Volleyball is an exciting sport to watch. At the net, two or three players jump up, but which one is going to hit the ball? You don’t know. The players on the other side try to block the ball. If the ball gets through, they have to keep it from hitting the ground. They make great defensive plays. The 1960s and 70s were the golden age of Japanese volleyball. The women’s team won gold medals at the 1964 and at the 1976 Olympics. The men’s team won a gold medal at the 1972 Olympics. The women’s team has played in almost all the Olympic games, but the men’s team has not done as well. Now, both teams look strong. They may get their first medals in a long time at the Paris Olympics.   (133 words)

People talk about Big Tech. These are the biggest IT companies in the world. First, there were the Big Five: Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. Alphabet is the company that owns Google, and Meta is the company that owns Facebook. These are some of the most valuable companies in the world. Now people are talking about the Magnificent Seven. There are two newcomers, Tesla and NVIDIA.  Tesla is the electric car company, and NVIDIA is a company that makes software and hardware for AI. Everybody wants to use AI these days, so NVIDIA has been growing bigger and bigger. In fact, it became the world’s most valuable company in the middle of this month.     　　(115 words)

When I was a junior high school student, I loved to read science fiction. Isaac Asimov was one of my favorite writers, and he wrote many stories about robots. One of his stories was made into a movie called “I, Robot.” His robots were like humans. They had two legs for walking, and they could think and talk. I was looking forward to meeting a real robot one day, and I finally met my first one two years ago in a restaurant. It was a waiter. It moved around the restaurant on wheels, and it brought food to customers. It had a screen with two large eyes, but it was basically a food cart. It was interesting, but I’m still waiting to meet a real human-like robot.    (127 words)

I went to the hospital to visit someone last Friday. When I got to the nurses’ station, I asked to see the patient. While I was waiting, I looked at a floor plan that was on the wall next to the elevator. Something looked strange to me, but I didn’t know what it was. Then I looked carefully at the numbers: 701, 702, 703, 705, 706, 707, 708, and 710. There were no 4s or 9s! No wonder it looked strange! Then I remembered that 4 and 9 are unlucky numbers in Japan. “Shi”, one reading of 4, can also mean “death.” “Ku,” one reading of 9, can mean “pain.” No one wants to think about death or pain, especially not in a hospital!   (124 words)

When I was riding my bicycle on a road, a driving school car passed me. I saw “Paper Driver Course” written on the rear license plate. That is totally new to me. When I got a driver’s license about 30 years ago, there was no such course. “Paper driver” is a Japanese English word. I wonder if foreigners can guess its meaning. It means a person who passed the driving test but has not been driving for a long time. This course is for people who need practice to be able to drive safely again. I wonder how many lessons they have to take. Or does it depend on the person?    (110 words)