Casio Methex Competition

This week has been a very busy one. Last night I was setting up a system almost until midnight. An assignment from Postgraduate diploma course has been occupying my mind. Heaps of house maintenance issues have risen one after another - I am really a happy renter at the moment.

Of course there were also happy ones. Both of my children competed in Casio Mathex Competition 2010 and secured great results. Mathex? It is a combination of mathematics and exercise. Each team is formed by 4 players and 3 of them are the solvers and one is the runner. The runner runs around the designated course to fetch the problem sheets and submit the answers. The solvers work on the mathematic problem on each of the sheets and write down the answer and hand it to the runner.

My daughter and son are both solvers. The teams in my daughter's high school are formed in February and had been practising since then. The efforts paid off and her team made it to the third place after a very competitive tie break game on Wednesday.

For my son the story was totally different. He was called for the team just 2 days before the competition. The coach of his intermediate school said to him, "Relax, the whole of our school is on your shoulders!" My daughter gave the tactics to him and it was one of the reasons his team scored much higher than expected for the scarce preparation on Thursday. I was glad to witness his excellent leadership in action which I had failed to see as the youngest member of our family.

Watching the games was really exciting. The contrast of ice cold brains and burning hot muscles was making a good mixture. A great adrenaline pumping experience. I heard this is another Kiwiana, a thing typical to New Zealand but as the title sponsor Casio is unquestionable Japanese company I would like to see it to get popularity in Japan.

Is there anyone who would produce a fantastic manga or anime featuring Mathex to introduce it to Japanese?

Taken to hospital by ambulance

Well, today is Friday the 13th. I am not a superstitious person but it would be suitable to talk about a bloody story I have just experienced.

Now it was more than a week ago, I was in a hurry to pick up my son from the school. Intense shower was developing and I thought it was too severe for him to walk home. The staff car park was the opposite side of a large road from my office building in the clinical centre.

Heavy rain made visibility really bad and when I ducked to avoid a sudden gust something hit me at my head hard. I had bumped my head into a sharp edge of a street number sign which stood at the exit of the driveway to the road.

I managed to walk back to the office blooding and asked my colleagues for help. Fortunately one of them was a emergency management staff and professionally organised first aid and ambulance call. So I was taken to hospital by ambulance.

All the ambulance and emergency department staff who attended me were fabulous. A training surgeon stitched the wound under supervision. It was flawless and I was convinced that she would make herself an excellent surgeon in near future.

I got four stitches in the front head which were removed today. Yes, now the injury has completely healed. Not exactly like a Friday the 13th story!