Phase 3 underway

Hey peoples. Well, as the heading suggests, Phase 3 is well under way, and while the numbers aren't significantly better, the intensity is, and I feel a lot stronger. It's getting really hot and humid now, and I'm sweating heaps every workout. Yesterday's yoga was amazing. I have never sweated so much in my life, but I felt great doing it. I had a stiff neck and a little weekend headache, but I felt a lot better afterwards. This morning I got up and did Legs & Back. My alarm went off at 5:10, and I would have slept right through it if Junko hadn't have woken me up. So I laid in bed and the usual bullshit went through my head. If I get up and do it, I'll be glad I did. It will be done for another week. I can enjoy the day (a Monday, mind you) without having the thought that when I went home I would have to squeeze in Legs & Back and Ab Ripper X sometime after dinner. J at work will be getting up and doing it, and then make my day hell by constantly reminding me that I had to do it tonight. But on the other hand, maybe he wouldn't get up, and then I could make his day hell. But if I don't get up and do it, I can sleep another hour. So all this took about 5 minutes before I got up and did it. And I'm glad I did. As a condition of getting up and doing it, I agreed that I would not have to do Ab Ripper X immediately afterwards. I'll do it tonight. I'll take the 60 day photos tonight too.
I went to the doctors on Friday about a mole on my back that I hate and a red patch of skin on my face which comes and goes and looks like acne. I've had it for ages, and it won't go away. Turns out it's rosacea, which is inflammation of blood vessels close to the skin. Can be triggered by excessive drinking, or heat, or exercise. I got some cream for it so hopefully it'll subside a little. Or totally, which would be nice. I got some cream for the mole too, but I'm keeping an eye on it. I told the doctor that 60% of Australian men get skin cancer, but I don't think she believed me. A couple of years ago when I was in Australia I went to the doctor about the same mole, and I swear he looked at it for half a second and said "That's fine." Want to take a closer look, doc? I guess it's kind of what you want to hear, and it hasn't gotten any bigger or become painful since then, but I wish he had spent more time looking at it before he told me it was fine. I probably wouldn't have bothered about it this time if he had.
So Michael Jackson died, hey? What a freak. It's funny how all these celebs pay doctors to kill them with proscription drugs. How are these guys any different than drug dealers, and why aren't they arrested for murder? Probably because half of the population are on the same drugs. Did you know that Macaulay Culkin is the father of one of Jackson's sons? He donated his sperm. That's the rumour. There'll be plenty of them around now. He wasn't much of a man. He could sing and dance, but he also got kids drunk and slept with them, so...
Swans lost another one. Just about all over. Another error by Ted Richards under pressure, and the Crows kick away. Barry Hall punches another guy in the head for no reason. A pretty ordinary season by the Swans. I can't imagine the buildup for the Saints Geelong match. Has to be a Grand Final preview. Saints might choke in the finals though. Man, if Sydney could somehow make the eight and then play the Saints in that first week, I would fancy our chances. Ever since we just absolutely STEAMROLLED them in the prelim in 05, I just feel like we can beat them when it's important. I just hope the Bulldogs don't make the Grand Final. I don't know why, I just don't like them. I think it's Brad Johnson.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Later.

Day 56 Today

Today I've got X Stretch, and then tomorrow I start the last phase, Phase 3. Yoga last night was the best so far. I felt really strong and ready to go. This next month is going to be hard though. It's really humid now, and soon it's going to get hot. The garage is nice and dark, but it's still going to be an issue. I'll just have to be careful to hydrate before and after the exercises.
Rainy season is in full swing. It started raining really heavily last night, and this morning it was still bucketing down. It's stopped for the moment, but it'll rain again this afternoon. It really is amazing how much rain falls in rainy season. I don't know what they did before they covered the country in concrete. It must have been muddy.
We have a malfunctioning unit in our department. He has come to work twice in the last two months, one of those days being today. Apparently he can't handle it. What do you do with a seishain who can't handle it? You can't fire him. Interesting to see what will happen. They will probably just give him a pointless project to do with no deadline and wait till he quits or commits suicide. I happened to run into this guy a couple of months ago at a community leisure centre. I was with Will, he was with his wife and two daughters. This is a transcript of the conversation.
Me: You work in my department, don't you?
Him: Oh. Yes.
Me: These are your two daughters?
Him: Oh. Yes.
Me: They are very cute.
Him: Oh. Thank you.
Then they left without saying goodbye. Nice people. So of course now I don't really care about this guy, I just hope he doesn't take his family with him when he kills himself, like a lot of them do here.
I've tentatively started my Japanese study. I want to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 2 in December. These tests come in four sections: Kanji (the Chinese characters), grammar, reading, and listening. I find that with the Kanji I'm at about 65% when I don't guess what I'm not sure of, so in a test you might bump that up to about 75%, which is an easy pass. The listening and reading should not be a problem because that's what I do all day anyway. The grammar is an issue because there are so many structures that it's just so hard to remember them all. A typical question reads like
"While I understand that not eating breakfast is bad for my health, I didn't have time this morning so I __________." a) did nothing but eat breakfast. b) wanted to eat breakfast. c) was able to eat breakfast. d) couldn't eat breakfast."
I know what you're thinking. That's easy! d! Yea, but it's in another language, idiot! Sorry for calling you an idiot.
Anyway, I've got the 60 day photos next week, and I might post them, or I might leave it until the big finale in July. We'll see how they turn out.

Bring on Phase 3!

I've nearly finished Recovery week, and it feels like I have done nothing even though I have sweated my ass off every day. It's just that I'm not doing any resistance work. This is what Tony calls "Muscle Confusion." My body does feel confused. It's weird. I'm looking forward to doing Chest & Back on Thursday. It's been about a month and a half since I last did it, so I expect to see some improvement.
I feel like I'm on the brink of getting a cold. I have had a small headache for a couple of days, and this morning I woke up and my throat felt a little... not sore, but not perfect. I went about 80% doing Core Synergistics this morning. It's a pretty strenuous workout so I had my ass kicked anyway. I feel ok now. I could take a panadol (or the Japanese equivalent) after lunch if my headache gets any worse, but I'll try to avoid taking it if I can. Just plenty of water, a coffee here and there, and I should be okay.
It's rainy season here in Japan. It's humid (I felt the first bead of sweat roll down my back and into my ass crack this morning while I was standing on the train) and it is wet. In about a month it will stop being wet, the wind will disappear, and the temperate will ramp up another ten degrees to about 36, 37 degrees every day with 100% humidity. Step away from the air conditioner or the fan for a second, and I get a sweat pulse, and my hair is wet and my clothes cling to me. I fucking hate it. I do like the festivals and the sound of the cicadas though.
I told you the Swans would lose. Again, all the stars played amazing, Goodes, Kirk, O'Keefe. But the culprit this time was Ted Richards. Gave Collingwood that goal with two seconds to go in the third quarter to completely strip us of any momentum going to three-quarter time after having just grabbed the lead ourselves, and then gave away that 50 metre penalty that lead to a goal and then another and another and another. He's a good player, but damn. Apparently one more loss and we will be looking towards 2010, ie. losing games on purpose. yey! (sarcastic). Still, like I said last week, good run, have to accept tough times are ahead.
This year's US Open is maybe the worst ever, unless Tiger shoots a 63 in tomorrow's round and wins it. Ricky Barnes cannot win the US Open. He won the US Amateur about ten years ago, and in the 100-odd tournaments he's played as a professional since then, the best finish he's had is tied for 17th. That is very, very ordinary. There should be some major chokage going on tomorrow, with two unknowns so far in front, so tune in and watch the carnage!
Still on golf, I hear Tiger is coming to Melbourne for the Australian Masters! Get a ticket and go see the great man. And for those miserable people who will inevitably complain about the appearance money he's getting, if you practice your golf really hard and get really good and win 14 majors, I'm sure someone will pay you 3 million dollars to play in their tournament too! Good luck.

Yoga X

So this is my recovery week, and after my stretch on Wednesday I went and did the 90 minutes Yoga X, the only part of the P90X series that I don't follow. And now I'm glad I don't, because I don't think I could do this every week. The first 40 minutes had me dripping with sweat, and the little voice in my head was screaming at me to stop. So I did. I had a shower, had some lunch, and regrouped. Then I did the last 50 minutes in the afternoon. If I had to do this every week, I think it was cause such problems in my mind that I would either only do half of it, skip it completely and find a substitute (which is what I have done, effectively), or give up P90X. It is too long. And the last 30 minutes is basically the same as X Stretch anyway. I'm glad that I have experienced it, but I definitely won't be doing it again in a hurry. Tell you one thing though, it did give my ego a check. I thought I was getting there before I saw this, and now I know I have many, many years to go if I want to approach the strength and flexibility of anyone in this video. It is amazing what they can do, and Yoga just destroys any cardio or resistance training workout. For me, in terms of my body's reaction to it, Yoga is the most challenging and difficult workout I have done.
Yesterday I did Cardio X, which is a nice little mix of everything else, and today I did Kenpo X Plus. I have to say, the "plus" doesn't really amount to much. It's more intense, but shorter.
Tomorrow I've got One on One with Tony - Recovery 4 Results which looks nice and cruisy, and then Core Synergistics, which is another ass-kicker. Looking forward to getting stuck into that one on Monday morning.
Till then, have a look at this video.

Australian artist Keith Loutit, and the technique is called Tilt Shift. Looks amazing. I'm sure you're seeing in commercials already back home. First time I've seen it.
Oh yea. Is it good enough?

Indeed it was.

Recovery Week Again

Oh man, so busy at work. I'm being handed report after report and each of them take ages to do, I feel like I'm being raped in the face! (A "Hamlet 2" reference, I wouldn't just say that. Funny movie.) But it's Recovery week and I've got some new stuff to look forward to. Here's the schedule for you schedule wonks out there.
Wednesday (today) - X Stretch.
Thursday - Yoga X. 90 minutes of Yoga. It is time. Hooooly shit.
Friday - Cardio X. I haven't done this one before, and it's not really part of the P90X standard schedule, but I thought I'd try it out.
Saturday - Kenpo X+. Yea baby. +. = more. One of the new videos Tony made for P90X graduates. Actually, it's shorter that Kenpo X, but more intense.
Sunday - One on One with Tony - Recovery 4 results. This is the newest lineup of exercises, and it's from the series I took the 45 minute Yoga workout I've been using. A mix of strecthing, light cardio, and light resistance.
Monday - Core Synergistics.
Tuesday - 45 minute Yoga.
Wednesday - X Stretch again.
This replaces the rather dull Recovery week scheduled. It also exposes me to other workouts that I might consider doing when I'm working out a post-P90X regimen, which, for a few months anyway, will be less intensive, both physically and time-wise. More like maintenance.
From tomorrow until the scheduled end of P90X (28 July), my main priorities will be form and results. I will pay more attention to what I eat, and to getting the absolute most I can out of myself in the workouts.
Anyway, got to do some work or I might have to come in tomorrow (a Thursday. Can you imagine working on a Thursday?! Intolerable!)

Phase 2 Just About Done

No AFL for me this week with the split round, but next week we play Collingwood at ANZ stadium, which means we will lose. If ever there's a certainty in sport, it's that the Swans cannot beat Collingwood at ANZ stadium (that is what the Olympic stadium in Sydney is called, isn't it? It's hard to keep up with all the stadium name changes). So instead of sweating on downloads all weekend, I had a relaxing time keeping away from the computer and just hanging out with Junko and the kids. Will's gotten really clingy in the couple of months Jo Jo has been around. He follows us around everywhere. It's kind of desperate. Just a phase, I guess.
The workouts have been going well too. I'm feeling really lucky with the lack of injuries. A sore back and a sore knee, and a cold way back in October, and that's it. I've only missed a couple of days at the most in more than eight months (touch wood). This morning was Legs & Back, which is the one I hurt my knee doing a month or so ago, but I felt really strong this morning. I have decided to concentrate in particular on my form, especially with the pull-ups, which means the numbers aren't as high as they were last week. Before I was tapping the ground with my foot after each pull-up to stop my body from swaying. It's kind of cheating. This week I've stayed off the ground, and trying to keep my body still and not swaying around. It's really hard, but when I eventually find the right positions, I'll be increasing my reps quicker than if I was touching the ground. It just means that compared to last week, I can't do as many because a lot of my energy is going to keeping my legs still or my back arched or my elbows in the correct positions. I didn't do the Abs this morning, same as last week. I just wanted to finish up and have a big relaxing breakfast. I might do them tonight, or after Kenpo tomorrow.
Tomorrow is the last workout of Phase 2, and then there is a Recovery week. I'm more than half way through already! I reckon there will be some noticeable differences in the before photos and the 60 day photos I'll be taking in a couple of weeks. I just feel bigger and stronger, but it's such a subjective thing I'll need the photos to confirm.
Will and I had a great day at the indoor pool yesterday. He's jumping in from the side into my arms which is a big step. Next is going underwater. When we got there it was "Rest Time," which occurs ten minutes every hour. A whistle blows, and everybody gets out of the pool, and waits for ten minutes. That's it. Everybody just stands around an empty pool, waiting. Then after ten minutes the whistle blows again, and everybody jumps in. I hate it because it is an in-your-face example of the docility of the Japanese and their slavish adherence to stupid rules.

Extreme example of "Rest Time"

Another odd thing. I was in the kid's pool with Will, and there was another man with his son. He called over one of the staff and asked him something, and the staff went off and came back a minute later and said "It is possible to rent them." I didn't think anything of it, until a couple of minutes later when he approached me. "You can rent the goggles if you need," he said in English. For a moment I thought, it is compulsory to wear goggles too? I'm already wearing the compulsory swimming cap, and so is Will. I looked around. Most people had goggles, but some didn't. Then I understood. He thinks because everyone has goggles that I might want to have some too, so I don't feel uncomfortable or stand out (!). "I'm fine, thanks" I said in Japanese. But then I thought, maybe I should get some goggles, if everybody else is... Argggh! No, that's how they think. Buddy, I appreciate the fact that you think you are trying to provide me assistance, but could you leave me alone!
It is a revelation that many foreigners have after a certain amount of time here that all day they are being told what to do and how to do it by Japanese people. When you first get here it is helpful, sure, but after a while it just gets old. Once I was waiting for a train, and when it arrived, a guy grabbed my shirt sleeve and helped me onto the train. He looked shocked when I asked him in Japanese "What the fuck are you doing?" If I make the slightest hesitation at an ATM or ticket machine, an assistant rushes over to help. It can get really annoying.
Once, I was at a train station (I spend a lot of time on trains and in train stations if you hadn't noticed), and I saw a Down's Syndrome kid, maybe 20 years old. I watched him look at the map, get some money out of his wallet, and buy a ticket at the machine. Then he went through the turnstiles and went to the platform to catch his train. Wow, I thought. He's retarded, but he doesn't need anybody's help. He can buy his own ticket and catch a train all by himself. Isn't that wonderful. Good on him. So then I bought my ticket and went through the turnstiles, and just before I got on the escalator to go down to my platform, I happened to look behind me. And I swear, I saw a middle-aged man watching me with the same condescending grin that I must have had a minute earlier when I was watching the Down's Syndrome kid. That put things in perspective for me, I can tell you. I am retarded.
PS There's a guy on my floor whose laugh sounds exactly like Steve Carroll's laugh. It's uncanny. I'm always startled by it. "Steve's here!?"

Week 6 Done

I have calmed down after yesterday's AFL viewing. I've watched On The Couch and Footy Classified, and I've taken the emotion out of it and set the pain aside. The Swans have had a great run, and I have to accept that the next few years might not be successful ones.
Yesterday I finished translating a huge report, and an hour after finishing it I got handed another one. I can't look at it anymore today, so I closed it down and here I am, writing this.
I did Kenpo X and Ab Ripper X last night. Brought it. I felt great the whole way through Kenpo, and then during the abs, I felt like I could actually power through the reps instead of just hanging on for dear life. I think my policy will be to see how I feel during Legs & Back, and if I feel okay, do Ab Ripper X after that as scheduled. But if I feel poorly, put the abs back a day like I did yesterday. I don't think it makes much difference, but I've made a nice little Excel schedule, and changing stuff around makes me uncomfortable, which means I've been here too long.
Today was health check day. We get one every 6 months. We weren't supposed to eat breakfast, but I always do. I hate being hungry. So about 11 o'clock the announcement comes through. "All males in the Information and Documentation Department to the Examination room." Off we go. First, a questionnaire. Do you smoke? Drink? Any history of illness in the family? Do you eat fast, slow, or normal speed? And a lot of other stuff I don't understand that I just ticked "No" to. Then height and weight. 187 cm and 82 kilos. "Is that okay?" asked the nurse who took the measurements. I don't know. I guess so. Can't really do anything about it if it isn't. A funny thing to ask. Then blood test. Needle into the vein like a junky, and pump out three vials of blood. Then eye test, blood pressure, heart check with electrodes or something, doctor checked my breathing and ticked the file, waist measurement, hearing check, piss into a cup, then a chest x-ray. All within about 5 minutes. We get the results in about a month. It's pretty cool how they do this. Unheard of in Australia. I would like to compare these results with the ones from when I first started here and was a sickly smoking weakling. I'll write a post about it when I get the results.
Today's Katakana word: デリバリーヘルス "delibariiherusu" (lit: Delivery health). This means a call girl business. ヘルス (herusu, or "health") is what they call seedy massage parlours, so of course delivery health is having the service delivered to your door.

Makes Me Sick!

I did Legs & Back last night, and I went so hard that I made myself feel nauseous, and had absolutely nothing left for Ab Ripper X. After I did the chair squats, which are I think around the 40 minute mark, I was shaking and I thought I was going to be sick. I said to myself, do the Abs tomorrow, and I felt immediately better and hammered through the last twenty minutes. I might even make this a permanent thing. I don't want Legs & Back to become this thing that I have in the back of my mind all week, and I think taking Ab Ripper X out of it might prevent that from happening. See how I go tonight after Kenpo. Maybe it's just better to do it after legs & Back and get it over and done with.
So I finished my workout and was showered by 10:45, and I sat down with my shake to watch the first half of Swans Hawthorn. What a tough game. I watched the third quarter this morning, too. This is the first time I have seen Sam Mitchell play well. Usually Kirk just destroys him, and he had a shocker in the Grand Final last year, so it was a surprise to see him play well. Buddy too, though he's always a chance to miss. Hawks have a lot of injuries, but good. I hope they lose. I'll probably watch the end of the game at lunch today. Win or lose, the Swans are going to have to drop Buchanan. He hasn't done a thing right all year. It's a shame because he was so good last year. Bird is playing awesome, and so is Jack. They both really lifted in the third quarter. A couple of times the Hawks have got to four goals in front, and boy do they love to celebrate. I don't mind seeing that. If you're jumping around and pointing to the crowd because you kicked a goal to put your team four goals up against the Swans with a quarter and half to go, you've got the wrong attitude. You're team might still win, but it's nowhere near over.
Today's Katakana: レゲエおじさん "regeiojisan" – "lit: Old reggae man." This is what the young people are calling old homeless guys with filthy dreadlocks.
Just finished watching the game. Barry Hall WTF!? And Paul Roos, for god's sake, never let Rees Shaw play the last three minutes of any game ever again. How often does he need to kick it to the opposition under pressure for you to realize that he is a hack who couldn't make it at Collingwood because he couldn't be trusted with the ball? He can run and bounce the ball. So what? Drop Buchanan. Drop Shaw. Drop Hall. And don't replace them with other gimps like Ablett who can fuck up and cost us games. Goodes, Kirk, Bolton, Mickey O, O'Keefe, Jolly - just let them do it. They're all in career form. They would be winning games if these other morons weren't getting the ball. Also, I'm getting sick of Hodge playing when he's injured. My effing hero. You're not that indispensible! Get off the ground! *sigh* I guess the upsetting thing is that usually we win the close ones. I'm going to look at the papers to read all the Barry Hall hating that I'm sure is going on.
"I've got 11 weeks to prove myself," he says. You've already proved it, mate. You are a child.

Child

Got Legs & Back Tonight

Hey. Another week gone by. They are flying by pretty fast. The workouts are going great, though I couldn't get up this morning to do Legs and Back + Abs. Nothing like a little dread to make me stay in bed. I'll do it tonight. I'll probably have Swans vs. Hawks ready to go by tonight too, so could be a late one. The yoga I did last night was probably the best one yet. I powered through it, sweated like a tennis player in a five-setter at Rod Laver Arena. It really is amazing how much Yoga makes me sweat, even though I am moving really slow, and not doing anything cardio. It's just the exertion of keeping the body in a position it doesn't really want to be in. The progress I have made in only what, 6 weeks, is surprising. I would like to keep doing yoga for ever.
Speaking of forever, I'm starting to think about what I can do after P90X is finished. I know that I won't be able to stop doing workouts. I'll just get cranky because I will feel fat and slow and lazy. I finished downloading P90X+ yesterday, which is the next step up from P90X, so I might do that. I would like to make some kind of hybrid workout, maybe not so rigorous, which is what a lot of people do. And then when things cool down (because it's going to get mightily hot – you'll hear me complain about it over the next four or five months) I'll get stuck into it again over the Winter and see how ripped I can get. I might turn into one of those orange people with muscles and veins and acne and thinning long blond hair. But I'm going to have to get out of the garage and do some hiking or mountain climbing or some kind of outdoor activities regardless of what I do.
What I did get up early for this morning is to watch Tiger win the Memorial. Wow. Talk about firepower. Eagles 11 with an incredible chip shot, and then is one of the four players leading at 10 under with two holes to go. Tiger goes bang bang, birdies on 17 and 18 to get to 12, and everyone else shits their pants as usual and he wins easy. That last iron to 18 to a foot, amazing stuff. That's how you do it. At least Jim Furyk had the minerals NOT to double bogey the last. Like I said in a previous post, Tiger makes the rest of them look like chicken-shits. He's got the US Open in a couple of weeks at a course where he won it by 3 the last time it was played there in 2002. Who's going to beat him?
Today's Japanese Katakana word is ペアルック ("pearukku" – pair look) which is when a couple dress alike. The Japanese don't do it anywhere near as much as the Koreans do. I had to laugh when I went to Seoul and saw couples walking hand in hand wearing exactly the same t-shirts or polo tops, jeans, and sometimes even shoes. People had told me about the pair looking that was going on in Korea but you have to see it to believe it.
We had a good weekend. We took the boys to a park in Toyokawa that has a lot of water stuff going on, little pools and waterfalls etc that the kids can wade in. Will loved it.

Pair look

Week 5 Done

Just got word that I will get another yearly contract, my third, so that's a relief. Especially considering that there isn't enough work to keep two of us translators busy, let alone four, and the messed up economy. Like I said, I'm glad I'm not in the real world. And next year I will probably be offered a position as a fabled seishain. Is this the last place in the world where you can get a job for life? And do you really want "job for life" job? The Japanese clamour for a seishain position, but for us westerners, bred to be restless, always wondering "is this it?, a "job for life" can be a scary thing. I guess I can always quit anytime I want.
After only a week of Phase 2, I am really starting to feel bigger and stronger. I think that recovery week really set me up for a big month, and it was a great idea to split the 90 days into three phases. I know with P90 Master I got a bit worn down, especially in the knees and back, because there is no rest period, it's just the same thing week in week out. Your body doesn’t get much of a chance to heal the little tears and sprains, or to just generally recover. I thought after a week of basically stretching and yoga and cardio my performance with weights might have suffered a little, but it's the opposite. For example, in week 3 Legs and Back, I did a total of 55 pull-ups, and that was the day I hurt my knee and had to finish the last half of it the next day, so fatigue didn't play much of a role. Yesterday when I did it, two weeks later, I did a total of 62 pull-ups, all during the one hour workout. Tony and the guys in the video do almost 200!
I have dropped a kilo since I started P90X, and now I'm down to 80 kg. I took the 30 day photos, but I won't post them because there's not much difference from the starting photos, except I'm a little thinner around the waist and toned in the gut, but it's hardly noticeable. I expect the big improvements to come in the last month, when I will be busting my ass in the Summer heat and I have lost more fat and put on more muscle.
Surprisingly, I'm really enjoying Footy Classified this year. Last year I thought it was a little too combative, but I think that Grant Thomas has lightened everyone up a bit. On The Couch? Dunno. "Do you think (insert team here) can still make the finals?" You can only ask that question so many times. Different kinds of shows, I guess. I heard Dunstall went apeshit in the MMM booth. Pressure's on Hawthorn, I hope we can pump them again like we did in round 2, not even 3 months ago (weird fixture). Oh yea, and Terry Wallace is gone. Who would want to coach the Tigers? Give Nathan Buckley whatever he wants, whatever it takes to get him to Tigerland. That would be my advice. Give him five million dollars. Do the coaches fall under the salary cap?
So I said in a previous post that I have to do something to make my living here more enjoyable. Probably the most beneficial thing I could do is get better at Japanese. If I were to come home to Australia and have a job interview and present my Japanese qualifications, I would be embarrassed. Ten years, and that's all you could manage?
Every year, or twice a year from this year, the Japanese government holds the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It's the standard measurement. There are four levels, 4 to 1, 4 being the lowest. I have level 3, which I got in 2002, and I could probably pass level 2 now, but I haven't bothered taking the test for years. My resume says I have my level 2, but it's wrong. Level 2 is hard, and Level 1 is really, really hard. You need level 1 to get an interview at a consulate or major Japanese company these days. So bottom line, I should have it now, and I need to get it soon.
Using the discipline I have been able to apply to my exercise, I want to begin studying Japanese again. I've got a stackload of books, and I'm going to work through them bit by bit. I'll get my Level 2 in December, and then the goal is to get my Level 1 in July next year, and failing that, definitely December next year.
In Japanese, there are three alphabets. Kanji, the Chinese symbols that have meaning, ie. 車 = car. Hiragana, which is phonetic language and largely used for things like in, at, with, on, from, until etc, and Katakana, another phonetic alphabet used for "loan words" or words and concepts from other countries. Coca cola, Jim, communication etc. But the Japanese take these words and change them, usually making them shorter, like restructuring becomes (リストラ) - risutora, or demonstration becomes demo (デモ). Karaoke comes from "kara" meaning empty and "oke" from the Katakana word from "orchestra". They can be pretty inventive. So I thought I'd give a word each post for a laugh, and to get me a little more involved with the language. Today's word is スキンシップ "skinship". It means a close physical friendship, but it also refers to the idea in parenting that physical contact is important in a child's upbringing.

Almost Finished Week 5

Haven't written a blog entry for a week! I am pretty busy here at work for a change, and at home I don't really have the time to sit down and type. I do, but I'd rather do other things. Like watch the Swans get pumped by the Bulldogs, for example. The Bulldogs are a team we never beat, just like we never beat Collingwood, Geelong, or Fremantle.
The workouts have been going great. I am so sore after this first week of phase 2. After each workout I am left a sweating mess of a human, and if someone were to have popped their head into the garage this morning after I had finished Ab Ripper X, they would have seen me lying on the mat in a fetal position. I'm doing all of the reps now, all 339 of them, but it's fair to say my form could use some work. It's just so nice to finish them and have it done for another few days.
Yesterday we had a good day. The family went down to the photo studio for a family portrait with Jo Jo, but we had to wait around for ages while a couple had their four year old daughter dressed like Cinderella pose in front of a picture of a castle. They were never happy with the photos that were being shot because, frankly, the little girl wasn't that pretty. But finally they got it done, and we took our positions, except Will who was tired and sick of it all and kept picking his nose. So it took a while to get some nice shots. I haven't actually seen them yet, but I'll try to put one up when I get them.
After that we went to sushi, and I ate heaps. Then we went to a shrine and had Jo Jo blessed. We went to Rokusho Shrine which was founded in 1602 by Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was born in Okazaki and was the greatest Shogun in Japan's history. Apparently, until the 1890's, only lords were allowed to climb the stairs to the temple. And here I am, a shit-kicker foreigner with a couple of mongrel kids jogging up them. Fuck you, rich old dead Japanese dudes. We paid about $70 and the priest took us into the shrine and he did some chanting. It was really beautiful inside, with amazing wooden carvings. Will thought it was a little scary, but he was very curious, and ended up loving it. I had to do something with a branch. The priest gave it to me and told me to turn it around so the end was pointing to the middle of the shrine and then put it on a table and bow, but I have no idea what it signified. It was funny to hear the priest chanting. No-one can understand what he's saying, it sounds more like, a chant, I guess, der. But every now and then it was like "humnahumnahumnahumna JOSEFU humnahumnahumna." Then it was finished and we went home.
Junko's sister and her family came over on their way to dinner, and Will kind of invited himself, so they took him to dinner with them which was nice. Sushi again. I bet he regrets it now because they are the slowest family in the world. Everything is up to a very indecisive 13-year girl, their daughter Rino. She wanted to eat sushi at a restaurant an hours drive away, so that's where they went. You often hear that here. "Oh, little Hiro wants to eat steak, so we are going to an expensive steak restaurant miles away." When I tell them that in Australia, children are to be seen and not heard, and nobody gives a shit what they want to eat and they get what they are given, they are shocked. Then I slap Will in front of them for no reason and make him cry. "See?" I say. "We are barbarians." No, I don't do that, but there's no way I'm going to let Will decide what I'm going to eat, unless he gets a job and wants to treat me. Will didn't come home until 10 o'clock at night, dead tired. But then he shat his pants during dinner apparently, so I'm sure they're sorry he came too.