Concentration by Miniru Suzuki

Concentration By Miniru Suzuki

Table of Contents

I should have been more careful How to Run/Race by Leo Getting Married or Staying Single? Strong Personalities Skew Study Samples by M. Farbman Consideration on Boring and Funny Joke Tellers The Mirror in the Walls by Sarie I Can’t Be Forgiven for Ali Ghraib by Eric Fair Why a Boss is Required to Adapt New Things

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Editor’s Note

I should have been more careful Someone said, "Join us!" I was invited to play. At the time, my shoulder was injured because of hard practice. However, I lacked carefulnessă&#x192;ź just one pitch seemed no problem. My friend gave me a baseball. I threw the ball, but it hit the "EXIT" banner made of plastic instead of going into the glove; the plastic box was broken down into small pieces with a loud sound, making everyone on the hallway lose words and movement just like deer in the headlights. It was miserable. Without thinking or saying anything, I started collecting plastic pieces on the floor to place them on the floor like a jigsaw puzzle to restore the original picture with my friends' help. My mind was full of confusion and concerns when someone finds out I broke the banner. We used tapes to hold the pieces and put the box back just like before it was broken--but lights came out of gaps between fragments. "Pretend if nothing happened." One of my friends said and we went back to the party, hiding agitation until going home.

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“Playing Catch”

How to Run/Race by Leo Screen Racing after you are done getting to shape and training is an entirely different

thing. This is when you go balls out, run till you pass out kind of situation. But

muscling through it all the time can be hard. This is why there are many strategies to running. Little do a lot of people know that running is a mental game of deception

and subconscious actions. You can be a runner that has less training than the person

next to you but beat them in a race because you executed the right things at the right time. During the race people tend to stick right behind other runners to draft off of them so that they do not hit the head wind. They even hold their breath sometimes running past people tricking them into thinking that the person running past is not

tired when in reality they are dying in the inside. Speeding up while turning corners is

an another thing. Little things like these added up together can make a big difference in your race results.

In the end to either get into shape or to win a race, it all comes down to you.

Due to the fact that most of the running you do is mental, there is a need for you to train your brain to make everything happen. Mind over matter is proven within

runners, and our bodies can take much more than we think. But it takes the effort of that one person trying to achieve these goals to execute.

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Getting Married or Staying Single? You might wonder if there is freedom in marriage. Does it mean to lose your time and liberty when getting married? Maybe it's a contract that forces you to sacrifice your time for the spouse. Montaigne, a French philosopher from the 16th century, said, "Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate to get out." He was one of the people who thought marriage was more cramped than expected. Nevertheless, some people favor marriage as a good contract. When I was in middle school, my baseball coach shared me a story. "You and your wife always seem happy to be together." I said. "To be honest, I was not confident in loving my wife for tens of years before getting married with her. I thought it was impossible to keep up my feelings." He said. "So you were not happy with your marriage?!" I replied. "Until I signed on the registration paper, I was. But when I was writing my name on it, I was convinced to protect my wife for the rest of my life," he smiled. There are no master keys that promise your marriage to be absolutely great. However, you can try to communicate with your partner in order to avoid troubles. Personal freedom can be achieved by telling each other's perspectives. For instance, the husband can tell how much he likes his hobby, hence his wife understands why he would use so much time and money for it. On the other hand, the wife can explain that she needs an excuse from her housework sometimes so she can get refreshed from ordinary schedule. Of course, staying single is also an option but getting married is universal happiness. Understanding each other well seems like the most sufficient way to make your marriage successful.

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“Bromance?”

Strong Personalities Skew Study Samples by M. Farbman All pet owners will happily explain to you their dog or cat's character traits -- probably in far more detail than you ever wanted to know. But the idea of animal personality is not one that's been formally studied all that much. A new study has classed a species of bird into groups of more and less aggressive males. Researchers gauged the response of male collared flycatchers to female birds, to a strange object, and to other males. They found that each type of individual displayed consistent behavior in each of these situations. However, they also found that the birds more likely to take risks also were the ones most likely to be trapped -- and thus studied further -raising important questions about the skewed sample set presented when researchers base their findings on animals caught in traps. It's kind of like when talk show hosts say "95 percent of 13-year olds (who responded to our online survey) are smoking pot!!!" -- leaving out the part about it really being 95 percent of the particular 20 teenagers who felt like responding

to our survey. (From Popular Science)

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Consideration on Boring and Funny Joke Tellers Usually, I don't hate people. However, I realized that those tell boring jokes sometimes bother me, since I was in elementary school. Since their sense of humor is developed during childhood, it's not wise to wish their stories to become more thoughtful and amusing if they are grown up. When compared with listening to funny/interesting jokes, hearing boring jokes is a pain, which makes me feel like I'm wasting my time. That said, I still think that you can learn how to avoid being boring by listening to uninteresting jokes. People who tell boring jokes are like powerful freezers; their words are designed to freeze the flow of conversation. When you talk to a person, you might notice he/she does not have the sense of humor, which prepares you for cold jokes. However, you can't predict when they would tell those jokes; it's pretty much like walking across a street where mines are buried with a blindfold on. Furthermore, boring joke tellers don't realize they are not funny. They always give us stories without humor or a climax, with self-confidence that comes from an unknown place. On the other hand, funny jokes make the conversation more enjoyable. Fun conversations create a fun time, fun times create a fun day, and fun days create a fun life. Even when you feel unhappy or depressed, hearing a humorous story would change your mood in a good way.

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“That’s Funny!”

The Mirror on the Wall by Sarie On the brighter side, most of my hula sisters were fairly helpful and did not finish getting dressed until the last ten minutes till call time as a consequence. The self-less girls did everyone else's hair and makeup before their own. If you were missing a piece of your costume, they would search the entire area to help you find it. For them, no hula sister got left behind. And for that matter, about 80% of the times, the self-less hula sisters were always the last ones to the stage. They were also the last ones to depart the theater because they stayed back an extra ten minutes to help clean up. These are the hula sisters that I love being around and would go out of my way to help them. In reality, selfish people are those who constantly look in the mirror. They feel the need to check their appearances in the mirror because they are insecure to some degree. They spend countless hours to enhance their countenance to avoid any harsh thoughts and actions; the opinions of others are what really matter. That is why they are greedy. They need to feel powerful and in control. Most importantly, they need to constantly insure themselves that they are loved. However, those who do not constantly stare in the mirror are very confident. They feel beautiful without the help of mirrors because inner beauty is more important to them. As a result, they are more self-less and willing to help those in need. Those who don't need a mirror are the ones that run charity events or volunteer in soup kitchen to feed the homeless; their main objective is to help others in their community to make society a better place. Those who constantly visit a mirror judge others based on appearance while those who don't look for other qualities such as: intelligence, bravery, and kindness in others. People who don't look in mirrors are more accepting and willing to make friends than those who don't.

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I Can’t Be Forgiven for Abu Ghraib I spent this semester teaching creative writing at Lehigh University. I’ve been a soldier, a police officer and an interrogator. So hearing students call me “Professor” and assigning homework was a significant change of pace. But teaching a class about war reminded me daily that I am no college professor. I was an interrogator at Abu Ghraib. I tortured. Abu Ghraib dominates every minute of every day for me. In early 2004, workers inside Abu Ghraib were scrambling to cover the murals of Saddam Hussein with a coat of yellowish paint. I accidentally leaned up against one of those walls. I still wear the black fleece jacket with the faded stain. I still smell the paint. I still hear the sounds. I still see the men we called detainees. When I asked the students to share their memories of the release in 2004 of the Abu Ghraib photographs showing the abuse of detainees, I received the sort of looks students give when they think they should know something and are too embarrassed to admit they don’t. Most avoided eye contact, some gave a sort of noncommittal nod, while others went for pure honesty and just yawned. Eventually I encouraged the students to track down the photos from Abu Ghraib and record their reactions in creative essays. We spent time talking about the abuses that took place and I even exposed them to some of my own writing. They still called me “Professor,” but I suspect they no longer thought of me as one. Today, the Senate released its torture report. Many people were surprised by what it contained: accounts of waterboardings far more frequent than what had previously been reported, weeklong sleep deprivation, a horrific and humiliating procedure called “rectal rehydration.” I’m not surprised. I assure you there is more; much remains redacted. Most Americans haven’t read the report. Most never will. But it stands as a permanent reminder of the country we once were. From New York Times

“Regret”

Why a Boss is Required to Adapt New Things When you act differently than everybody else, you might be considered as strange, which makes you expunged from the community. However, it is obvious that pioneers who change current beliefs/situations are almost always unique because totally new ideas come from far outside normal people’s interpretation. Therefore, the boss of an organization must be flexible to accept new concepts in order to overturn old systems. “Strange people/concepts/things change the world all the time. Samurai commanders must be generous enough to accept those eccentrics,” said Oda Nobunaga, one of the most well-known Japanese samurai daimyos (political and military leader). Born in 1534, he initiated the unification of disordered Japan and died just before his dream was achieved. The main motivation for his remarkable progress from the leader of a small county to the ruler of a huge territory was his adaption of new technology under accurate foresight. For example, he introduced guns to his army for the first time in Japan despite his retainers’ opposition in accepting foreign technology. As a result, Oda army effectively defeated surrounding counties within a short period of time. I first read his biography when I was in the fourth grade. The story encouraged me to rethink of my behavior as the captain of a baseball team since our team was following the customs inherited by the older players at the time. So I decided to gather ideas from my teammates in order to start doing something new from our generation. One of them said, "Let's shorten the practicing time." Although others claimed that it would make us less experienced, I supported the idea because our practice seemed kind of long for elementary schoolers to keep themselves focused. The coach agreed with my opinion and we started shortened practice, which turned out really well: limited amount of practice allowed us to stay concentrated and to get motivated by using excess time freely. As a result, our team became more confidence and won the second place in the division.

“Follow My Order”