5 posts tagged “reading”

Three books I ordered at Amazon.co.jp two days ago arrived today. What a quick delivery.

"Matilda (Puffin Novels)" by Roald Dahl
"Watchers" by Dean R. Koontz
"Remains of the Day (Penguin Joint Venture Readers)" by Kazuo Ishiguro

I should have noticed when I ordered it, but "Remains of the Day" wasn't a book I wanted to buy. Even though Amazon reports that this book was written by Kazuo Ishiguro, it is not exactly the complete version, but a revised version for Englsih learners.

The only slight difference between them is that the revised version does not have "The" in front of "Remains". It is quite tricky, isn't it? This may cause other customers who are not familiar with the 'Penguin Ladder Series' to place an order incorrectly, or was I the only scatterbrain in Japan? I guess Amazon.co.jp should tell us more precisely that it is not the original version, it is a revised version. Then it would be easy for anybody to understand.

Anyway, I decided to return this book to Amazon. Instead, I ordered a complete version of this novel at a lower price from Betterworld.com via Amazon market place. By using this method, the book may be delivered in a month or so. Until then, I hope I finish my other two books.

First, though, I have to finish reading "The Witches" by Roald Dahl, which I have been reading since last Friday.

From last night, I have just started to read a book "Death on the Nile" by Agatha Christie, besides "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll.
Those are completely different category, one of them is mystery, which is my favorite genre by the way, and the rest of them is a fantasy.
When I got the English version of "Alice in Wonderland" very first time, maybe it was about ten years ago, I couldn't read it from the beginning, because it was too difficult for me.
However, surprisingly enough, I can read it quite easily this time. Moreover, it's really interesting story, even though it's an classical juvenile reading.

"Death on the Nile", on the other hand, it is somewhat difficult. It depends on the paragraph, but at least, two to three words I don't know. Nevertheless, the Queen of Crime's classical whodunit is also fascinating, and I can't face it down. Therefore, I decided to read both books, as well as "Anne of Green Gables" on The Linguist. ;-> I have a paper back version of Anne's book, and unlike previous two stories, I am going to read this book carefully, using READ section.

Listening : podcasts 300min
Reading : Alice (p.23-p.50), The Nile (p,9-p.15), Anne (p.1-p.2) 150min
Speaking : RLH 90min, at work 120min, TL 70min
Writing : Vox blog 30min, email 10min

Total : 770 min/7 days

Oops! Again, I need more writing exercises, and reviewing words and phrases. To be honest, I don't know how to effectively use REVIEW section, even though I have been reading how to use REVIEW over and over. Blush.

By the way, let me show you some of my favorite podcast programs lately (other than my three top favorites, "The Linguist", and "Effortless English Podcast", "EnglishLingQ").

ABC News Medical Minute http://abcnews.go.com/Health/?CMP=OTC-3V9R06864381
ABC News Cybershake http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/?CMP=OTC-3V9R06864381
Better at English http://www.betteratenglish.com/
Business English Pod http://lkey.podomatic.com/
ESL Podcast http://www.eslpod.com/website/index.php
EnglishPod http://www.englishpod.com/
Katie Couric's Notebook http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/10/04/couricandco/entry2062036.shtml
KUSP's Ask Doctor Dawn http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510055
Metropolis Podcast http://metropolis.co.jp/podcast/
NPR: Business Story of the Day http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=4985901
NPR: Your Health http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=1066&startNum=16
The Bob and Rob Show http://box25.bluehost.com/~englishc/bobrob/
The Business Spotlight Podcast http://www.business-spotlight.de/
Wall Street Journal This Morning http://www.wsjradio.com/
... and little bit more.

Last night while I was attending a party, I drank a glass of cola. This morning when I downloaded some Podcast contents, I found this article: Cola Causes Bone Loss at ABC news.com. 

When I was a kid, my mom always told me that drinking cola regularly makes your bones weak (she said "melt" to be precise). As a small child, this story always scared me a lot, and I had believed it into adulthood. I have heard that cola contains some sort of chemical product which causes damage to calcium, but on the other hand I thought this story was just a rumor.

Now, I'm reading this article with a bit of fear and anxiety; however, thanks to my mom, I am not a cola-lover. I do not need to worry about osteoporosis, at least not so much.

"The more cola that women drank, the lower their bone mineral density was," ...

decaffeinated (d-kf-ntd, -kf--) adj.

osteoporosis (st--p-rss) n. 骨粗しょう症 abnormal loss of bony tissue resulting in fragile porous bones attributable to a lack of calcium; most common in postmenopausal women

the brittle-bone disease = osteporosis

brittle adj. もろい Likely to break, snap, or crack, as when subjected to pressure

the spine n. 背骨 the line of bones down the centre of the back that provides support for the body and protects the spinal cord

If my understanding is correct, this article hasn't mentioned any scientific reasons why cola puts women at an increased risk for this brittle-bone disease. If any specific food additive names were mentioned here, they were obviously understandable. I assume not only cola, but any kind of high carbonated drinks affect the bones.

Here is a related article about this issue at MedPage Today. (I haven't read it yet.)

Which do you like, coffee or tea? Maybe other beverages you prefer to drink regularly?
I like coffee, green tea and mixed leaves plus grains tea (the ingredients of like tea grass, dokudami, striped bamboo leaves, and more), but I rarely drink black tea.

I can find a lot of articles about coffee or tea, related with health risks and benefits. The moderate amount of those drinks is good for your health, possibility to prevent cancer, heart disease and other conditions.

 

ABCNEWS.com: What's Better for You: Coffee or Tea?
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Diet/story?id=2123324

There is the strong suggestion that the antioxidants in tea - whether it's black, green or white - have health benefits. Antioxidants can prevent inflammation of the blood vessels, and it has been linked to reduced risk for cancer. In terms of antioxidants, white tea has the most, followed by green tea, black tea and coffee.

ABCNEWS.com: Study: Drinking Coffee Has Health Benefits
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/story?id=1074559

"Antioxidants are your army to protect you from the toxic free radicals, which come from breathing oxygen and eating sugar, that start chronic diseases," said Dr. Joe Vinson, the chemistry professor who led the coffee study. "Antioxidants help stave off cancer, heart disease, diabetes and stroke."

A Cup a Day May Keep the Doctor Away

...........................................................................................

Oh no, my laptop PC is getting irritatingly slow, I can't stand this any longer... well, while I'm writing this, my husband said that the my PC is not only the reason but the network speed provided by Yahoo!BB is so bad right now. It's about 35kbps, like old age's modem speed. Gosh!
I've been using my PC for over 4 years, and it has only 256MB memory, so maybe that's because most new softwares I have downloaded recently are hardly working, and just visiting webpages are too much stress for my old PC.
Anyway, I have already ordered a new desktop PC at Dell website last Wednesday, and my new PC with a 1GB memory is suppose to arrive around the end of this month.

Now it's 4:50 AM, I'm hearing the beautiful sound of the chirping of evening cicadas (ヒグラシ higurashi) outside. I love this sound very much.
Even though it's early in the morning now, their name is with 'evening' in English. Hm, sounds a bit strange to me. A scientific name of them is "Tanna japonensis", by the way.

Yesterday, I read an interesting article on ABC News website.

"Working long hours worse for women than men"
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WomensHealth/wireStory?id=2182895

When I saw this title, I thought that working long hours is bad for women, because of women might have any physical handicap. But it's not!!! And the reason is pretty funny.

According to the article...

"Women who work long hours eat more high-fat and high-sugar snacks, exercise less, drink more caffeine and, if smokers, smoke more than their male colleagues,"

"When they feel anxious or emotionally aroused or negative about themselves, they try to avoid these negative feelings by turning their attention to food."

I agree their study, 100%. At least, in my office, this statistic is totally true.

 

Okay, now it's 5:20 AM, and higurashi is no longer chirping. It takes about 30 min writing this amount of essay. If I'm going to keep writing every day, my writing speed is getting fast? I wonder. Anyway, I'm keep on trying!