The tennis player; Francis Petelin

Yelling the joy of victory, he put his fist in the air after finishing the game. The opponent was a good tennis player, but not good enough to defeat Francis Petelin, the junior River rat.

It was early Saturday at Saline. The air was a little cold, but tension was high. Then 20 players for each schools appeared on the tennis court. The games were going to be 2v2 matches of a ‘pro set’ where the winner is the first one to 8 set points. Francis started to warm up with his teammates, including Andrew Gadwey, Robert Pan, Jon Seyhun, Max Teener, and Kunjan Singh. Everybody's move was in the great shape. They practiced everyday after school; they played 2v2 and some 1v1 matches, practiced running from side to side across the court. Francis also told me that they also did backhand and forehand stroke practice,volley and overhead hits. They were more than ready.

The game had started. Francis went up to the court, shook the opponents hand and started off with great serve. I asked him whether he was confident at that time when game has started.

"Yes I was confident," he replied. "Because as I walked across the courts when the school was warming up, I observed the players and they were just alright, not too good. I’ve defeated some good players before, so I knew I had a strong chance."

In fact, he did crushed the opponent team. In the end, he and his teammate won the game by 8-0. The high energy from winning the first game, continued in the second game. Francis and his teammates won the second game by 8-0 again. He gave his partner a high-five and smiled as they walked off the courts.Defeated opponent team just couldn't shut their open mouth. "I’ve never had a better tennis day," Francis said.

After the best tennis game he ever had, he responded to the question about next year's goal in very serious tone. "My goals for next year are to become much better, move up on the team and play against more difficult opponents, and to not lose any matches. I am not good enough yet."

In the last of this interview, he gave an advice for freshman and sophomores who look up to him. "Don’t stop after the season ends; keep playing in clubs and indoor facilities. In the winter play indoors and join organizations to keep getting better...Practice all the strokes, different situations, and serving especially. You can always get better at any stroke, even if you’re very good already." Maybe, never satisfying to yourself is the key for him to improve.

I have a good feeling about next year's tennis. I can't just wait to see what they can do.

Bad science equals bad movie, or not

Movies are great. Explosion, outer space, and a hero who somehow manage to avoid hundred of bullets... We all love movies but once a while, we ask our self does that really make sense, however then another explosion blows our mind and stop us from thinking deeper. Only a couple of people who are addicted to science keep asking these questions. Now these science people picked up the mistakes (very bad ones) from famous movies. One scientist I interviewed said, "People should know that things from the movie is not always true." Yes, we should. So let's take look at some of them.

First one is about Superman saving his girl friend. When she died, Superman got mad, and went around the Earth so many times with extreme speed. Then for some reason, time went back before the girl friend was killed and Superman was able to save the girl with muscular body. If the superman was going with almost speed of light, the Science that Einstein found tells us, superman will go to the future instead of the past. The Theory of relativity shows us that when a thing goes by nearly speed of light, the time goes slowly than other slow objects. The movie makers were right about going with high speed alters time, but they were wrong way, it was future not past. Well, this helped Superman's girl friend live, so thank god for that mistake.

Another error is going to be from lasers in Star Wars. Lets get some facts straight. Even though, in current technology laser can be made, it is huge, and need a lot of electricity. So the chance of new hand-size laser getting invented is very small(I mean we have normal guns that is effective, right?) However, we will ignore that because we don't know what would happen in the future and that is not the worst part of the laser. Here is the fact: laser is made out of light, which goes with speed of 186000 miles per second(with this speed you can go around the Earth seven times in just one second), and you can not see the light unless there is some objects reflecting it to your eye. Yet, somehow movie makers thought laser was visible, and can be reflected by using light saver. Have you ever out run the light?(If you could, you are superman or may be having eye problems, so either way go to the doctors.)

Last one I am going to tell you is the computer virus from "Independence Day". It is very hard to make a computer virus that can infect both Mac and PCs. Somehow, David made a computer virus that is able to infect mother ship. The only explanation I could make is that Bill Gates was abducted by Aliens and somehow learned their technology to bring us Window software. Definitely, this must be what happened!

Not only these listed above, there are a lot more crazy mistakes in the movie. Finding these errors are fun but don't do this while you are watching movie with somebody else. This would just kill the mood. "The movies does not have to be scientific accurate. People wanted to see the laser," said George Lucas, which is very true, if there were know lasers, how do we know Skywalker is in the danger? I suppose the right way to have fun is to not think too much. Like, KB230, a High School student, told me,"If it was a good movie, I don't care(about mistakes)."

Earthquake hit Indonesia

The Earthquake has hit the coast of Sumatra island with Magnitude of 7.6 on September 30. Within 24 hours, Indonesian officials reported that 770 people are found dead, and thousands of people are still under the collapsed buildings dying for help. It is said that number of death will increase as the time goes on.

The Earthquake that attacked Sumatra at 8:52am had started 150km away from the Island. Even the people in the Singapore and Malaysia were able to feel the wave. Although the underwater earthquake triggered fear of tsunami for land around Indian Ocean and in fact a tsunami alert was on, hours later it was called off.

It is reported that many houses are collapsed in Padang. Some city lost electricity and telecommunications. The Padang airport has been closed. Indonesia's president told that the government is acting very quickly. "We are working on the emergency action plan," said Indonesia President. "I have communicated with the Social Welfare Minister, Army Chief, and the Health minister. This is important because we need doctors and paramedics to be sent." The government of Indonesia is even using military to save people who are trapped inside the buildings.

In this difficult situation without enough rescuer, some people are managed live by their own. A man escaped from collapsed Hotel. He told that when Earthquake happened, he ducked under the desk and the light went out. He climbed in the dark by following a small light coming from the top. After 3 hours from the Earthquake, he was managed to go to the outside. He said, he wants to thank you god and his family who supported him during he was under the building.

The geophysicist from the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Center told that this earthquake and another earthquake that occurred in the Samoa are not related. Even though, timing and plates are the same the center of these earthquake is too distanced to be related, he said. Remember that Sumatra region is the same area where huge tsunami attacked in 2004 and killed nearly 230000 people. Around Sumatra island is the place where Earthquake occurs most frequently on the planet.

About Me : Takahiro

The first of all, if you can not read English, this blog is not for you. Second, if you don't like to read articles about sports, books, Michigan, or Japan, I recommend you not to waste any time reading this blog. In case, you actually like to read these stuff, let me introduce myself. My name is Takahiro. I came to U.S. four years ago.

I like to read Manga and book, to watch baseball, and to eat sushi. Also I admire Ichiro. If you are smart enough, you could have guess I am Japanese. And if you did, you are right(Congratulation!You have a prejudice view for Japanese). If you didn't, that is very fine also. Because in this blog, I would relate almost anything to Japan. I will compare and connect Japanese culture with American ones. Keep reading this blog it would make you, even if you don't know anything about Japan, an actual Japanese expert(or something close, I suppose). Well, anyhow, I hope this blog can kill your time in a exciting way.