Dear Fumi,

Thank you for your seventh message.

This is the second of two messages from me this week. Both messages are

my reply to your seventh message.

> Dear Dr. M. Susan Stiner,

>

> I really appreciated that you gave me your reply.

> Thank you so much again.

>

> As you mentioned, there is a legal drinking age here in Japan. It is

> 20. A legal smoking age is also 20. To tell the truth, I sometimes enjoy drinking

> before that age. What a bad boy!

Ah, but you are a bad boy with a sense of humor. :)

Legal smoking age in the U.S. is 18. In the U.S. many (most?) kids

drink and smoke before they are legally entitled to do so. Smoking is

especially popular with teenagers. Smoking is "the thing to do" in high

school. Drinking is the popular forbidden activity in college. Each

year a fair number of students die of alcohol poisoning (from drinking

too much too fast). It is a real problem on campuses, including

University of ------ and ------.

>

> Do you think it right to study various areas not in detail? I can't decide

> which subject to study deeply. I'm afraid I will not complete anything. Please

> give me your opinion.

Being a pragmatic American, I am tempted to "shoot from the hip" and

say: study the area(s) that will do you the most good. That is, the

area(s) that will help you pass the professional exams, get a job, get

into grad school, get a scholarship. Decide what you want to do most,

and then select the area(s) that will let you accomplish that goal the

fastest.

However, a more thoughtful answer would have me say I'm not quite sure

what you mean when you say "areas." If you are alluding to this course,

you are very perceptive. We are "brushing the surface" of the basic

financial statements. You certainly won't learn the detail of any of

them from our web pages. I don't know how much additional material

Prof. Shiina assigns. He "fills in many of our holes", I'm sure.

If you are referring to all the courses that you are taking now, there's

no easy answer. I can tell you, as a professor, that it is not possible

to cover everything on any subject in one course. Even if the course

were "Thermonuclear Dynamics Discoveries Made in the Last Twenty

Minutes," the course still couldn't cover everything. I believe that

the body of knowledge is infinite and that humans can never know it

"all." We can know a lot, but there's still plenty that we don't know.

That's where my pragmatic streak comes in. If we can't know it all,

pick what is fun, or interesting or helpful and pursue that. You might

also consider the existence of overlapping areas. If there are certain

areas that apply to more than one course, learn them in greater detail.

For example, the time value of money applies to both accounting and

finance courses. So time spent learning the "ins and outs" of the time

value of money will "pay off" in both subject areas.

Let's return to your original question: is it right to study various

areas not in detail? My short answer is yes. My belief is that life is

too short to study everything in its complexity. Pick what is most

useful and focus on that.

You mentioned that you were concerned that you might never complete

anything. That is a valid concern, and logically correct. In my

experience, however, it is ok to leave some things in an unfinished

state. Just do them well enough. Over fifty years ago, Jonas Salk

developed the polio vaccine. He was a scientist who had worked with

viruses a long time. He had no idea of what genes the polio virus had.

He developed the vaccine anyway. Only now are we engaged in a genome

will tell us the complete content of the genes of certain organisms.

Salk did well enough in the face of incomplete knowledge. We can, too.

This site has a brief biography of Dr. Salk, if you haven't heard of him.

It will take a while to load, because there is a big graphic at the top

of the page. I think the page is worth it.

I'm not sure I've been responsive to your question, Fumi. If not, I'd

be delighted to continue this dialog. If you want to continue, please

tell me the context of your query.

BTW (cyber lingo for "By The Way") I have deliberately used several

idioms in this message to you. Normally, I "avoid them like the plague"

(absolutely stay away from). However, your command of formal written

English is impressive. It is often harder to deal with idioms, since

they are so culturally dependent. So I've included several to give you

some practice in idiomatic English. I've put most of the idioms in

quotes for identification purposes. Normally, one wouldn't use quotes.

The explanations of the idioms are here.

"Brush the surface" means to cover in a superficial manner. It means

the opposite of "detailed."

"Shoot from the hip" means to give the first answer or do the first

thing that comes to mind. There is little thought behind the words or

action. It's a reference to our frontier beginnings. Cowboys who shot

from the hip did not waste time drawing the gun from the holster (worn

on the hip) and aiming the gun. Of course, their accuracy was often

impaired.

"Fill in the holes" means to complete or provide additional

information.

"Ins and outs" means all aspects of something.

"Pay off" means getting the benefit of something. I assume it comes

from a gambling context.

> In the assignment,

>

> 1, While the balance sheet is a financial snapshot, giving you a picture of the

> business's assets and liabilities on a single day at the end of the accounting

> period, the income statement shows you a summary of the flow of transactions

> your business has had over the entire accounting period. In other words, the

> income statement shows you what happened during the period between balance sheets.

Thanks for giving the citation of the source.

This is a great definition of an income statement, Fumi, but it does not

give me the format, i.e., the components of the statement.

What I wanted was:

Revenue

less: cost of goods sold

equals: gross margin

less: operating expenses

equals: Net Income (Net Loss)

>

> 2, Using LIFO to value inventory, the amount of gross margin is $15,000 as cost of

> goods sold is $15,000.

You hit the nail on the head.

That's an idiom that means "correct."

> 3, Japanese translation

Thanks for sending your vocabulary list.

> That's all. Thank you for reading it all.

My pleasure!

>

>

> Sincerely,

> Fumi

I read about an interesting website this week in the Wall Street

Journal. The site is about the Asian Economic Crisis. The site is:

The article said there were a very high number of hits per day. This is

another example of how accounting and economic information is spread

through the World Wide Web. The English is very complex. You are not

*required* to read the website, but I am sure you can understand much of

it. Please go to the site and see the titles of articles posted there.

The site is huge, so you would have to give up sleeping and eating (and

drinking and smoking) to read it all. Feel free to read anything

interesting.

Sincerely,

Prof. M. Susan Stiner