Meanings of "stable"

The meaning of "stable" I know was "settled", "steady" or "firm".

I found that it has other meanings.
It means a kind of horse house. Surprisingly, it also means Sumo-beya. Sumo-beya is places or groups which sumo wrestlers belong to. For example, Sadogatake stable.

Hmm... are sumo wrestlers equated with horses? No way!

A lo---ng line in front of H&M

The Swedish fashion retail store H&M opened at Ginza in Tokyo on13th Sep. It was the first store in Japan, so it became hot topic and was also introduced in the news.

I was looking forward to going there, then in fact I went there yesterday. But...





Look! You have to stand in a lo--ng line to go into the shop. Gah! Actual line was twice the length of this photo. Of course, I didn't stand the line and gave up going into the store yesterday. About when can I go into H&M without standing in a line?

Thanks for recommending me.

The other day, a headhunter contacted me by email and said that she wanted to introduce a job opportunity to me.
I have relations with some recruit agents but I didn't know her. It was the first contact.

Then I tried to meet her today to hear about the position.
It's somehow for a younger person. So probably the role and responsibility are a bit simpler and salary is lower than my expected one. But there seems to be possibility to fulfill my hopes, which is to work abroad sometime.
Hmm... everything has both good and bad points.

By the way, I wonder how she got my information.
I'm sure somebody let her know my info. (Thank you for recommending me to the headhunter, somebody!) But I have no idea who he/she is.
I just changed my email address a couple months ago, so there are few people who know my new address. And, kanji (Chinese character) of my name is very rare, but she wrote it correctly. And of course, she knows what field I've been working. These indicate that somebody is a person who is near me?

Aso Cabinet

Taro Aso became the prime minister and new cabinet was formed yesterday.


Japanese prime ministers are short-lived. They soon quit. TOO short. I always think they should keep engaging their duties a bit longer.
But actually I was discontented with previous prime minister Fukuda. So changing this time is good for me.

I hope new cabinet will last longer.

Lamb vs. mutton

A couple months ago, my friend who lives in Australia told me that lamb was very good for health, especially it combats anemia. I don't suffer from anemia but according to my friend, lamb is also good for skin and women who eat red meat have good skin.

So, when I buy curry at a curry shop next to my apartment, I always buy mutton curry. Unfortunately there is no lamb curry on a menu for takeout. It's only for eating inside.
But mutton's odor is much stronger than lamb's one.

I told my friend about that. And she said that she didn't think Aussie ate mutton because she hardly ever saw mutton in Australia. Oh, really?!?!

So what about New Zealanders? The number of sheep is greater than that of human in New Zealand. Such a lot of adult sheep are just only for getting wool?

My watch has come back!

Finally, finally my watch came back from a repair shop.

It took a lot of time to repair, about 2 months.
And,
It took a lot of money, 21,000 yen!! (195 us$, 134 euro)

The watch is one of necessary things in my life, so it was very inconvenient. I had to look for the clock to know the time.

Even now, I still look for the clock, although I have my watch.

Job opportunities day?

As I wrote before, I'm seeking a good opportunity to achieve my purpose, which is to work abroad sometime. Even if I can't work abroad, at least I'd like to work in global circumstance.

I had job interviews with a foreign company. There seemed to be little possibility to work abroad. And I doubted capability of the position's boss as a director.
I always thought it's terrible to work under an inefficient boss.
OK, OK. I'd like to find a satisfactory position.

Unexpectedly, 3 job opportunities came along yesterday, in different ways.Was it job opportunities day?

Why was AIG rescued?

"I entirely didn't think about bailing out Lehman using taxpayer's money."
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said.

But the "taxpayer's money" was used for bailing out AIG.

The US government abandoned one company but rescued another company.
The reasons people say are almost the same. But those reasons don't make sense at all. The HUGE taxpayer's money is used for just one company. The solid and convincing reason is necessary.
One business man in Wall Street said, "The government can't (must not?) control the economy, so it shouldn't bail out a company."
Yeah! He is right!

Paulson is ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs. Hmm... I wonder if he didn't like Lehman because something happened while he was the CEO. This is much more convincing reason, isn't it? Haha.

But necessary convincing reason is not why they abandoned Lehman, but why they bailed out AIG.

After the G7 on April, Paulson said he didn't think that bailing out with taxpayer's money or government intervention would be considered. He emphasized that The US wouldn't adopted those things.
In the G7, he explained the US's countermeasures against the subprime loan problem, and he also said that using taxpayer's money and government intervention were not included in the program because the harm would be more than the benefit.

But AIG was bailed out. I'm not convinced at all.

Lehman Brothers failed

There were a lot of news about Lehman Brothers these days, then finally it filed for bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy of the big, famous and over 150 years old company...

I had worked for Lehman. I worked in the mortgaged-related department. Yes, it's exactly the section in connection with the subprime loan problem which caused the bankruptcy. The department became one company, kind of Lehman's subsidiary. I checked its website and it said that they didn't deal with new loans any longer. Oh. It was very good that I didn't continue to work there.

It was said that Bank of America would buy Lehman, but BofA chose Merrill Lynch. Merrill, which is also a big and famous company, was amalgamated. Wall Street must be stormy situation.

Actually, I was involved in Merrill in business, too. They have their own gym in their office. I thought only the company like Merrill could do that.

A few years ago, who could imagine that the companies like Lehman and Merrill fell into such situation? It's really scary. The affairs in this time can happen to any companies. There is no solid company in the world.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

I tend to respect people who have SUPER mental strength. A person I respect was only one, Matsui Hideki of the New York Yankees. I have known him since he was in high school.

Recently I have one more person I respect. He also had SUPER mental strength.
He is Randy Pausch, died of pancreatic cancer on 25th July 2008. He was a Carnegie Mellon Professor and held "The Last Lecture" at his university about a year ago, and this lecture became very big YouTube hit.

I heard about this information the other day and saw the video.
Although he knew that his days were numbered, his attitude and words were very positive.

After the lecture, a book "The Last Lecture" was published.
http://www.thelastlecture.com/

The Japanese translation of it was also published and I found it in a library. But it was reserved by MANY people. I made a reservation but I have no idea when I can read it.

His lecture was very interesting and his expression with humor was wonderful.
But what I was impressed more was his web site.

http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/

He faced his reality and wrote philosophically.
He must have felt chagrined strongly that he had to leave his 3 small kids. He must have cried with his wife too many times. He also must have cried alone too many times.
But, I think nobody could detect a whiff of that in his lecture and web site.
I couldn't read his web site without tears.

I wonder how his family is now. He was a wonderful person so many of his friends must help his family. And a wonderful person's wife must be a wonderful person. So I believe she is doing well with her kids.