My reaction to Fisher

It is interesting the definition that perception is composed of three components, a perceiving person, an object of perception, and an inferred interpretation. The definition is organized and clear. Additionally, I am interested in the fact I cannot see the pictures as both heads and vase at the same time when I see the two-headed vase illusion picture.

I want to know two things about perception. First, I would like to know the reason with the object of a brain science why I cannot throw away the interpretation which I had once. For example, when I saw the Language or designs at first time I could not notice the word “FIST”. However once I interpreted the word “FIST”, I could no longer miss the word. I want to know the mechanism why the above perception happens. Second, I want to find the way how to overcome some of the nature of perception. For instance, the nature of selective may narrow my vision. I want to collect a wide variety of information.

It was difficult to understand all main ideas of Fisher by myself. For example I misunderstood the meaning of the element of expectation. Fortunately due to the group discussion with my section mates I could comprehend the meaning that expectation changes the reality. It is good example introduced in the NP lecture that a doctor makes a wrong diagnosis on some patient's illness when he or she checks one hundred's X-rays of healty people because of expectation  that there must be at least patients who have an illiness.

Linguistics for LT : 3&4 round

I learned about the 5 features  of communication at the Linguistics for LT class. I try to paraphrase each feature.
1. Interactional function; Communication is a dialog not a monolog.
2. Transactional language; The language used to tell somebody a meaningful content.
3. Direct or Indirect; Direct means a message is clear, Indirect means it is unclear.
4. Metaphor or Idiomatic; each language has unique metaphors or idioms, but it is difficult for non-native speakers to acquire them. 
5. Displacement; Only human language enables human to  talk about places or people that are not in front of him or her.  

My reaction to Barna text

It is useful to know the stumbling blocks which are written in an organized way. I have already experienced most of the stumbling blocks which Barna described. His structural approach helped me to organize my experiences about stumbling blocks in my mind.

Through the group discussion, I realized that I experience the six stumbling blocks not only in intercultural communication with people who have different cultures but also in daily communication in Japan. For example when I take part in group discussions at foundation classes in ICU I feel anxiety because I need to discuss with senior students I do not know and I do not know their cultures. This example shows the “High Anxiety”.

Barna denoted some examples to support his idea. However the number of samples is so few that his idea is not fully demonstrated. For example he could arbitrarily choose students who have the characteristics or behavior which he explained.

Summar Reading Reaction ; The 7 Habits of Highly effective people

I read the book whose title is “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” written by Stephen R. Covey, who is an author and a business consultant. I have held my interest in it since it had become a bestseller, but I have not had time to read it. Before this summer vacation started I thought it was time to read it, because in the early stage of my university life I want to get useful tips how to manage the university life.

It tells us the seven habits required to solve difficult problems. The habits are based on the so-called “Character Ethic”, including dignity, justice, and humanity. The habits don’t solve the problems superficially. The habits are divided into three categories. The first category, including the Habit 1, 2 and 3, is related to becoming independent and achieving private success. The second category with Habit 4, 5 and 6 is related to becoming interdependent and achieving public success. The third category with Habit 7 is related to the development of the other six habits. Stephen insists that we need to be interdependent people who can attain best outputs by combining our talent and effort with those of others.

I want to introduce two of my favorite habits.

First the Habit 3 says that we have to do priority things at first. To distinguish priority things from others, Stephen uses an urgent axis and an important axis and recommend us to concentrate on the area which is not urgent but important. This idea attracts me, because the idea reduces my sense of urgency that I have to do the things that are urgent and not important. To concentrate on only important things, Stephen shows the way “delegation” to solve this issue. “Delegation” means that we let other persons do things we have to do. As I have shown in this paragraph, Stephen gives us not only the abstract idea but also the specific solution. This point is also my favorite one.

Second the Habit 5 tells us that we must try to understand other people before we try to let them understand us. The reason why I like this habit is that I have thought it was an important idea for a long time. I am glad that Stephen regards the idea as important as well as I. I started to recognize the idea was important because of two uncomfortable experiences. First when I was a high school student my teacher did not listen to my idea and just forced his idea upon me. I wanted him to listen to my opinion at first. Second when I worked for the consulting company, my former boss did not try to understand the opinions of the team members even though the opinions were an effective way to solve the problems our client were facing. As a result the project did not go well. These experiences taught me the importance of the attitude to truly listen to the opinion of others.

In conclusion, I do not have to acquire all seven habits but it is worth adopting at least one of them, because I thought among 50 books written about self-development this book is the most valuable one to read.

First Step

•   How was my summer?

I had two good experiences. First, I enjoyed staying in Germany for a month. It was very exciting to watch the Japan-England match of the Women Soccer World Cup in Augsburg. Furthermore German sausages tasted very delicious. I had some difficulties with talking to my friends at the German language school. I realized that it was interesting to study a new language but at the same time it was so difficult to get used to the new language. Second, I could start to write an English blog about physics education for mainly high school students. I am interested in Language Immersion. I try to keep on writing the blog even if I need to do a lot of assignment in this semester.

•   What do I want to learn/get from ARW Autumn?

I have two things to get from ARW Autumn. First I want to learn how to state my opinion correctly by using suitable and correct English expressions. Second I want to improve the speed of my reading understanding even though the content is high academic level.

•   My favorite word

The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what I believe is great work.