I've been fond of architecture photograph so much. Actually, photograph is the only way to know and learn architecture masterpieces of the world. But even if some can pretty much understand the architecture and can appreciate the beauty, uniqueness and sense of spacing only from the photograph, others never be able to and I'm the latter. I need to be there in the architecture and to walk around it, touch it and then I can only sense it. Architecture is something like outfits, food, shoes, or cars that require you to actually experience it in order to understand or evaluate it. Furthermore, architecture has also its own invisible feelings like sound, heat or smell.
Recently I had quite a wonderful experience to visit a residence work made by an architect Sou Fujimoto at an exhibition. It was truly amazing and fun. It was like a wooden brick with panels and open frames which is structured like a fortress or a jungle gym combined with stairs. There is no roof over the whole structure so it also looks like a courtyard surrounded by wood fence. Within the boxes of wood opening for the air, there are lots of open spaces and decks filled with green as well as inner rooms of much functionality and with necessary privacy. Everyone on the site looked surprised and delighted at the same time. It carries a free spirit, sense of wonder and liberation. It's a secured house but we never feel constrained. I just admired it and thought the architecture is a work of genius. I'm trying to describe the greatness by my words and photo as much as possible, but the thing is, if I were telling about my experience to myself, I would just say, "Go and see it".
I have just started to looking at the job opportunities out there. I don't mean "looking for" but "looking at", though it's not uncommon to regularly move on from one firm to another in the financial industry. But I never want to be a job-hopper. The last time I was seriously involved in finding a position was back in early 2014, just 2 and a half years ago. Before that I was lively searching for an opportunity in late 2008, in the middle of Lehman crisis. This time the things seems different. In a word, it's matured. Sometimes I have been offered to meet a person, not to take job interview or to take qualification test. Meeting a person is not much of a tense trial as it used to be, but more like a chance to broaden my view and network. However, given my current age and experience that I write in my CV, it should be like that by now.
Another thing I found interesting is that I have been building my own team, a strong supporter in the industry without recognizing it. In about half of the positions that I've been introduced or offered, luckily I find someone who can be quite familiar with the firm or the job. I can ask my friends, teacher, or ex-colleagues about a position in investment bank, government agency, university, consulting firm, and so on. I have never downgraded the importance of human relationship and network and in fact they have saved me again and again in my life. And now it once again proves that network built on trust and friendship can work alike a strong team. I remember the other day my young friend who were my ex-colleagues asked my advice on their career. I can get support from my own team, and I can also be a someone else's team. It's a simple but beautiful fact, and one of the greatest treasures a person can obtain through years of experience and reflection.
This is one of the finest ways of how a great entertainment is. I've never seen Disney's old animation film "Jungle Book" so never have been familiar with the story of a boy who grew up in deep forest. I think remakes or reboots are worth creating because great stories should be told over and over again, and it will be embraced more easily and significantly if it is enforced with the edge, twist, wit, knowledge and emotion at the certain age.
The brand-new Jungle Book is made almost entirely by computer graphics. Its quality is truly breath-taking. Animals are real, lively and emotional. More or less we usually can imagine that animals have rich emotion inside and there have been lots of movies and stories where animals can talk like human, but this movie is the definitive upgrade of these works and might become a classic of animal movie. Among all what made me impressed was the sense of harmony with the boy Mowgli and the bear, the leopard, the wolf, the elephant, and all the other animals living in the jungle, which visualized that human and animals might possibly (ok, it's a fantasy, but still) communicate and sympathize, and even human can be sparkle in the jungle as a wild living thing.
Last evening I was hurrying to the repair store in the subway station to make a spare key. The spare key must be made from the original, so I had it with me the whole day and naturally took the highest care of it. Meanwhile I usually use a spare key in a key case. At that time I had to rush to the store and 10 minutes after I had to rush to the metro because I had reservation of a doctor in another place. So I must have been really upset and it turned out that I had left my key case in a department store. Well, I thought, What was I doing in such a busy moment? But things do happen especially in these moment.
I said 'calm down' to myself, called to the store and confirmed that luckily my key case had been delivered to lost and found, in front of the repair shop (obviously the shop staff was giving me a questioning look as he had just finished making my new spare key while listening my saying on the phone that I had lost my key case), I grabbed my new spare key and thanked to him and dashed to the metro (unfortunately I missed a train but it wasn't a big deal) and went to see the doctor. After that I returned back to the department store and received my key case. Everything was, after all, alright. I got the spare key and my key case safely and almost everything went as scheduled.
But somehow I feel that this kind of annoying mistake teaches us something. In these situation you must use your brain as quickly as possible to find best possible solution. Your mind is also working to stay cool and leads you not to make further trouble by being panic. I think it's a kind of simulation or good training to make you get ready for troubles inevitably happening in your life or work place, or for the moment when your client, your boss, or your partner asks you unexpected question that you have no idea of. Crisis brings an opportunity, sometimes.
One of my recent greatest findings is to know what the knowledge is, thanks to a post on Facebook (I am not a huge fan of FB but come to admit SNS does actually helps me to learn new things). What is knowledge? It's like a gear. It's a gear that works and rotates together with other gears so that they make something bigger, greater start to work efficiently and interactively to generate dynamics. Knowledge is there to work, to collaborate, to function. It reminds me of one theory of building muscles which says muscles are only meaningful if it can work. Just a pile of muscle, or knowledge, no matter how difficult to acquire them, means little. Muscles are there to be used, so is knowledge.
This idea might not be a brand-new nor exciting, but what made me interested in this was the similarity of knowledge and muscle. It can be trained and stored but above all most important thing is it can be useful.
One sunday evening, following a quick sun shower, a large, superb, and beautiful double rainbow suddenly appeared when I was crossing a big river on train. It has long been since I last saw a rainbow. Do you remember your last time? I forgot that rainbow was this huge and amazing. The sky showed me another beauty this time. As rainbow is such a stunning phenomenon, what it is like to see aurora in the sky?
