My eldest daughter is 19 and lives away from home because she is attending a university in Tokyo. I have to send money in order to provide her with her university and daily expenses. I heard that average American students are working to get money for their university fees. Is that right?
My hospital is located in the heart of the city and several banks and a big post office are in the neighborhood. You know, it is a very convenient site. It's the reason why I have to send money instead of my wife. I have a break during lunchtime and go out of the hospital. I usually drop in at a convenient store to get some snacks and cakes on the way. I got a pot noodle (as the photo shows below) today for a midnight snack because I have to stay at my hospital overnight. By the way, what do you call this noodle in English? If you pour the boiling water into the container, you have delicious pan-fried noodles in only 3 minutes. Please teach by e-mail.
(KW: カップラーメン カップ焼きそば)
I got a new electric pot at 50% off. This is a new model of one of the major brands. I wrote a note about the previous pot here. This pot is completely different from that one.
I'm addicted to coffee, and I can't live without any coffee. When I pour hot water into my cup, the hot water sometimes spatters out of the cup because the waterflow is so strong. Ground coffee beans scatter around the cup at that time. I had to pour the hot water in a cautious manner. To my surprise, the speed of discharge is controlled into a high and low speed. I have only to touch the button on it. There are plenty of other improvements. This pot has several temperature settings. I can choose the temperature I need when I make instant meals, coffee, Japanese tea, or milk for babies and so on.
When I don't need boiling hot water, I can choose no vapor mode. The structure of the pot is made to be easily washed. The water is sterilized by chlorine in Japan. We can drink the water directly from the faucet but the water sometimes smells of chlorine. This pot automatically removes the chlorine. It makes my coffee better. Wonderful!
I looked into the bottom of my electric pot by chance. I have been drinking coffee or tea with this pot every day. This pot was provided by my hospital and looks so old. I think it's more than ten years old. I found the bottom of it so dirty. Sure I have never washed it for more than a year. I tried to clean it up this morning, but I couldn't remove something unclean. Something attached inside the pot must be an inpure substance or some minerals. No matter what it is, I don't want to drink from this pot.
The state of affairs in the Philippines has been unstable these days though I don't know the origin of this chaos. The Philippines was the first foreign country that I visited in my life. I entered the country in 1986, just after the People's Power movement, which bore fruit in the ouster of Marcos in February 1986.
I was a resident in a big hospital group at that time. My boss was a friend of President Corazon Aquino, and he wanted to build a general hospital in the Philippines. I visited the Philippines with 500 co-workers to demonstrate our human resources. One of our purposes was to attend the mass for Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, the husband of President Aquino.
By courtesy of President Aquino, we could stay at the Puerto Azul Beach Resort which used to be Marcos's private facility. I could also see the Malacanang Palace. I was surprised to know the daily life of the absolute ruler. At the same time I got into cabbagetown in Manila. I was surprised again to see the people's poor life there. I learned so many things from this trip.
I hope the present insurgency will soon be settled.
My hospital is a member of the Matsuyama city Medical Association(MMA). Today the annual bowling meeting, hosted by the MMA, was held. Of course I attended. After the bowling, my boss treated all of us to a barbecue. It was a fantastic time. I got the 2nd prize (55th in all hospitals) in my hospital. I think it was pure luck. I'm afraid I could be in bed for lumber pain or shoulder pain tomorrow morning. I tried to shoot a group photo just after the barbecue but I found the battery of my camera was dead. I won a prize as below.
At 5 o'clock this evening, water burst out from the ceiling of the 2nd floor. I was seeing o.p.d. patients on the 1st floor at that time. I hurried to the 2nd floor to rescue the patients on the 2nd floor. Fortunately the leakage occurred in only the corridor, and every room was intact. Patients placed in this ward are in a vegetative state, so they didn't worry about it. At that time a plummer was fixing a clogged waste pipe on the 3rd floor. Most people, including me, thought that it was due to the decrepid water pipe which he was fixing, but in fact it was not because of a water supply pipe but a burst sewage pipe!
The photo shows my co-worker, a neurosurgeon, and a clerk walking in the aisle with an umbrella. They didn't know that the raindrops were dripping sewage.
I have one more job once a week. It's a teacher of general medicine in a technical college. The new school term in Japan starts in April and ends in March. This term has almost ended. Today I gave the last lecture to the students of the nursery course. Because I had already done the whole year's course, I gave the students the choice of today's topic. They wanted to know more details about influenza. Influenza is out of my majors, but it is a good opportunity for me. Giving the lecture to others means I need to study a lot. By that, I could reconfirm my knowledge about influenza and get more insight. I studied the history of influenza this time. The bodies who died of spanish influenza in 1918 were found in the permanently-frozen ground of Alaska and Finland in this decade. These bodies proved that the cause of spanish influenza was avian influenza. Besides, the virus of spanish influenza was from the south of China. It's just the same as present. It is so scary.
Anyway, science improves a lot in a short time. I'd like to be always at the cutting edge of medical science. I really think so.
The photo shows my students and me. They will spend one more year in this college and be nursery staff in kindergartens or some facilities dealing with physically or socially handicapped children.
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