Twilight Children by Torey Hayden

This is about the book which I have just finished reading.

Torey is one of my most favourite authors. She has written many books about child psychology. I've read four of her books. She is an educational psychologist, and her books are non-fiction from her experience. If you love to know her, it can be easy to search and find her information on the website, I guess.

There were a little boy (Drake), a little girl (Cassandra) and an old lady (Gerda) in the story as her clients. I am not telling much about the story, but they were basically have same problem with speaking. Drake had never spoken. Cassandra kept telling lies. Gerda had speaking problem after her storoke. Except Gerda, she solved the two kids' problem. Well, Drake's problem wasn't his fault, though. That's all I can tell here.

Ｉ have still many books to read…. Yeah, I just keep buying books I am interested. Many of them are over 300 pages. Just try to read as much as I can when I am free.

3 month old nephew, Tomoaki

Last weekend, my 1 year younger brother and his wife visited us to show their 3 months old newborn baby, Tomoaki. They stayed here for 2 days (1 night). Tomoaki met his two cousins at first time. Yes, it was my first one too. Of course, he didn't care much about us except his parents, but we cared him so much. He was cute, and some of us think he looks like his cousin (younger one), Taisei. His dad is smartest in my family, and his mum is smarter than his dad. So, he may be already so smart. It makes me sure that he not only looks around when he is awake, but also realises how to make noise.

As I said, he is very cute. However, to me Taisei is cuter than him because he is much more like a baby. I am not sure how smart Taisei is, but hopefully he will be (but not as smart as Tomoaki).

Shares

I am going to see the lady at the Nomura securities firms in Osaka to discuss about my future plan for funds (actually she is younger than me, also kind and cute).

I am making some different types of portfolio, and I will decide how I am going to buy to increase amount of my money. Yes, it may not be a good time to buy these things because of current instable economy. However, it maybe a good chance to buy to gain a lot.

In my portfolio, there was one section for Japanese market, and I already bought one ETFs (it may be only one for this section). This ETF associates with shares of Japanese core 30 companies. The ticker for this is 1311:jp. That value has gone good at the moment, and hopefully goes much much better in the future.

Economic Markets

I am now often thinking of the market. I have a few funds, and their values have been sharply dropping after the subprime mortgage loan problem in the U.S. I think to lost more than 10%. And I have no idea what will be next week. I have now some money to spend and manage for these things. Of course, my purpose is to gain the value. So, now is the time to make decision for it. I have talked with a lady in the security company about what to buy on the phone, but I am still comparing with their products (e.g. shares, funds and Government bonds). Final decision will be made when I visit and talk with her. I may be updating these results. I am not buying only one with that money but some to minimise the risk.

However, the world markets including Japanese one have been terrible especially last a couple of weeks and it may continue. I need to find out when they hits the bottom.

I am also thinking to buy some books to study, because I am still a beginner. So, that is also the task to find out a good book to read…. Still so many things to do･･･

Plan for fund

I went to Nomura securities firms last week, and made half of my plan. My adviser, Rie Morita, helped a lot to do that. She made many kinds of portfolio associated with some questions related to my foundation. She also presented many funds which might be improving greatly in the future. Well, it is just because it's been terrible of world market after the sub-prime loan problem in the U.S.

To make my funds protective, she and I decided to buy fund by one of investment management companies and Government debt. Yes, I spent 20% of my portfolio for ETF associated with Japanese core 30 companies. I have another 30% for European and Emerging countries' stocks, share including ETF and funds. However, she strongly recommend to get fund related to Brazilian (Latin American) and Russian market, although I was more interested in their ETFs or ADRs. Yes, we are both interested markets in same countries, Brazil and Russia. As it was written in the beginning of this, I'd also like to have something related to European market....

I need some more time to sort them out.

General scientific topics I love to discuss in the future.

Today, I just list up two scientific topics which I am interested in and saw in the paper and TV program. I will update details and opinions later.

• Global warming
• Evolution

If you have some opinions or comments, email me or post here.

Surgical operations

Last month was actually a very bad month for my family.

Firstly, two of my family had surgical operation. My grandma broken her arm wrist and had surgical operation to fix it. To do that, she stayed around one week in the hospital. Of course, that surgical operation was not difficult, but general anaesthesia was the only thing my family and I did a bit care. But everything was okay.

Two days after this, one of my nephew, Taisei (11 month old), also had surgical operation to remove his big tumorable nevus on his back, which was still not sure it would become cancer in the future. So, to prevent from bad situation, his parents decided to do it. Yes, it wasn't so serious, but he also had general anaesthesia, but it was done by special team for him. During the operation, his nevus was successfully removed, and his normal skin on his back (cut it like Y letter) was stretches from both sides to stitch the wound.

(baby skin is very stretchable and will be normal in the future). Everything was done successfully, and most importantly he was very fine after that.

So, these surgical operations were done almost perfectly. Because of a bit too much stress on his scar by stretching, the inner scar (inner and outer layer were stitched) needed to fix a bit a few weeks latter. This detail will be update soon.