We have a common saying in English, it's something that parents often say to children:


"If you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all."
I can't tell you how many times I heard that as a kid. It basically means don't complain, don't gossip, don't... say anything unpleasant. Only say nice things. And if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all. Yes, there's nice repetition for you.

When I was in university, I kind of did an experiment. I decided that for one whole week, I would actually follow this advice. I did this in the middle of a Florida summer. I guess Florida summers are no worse than Tokyo summers. Really hot and humid. So anyway, it was really hard not to complain! So many times I wanted to say, "Agh!! It's SO HOT!" Or I wanted to complain about a coworker (this was in Florida, of course I don't complain about any of my coworkers now:). A lot of things really. But every time I thought of something negative to say I had to stop myself. And you know what? It was a very quiet week for me.

It was incredible really. Until doing this "exercise" I didn't realize how negative I was, and how much I complained. During that time, I also became really sensitive to the negative comments from others. It's amazing how much everyone complains really. BUT, by the end of the week, do you know that I actually stopped thinking of complaints to make? I was naturally saying many more positive things than before. And the craziest thing happened, the heat actually started bothering me less, among other things.

I think that our words really have a lot of power over us. If we constantly complain about the world, I think the world actually becomes a worse place for us (and the poor souls around us who have to listen). Our words create the environment that we live in. I really think that our words kind of control us. That might sound crazy; most people would say that we control our words. I think we can if we try, but most people don't. Here's how I think it works. I just drew that on paint☺. You could arguably add some more steps in the process, other things are constantly contributing to that flow, but those are the important parts. Those are the parts that we're responsible for. So I think our brain deciding what to say is the step in the process that we need to be really careful about. Of course, you could just try to change your emotions and thoughts, and then your words should naturally be different. But I think it's actually easier to change your words, and then your thoughts and emotions will naturally be different.

One of the many outside influences worth mentioning is as follows:

Yes, I should print this stuff. I think the flow of conversation is something powerful. If I'm around people who are gossiping or complaining it's pretty hard for me not to join in. But let's be strong my friends. I think we should all take care of our thoughts and emotions, and that means guarding the words we say, choosing them and not letting them be chosen for us.


This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Because I've been thinking about this I've been more aware of the things I myself and others are saying. I've really started to notice the difference that good news has over my mood versus bad news. One of my friends is actually quite a complainer. But last week she gave me some good news about her life and it actually made me so happy. Happy to hear good news and happy for her that she had some to give.


Yes, I think it's time for me to commit again to a period of time when I just don't say anything negative, only hopefully it'll stick this time!


(And yes, for test prep if you're constantly saying how hard the dumb test is and how bad you'll fail then the test probably will be hard and you probably will fail. So let's watch our words!)


▼▽▼▼【講師】Amberly先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【Value all parts of life】2010.02.10 (Wed)

水曜日更新担当の講師チーム"Zen and the Art of Aptitude"から
今日は講師・Kurt先生の更新です！
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It seems like everybody in Japan is watching the Winter Olympics, hoping for great peformances by Japanese athletes. Some of them have really delivered! When watching Asada Mao, it was particularly striking how much athletes have advanced. Her routine would have been unimaginable only a few years ago, and she's managed to do it without pharmaceutical enhancements.

Personally, I like the winter sports better than others. Maybe it's the low-friction nature of competing on snow and ice, which makes all the movements seem extra smooth and graceful. Perhaps it's just the white background, which makes everything look so clean. Or it could simply be the fact that I liked to ski in my own haphazard fashion back when I was young and flexible.

For whatever reason, I'm sorry to see the Winter Olympics end, but look forward to the next time, four years from now.

▼▽▼▼【講師】Kurt先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━

・【Passing the Time】2010.01.27 (Wed)

 I find myself thinking about the difference between digital and analog information, from time to time. Most of us think of music when we think of the two. A lot of my friends still listen to analog media like records, but we are the minority (live music aside.) Almost everyone seems to own a digital music/media player these days, and are satisfied with the sound quality.

Perhaps one of the reasons I still enjoy listening to records is the quality. The word 'quality' itself is usually used in conjunction with the idea of high or low. But quality is closer in meaning to the word 'character.' Records and tapes have a different character than digital music.

First off, no two records are alike! This was of recent concern for Richard D. James. His record company wanted to release his AFX 'Analords' Series on CD format (cramping the whole title of the series itself.) At first only the vinyls were released because he wanted the uniqueness of each record being pressed from hot plastic, cooling and taking on certain imperfections; an attribute that most musicians and artists wouldn't be without.

Second, record players and needles aren't perfect. Even the best ones are just as susceptible to dust buildup, and of course degradation of the groove. The result is a kind of static noise that increases with scratching and age. The thing is, it's a rather charming sound.

Digital, on the other hand, is always identical, and either plays back the same every time, or it 'glitches' when data is unreadable. The glitches are not particularly charming, although they've earned a place in electronic hip hop. The playback is identical on every CD because the files are identical. They are based on an analog = continuous wave, but they are actually a relatively accurate discontinuous approximation of that wave. Instead of ramps and slopes for waves, we've got tiny little square steps.

At this point, you may be wondering what the title has to do with anything. I'm getting to that. One point that I always wondered about, regarding digital music, is the playback system. The speakers. Speakers are all analog. Even 'digital sound' is a misnomer. Speakers vibrate (continuously) forwards and backward, vibrating the air in analog waves, and this is the sound that vibrates our organic, analog eardrums. So is there really a difference?

Well, one problem, practically speaking, is that sound is particle-based. The physical universe seems to manifest largely around particles. While we know analog is supposed to be continuous we also know from physics that the universe is not infinite, and that when we get inside an atom, there are discrete (discontinuous) energy bands. Continuity no longer exists, it seems. Everything is small pieces, like digital information.

Let me give an example. What's the difference between gray and silver? The colour, or lack thereof seems to be the same. But silver can be many colours depending on what colours surround the silver object. Imagine a gray sheet of paper. You wouldn't be able to see it (it would look black) if it didn't reflect light. If it reflected light perfectly, like a mirror, it should look silver. What we get with a gray surface is the picture on the left. The surface is not actually smooth. Diffuse reflection occurs, and we have some kind of gray tone.
In a mirror, the surface should be as flat as possible to reflect an image completely, intact.

Interestingly, if we zoom in to the picture above, we should be able to find a small enough space where the surface is acting like a mirror. If we zoom in too close, we reach the atomic level, where the structure is no longer 'flat' and the idea of a mirror no longer makes sense.

Strange though, that every gray surface should have some mirror pieces, if we zoom into the right level. But those pieces no doubt reflect an image too small to be practical. Zoom out of the small mirror pieces, and we're back to gray. Now imagine a seemingly perfect mirror. Isn't it just part of a much larger surface of gray? What if we were building a huge telescope and needed a huge mirror? The larger the mirror, the more likely it is to have some imperfection somewhere, relegating it somewhere near the 'perfect mirror' on a continuum that must look like this:

So basically, if we get too small, things lose meaning and analog doesn't seem to exist (from a particle point of view.) And since the universe is not infinite in size, we can see a similar problem zooming out. We find a similar imperfection with sound waves which travel by vibrating a finite number of molecules. The molecules are discontinuous! It may as well be called 'digital sound' then. This may be seriously troubling for a minority of people, but I believe it adds a certain uniqueness, a nice character to our universe, and it adds meaning to my life to know that perfection exists in the realm of ideals, and not in the physical universe.

▼▽▼▼【講師】Sandy先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【Learning Lucky New Things】2010.02.03 (Wed)

Of the many tough demands that the LSAT, GRE, GMAT and LSAT make on us, one of the toughest is the use of formal logic. In my years of experience with standardized testing instruction, some students have trouble with reading comprehension, some have trouble understanding arguments, and some have trouble with math, but almost everyone has a hard time with formal logic.

And, of course, that's why the testmakers put formal logic on those tests in the first place. Remember, standardized testing is usually not about what you know, but about how well you think. Critical thinking--the ability to not just memorize and regurgitate what you've been told, but to evaluate it objectively--is a key skill in higher education, as well as in life. True critical thinking began in Greece a mere couple thousand years ago, and the scientific method it bore (the method that has brought civilization everything from antibiotics to the internet) has only been in wide use for about three hundred years. In that time, mankind has advanced by thousands of years. Without formal logic and critical thinking, we'd probably still all be wearing loincloths and dying of smallpox; it's important stuff.

With that in mind, I've been working for the past couple of months to design a class in formal logic that would allow students from various tests to improve their skills in one forum. Formal Logic Perfect will focus on the formal logic concepts that are tested repeatedly on tests like the LSAT, GRE, and GMAT. In the class, I'll teach my students core and advanced formal logic formulations, with special focus on the types of arguments--valid and flawed--that those tests often use. Although you'll also learn some academic theory, this is meant to be a practical class geared toward helping students get your best possible scores on the LSAT, GRE, GMAT, MCAT, or SAT by helping you master formal logic that is even more advanced than what you'll see on those tests.

One of the great things about the class is that you'll learn several different methods for sketching and evaluating arguments, so that you can either pick the one that works best for you and stick with it, or use various methods as the situation merits. I'm hoping that students who complete this course--eight two-hour sessions over two months--will come away with the skills to make the problems they're going to see on their tests look simple by comparison. It will be a challenging class, though, especially if you're a high-school student studying for the SAT, so be ready for some hard work! And of course, as always, anyone who has questions about the course is welcome to contact me directly, or come and meet with me at the Yotsuya center. See you in class!

▼▽▼▼【講師】Douglas先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【How are you Studying, Part II】2010.01.20 (Wed)

I've recently found myself in two very different situations where I ended up greatly regretting some things that I had said. I don't mean regret like I said things out of anger or drunkenness and then couldn't take them back, I said them out of... naivety I guess is the right word. Actually, in high school, a kind of mentor of mine told me that my greatest weakness was naivety. Since then I've met some pretty nasty people and think myself to be toughening up a bit, but it's still a work in progress.


In these situations, my hasty speaking did not result in something of great consequence, but not of positive consequence either. So I guess it's really just been a kind of good learning experience. I really value these kinds of learning experiences. Generally, I really value anything that helps me become better. I'm sure everyone does though, this is not something unique to me. But I do think that many of us do not recognize the things that make us become better. Even worse, we mistake the things that make us become worse for the things that make us become better! I could venture some examples but that would probably leave me out on dangerous ground. So let me move to some fairly safe ground.


Studying.


I think everyone probably recognizes that they're studying to make themselves better in the end. But I think some people might have that end benefit misdirected to just the knowledge that they are acquiring, that the knowledge (or the score) makes them better or more capable for tasks ahead. Umm... I'm not really sure, haven't thought it through, you might be able to beat me in a logical argument on this, but my initial gut reaction is that knowledge doesn't make you better necessarily. Yes...if I add the word "necessarily" I feel pretty confident with that statement.


I think the greatest benefit from studying is the perseverance you acquire, the problem solving skills you acquire, the creativity you acquire, the multitasking because many of you are still working, the time management, the critical thinking. Many things. I probably initially value critical thinking the most.


Case in point, my math studies in university. What would you guess, do I remember all the formulas and theorems that I learned? Yeah, probably not. Well, definitely not. Until very recently when I made a small trick by which to remember this fact, I could never ever ever even remember if the derivative of sine was positive or negative cosine, or if the derivative of cosine was positive or negative sine. But I can see the fruit of my laboring over math problems all the time. It depends on the situation, but sometimes I can have such a mind for details that solving just everyday scenarios becomes pretty easy, seemingly easier than it is for others. I'm also very patient when trying to find solutions. See, the studying, the act of sitting down for hours and just trying to understand something, trying to make the connections in my brain trained my brain. And now I'm benefiting. Sometimes anyway.


So I want to say, that if you can learn to value just the act of studying, of thinking and trying to figure things out, I think it might help serve as motivation. If you think of just studying as something that is making you better, you'd probably want to do it more. If you can't find the answer or if you can't get a super high grade it's still ok because if you've put yourself through an honest studying process you will have benefited much, and that should leave you happy! That should also take some of the pressure off which will probably help to increase your score.


Yeah I don't mean to say you should throw caution to the wind and lose sight completely of your end goal, just value the process. It'll make you happier, less stressed, and therefore more capable.


▼▽▼▼【講師】Amberly先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【The Easy Way】2010.1.13(Wed)