are growing bigger)
はよ咲きたいと　待っている (waiting "I want to bloom fast")

Notes :
-じょじょ(jojo) is a childish pronunciation of 草履(Zouri) which means traditional Japanese sandals.
-おんも(onmo) childish pronunciation of 表(omote) which means the front of house.
-Who is Mii chan?
Mii chan is modeled after the eldest daughter of the lyrics writer Souma Gyofuu(1883-1950).

Information and lyrics taken from this page :
http://www.worldfolksong.com/songbook/japan/haruyokoi.htm

Have a nice time listening!

家でやろう！ Please do it at home!

I have been thinking to write about this for a very long time!

「家でやろう:: Please do it at home」 is a series of "Manner posters" that Tokyo Metro started since April 2008 and publishes one each month since that time.
You can see these around all stations along the Tokyo Metro lines.

The goal of these posters is to encourage "good manners" by pointing out "bad manners" that people should avoid while using trains.
In each poster,one bad behavior is pointed out in a very easy to understand picture, and a small message explaining that behavior is included.
Some examples :

What's so nice about these is that they directly hit the point!
I don't want to go through explaining how great Japan is and compare it to other places, but I believe that the first step for any improvement in any society is to ADMIT that there is something wrong that needs to be changed. This is where Japan succeeds and others,unfortunately, fail.
More are available on the Tokyo Metro page.

Entrance exams results announcement at TOUDAI

This is an old video from 2007 but 2 days ago we had something similar in the university. I was almost moved to tears when I saw people making a new successful step in their lives.



The university cheering team congratulating the new students



Congrats all new students! (wishing to go back again to my undergrad days!)

JLPT2 Results!!

Yesterday I received my JLPT exam results!
Thanks to God, I'm very satisfied with it! (^ω^)

Which means 90.5%!

I want to thank everybody who supported me so far in my Japanese language trip, especially my parents, K-s and T-sensei, all the teachers at the International Center of TOUDAI and my friends at the lab! I'm dedicating this to you all.
Will do my best to crack the 1kyuu in July!o(≧ω≦)O

Pi meets i

Now this is the funniest thing I've seen in a while!

First sunset of 2010

Happy New Year Everybody!!

People are usually interested in the first SUNRISE(初日の出) rather than sunset.. but since I'm a late riser-especially in winter- sunset was good enough for me.

This is today's beautiful sunset with fuji san.. nothing can be more nihonppoi than seeing fujisan on the first day of the year.. (except that I wasn't lucky enough to see it in my first dream of the year..).

For more info on new year traditions in Japan, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsuyume
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_New_Year

Wish you a year full of success and a bunch of dreams coming true!!