It’s time to wrap up the words of this year. As I do every year at the end of the year, I’m looking back at what has happened to me and what I have encountered over the past year, and I’m listing them up in a few short words.
The words of 2023 are flight simulation, fitness, TOEIC, and voice recognition.
Flight Simulation
As I wrote in the previous entry, I’ve enjoyed flight simulation since I bought a gaming PC with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 installed, along with a control yoke, thrust levers, and rudder pedals. I’ve continually downloaded and used terminal and en route charts and documents provided by the Federal Aviation Administration and Japanese aviation authorities. I flew a Cirrus SR22 in its early stages to learn the basics of flying. Several months later, I switched to a Beechcraft G58 Baron twin-engine airplane to develop advanced flying skills. These days, I fly Boeing 787 Dreamliner between airports in both Japan and the United States.
Fitness
As I turned 50 this year, I had more and more opportunities to feel testosterone deficiency. Reading that strength training was the best way to supplement it, I decided to join a fitness gym and begin training regularly. I had several fitness gym chains nearby to choose from. Among those gym chains, I chose Anytime Fitness and became a member because I was attracted to its worldwide franchise network. Members who have been members for over a month can enter and train at any Anytime-Fitness-branded gym worldwide. Since I joined, I have sometimes used several different Anytime Fitness gyms besides the one I usually use, from a gym a little farther from the home-ground gym to the one in my homecoming prefecture and the one in Taipei.
Of course, training once or twice a week for about six months is far from the muscular body of a bodybuilder, but it seems to be compelling enough that my shoulders, arms, chest, and thighs look a little tighter, and I no longer find it hard to climb stairs.
However, I have been overeating after workouts and have gained weight, and my body fat rate has gotten much worse, so it seems that a different approach is needed to improve these things.
TOEIC
The TOEIC stands for the Test Of English for International Communication and is one of the standardized English tests administered by the Educational Testing Service, a New Jersey-based non-profit organization, to measure English proficiency, mainly in business situations. The TOEIC L&R test is a paper-based listening and reading test and one of the most well-known English tests, particularly for Japanese and Korean businesspeople, as an indicator of English proficiency, for better or worse. It measures test takers’ performance on the listening and reading sections. Their performance in each section is shown as scores ranging from 5 to 495 points, and total scores range from 10 to 990 points. The higher their scores, the better their English ability. If you have 900 points or more, at least traditional Japanese companies, like the one where I currently work, would evaluate you as a high performer in English.
My highest score so far is 915 points, which I earned in 2017, but it’s so old that I need more recent scores. I took the test several times over the last two years, all with scores hovering around 830 to 895 points, except for the 900 I got this October. The reason why I can’t take 900 points or more so often is apparent. This is due to my listening skills. It would be imperative to make my lifestyle more “English-oriented” to get more used to English.
Voice Recognition
I joined a new service development team for AI-based voice recognition services in July of this year. I didn’t know the team members before joining, but the job on this team is a new and exciting challenge.
2023 was the year the COVID pandemic ended, when authorities lifted many restrictions and mandates, and when people regained greater freedom to participate in activities nationwide and overseas. Although unrest is still underway in several places worldwide, I hope people will be happier with many good things next year.
The words of each year are summarized in this table.
| Year | Words |
| 2023 | flight simulation; fitness; TOEIC; voice recognition |
| 2022 | web3; Ford Focus; gout; pilotage |
| 2021 | Google Maps; Yurie Omi’s resignation; Tokyo Games; death games |
| 2020 | Synapusyu; the handgun; computer programming |
| 2019 | Hokkaido; Mercari; Grand Cherokee |
| 2018 | cashless; Japanese language; comeback |
| 2017 | Yurie Omi; NHK; shingles; English exams |
| 2016 | traveling to places in Japan; mapping; Jeep |
| 2015 | Maine, United States; Estonia; transfer of workplace |
| 2014 | England; Android |
| 2013 | Ayurveda; Korea; high school alumni; Tsuyoshi Takashiro |
| 2012 | Oji; the mahjong; the flight attendant; Facebook |
| 2011 | the car; the British culture; China |
| 2010 | Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia; iPhone; the credit card |
| 2009 | office position change; MacBook Pro; JR Seishun 18 Ticket |
| 2008 | England; Fukagawa |
| 2007 | changing my car; visiting Hawaii |
| 2006 | the US stock; the mutual fund |
| 2005 | darts; the GSM and WCDMA mobile phone; visiting Hong Kong again |
| 2004 | the blog; Asian countries (Singapore and Hong Kong); the GSM mobile phone |
| 2003 | the airplane; the musical |
| 2002 | America |
| 2001 | getting a flat within the Tokyo metropolitan area; a position change at the office; Soarer |
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