A Morbid Taste for Bones

This book was a very interesting. First, Cadfael has attractive character. He is a monk, but he is different from other monks, because he has a lot of experiment, he is now in fifties. When he was young, he used to be a sea captain, working for the King of Jerusalem. He also has a lot of knowledge about medicines that helps him to search for clues about murder incident. I think he is different from another famous detectives such as Sherlock Holms, Kindaichi, or Konan.

Q. What kind of person makes a good detective? Look at this list and give Cadfael a mark out of 10 for each one.

I think there three things are important for good detectives.

First, understanding people is important, because a kind of incidents such as murder needs someone's strong motivation. So if detectives can understand the relationship between people and find out the motivation about the incidents, the detective can solve the mystery.

Second, noticing small details is necessary for detectives. This skill sometimes should be key to solve mysteries. Detectives have to search expression of faces from a lot of people.

Finally, intelligent is base for detectives. Cadfael has a lot of knowledge of herbs and medicine. Actually, this knowledge helps him to solve the incident. I don't know detectives who don't have this ability.

After all, I though these skills and abilities were also needed for engineers like me, because we should understand our team members, notice small details when we do experiments and we should study hard for our specialities.

Masao Kuroda

The songs of Distant Earth

This story is a science fiction, but I think it seems like a love story. Because almost of the story was described about Lora and Leon’s love story. Leon had come from Earth. He met Lora on the beautiful beach in Thalassa where was peaceful and young planet and they got to know each other and fell in love, but at the end...... I I felt sorry for Lora and Clyde who was ex-boyfriend of Lora.

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Use the notes to write a paragraph for each of these different endings for The Songs of Distant Earth. Which ending do you prefer-one of these, or the one in the story? Explain why.

I prefer No2, because everybody would be happy at the end.

2. Leon decided to stay on Thalassa, because he loved Lora intensely. Finally, he married Lora. He made up his mind to make a living as a fisherman. At first, it was so difficult for him to get a lot of fish, but he was an engineer, so he invented his fishing tool to get a lot of fish. He and Lora lived simple, peaceful life in Thalassa.
Clyde was very disappointed in their marriage and unhappy, but he changed his mind. He quickly made a recovery and he married someone else soon. So this story ended when everybody was happy……oh, this story is too normal and must be boring for readers.

By the way, the name of translator from English to Japanese is Asakura-san. It is said that his name was from Arthur Clarke...Arsaur klarku...Asa-kura-ku...Asakura... It's funny for me.

Masao Kuroda

Desert, Mountain, Sea

In this book, there are three stories about adventure, Desert, Mountain and Sea. In each story, there are dangerous and someone or something died, especially the adventure of Mountain, Annapurna is most serious disaster. I like the story of sea. In Naomi’s story, she traveled to sail single-handed across the world’s most dangerous seas. During her dangerous sailing, she kept asking herself the question: ‘Why am I doing this?’ I understood her feeling a little bit. Sometimes I want to travel somewhere else without no reason. When I was a student, I travelled Huhhot, Nei Mongol in China. I just wanted to ride on horse and race around. But when I arrived at Huhhot in March, there is no grass so I couldn’t ride on horse. Then I thought why I was doing there?

7. Do you agree or disagree with these ideas? Why, or why not?
7.4. Expeditions like these are very expensive, and it would be better to spend the money on something else.

I disagree with the idea. I think that these kinds of adventures would be sometimes important even if it costs a lot. I think it depends on what these travelers can give to people. If they give us bravery and impression, it would be considered of value. I think it would be important for adventurers to try something difficult. On the other hand, if they do it only for themselves and there is no difficulty, I think it would be not important like my travel in Huhhot.
Here is an example. Have you ever heard of the name, Nobukazu Kuriki, who is a young alpinist. He is now trying to climb Mt. Everest alone without oxygen. There is no alpinist who could succeed to climb Mt. Everest alone without oxygen in Japan. He used to be Hikikomori, but now he is one of the most famous alpinists in Japan. His purpose climbing mountain is that his adventures give people bravery and impression. He needed a lot of money to climb Mt. Everest. I hope he will succeed to climb Mt. Everest and give impression all of people in the world.

Image via Wikipedia

Desert, Mountain, Sea

Masao Kuroda

King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table

I’ve read this story when I was a child. Now that I almost don’t remember the story, I enjoyed it. I found the story has not only adventures, battles but also love, romance, unfaithfulness and so on. When I was a child, maybe I couldn’t understand all of the stories.

Image by litmuse via Flickr

My favorite story is chapter 6, ‘The Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’. One day, a green knight came to Camelot and said ‘Cut my head by my axe and then I cut your head.’ If you hear it, it might sound awful or strange, but Sir Gawain tried to cut the green knight’s head. After the green knight’s head rolled onto the floor, surprisingly the green knight was not dead! Then he picked up his head and held it by the hair. Next turn, Gawain should be cut his head by the green knight. He had to made a long journey to a castle where the green knight lived in order to die, but he didn’t escape from deadly event. I found it knighthood like Bushido. (I will stop explaining this continuation because I don’t want to disturb someone who didn’t read it.)

I like adventure like this. For example, ‘The load of the ring’, I became to want to see the movie. I think the final battle between Arthur and Mordred would be very exciting if I watch it on a movie. I also want to see exciting scene which Morgana changed her figure to dragon. I searched the movie on the web site and I found some. I want to watch it some day.

Posted for Masao K.

The Perfect Storm

This book was very interesting for me. This story is nonfiction and some people such as the crew members on the Andrea Gail, on a boat named Satori, and a lot of rescuers really fiercely fought against the perfect storm.
The most exciting scene was chapter 8 and 9. I’ve finished reading these chapters quickly. All members except Ray on the boat named Satori did their best to survive, but the violent storm discouraged against their efforts. For example, first, the rescuers tried to rescue the crew members by dropping a raft into the water, but due to the big waves, they couldn’t because the boat made a big hole in the raft. Then they changed their plan. I don’t want to disturb someone’s interesting for reading this book, I’ll stop to explain the continuation.
Before reading this book, I didn’t know the meaning of the title “The Perfect Storm”. The perfect storm means that three powerful weather systems hit each other like a huge bomb exploding out at sea. In other words, the perfect storm means a very very awful dangerous strom. The perfect storm consists of three powerfull weather systems which are a front of cold air moving south from Canada, the line of clear dry air moving east from the Great Lakes and Harricane Grace moving north up the US coast. From this, I wonder we can use the word “perfect” for something. For example, can we say “The perfect food”? Maybe this has not only bad smell, dirty looking, but also awful taste, further more, dangerous to health....... :-)

Masao Kuroda

Cinderella Man

I was really interested in this story, so I watched the movie, too. I recommed you this book if you haven't read it.

Writing 43. Imagine that you are Mae many years after the big fight. Tell Jim’s story to one of your grandchildren in a letter.

Dear my grandchildren,

The other day, when I cleaned up my room, by chance I found a picture that my dear Jim, your grandfather had became a heavy weight champion of the world. The picture remained me of his big fight to be a heavyweight champion. To tell you the truth, at first I didn’t like to support him at the fight, but I went to the family church to pray to God, I found crowd who all prayed that Jim win. Then I realized that Jim was fighting for not only our family but also people who wanted to win their hard life. Then I went to Jim and I said to him that I would support him anytime. First I couldn’t hear the fight on the radio because I was really afraid that Jim might got injured or if the worst thing happened, he might be killed, because the opponent Max Baer was so strong that he had killed two boxers, but after round twelfth, I started listening with our children, your parents. But Jim was stronger than Max Baer. He was really strong. Even if he got big punch from the opponent, he never fell down and he gave his punch to the opponent. The result was, as you know, he won. All of the judges agreed Jim won. I was crying with happy and he was safe after the dangerous fight. Our sons and daughter, uncle Jay and Howard and Rosy celebrated and looked very proudly. Of course, you can be proud of yourself, because your blood is included in your grandfather Jim who were a heavyweight champion of the world.
Finally, I want to tell you the important thing. Jim was really strong, but he was not only strong. He was very gentle for our family , for all of people. When we were so poor that we didn’t get enough food, if Rosy wanted to eat something, Jim was happy to give his food to Rosy. I really proud more that Jim is so gentle than he is so strong. Please remember Jim’s way of life, be strong be gentle.

Anyway, this letter became longer than usual, because I wrote about Jim’s story. If you want to hear about the detail story, I’ll introduce best person for you, Jim’s manager Joe. After all , take care and beat the rainy season, bye-bye.
Best Regards,
Mae Braddock.

Masao Kuroda