March 14th: Daily Diary

Hi. I am Tsuyoshi.

I was so tired yesterday because I went to art school, and practice drawing yesterday, and I got to home at 10:00. After that, I played osu! and Smash Brothers with one of my friends online. It was a great time.

So, I observed several emotional reactions plus physical sensations yesterday.

In the train, a young girl with beautiful face sat next to her friend in front of me. Maybe be she is 13-18. With the arrangement of the seats in Japan, I and she sat face to face. I pretended to read a book, but I could not stop looking at her face because she was so beautiful. I analyzed my emotional reaction and physical sensation toward her. Just looking at her face, my body and especially felt warmer than before and my heart started to pound quickly. Her facial expression like smile, looking down, made me feel similar physical reaction. She also toughed her friend many times, and it made me mad.  This reaction is similar to the one I have already experienced, attraction toward opposite sex. I strongly understand how strongly our feeling is affected by the information we perceive, and how weak men are  at the appearance of women.  For Just looking at her, and even though I know nothing of her, I felt attracted to her.

Women is like spiders. They attract men with her appearance and wait in her web, and men go into the web just to be caught.

I think Cleopatra played men to gain the power by understanding the characteristic and weakness of men with her theatrical quality.

Perhaps,if I know the weakness of women which should be different from man's, I may be able to use it like her.

My Emotional Trigger 1:TYPE SEXUAL
Seeing an attractive women, maybe which has certain facial features or body, arises my attraction toward opposite sex. Her facial expression also affect the feeling. 

Physical Sensation
The body and especially heart feels warmer than before and the heart starts to pound quickly.

Everytime I read Robert Greene's book like The Laws of Human Nature, and imagine how these ideas can be used to deal with my life and control it. I felt different deep inside myself. My body feels somewhat less nervous, and more strong and confident. I think that is feeling of power and confidence. Actually the feeling is good, but as I write I realize that it is just an emotion. It is not rational. It is said when one gains power, it will change the person. When a person suddenly succeeds, it tends to change the person's personality. I think it is because the feeling of power. It is an emotion that can be used, but not you yourself. Always rely on yourself, your reasons.

My Emotional Trigger 3:POWER
When you feel you are bound to success or have power, you feel more confident, relaxed and bold.

Actually, I really like the feeling of power and I want to be in control of my life. What can I do to increase it? Read books that increase power, increase your knowledge, and practice and be a master. However, Don’t forget the beginner's mind.

Somethimes, it happens when I am not ready, yet I need to feel power to do the bold move or feel confident, maybe just pretending will increase your confidence. Just stand straight, feel you are good, jump up and down, enjoy life, love yourself, feel strong, you can do it, capable of it. Remember feeling of power is just an emotion. What is above emotion? Rationality.

Remember true confidence will not come in this way, but through experiences and learning by actions.

Happiness is the feeling that power increases - that resistance is being overcome.

 Nietzsche

Reflections on The Four Agreement By Don Miguel Ruiz

In the previous article, I introduced how people create their own agreements, and it affect how they see the world. In this blog, I would like to go into the four agreements.

The First Agreement: Be Impeccable with Your Word

In the beginning

there was a word

the word was with God

the word is God

Gospel of John, beginning of the universe 

I think one of the most favorite and important idea in the book. We know the use of the word is important, but we tend to ignore it.

The power of word is very strong that it can change a person or a world, like a magic.

A word can be used to hurt or heal others.

Every human is a magician, and decide to cast a spell. 

We can be a white magician or black magician with the use of the word.

If one person says to another " you are ugly and stupid ", and the other person believes it, it cast a spell on him. these words become his agreements. 

What does being impeccable means?

Impeccable means without sin. Sin means against yourself. 

Be aware of the power of the word, and the use of it to yourself and others.

How oftten do we hurt ourselves in our mind.

"Idiot!"

"How did I do this!"

"I am not worthy."

"I am ugly."

Accept and love yourself as who you are including your weakness, this is true love.

Tell yourself how much you are important, worthy.

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.”

-Budda-

You action should always be aligned with mission or life's purpose you created. 

Be aware of the use of words toward others.

Gossip is one of the worst I can do. It may feel good to talk about others behind their back,and it unites people present but it will cast a spell on them. It will change their way of seeing the person gossiped. The person who is gossiped might be hurt by knowing that he is gossiped about.

Be impeccable your word is very easy to understand, but we have to constantly be aware of the power of words and their effect to make this habit.

I am always strongly aware of the power of my words toward myself and others. My words is a double-edged sword, which can hurt or heal others including myself. I use my words to heal others, love others, tell others how important and special they are.

I never gossip about others. 

I would like to go on the Second Agreement on the next article!

Thank you for reading!

Reflections on The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

Recently, I have listened the audiobook of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. The book is about understanding how our belief past to us from everything around us, parents, school, friends, televisions  from the childhood affect how we understand the world. The author recommends readers to internalize 4 beliefs,in the author's word, Four Agreement to get rid of agreements which is not for us. The book is very poetic and powerful. It beautifully explain how our belief and thinking mind affect our mental state and eventually our life, and the four agreements are powerful to avoid unnecessary worries, and make peace on earth. However, I think the author makes the book vague and open to interpretation, not specific. Different people will interpret these information differently, thinking they understand what the point of the book is, and I have some part that I cannot really agree. I think I need to be critical, and I should not believe what the author is saying unconditionally. What he is saying also his belief, not truth, and I have to decide what to believe myself. In this blog, I would like to interpret the beautiful book in my way, so that I can use it in my life.

Introduction:Domestication and the Dream of the Planet

We, our brain see the world in our own way. What we see, what we believe, how we feel are strongly affected by our early childhood. Steven R. Covey in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People calls the way of the seeing the world paradigm. Don Miguel Ruiz use the word, dream. Dr.Steven R. Covey didn't go deep into how exactly our perception is formed, but Don Miguel Ruiz explain his deep insight about the dream. I think it is really interesting.

He explain the importance of Attention and Language. in childhood, we use our attention to learn about the world, like how to behave, what is good or bad, what is acceptable or not acceptable. Not only attention, people like parents, teachers, people in church teach what is good or not, what to believe or not to believe with language.

"You should not do that!."
"You should be a doctor."

Every language is an agreement, and these little agreements are accumulated, and the belief of you is formed. These agreements affect how you see the world, your personal dream or paradigm. We did not have chance to choose our belief because we were so small, and believed what others say unconditionally. 
However, once you are aware of these agreements, you can choose to get rid of unnecessary agreements or agreements that hurt yourself.  

"I am not worthy of love."
"I am ugly."
"I am useless."

These agreements hurt the person who has them over and over again.

When I was a junior highschool student, I didn't go to school, and stayed at home, playing video games all the time. I had similar agreements toward myself, but try to neglect it. I felt useless, I did not have future. When I was a high school student, one book helped me to have a different agreement,"I can change and grow by following collect principles of growth." The book is Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I believed it, and I believe it now.

The effect of paradigm or dream to our life is huge. One agreement can change one's life. By being aware of them, we can rewrite our agreements and live our own life that you would like to live.

Remind: People do not see the world as it is, but as they are conditioned to through their paradigm or dream. They create their dream with their attention and language from people like their parents, friends, education at places like home, school, church and so on. They have different agreements as you do.

I think knowing this can change how we treat others, and what I can do for others to understand them.

As I write, I realized the article is becoming long. I would like to go on the four agreement in the next one.

2019 March 12th: Daily Diary

Today, I didn't do a lot of stuff. I caught a cold maybe a week ago, and it still makes me sick, and I slept most of the day. I needed to buy shoes for my part-time job, so I went to a department store, and bought them, and I thought it was a chance to observe my emotion, and human nature there.

One of the realization is that how attracted I am to young women there. As soon as I see one whose face is pretty or skin is beautiful and smooth, I easily feel emotion of attraction toward women. There are so many school girls there in uniform. I have no idea why schools in Japan design their uniform like that. It is made so effective to arouse man's desire. It is a strange feeling that my desire toward young women in a objective way.

My Emotional Trigger 1: TYPE SEXUAL
Seeing an attractive women, maybe which has certain facial features or body, arises my attraction toward opposite sex.

I think this one is so typical for every men alive, and deeply in our DNA to leave offspring. I am not sure how I deal with it. I think we have to admit our human nature, and it is always important to try to be rational in our decision.

Other realization is while looking around the grocery store, and observing people there, I could feel what they are feeling or thinking, using my whole body and attention. It is important to be fully present at the moment to observe others, and feel yourself as if you become a person you are observing, using the whole of your senses to do this. 

Human beings have a certain neuron to feel what others are feeling. maybe our ancestors developed it so that we can live and survive our group environment. We have this powerful tool, but we do not utilize it or realize it. By observing their face, body, feeling, I could see only overall feeling or impression of what they are thinking are feeling at the moment. As practices, I will be more aware of them in the future.

Another observation of my emotion happened when I played smash brothers special with another player. In the game, we can use command called appeal. After pushing appeal button, the character in the game dance or do a certain movement that expresses some emotion such as happiness, anger, frustrating. This appeal are sometimes used to make others tilted. So, when I played the game with another player online. First, I appealed for many times after I knocked down him because he was actually strong and I was defeated so many times before that. It made me feel good. However, the moment he knocked me down, he appeal back so many times to me. Actually, my appeal tilted him, and he tried to fight me back!! His appeal also made me angry and appeal him back again. It continued several times after he left the room. the point is my appeal was regarded as trying to tilt him and made him tilted, and he tried to fight me back, and it made me more titled! I decided to make sure that I never make others insecure or challenged with my words or actions because these feeling like anger spreads.

My Emotional Trigger 2: TYPE ANGER
When we see even if misunderstanding others challenge, try to fight and attack, we tend to be defensive or fight them back, using the same emotion we receive in today's case anger.

I think I need more information for this theory.

Characteristic of Emotion
Emotion actually spreads easily. When we receive a certain emotion like anger, resentment, challenge or titled, we tend to catch these emotion, so the projection and management of emotion is so important to control our situation.

I constantly feel that I tend to avoid feeling of pain all the time. I need to practice drawing and take time to do it, but I try to do different things like reading or writing this article, which I feel less painful to do.

My Emotional Tendency: Avoidance of Pain 
This is not a strong trigger that causes a certain emotion, so I will put it in a different category.

Robert Greene says that pain or frustration is a sign of actually advancing at skill.
I need to go through resistance, pain to transform myself and reach mastery.

That is for today! Thank you for reading.

Thinking self and Emotion

I have had a crush for a long time for a year in my school. She is shy, but she has a long hair, pretty face and beautiful voice. She is liked or loved maybe by many men in class I think. I had constantly thought of her and make her my own. In other words, she had seduced me somehow and I fell in love with her. I read books or articles about loves or how to make others like me like “ Art of Seduction” by Robert Greene and “How to win friends and influence people”. I also started exercise more and train muscles to be more attractive, a topical behavior for men who fall in love. It seems good to be in love, but the negative point is the emotional drama that love brings into my life and how it affect my life. It makes me difficult to concentrate on tasks or works which is important to do in order to improve myself as she shows up to my mind. Her image and memory with her makes me so excited but also distracted. When she talks with other men, it makes me so jealous and sad that it makes me think, guess or make a assumption about their relationships. I sometimes think that another man love her, and she is also influenced by his love and love him back. They meet together, talk together, laugh together and go on a date and so on and on. It also makes me unusual around her. I feel very nervous around her, and difficult to talk to her even though what I really want to do is talk with her, have a good time with her and love her. This makes me sad, jealous and I don’t like it.

Shakespeare once said.

love is blind

 and lovers cannot see
 the pretty follies
 that themselves commit

William Shakespeare

I love her, but I started to hate the emotional drama  because it seems something is controlling my life. Why do we act foolishly like this when we are in love?I always want to calm and be in control in my life. I like the feeling of falling love and thinking about my crush, but is this healthy to think about her all the time, and be distracted to do things that is important in my life and live my life fully?  I don’t think so. The name of this blog is “start living my life” and there is a big obstacle to live my life, the feeling of love for my crush. Is there a way to cleverly in love with someone and also being calm, love her fully, and detached from these emotional drama. Even if I am disliked by her or she dates with another man, can I remain calm?

Therefore, I started to find a way somehow to get out of this emotional drama, and start living my life, and I may find an way to do so. I think this problem is deeply connected with Thinking self and Emotion. The key word to get out of them is “awareness”.



Certain emotion like emotion of happiness, lust, nervousness, attraction, hatred is reaction of the body or the brain to certain triggers, causes or stimulation.

I need more studies and experiences on this subject.

For example, when I see a beautiful woman, a trigger point, the information from my sight first come to spinal cord, then to limbic system, where we feel emotion, attraction toward opposite sex.

This is how emotion works!

And we are surrounded by so many triggers for thousands of kinds of emotions we feel such as irritation, fear, comfort, dislike, and we will feel these emotions constantly through out our life. So, can we stop feeling emotion? It is also most impossible because it is deeply inherited into the human nature our DNA. Emotion is actually essential to live.

We use emotion to decide people to be with. Do you want to be with a person who stare up the feeling of discomfort and anxiety or you want  be with people you are comfortable.

When a man with a knife approaches you, the feeling of fear or danger makes you realize you are in danger.

When you need to do bold action, the feeling of nervousness tells you that you need to be careful about the action you take.

Emotion can be useful, but not perfect.

Emotion cannot distinguish emotion coming from reality and our thought. In my case, as I think about my crush, I feel the emotion of attraction again and think about her again and again and again.

Imagine someone sexy or attracted to. If you like her legs or hips or breast. Think about it and I am sure that it will push your emotional button for lust. I have no idea how women feel lust, but maybe very different from men, but similar process.

This is also a characteristic of emotion of human beings, which can be a huge problem. Animals have emotions, but not be able to think. Therefore, their emotion only occurs when a certain stimulation pushed their emotional button. However, in the case of human beings, they develop a strong power to detach from the present moment and learn from the information they gathered and think and imagine about past and future.

This thinking also can push our emotional button. Just thinking about a certain event, situation or person, make us feel a certain emotion, fear, anxiety, attraction and so on. It can happen over and over again, which is very how people fall in love.


I never say thinking is useless, but it is essential. Being able to think and learn from the past is very unique for human and precious. For the ability, we can learn, create, have a belief or ideas and communicate so effectively with others. However, it is why people have some many problems like my case. My thinking about my crush over and over again  affect my life fully and it also ruins my life. I not only felt jealousy but hate for those who try to approach her even though they did nothing wrong! They are also attracted by her and just take actions to interact with her. It is a completely natural action. She is not mine!! She is a just another women living and breathing. However, love is blind and I have less mental space to analyze the situation fully. Our emotion  ruins my life to choose wrong choices. From my value, I don’t want conflict and don’t want to hate others, but my love made me blind. The thinking self and emotion can trap you in a drama or if you used smartly, it can be our ally.

The problem is not emotion, but how we tame or use it. Emotion is a double edged sword. We start to suffer as soon as we identified ourselves with our thinking self and emotion.

 At school, we don’t learn about emotion or how to tame it. I think it should. Furthermore, we are surrounded by popular culture like TV drama, comics, books, and influence from others to tell you that it is usual to follow the emotion and let it go. We soon start to tell myself stories of ourselves .

“I am that kind of person, so I should not do these things.”

“I need to be successful because I have so much talent!”

“I am useless and worthless because my parent and my life is a shit.”


Identifying with thinking  self makes us difficult to live in the moment and see the reality as it is because we are so into our dream, our self-made story. It also increase your emotion as you think and think all the time. When something is going well, you feel extraordinary happy. However, when something goes wrong, you feel irritated, and depressed. Your life will be a giant story like a roller coaster going up and down and up and down all the time. And, many believe that they see life as it is. The reality is they are controlled by their thinking self and emotion. They think and think and are influenced by intense emotion or expectation from the thinking self. Reality is much more simple, you’re you, a normal human being with a conscious mind and you have emotion. A certain simulations or thinking triggers your emotion, and your brain feels it! That is it!

Now, I know what emotion and thinking self can do to us. Aware of the existence of emotion. Then, how can we do about it? How can we tame emotions? These are recommendation from books.

First, Calm your mind. Stop the insensitive thinking that happens in your mind. Your thinking mind makes it very difficult to see what is happening inside you. Famous analogy for this is the state of a river. When your mind is working all the time, the river is not clam. The flow of the river is harsh, you can not easily observe what is happening in the river or on the river. When your mind is calm, it is like a calm river, flowing peacefully. You can see fish inside. You can clearly see it when a stone fall plop on the river. It is said meditation is a good way, but I don't want to write about it because I am not in a position to be able to teach it.

Second. Be aware of emotion as it arises. We have another rational self that can observe our emotion objectively with calm eye. Be aware of it. It might be useful what puts your button and other people’s button. Write down. Enjoy it. You will have more understandings of emotion so that you can find a way to do with them when emotion arises.

Third, Auto-suggestions(Prayer) can be used to make our mind full of positive emotion and thought. Instead of calming the mind with non-doing like meditation, by repeating the same emotion or belief over and over again, we make the mind full of these positive ideas so that there will be no space for negative thought to happen. Once you are in love, you tend to think about the love for him/her over and over with strong emotion, intensifying the emotion. We can use it to decide the direction of the mind and emotion. It is different from controlling the mind, but powerful tool.

These are three I can think of now to tame my emotion. It is easy to write about it, but it is extremely difficult to master I think.

Robert Greene said that just reading books is not enough, I have to apply what I have learned in the book and use it in order to improve my life, power. So, I would like to write articles on my daily diary, what happened and my analysis  toward my emotional reaction for it. I think it will be very useful to be aware of emotion, and it might be interesting for you to read how another man feels and deals with emotion everyday. I would like to write other article about emotion as I realize something as life goes on. I hope I would be able tame my emotional self and control my life. I think taming my emotional self is a big step to start living myself.

Feelings and their origination in judgement

`Trust your feelings!` -But feelings are nothing final or original; behind feelings there stand judgement and evaluations which we inherit in the form of feelings(inclinations, aversions), the inspiration born of a feeling is the grandchild 
of a judgement- and often of a false judgement!- and in any event not a child of your own! To trust one's feeling- means to give more obedience to one's grandfather and grandmother and their grandparents than to the gods which are in us: our reason and our experience.

Nietzsche

From The Laws of Human Nature chapter 1. master your emotional self, Laws of Irrationality.

My goal in spring vacation

Hi! Long time no see. I am sorry I was busy doing stuff in school, so I couldn’t upload articles these days. I am going to upload more often from now.

Today, the semester has finished, and now I am in spring vacation from today to March 28th, about two months, so I will have plenty of free time, but I will not waste  my time playing video games, watching animations. I will make most of my vacation to tranaform myself. To be honest, I have a crush I met in the school, and I would like to surprise her by becoming a better man lol. Therefore, I would like to set goals that I am going to acomplish about myself in every aspect of life.

1.Physical health

2.Intelligence

3.Spirit

4.money

5.Draftman and animator



1.Physical Health
I believe that nothing is successful without health body, mind, spirit, relationships. As usual, I constantly wake up early, exercise(running, build muscles and stretch) , eat healthy, drink healthy.

2.Intelligence
I keep reading books on various subject so that I learn correct principles and live aligned with that princeples I have learned.

3. Work
I will start working part-time job so that I gain experiences of  earning money by myself.

4.Spirit
In this spring vacation,I gather ideas and quotations from my experiences and books I read. I spend some time making and improving my mission statement so that I live my mission every moment.

5. Draftman and animator
I will devote myself to improve my drawing skills and understanding on animation and cinematography.

Natural Way to Draw
Anatomy
Perspective
Animation
Clean-up
Cinematography

I am going to improve these 5 aspects.

Natural Way to Draw
I am going to practice exercises of natural way to draw again, which is a book that helps me to learn to draw.

Anatomy
I relearn anatomy so that I can draw convincing human figure. I watch video of Robert Bravely HALE, read books of Bridgeman.

Perspective
I learn perspective by doing exercises on how to draw from imagination, which is is a book that helps me to learn perspective. In addition, I can watch video on YouTube about perspective.

Animation
I learn animation by reading books like animators survival kit and illusion of life, Drawn to Life. And,  I will actually create animation works, using what I have learnt from the book.

Clean-up
Clean-up is a skill that make ruff drawings into clean-ligned drawings. Clean-up is the one of the most important skill that animators must have. Usually, after getting into animation industry, beginners will do clean-up. I will make one clean-up drawing everyday, so that I improve my skill day by day. I think clean-up is a skill that I have to do it everyday to improve.

Cinematography
I learn cinematography by reading books like 5 Cs of cinematography and film directing shot by shot.  I watch a lot of films and make study notes, gathering tips or trick to make a better film.

These are a lot of tasks to be done.  This is a goal I would like to acomplish, but my life is complete every moment. I just want to enjoy the precious moment that I only have NOW. The courage to be disliked, which is a book on Alfred Adrar  states that we should live like dancing. When dancing, I cannot worry about where I am going, but just enjoy the moment. In addition, I wrote that I would like to surprise my crush, I am not going to improve myself for her to sell myself. I would like to improve myself because I like to do it. I would like to be like Makoto Shinkai who is an animation artist I respect, and live aligned to my mission “Be a light for other people”. I would like to encourage others by creating great animation works, I would like to encourage others through interaction with others like I was encouraged by Steven R Covey when I was in Darkness. Anyway, I just want to live my life in conclusion lol.

My studying abroad program toFinland

Hi. I am Tsuyoshi.

Last week, I had been in Finland to take my studying abroad program at my school in Japan from February 10th to February 17th,2018. The trip was amazing and I had so many things to realize and learn from this trip and people I study abroad with. I would like to analyze this study abroad program and make most out of this experience in this post.

The Purpose of This Program and Schedule

This study abroad program is about creating video games together with students in Finland who learn about game creating. My school in Japan has connection between Owl game lab in Finland and Finland government give support for student to study abroad, so I could go and study in Finland at very reasonable price. I also had opportunities to go and sees some game companies in Finland.

This was the schedule of the trip.
I would like to recall the trip and write about my realizations.

MY WHOLE TRIP 

February 10th
The first day:FLIGHT TO OULU

My parents took me to the airport by car on that day and see my plane fly to Finland. I  really appreciate the support from my parents. They are the best parent in the world for me. I was a little nervous and exited about the adventure that awaits me. I watched Moana by Disney in the plane, which I thought great, and read a book, Man’s Search for Meaning in the plane. It was very hard for me to be seated for about 9 hours in the plane. After arriving at Helsinki, we took the plane to Owl, where game jam will be held. After arriving, I realized the coldness and view full of snow. It was very different from Japan. We took a taxi to a hotel, and after that, we went to a supermarket near the hotel to buy ingredients for dinner and some for breakfast. There was no dinner or breakfast provided in the hotel, so we had to cook dinner for ourselves. The dinner was a disaster for us. There were 3 women and 5 men in this program including myself. 5 men get together at the kitchen in our room to cook, but no one knew how to cook. On that day, we just grilled pork with, olive oil, salt and pepper on the pan. The taste was not good. I can describe the taste in two word, no taste. I thought we needed some sauce to add so that it taste something. However, we laugh together how bad we are at cooking and determined to improve cooking during this studying abroad program.


February 11th
The second day:INTRODUCTION

I woke up at 5:00 and I felt still sleepy because of jet lag. I did some exercise and eat cereal that we bought yesterday at the supermarket, and became ready for the first day in Owl. First, we went to Owl lab on foot, and look around the lab, then ate lunch that we bought a supermarket near the lab. After that, we headed for the university of Owl and looked around the university. I could talk with some of university students who work on some projects to improve other people ‘s lives. One of them was to a project to  raise understanding of whose who has chronic pain. I also have skin problem, so I hope they will succeed in raising awareness in chronic pain. After the university, we went to one of the game companies in Finland, Lodecraft. We heard a talk about the company and creating games. The company was great. There were room for drawing, exercise, music. The most impressive thing about the company is people. They work not for money but for people. I could feel her talk that she really loves the company and the company really cares for its employees. In Japan, many many companies use its employees like a machine or thing to produce profit for the company especially in animation and gaming industries. Therefore, I strongly felt that I wanted to work in a place like this and determined to improve my skills very hard and look for work overseas in the future. By the way, the woman talked about Lodecraft was very very attractive. She is smart, talkative, independent and has positive energy around her. She stressed about how important it is to communicate in a team or work environment, and  work and be with people who encourage you. 

It is time to dinner. We have decided to cook pasta. We put pasta into tomato souse and cooked for some time. On the day, we decided girls and boys eat together. Girls brought grilled potatoes and minced meat. It was great!! I like the time eating together with other students. After eating, we went to a bar, and played some card games together. I played a game called Cabo. It is a memory game and  I had to use brain to remember the placement of cards and get the point. It was really hard for a jet-lagged brain.


February 12th
The third day:

In the morning, three of us went out early before the time to leave for Owl game lab. We played on the park near the hotel full of snow. I can rarely see the snow in Japan, so I was so excited to see and play with snow in Finland. After we get to the game lab, I heard a presentation by Marcus about how to be generate good ideas for games, comics and films. These were a few point and habit to be internalize, which were very useful in my life.

"We are already in the industry" Marcus

1.Always think about and start from WHY
When seeing or observing something or creating some pro, for example, playing a video game, don't just play it. Think about why it is interesting or boring.What makes the game a good game? Is it because of UI or SYSTEM? what makes the game better, and what I can learn from the video game ALL THE TIME. When making a project, think about why I want to do this or why I need to do this.
In other words, be a critical thinker!!

2. Always Bring a Sketchbook
When the habit 1.THINK about WHY all the time is internalized, it will be more chances that ideas naturally flow from the brain. As an creative person, it is better to bring sketchbook everywhere we go so that whenever ideas go to the mind, we write them down. It will eventually make more and more ideas in the future because we lose less ideas because of not writing them down and slip through the brain and forget the precious ideas.

3.Take a break
Marcus also talked about the importance of taking a time to do nothing. Maybe, I can go out and lay on the grass, looking up to the sky. It is the time when the brain takes a rest and starts to make connection between several ideas. It is said that great inventors and thinkers came up with their ideas, after they literally stopped thinking about their ideas and thoughts. I think this is the reason why it is said that meditation is a good way to be more creative because when meditating, we relax and let the mind do the work for us to make connection between the ideas. It is the moment when good ideas come.

4.Do Things We Hate
If I do the same things over and over and over again, what will I learn? Learning experiences lies in things that I hate or don't wanna do. Do things that makes me uncomfortable and nervous. Talk to strangers, Go to places I have never been, work in a different place, do things that are bold and challenging, there lies opportunities to learn something new. 

5. Your First Draft is a Shit
When an idea comes to the mind, and write it down to the sketchbook as a first draft, usually the idea or the first draft is a SHIT!! Show them to as many people as possible and receive feedback from every possible angles. Improve the idea, little by little, then the idea becomes something which is not a shit.

6. Know those who come before
Learn history,  autobiography of those who you admire, masters, play and watch old films, games. Know what people in the past did, and know what  you are going to do.

7. Research!!
Know the market, read industry website, talk to people in convention, show, game showcase, go to party and discuss!!

tips on communication  
1.Find similarity on people
When communicating people, find similarities in others like what are they interested in? what do they like to do? At least, we are human beings and have similar problems to live.

2.Think about the audiences all the time
When communicating, think about who you are talking to and what is their paradigm is. We don't have to try to please them, but at least think about others. Be a provider of pleasure.

There were so many things to learn during the presentation, I think it is very easy to understand these ideas, but it is very difficult to internalize them as habits. I have to come constantly back to the note and remind myself until I internalize them.

After the presentation by Marcus, we had a small expo, we show what we are doing at school to students in the Owl game lab. I was surprised how good their games are. I liked a horror novel game, which hero is a mushroom detective which students in the lab created. It was not complete, but it made me thrilled because of the character design and atmosphere of the game. After the expo, the game jam has begun. The theme of the game jam was to create an AR game, using a latest software, Manomotion. I had to create a team to work on the game. I finally managed to create a team.

the team was like this
Mitsuaki Programer
Ibuki     Music Artist
Paabo    Artist
Noora    Artist
Me        Artist
Uhon     Game Designer

On that day, we decided what kinds of games we would like to make, and Noora suggested we would make puzzle game which is inspired by a child puzzle toy. I thought it is a great combination with AR and a puzzle game.

February 13th
The Forth day:Game Jam
I don't remember much about the day, but I remember I was working on the AR puzzle game,nine pieces all day. I was doing translation for Mitsuaki and design for the puzzle game. I stayed until very late, and I played Osu! with Paabo. It was a great time with him to play a game both liked. Uhon also joined and talked about that osu! also can be used to improve AIM in FPS games. The moment in the night was one of the most precious moment in the trip, playing games together with friends in Finland.

Feburary 14th
The Fifth:The End of Game Jam and the Party
I finished the design of the puzzle. Our team somehow managed to finish the game in time. Sadly, we could not win the prize. However, I enjoyed to create a game together with some of my friends in Japan and new friends in Finland. We decided to keep developing the game on and on, so that maybe in the future,we can sell the AR game. After that prize, we had a party at the lab, drinking, eating things students in Finland cooked, singing Karaoke, it was great.

Febuary 15th
The sixth day:FLY TO HELSINKI!
On this day, most of the program is finished, and we are ready to enjoy sightseeing in Helsinki. We flied to Helsinki, and I was surprised to see the sight there. Everything was different from Japan and Owl in Helsinki, the building, people, culture.
We enjoyed Hesburger,which is a famous burger shop in Finland for lunch, and Asian noodle cooked with soysauce for the night. We also went to a beautiful market in Helsinki. I ate valira  ice cream there. On this day, 5 of male students went sauna together. It was an experience that I cannot forget. People there swam naked in the pool there, and going to sauna there after swiming. I hadnt swam for a long time, and I felt really good about swimming there. I thought that swimming was one of the greatest exercises. I will go to the gym and start swimming in Japan. That day was so busy,but full of excitement.

Feburary 16th
The last day:The Last Day
In the morning, we ate breakfast at the hotel. It was a buffey style breakfast and it was great. After that, we left our baggage to the teacher, and had a the last free time. We did some sightseeing in Helsinki, we walked and walked... We stood on the sea which is frozen, and took picutures. We went to a church which is made of stones, Temppeliaukio Church, and we lastly went to a beautiful park. After sightseeing, we headed for the airport, and took the plane to KIA, Japan. I cannot forget how much interesting this trip was, and how much I learned from it.

Learning

1.From people I traveled together
I learned mostly from people I traveled together, especially boys. I want to learn good traits from them.

Eddy, a teacher who leads this whole trip.
He created this study abroad program, and leaded students during the whole trip. He did so hard to make this trip successful. He also has a great sense of humor, making people laugh and put them into a good atmosphere, a mood maker. He is also good at women. He make female students at ease with his humor and presence.

I would like to learn from him the importance of humor and atmosphere. His presence always makes the place lighter and more interesting to be with him. I would like to thank him for every hard work he had done during the trip. Without him, this trip could be not interesting.

Mitsuaki
He is a 3rd year student and a programmer. He is very good at programming and he works really hard. He will do things that is told to do completely. He is also natural, and talk about anything without a hesitation. I usually think about others too much and try not to talk so that it may hurt, so his character was very interesting and I need to learn from him. Let go of myself.

Gunji
He is a first year student and a programmer. He is a bit shy, but very sensitive about the atmosphere. He dont speak a lot, but the calmness also makes us calm and relaxed. I learned from him that I don't need necessarily TRY to speak. To be just there and talk little is OK, and make people relax and calm.

Yusuke
He is a second year student and a very talented game planner. He can do programming also and create video games by himself. He is a little sensitive, but he has a strong passion, love of creating game and use brain effectively. I respect him because he has a strong future goal and he actually do something for it.

From the trip

I think it is very important to do something different constantly. At home, we tend to do things that is similar over and over again because constancy and being safe is one of the features of human mind, but it reduces the times to learn something new moment by moment. As Marcus said in his presentation, I need to do something I fear or not want to do. Fear for me like talking to girls, doing presentation,  is a clear sign that I am not conformable about it and, also that I can transform myself by being exposed by those fears. Little by little, I will feel less fear and more confidence and comfortable to live in this world.

When I realize that the life is too safe or comfortable, it is a clear sign that I tend to avoid feeling of pain, and I cannot learn in this way.  Then, I need to change my life by doing something a little bit new or bold.

EGO is the Enemy. OBSTACLE is the WAY.

I loved this trip and I will never forget this trip. During this trip, this word constantly reminded me about the truth.

“In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thank you for reading!