Alexis Alcazar

 Our department at work organized a BBQ party at Nagata Nature Park. The BBQ was delicious, but what I liked most was the place. It was very beautiful. There were lots of tall trees and stylish pyramid cabins beneath them. It was a shame I was not able to walk around to see more of the forest. We only stayed from 10AM to 6PM. Having been to a Japanese nature park for the first time made me appreciate the beauty of nature. I would like to go to a nature park again with close friends, have a BBQ, camp, stay overnight, light fireworks, talk for hours by the fire, and be nervous about bears. Yes, that's a good idea. I would love that. [A]

In her message, a Japanese tutor told me that she went to see fireworks in Kamakura and asked if I had ever seen fireworks in Japan. I handwrote my reply in Japanese to say that I have not yet done so and that I want to experience them someday. While writing, I learned that the Japanese word for fireworks is   花火    (はなび • hanabi) . Broken down,   花   means "flower" and   火  means "fire".   花火   is literally "flower fire". The Japanese see fireworks as flowers in the form of fire, and I find that deeply poetic. I had never thought of fireworks that way before, and learning this has changed the way I see them forever. In my eyes, they are no longer just bright, colorful explosions in the night sky. Fireworks are flowers made of fire. Violent and yet ever so delicate, their ethereal beauty makes them seem almost otherworldly. Perhaps that is why they bloom for only a few fleeting seconds.

 I never liked watching romance movies, but this movie was recommended to me, so I watched it. Then it became the best Japanese movie I have ever seen. It broke my heart into a million pieces. Also, I recommend watching it in its original Japanese audio. 

Rocky: I thought you made peace, question? Ryland Grace: I didn't mean any of that. That's just something you say.  

 A year ago, I took a math exam for a job application. I passed the exam, made it to the interviews, and actually got qualified for the training. Eventually, I decided not to take that opportunity, and I chose to pursue the job that I have right now. But this article is not about that missed job or any jobs. This is about a particular math problem in the math exam. It was so interesting that I told myself I would write about it. And after 1 year, here it is. The problem went like this: It is 2:00. At what time will the hour hand and the minute hand form a straight line? Before this exam, I had never solved a problem like this. I had no idea where to begin (let alone solve it). I could skip this problem and not give a fuck about this 1 point. But I did not. I wanted to solve it not for the point, but for the sake of solving it. I wanted to prove to myself that my knack for geometry from high school was still sitting behind my brain, awaiting to be tapped. I so began thinking. The fi...

 I woke up early in the morning and sat at my computer. I was about to study Japanese when I suddenly remembered how I made a perfect star in high school. At that time, I had a good grasp of elementary geometry, so I was able to easily make it with a ruler and a protractor. With a ruler to measure length and a protractor to measure angles, it was easy to make a star.  A star is a polygon with ten sides. Technically, it is a decagon. But a star can be created by laying out only five lines from its center as its frame. To make a perfect star, all five lines must have the same length and must have equal angles between them. A complete rotation has 360°. To determine the angle from one line to the other, 360° is divided by the number of lines, which is 5. 360° / 5 = 72° From the angle alone, and with a ruler and a protractor, a perfect star can be drawn like so: Draw a line with length x from the center upward. Then, measure 72° from the center to its left and right, and draw the...