happylife

Student pilot license

I've got a student pilot license eventually. This is a permit required to fly an airplane solo. I flew with the chief instructor and took his checkout before solo. He told me that my flight skill is now enough to fly solo, but my radio communication skill is still dangerous. I made two critical mistakes related to the radio communication. One was that when I got a take-off clearance from the tower, I missed his "urgent" intention and tried to take off slowly. The other was that when I tried to land, the tower told me to pull up because the other plane was still holding on the runway, and I missed that. I need more exercise in radio communications. But I'm feeling that my first solo is coming close.

Visual training

My flight instructors sometimes recommend me a visual training before taking a real flight training. It is a very easy but effective way to improve flight skills. It is such an easy way that even the Japanese student pilots of zero-fighter during the World War II were taking it effectively. Just closing my eyes, and imagine that I am flying. That's it. Doing this training sitting in a real airplane seat on the land is more effective. If it is impossible to use a real cockpit, I use this picture, a full scale cockpit of Cessna 172. In my case, the problem was that I had few successful images and much more failure images. So even in my visual trainings, I often failed to fly. But now, I have more successful images and I can undergo a successful visual training. I hope I can fly successfully in my real flight lessons.

Okonomiyaki

I love okonomiyaki, a Japanese pancake with sliced cabbages and some other kinds of ingredients such as meat, seafood, vegetables, and so on. "Okonomi" means a liking in Japanese and we can use whatever ingredients we like. It is not only tasty but also a convenient dish to treat leftovers in the refrigerator. I often cook okonomiyaki myself because I don't know a good restaurant which serves delicious one. Usually we cook it okonomiyaki on teppan, a large, flat, iron plate, but of course I don't have such an equipment, and I use a small frying pan. It's enough for me except one small problem, that is, when I turnover the ingredients in my frying pan, some of them scatter and dirties my kitchen.

Mangoes

The season of fruits has come in Vancouver. Now we have a lot of kinds of fruits at any grocery stores or supermarkets in the town. I love mangoes especially. These one dozen Mexican mangoes cost only C$5.98. Just 50 cents each! Of course I got them and am enjoying them everyday. In my images, Canada was a cold country which is far from tropical fruits. So this is unexpected happiness. On the other hand in Japan, fruits are rather expensive because we have few domestic fruit farms and the government imposes a high tariff to foreign fruits to protect the domestic ones. In the result, most fruits, especially passion fruits including mangoes are difficult to get. And talking about orange juice, all of them are "from concentrate" in order to save the transport charges. Very unhappy country, isn't it?

Cleaning the boat

It was a fine day, and I made a big decision to clean my boat. I went to the marina this afternoon and began cleaning with my friends. Three friends helped me, but two of them were helpless. I can't say who was helpless and who was not. Cleaning a boat is a heavy job because we have to carry some heavy stuffs like batteries or tool boxes. We also have to wipe all the inside of the boat. I felt a little pain in my back. I have to care about my back because I never want to have again the back pain which tortured me last year. Anyway, by 7 pm, the cleaning of inside division was finished. To finish the outside division, I have to wait until next month when the marina is ready to lift up my boat.

Shining bathroom

It was rainy Sunday today and I had no flight lesson. So I decided to what I had been trying to do and couldn't. Cleaning the bathroom! Since I moved to this room in Vancouver 2 years and 2 months ago, I have never done cleaning the bathroom at all. The toilet and the sink, which must have been white, have changed into dirty yellowish in color. I had to start with going to Safeway to get gloves, a bottle of cleaner with bleach, and a piece of sponge. I didn't have all of them because I had never used them. I sprayed the bleach all over the bowls in the bathroom. I sprayed so much that I felt bad because of the chlorine. But the surface of the bowls became much cleaner than I hoped. Now my bathroom is even shining as you can see in this photo.

Maintenance

I have a small sailing boat in Vancouver which I bought two years ago for just C$5,000. I have been enjoying sailing on it very much, but I have to say I am not a good owner because I don't like maintenance jobs. Every boat needs a constant maintenance because it is weathered everyday on the water. Bunches of shells for instance grow on the bottom and become huge drag. The season has come when I have to lift up my boat to clean and repair. So I went to Granville Island marina today to book the lift-up and storage service. But the marina was so crowded that I couldn't find a tiny space for my boat until next month. I have to look for another marina or wait for more than one month.

Getting busy

I've started a mail magazine in which I recommend Japanese students to write blogs in English. According to my one year experience of writing this blog, I believe it is the best way to use and master English. I have more than 800 readers now and I'm writing the mail magazine every Friday. To my pleasure, several students have started their own English blogs after reading my e-zine. I think most Japanese including me have been only studying English too hard without using it. We need more experience of using English rather than studying English grammar or memorizing difficult words. Through this blog besides, I could make some native English friends. It is very interesting and exciting to communicate with English speaking people because they have different points of view than Japanese. In addition to writing an article every week, I have to reply to the comments from my readers. So I'm getting busy now. But I love the shoes I am in now because it is worthwhile.

Amesha

"Amesha" is a Japanese slang which means American cars. It has a nuance of powerful, huge, rough, easy to break, and consuming much gas. The new car I bought last week is a typical "Amesha" and satisfies all these conditions. As an engine check lamp was lighten, I drove to the car dealer where I bought it from only a week ago. The Chinese salesperson looked into the engine room and said, "It doesn't matter. It sometimes happen to this type of car. It might be an oxygen sensor trouble which doesn't matter at all. As far as the car runs with no trouble, the three month insurance is not effective." It is unbelievable in Japan but this is Canada. People don't mind slight things. So I'm now driving my Chevrly with the red light always on. I only hope that this car wouldn't have troubles any more.

Crazy?

I happened to purchase this controller and pedal set for the flight simulator. When I went to an air shop in Vancouver, the sales person came to me and recommended them. Of course I refused at first saying, "I don't buy them because I am just a visitor." Then he said, "Visitors don't have to pay the tax. You can save some money." And finally I bought them. They were so expensive that I don't even want to say how much they were. But they cost only the same as two hour flight lesson. So, if I could finish my flight lesson two hours short, they pay good. I know that is a very ridiculous calculation. But I can't get out of this crazy spiral diving of wasting money until I get the private pilot license.