30 day challenge

Have you ever thought you want to habituate something you believe is good?

Have you ever thought you want to quit a habit you believe is bad?

-I have.

I always think I want to start something new to improve my life, or I want to stop a bad habit. But I find it really difficult to change the habits even though it sounds easy, and I believe so do most of you.

However it could be much easier if you try something new in a limited period. When I watched one video of TED talk, which is titled “Try something new for 30 days”, it completely changed my behavior. I think it may help your behavior too.

https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days#t-186606

As Matt Cutts, the presenter of this TED talk said, the idea is very simple. You can add something you believe is good (exercise, reading books…) or subtract something you believe is bad (watching TV, smoking…).

In this way, you don’t need to think about keeping your try forever. You can just do it for only 30 days.

After this try, you may be able to keep it for a long time or you may end up with having same habits as you had before. Even if you fail, it won’t be a waste for your life. The fact you tried something to improve remains forever, and you can try another 30 day challenge anytime.

Unless you do something, nothing is ever going to change. This TED talk gave me a confidence and I am trying my 30 day challenge now.

I hope it will help your life to be improved.

3 years staying outside of Japan

After I resigned my job in Japan more than 3 years ago, I stayed in New Zealand for 1 year, in Australia for 2 years, and came to Canada recently.

I simple got interested in seeing other countries while I was staying in Australia, and this is the reason I decided to come to Canada believing my intention.

Thanks to a working holiday visa, I am allowed to stay wherever in Canada up to 1 year and to work full-time. I am not quite sure what I want to achieve here, but an only thing I am sure is that this experience will be fabulous.

I have spent more than 3 years in overseas so far. What I learned from my all experiences living outside of Japan is that being surrounded by people who have different cultures gives me a brand new point of view. I had never thought living outside of Japan until I decided to resign my job. I had never imagined what would affect my life by staying in other countries with using the other language.

Studying, working, travelling and living. All of these experiences in New Zealand and Australia completely changed my way of thinking. I became more optimistic than I was. I used to think my future in a pessimistic way, but now I don’t.

I came to respect and accept other opinions and cultures while I was being with people from all over the world.

How small world did I used to live in? How narrow view did I used to have? I would like to express my appreciation on all the people I got to know in these three years who helped me to change.

I’m going to write whatever I think is important. I hope my unique experiences can help somebody who has the same way of thinking like I used to have. 

Restart again

It might be awkward to just restart this blog like this. I was reading my previous article posted a year ago and that made me start laughing.

Despite the fact I wrote that I wanted to keep this blog to express something in English, I never did it so! It’s been a whole year, and I haven’t updated any articles at all. I actually hadn’t remembered my previous post until I recently saw it.

Nevertheless, please allow me to excuse my No intention to keep this blog. I also have another blog that I write in Japanese, and I started to update it every single day which I call “365 days Blog Marathon”. Luckily I haven’t stopped writing since I started this project because I tried to keep my motivation for writing.

So, what’s the reason I am now writing English in this blog even though I am doing crazy marathon project (I don’t think this is crazy for me, but others may do)? The reason is very simple. I finally afford to do something else as only 25 days remaining until I finish this “Marathon”.

I’ve got confidence on writing something every day in Japanese thanks to this project and it is time to step up by doing something different which is writing a blog in English frequently (I’m not going to say “every day” as I don’t believe I can keep it).

I am still wondering about what I should write about - What should be a theme of this blog. Whatever it will be, I think sharing my experience is one of my important missions of my life.

I will change the blog title and design shortly.

First post in 2015

It's been a long long time since I wrote an article last time. The reason I haven't written anything on this blog is not only that I've been lazy but also that I haven't figured out the meaning of this blog. 

I started this blog because I wanted to improve my writing skill in English. Now I got a confidence to write something in English as I had kept blogging and I have been writing emails a lot in my work. Obviously it is not perfect, but at least I can express what I want to tell. Even though I still struggle with vocabulary, it wouldn't be a problem as I can look up words with dictionary or online anyway.   

Then, what is the point to keep this blog? I don't need to do it anymore just because I want to improve my writing skill. That is why I haven't been writing anything up until now. However, recently I have felt like I want to represent myself somewhat in English. I got an important skill which is I can release the information or my experience and my life to all over the world. This must be an exciting thing because there will be a possibility that someone from all over the world happen to read my blog, then would know of myself a bit. Isn't that great? Needless to say, I have to keep doing the blog and to update useful information regularly. It will be tough, but it is worth doing it. I won't lose anything. I cannot find any reasons not to do this.

Also as I metioned above, I have been doing Japanese blog as well. Sometimes it is hard to write in my native language because I feel ashamed to write things honestly. In English, however, I feel neither awkward nor ashamed as English is not my first language which doesn't allow me to understand the words unconsciously. No matter how long I study English, I don't think I will be able to understand everything unconsciously. Thanks to this fact, I don't need to feel nervous to use English because I know I make a mistake and nobody cares that.

I wish I could release some useful information, or I could get a great experience through this blog.    

Long term away

It has been a while again. I can always be lazy about writing blog.

However the reason I have not been writing anything is not only the laziness but also the lack of topics.

Since I started to work in Melbourne, I could never come up with the sentences to write down. Recently my life is just a routine and I do same things everyday. No stimulation. Sometimes I try to think about something I want to share, but I always fail. What I can think about is nothing but working. There should be lots of things related to my experience from this job, however I do not want to write about working if possible. It will make me look like "business person". I do not desire to be looked like that.

I think I got bored with living in Melbourne. Probably I should explore this city more or just travel somewhere else I can be more excited. I used to be an active person, but I came to be one of the "business-type people" nowadays.

Keep writing blog is so difficult unless I am really keen to do. But the truth is I love writing. That's why I always restart to write even if I haven't been able to keep this.

I will write something at least once a week. This is my resolution from now on. If I keep doing blog, I can be active in order to always look for something interesting.

New work, new life

I finally will be able to move to new place which is located around 10 minutes far from Melbourne city centre by tram. I am gonna work there as a house manager of a relatively small hostel. Manager! I can't imagine how I will manage to deal with tasks in the hostel. I can't imagine I will take a big responsibility. Since this is my first experience, I don't know how to work as a manager. It will definitely be tough for me but at the same time it will be exciting and great step to start my new career. 

I have been waiting for one month to start to work. It was such a long time. I've never experienced this boring life. Even though I would feel tired and irritated when I was busy, working is much better than not working at all. No matter how busy I was, no matter how I felt exhausted, I had something to do at least and made money to live and enjoy. In this month, however, I was really nervous because of not working at all. I don't have enough money to spend on study or leisure. The life with nothing to do is totally meaningless. Totally invaluable. I spent a whole month on listening to English Podcast, reading books I've already read a few times and internet. A whole month! Can you believe this? It is so harsh that I was almost out of control. It was not good for mental health. If this kind of life kept one more month, I would get depression or something. And the reason I didn't write so many articles on this blog was that I didn't feel like to do so. Nothing to do means nothing to write.

Fortunately, though, I will start new life. I know nothing is harder than present situation. I must feel excited about that. It's time to change everything. I never want to be at as same situation as present.

Toyota's Decision

On 10th February, Toyota has made a "heart-breaking" decision that it will stop manufacturing in Australia by end of 2017. This afternoon I just happened to turn on TV, noticing the Japanese guy with familiar face was making an announcement. He was Akio Toyoda who is CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation. The program I was watching was ABC News and it spared most time of evening news on this sudden announcement. 

I, as one Japanese staying here in Melbourne, was sad to hear this news. Apparently we can find a number of Toyota cars here. There is no wonder because Toyota has the biggest market share in Australia. According to Key Automotive Statistics 2012 issued by Australian government, the percentage of market share by Toyota is 19.6%, followed by Holden (10.3%) and Ford (8.1%). To make matters worse, these Holden and Ford already stated that they will also finish their manufacturing in Australia as well as Toyota. Holden will close in 2017 and Ford will close in 2016. Unbelievably, totaled 38.0% manufacturing in Australia market share will end in 2017. How is the industry going to be? 
  
The car industry in Australia will definitely be obliged to change in three years. According to the comment from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the decision could cost as many as 50,000 jobs and wipe $21 billion from the economy. The affect of Toyota's decision broke today must be huge. We have to keep an eye on what and how the government or the industry will deal with it to support workers who are supposed to lose their job. I hope they will make the industry and the economy better soon.