Category Archives: Learning

The Tea Tree Lake

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Just in from the beach here, is a tea tree lake. When the tides get very high, the sand is washed away that separates the lake from the sea and an amber stream of tea tree oil infused water flows to the ocean. This week that happened and my mind clicked. I contracted a toenail fungus on my right foot many years ago. It has remained only on that foot. It spread beyond my toenail to the sole of my foot. Twenty odd years ago, my doctor gave my different external treatments that didn’t change it. So, he gave me an internal medicine that I was to take every day for six months. After four weeks, I was so ill that he took me off it. I totally screwed up my system and it wasn’t until I was treated by a herbalist that I stabilized again.

Tea tree oil is a natural anti fungal agent. I figure that a few minutes a day walking in this tea tree water won’t hurt and it maybe will help. I’ll let you know in a few months.

Cheers

Barefooting

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I live only a block from the beach. Most of it is through a nature strip. I was wearing these clunky sandals to the  beach and, then, taking them off to enjoy the sand. A couple weeks ago, I asked myself, “Why am I doing this?” My route to the beach is through a nature strip, a small park and a short path. It is mostly grass and dirt with a few short stretches of stony earth or gravel. So, I started to leave the sandals at home. Ah, the freedom.

I soon discovered other benefits than loosing the weight of the sandals. My feet soon became accustomed to the rough surfaces. Sure, there is a bit of discomfort when walking on gravel or stony ground, but, it isn’t that much. What’s great is that my I am feeling the bottoms of my feet as I walk. Also, the irregular surfaces are massaging my feet and causing them to flex in small ways that can only be good for them. I mean, why do we have so many bones in our feet if not to give them a wide range of flexibility?

This has become a real joy for me. I am also walking differently. My feet are coming down more evenly than when wearing shoes. You can see this especially when you watch barefoot runners as opposed to people running in shoes. I read that there was a study that showed that barefoot running allows your feet to transmit the quality of the surface better to the rest of your body and that your joints are better able to prepare for the jolts. They actually found that there was less wear on joints of bare foot runners than shod runners.

I will still use my clunky sandals and my shoes but I continue to go barefoot much of the time.

Japanese Learning Apps for my Ipod Touch

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I have some applications for my Macbook and some apps for my iPod Touch that I use for studying Japanese. In this post, I’ll tell you about the apps that I use on my Touch.

The first that pops to mind is called Kanji Fuda. It has sixteen tiles and when you touch a tile it flips to reveal a kanji (chinese based characters) or the meaning in English and Kana. If two match, they stay up. Otherwise, they turn back over and you have to search. It’s a great game. Helping me to refresh my memory and learn some new kanji. Right now the number of kanji is limited but the creator is going to post more.

Next is sticky study. A flashcard app for studying hiragana and katakana. The two phonetic alphabets used in conjunction with the kanji. My hiragana is pretty good, but, my katakana has a ways to go.

For a more full on study, I use an app called Japanese Flip. It is a flash card program with the Kanji arranged in four levels. You can have the kanji show by itself or with kana below it. I have it set for both. You then tap to show the answer. You tap to indicate if you were correct in your answer. It keeps track of your answers to present you with the ones that you missed more often.

Japanese Study

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I have discovered an online Japanese “textbook” called Textfugu. The guy who created it does these great videos on YouTube about learning Japanese. He is very funny and sincere. People were always asking him to recommend a textbook and he was always recommending texts that he felt were “ok”. He got laid off from his job and decided to write a textbook himself. What evolved is an online textbook with all of the advantages of video and such. I am beginning with the free lessons. In the first lesson he has you write down why you want to study Japanese. Then, he goes through the excuses. I am now beginning my language learning log.

I began this voyage a long time ago. I am above survival level, and, have floated there for a long time. I want to get to where I can easily converse with native speakers in Japanese. Next!

Studying blogging

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So, I have started to study this thing called blogging. I did keep a blog for a couple years when I first started travelling after I sold the house. http://a-kundan.blogspot.com/ However, it got to be a lot of work. Part of it was so much writing for each entry and positioning the photos. So, I’m doing a bit of study and practice in this blog that almost no one knows about. Til now, this has been a place for me to write a few “phliosophical” posts. My resurrected interest is the result of my intended blog of my round the world tour next year. I have already created the blog. Titled “Kundan’s Bent Tour”. That’s “bent” as in recumbent bicycle. Or, maybe it’s as in the not straight and narrow. I also have planned, off further in the future, another blog as part of website that will be part of a pet interest of mine. It will be much more of a site for discussion and maybe collaboration.