2017-03-22 21:50 The tact when it needed
Y (Kuma's owner)
I still clearly remember the day I made an account on Twitter, it was on the 10th March, 2011. I had been having a little interest in Twitter and made my account just on a whim. I told a friend of mine that I made an account and the first day of Twitter ended without knowing what will happen on next day.
As you know, next day was the day that the massive earthquake struck Fukushima, Japan. I could use the telephone at home but I heard that some telephone lines had communication disorders. Then, what people who couldn't connect the telephone lines did was use Twitter. The Twitter account I didn't expect much that I would use often was very helpful after the earthquake happened. I exchanged information through Twitter with my friend that night.
If you have an account on Twitter, maybe you have seen the page which is indicated as a whale with a text, "Twitter is over capacity." (At the time I made a Twitter account, the page indicated a white whale, but maybe they have changed the design now.) If a huge amount of people access Twitter at the same time, the server would be down. But that day, the Twitter server didn't go down. Connecting Twitter helped so many people, especially people who couldn't use telephone lines.
After a while, I saw an article which was written about why the server of Twitter didn't go down on that day. According to the article, one engineer who worked for Twitter heard the news that a massive earthquake had happened in Japan. He remembered that there were unopened servers in the cardboard boxes in the computer room. He thought if people cannot access Twitter, people in Japan may take a secondary damage. He added servers for Japanese Twitter users using his own judgment, and that was the reason Twitter didn't down that day.
I'm very sure that one engineer's tact saved lots of people. On the article, there's no name, it just indicated "He." I couldn't find his name but whoever he was, I would like to say thank you, you did a remarkable job on that day. Thank you very much.
2017-03-21 04:27 The rain which continued for a long time
Y (Kuma's owner)
It had been raining for more than one week, and it has finally stopped. Everything in the yard and even the flower pots on the veranda that were under the roof were drenched with rain.
Usually, the area around Brisbane has lots of rain and thunderstorms in summer but this summer didn't have much rain. I didn't expect rain and thunderstorms in early autumn but this long-lasting rain must have been a good gift for nature.
Mushrooms are coming up everywhere in the yard. They must have been waiting for the heavy rain. My Aussie friend said that he used to eat mushrooms that came up in the yard but I cannot do it. I don't know which mushrooms are edible and which are poisonous.
The maximum temperature is getting low these days and I'm happy with that because I don't like hot weather. I like Australia very much. People are friendly, kind and cheerful, the only thing that I don't like is this hot weather. Aussie friends said that people are able to get used to the climate. All right, I'll trust what they said.
My favorite season is coming soon.
2017-03-19 03:01 I may be misunderstood by somebody
Y (Kuma's owner)
I have been writing my blog for over a year hoping that my English writing ability will be improved, but still I make many grammatical mistakes. It's not easy to write correct English to me, my mother tongue is Japanese and the Japanese language has completely different grammatical manners, that makes it more difficult to acquire the ability of English.
There is a book which was written by an American who went to Japan to study literature. From the experience during his stay in Japan, he pointed out some common mistakes that Japanese make. One of the most remarkable is the mistake of using "a."
He says that one of his Japanese friends who went to the United States for studying sent him a letter, and it said "Last night, I ate a chicken in the backyard." This sentence gave him a complicated feeling. He understood that his Japanese friend wanted to say he had a backyard barbecue party and baked chicken. However, the first image that came up to his mind was his friend eating a chicken with blood around his mouth. It's almost a horror movie.
When I read this, I thought I might have done the same type of mistakes. The sentence is not correct but it's still not so serious because people who read it would guess that he made a grammatical mistake. I think the most serious mistakes are sentences in which people cannot guess the real meanings. Words have nuances that are hard to understand for foreigners. Understanding subtle nuances and using the word appropriately are the most difficult for me.
Another example is a Japanese man who lives outside Japan who said that he told his friend "I went to hospital." He has got scratches that were not serious and what really happened was he went to see a doctor in school, but his friend was worried what happened to him.
I think he translated the sentence directly from Japanese to English. "I went to hospital" is a common phrase in Japan. The two examples I wrote above are both grammatically correct but the meanings were different from what they wanted to say.
Inconveniently, if I say the same type of mistakes, people ignore them and the conversation goes on as if there's no mistakes and I miss the chance to correct my English and also I may be misunderstood. I don't want to be misunderstood that I ate a chicken with blood around my mouth but it might have happened.
I know it's not easy to correct mistakes every time I say them, I cannot rely on others I have to acquire the knowledge by myself. If I never give up, my dream of acquiring English ability will come true, I hope.