This top page is to transmit the proof that I am still alive and enjoying retired life, mainly to my relatives, friends and former students. A story or an event is selected from monotonous daily life and my thoughts and experience are introduced.
From Daily Life - 31: Topics of eye Keeping sound eyesight is a grateful privilege in daily life. I had a
visual acuity of 2.0 all the time when I was young. After around the age
of 50, I started to recognize various symptoms. The first change I noticed
was that focusing became slow. When I had a meeting in a big room, I shifted
my viewpoint from the materials at hand to the projected figures far away.
It took an instant to get focusing. It could be caused by a weakening of
the eye muscles. Then, presbyopia, which makes it difficult to see nearby,
began, and astigmatism added to it. I started wearing glasses on a daily
basis from around the age of 60. The glasses have also changed from simple
ones to advanced ones that correct lens power and astigmatism for three
targets in far, middle and near distance. Currently, I regularly use glasses
that emphasize middle and near sight, and use for driving glasses that
emphasize distant and middle sight.
Corrected visual acuity is maintained at 1.0 to 1.2, but the glasses last
for more than 10 years, probably because the eye condition has settled
down. Cataracts are slightly cloudy in the right eye, but far from the
surgical treatment. There are other eye weaknesses. Elderly people are
required to inspect their field of vision and light-dark adaptation speed
when they renew their driver's license. I have no problem with the inspection,
and I don't feel tired even when I drive long at night. I am very grateful
for keeping sound eyes for my age. I don't hear much about the training
that strengthens eyes like muscle training. I brush my teeth every day
but have never taken care of my eyes.
Last year I visited an eye doctor almost every 3 months. Occasionally
I feel discomfort at the outer corner of the left eye like a small particle
gets in, and it does not disappear even after washing the eye. After the
first diagnosis, the doctor said that it was caused by reverse eyelashes.
After pulling off several thin eyelashes, the discomfort instantly disappeared.
It must be also an ageing phenomenon, but the female doctor complimented
me as "It's because you're young and energetic." I wish neither
getting irregular eyelashes nor getting so weak that even eyelashes stop
to grow. This is likely to continue for a while.
Something interesting has happened recently. When I was looking at the
sky, I found a small cloud like a panda's face. As I watched, I noticed
that the panda was winking. Cloud would never wink! I carefully investigated
the phenomenon and found that it was synchronized with my pulse and occurred
only in the left eye. I went to the eye doctor and explained my symptoms,
thinking that something was wrong with my retina. After taking and examining
photographs of the fundus and tomographic images of the retina, the doctor
found no particular abnormality in the retina. After about a week, the
small pulsating region in the sight became much smaller. Now I cannot notice
it unless I observe very carefully. It was a happening that made me realize
the retina was alive.
My generation lived without looking at television and displays. Children
these days seem to work their eyes too heavily. I hope that eye training
would spread in the same way as muscle training.
→ Past Top Pages
"From Daily Life"
1: Tracing family roots
2: The second last car
3: August 15. my memorial day
4: Battlefield rations
5: Begginer at the gym
6: Fuji View Hotel
7: Lesson in Hiragana writing by brush
8: Moving from old to new smartphone
9: Living alone in my second year
10: Welcomed by cherry blossom
11: Eden of peach blossom
12: Tama River Walk
13: Chichibu Pilgrimage
14: Bonds with local community
15: About my homepage
16: Annual report of athletic gym
17: Pilgrimage to Mt. Tsukuba
18: Reunion of alumni and classmates
19: Braking by left foot
20: Battlefield rations in the sequel
21: Granddaughter has come!
22: Visit to Kobayashi Residence
23: Wake-up exercise
24: Digital photo album
25: Seven tools for brushing teeth
26: Ambulance
27: Quick report on drive monitoring
28: Hearing aid
29: Jindai Botanical Park
30: 2020, a historic year
"Memorable Scenes"
Series 1: Parade with Doctor hat on the head
Series 2: Calligraphy in a frame
Series 3: A young man from the Orient
Series 4: Sumo-stamping
Series 5: Waiting room of Shanghai Station
Series 6: Let's Walk Festival
Series 7: Last long-distance drive
Series 8: My Car No. 3
Series 9: Ski camp
Series 10: Safari experience
Series 11: First encounter with dogwood
Series 12: Mt. Fuji
"Treasure Box of Words"
Series 1: Virtue brings profit
Series 2: Wait for a ripe moment
Series 3: Catch the symptoms
Series 4: Words are selected metaphors
Series 5: Start with two humans
Series 6: Optimism is a will, pessimism a mood
Series 7: Atop a summit, and another becomes visible
Series 8: We see only what we want to see
Series 9: Chanllenge is the privilage of the young
Series 10: Today is the first day of my life
Engineer Series 1: Who's engineer, juveniles' answer
Series 2: Corus of "We raise engineers!"
Series 3: From Nobel Prize to Gold Medal
Series 4: Professionals in three categories
Series 5: Various tasks in engineering
Series 6: Classification of EPs by IEA
Series 7: Science, technology and related professionals
Series 8: Proposal for the classification of engineers
Series 9: Revised proposal for the classification of engineers
Series 1 - 10: Whole Series including summary and remarks
Cartoon Series 1: Mechanism of viscosity
Series 2: Mechanism of loss generation
Series 3: Commuter packer and enthalpy
Series 4: Skinny grasshopper and fat pupa
Series 5: From hand-drawn picture to ready-made clip art
Series 6: Why do you learn? - 1
Series 7: Why do you learn? - 2
Series 8: Two Sciences
Series 9: Scientist and Engineer
Series 10: Science and Non-science
Series 11: Structure of human relations
Series 12: Oriental subconsciousness
Nostalgia Series 1: The first own car
Series 2: The first driver's license
Series 3: Comparison of German and Japanese Diploma
Series 4: The first air travel
Series 5: Tachometer used 60 years ago
Series 6: The three sacred calculators
Series 7: The first home computer
Series 8: Sentimental journey to Nordkapp
Series 9: Change of photograph
Series 10: Story of passport
The others
Membership of Academic/Professional Societies
Curriculum Vitae
Recent Publications
The center of gravity of recent publications has been shifting from those with the topics in fluids engineering to those in engineering education. Please refer to Publications List of the recent papers written in English.