Week 4 underway

Everyday, someone in my department of about 15 people has to do a 朝礼, "chourei" or morning speech. Everyone hates it. Nothing interesting is ever said. Nobody wants to talk about themselves, so they talk about taking care not to catch a cold, or being careful when driving, or tips on how to communicate. It was my turn today, and I talked about relieving stress. This is what I said. A literal translation, not natural English, to give you an idea of how they speak.
"Good morning. Recently, the economy is strict, so everyone's stress level is rising probably. In order to relieve my own stress, I go to a golf practice place one every week. Every day, after sitting in front of a desk, to exercise is good, I think. Also, especially, the evening golf practice place is a beautiful place. If you try it one time, there is the danger of becoming a golf fanatic like me, but that would be a good thing, I think. That is all."
One thing I have noticed about speaking Japanese to Japanese people is that if you make one grammatical error, or one mispronunciation, most of them totally lose track of what you are trying to say. I guess it's because they never hear grammatically poor Japanese. They complain about how bad young people's Japanese is, just like anyone in any country does about their own young people, but they rarely if ever hear wrong Japanese. We hear wrong English all the time, by immigrants, on the telly or movies. In fact, the majority of English spoken in the world would be "wrong." I feel the pressure of not making a mistake, and I'm not confident enough in my Japanese not to let this bother me, so I tend to keep my mouth shut, and my Japanese gets worse. Solution: study and talk more. Simple. It's just pride, fuckin' with me. So while I hate chourei like everyone else, it's good to sit down, decide on a topic, and make a little speech. When you learn a new word and have to memorize it and say it in front of a large group of people, it gets stuck in your head. 解消 kaishou – dissolve, deal with, relieve, as in relieve stress. There you go. I won't forget that in a hurry.
This morning was Plyo. Have I been typing "Pylo" all this time? Plyometrics. My knees don't ache as much as they did in the beginning. They must be tightening up and getting used to all the squats and jumps. I had to keep forcing myself to commit this morning though. First day of a new week, I guess. A little disappointing.
I bought some more protein shake powder yesterday. Problem is, I think I bought the same brand I did last time. The farty brand. You see, this is my third batch. The first one came in a tin, and that was fine. It didn't make me fart. The second one came in a bag, and I emptied it into the tin and threw the pack away. I forgot which brand it was, and yesterday when I took the new pack home, the colour was same, and the spoon was the same. So another few weeks of farting maybe.
Tiger Woods is in full practice mode now, and he says his own knee is feeling better than it ever has in his life. I can't wait until he comes back. He hasn't played for 9 months! I miss him terribly.
Will went to the dentist yesterday, and loved it. When I came home last night he was brushing his teeth. Poor guy, his face is covered in scratches from the kitten. He gets upset when I talk to Junko now. He tries to interrupt me, and then starts yelling. How's he going to be when the new baby comes? Psycho, probably. His latest craze is fish and whales.

Check out the difference between Japan and China.
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/11/the_way_vs_a_way_japan_v_china.php