Do they have cats in their stores?

The New York Times Weekly Review:

... there is one thing that many owners and employees say they cannot do without: cats. And it goes beyond cuddly companionship. These cats are workers, tireless, and enthusiastic hunters of unwanted vermin, and they typically do a far better job than exterminators and poisons.

I like cats. I would feel uncomfortable, though, if I watched them walking on food items. Anyway, this article introduces a website about store-dwelling cats: http://workingclasscats.com/

Doraemon is a cat-shaped robot, although it looks like a racoon dog.

Kumiko Aso gets hitched.

I read the news that Kumiko Aso will get married. This new didn't surprise me, but it made me think that a lot of years has passed since she started out appearing in the media. I remember she was on a commercial of "Katei Kyoushi no Trai (Try tutor recruiting agency)." That was a long long time ago.

Japanese people eat chicken.

I went to KFC to get some chicken. That's what most Japanese people do. I like chicken, so it's not too bad. However, I really miss stuffing. Maybe I will go to some internatinal market to get stuffing and cook it at home.

Merry Christmas!

Don't wanna go to the hospital...

One of my colleagues has been away from work for a couple of days. Maybe he has the flu. But, he doesn't go to the hospital. Why? It isn't because he doesn't have any insurance here in Japan. According to my collague, people never go to the hospital unless it is very serious.

"I am a big boy. I can handle it."

I listened to two of my coworkers talking. One, an American guy, asked the other, a Japanese woman, the direction to the place to visit. She answered, but he wasn't satisfied with his explanation. And then, he said, "I am a big boy. I can handle it."

It cracked me up because he called himself a boy, which originally means a "male child." I don't know whether it would sound to native speakers, but "I am a big boy. I can handle it" should be used by a 10-year-old school boy who wants to go somewhere without his parent's protection.

Are you young?

One of my American colleagues wondered why most of Japanese teenagers are afraid of becoming their 20s. He said, "20 is very young," and then "25 is young." "30 is still young," and then, "maybe 35 is still young."

I don't know if you can call an 35 year old person a youngster. But, basically I agree with him. Japanese people think about their ages too seriously and it doesn't make them happy so far.

Of course, she is very young.

Probably, most Japanese think that the best time in their life must be when they are high school or college students. In the other parts of the world, people would think 20s and 30s is the best.

She is young without a doubt as well.

Take a note!

Taking a note is very important when you are working. If you don't do that, you have to ask the same questions of your coworkers over and over. And you ought to write it down in a notebook rather than scratch paper. If you try to do this easy thing at your workplace, you may be much more productive than you are now.

Why am I writing a thing like this? An old guy sitting in front of me doesn't understand this. And he seems to have difficulty doing some works properly. His boss asked him to take a note, but he doesn't. I often sigh.

Movie Day!

Yesterday was a movie day, which you can watch one with only 1000 yen (usu. 1800 yen). Then, my friend and I went to watch movies. We watched TSUBAKI SANJURO and Beowulf.

The former wasn't that good. It is a remake of an old movie, which I haven't seen, but the story was too simple and kind of boring. If you are a big fan of Yuji Oda, though, you should see this.

Beowulf, the latter one directed by Robert Zemeckis, was pretty good. This is IMDB's plot:

The warrior Beowulf must fight and defeat the monster Grendel who is terrorizing towns, and later, Grendel's mother, who begins killing out of revenge.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442933/

But, what you can learn from this movie is the supidity of the heroes, including Beowulf, who have made a lot of mistakes because of desires. Grendel's mother must be the symbol of satan but who wants her is human. The way this discrepancy is described is the best part of this movie.

http://www.beowulfmovie.com/

This movie is based on Neil Gaiman's novel. Neial Gaiman is a best-selling author. One of my friends in the United States recommed me to read his novels. Although I'm busy reading other stuffs, I want to read some of them soon.