Well the Hawks lost, and behaved just like you'd expect them to. There's something wrong at that club. I guess if the coach is a sook then that gives everyone permission to sook. Love it. Swans finished okay. We hit some good form at the end there, but couldn't beat anyone. Too bad we played like shit mid-year, or we'd be in the finals again and be pretty dangerous. Oh well. Still looking forward to this finals series immensely. My tip is Geelong, but I'll stick by Brisbane as the dark horse. I can feel it in me water. St Kilda will choke, I reckon. Can't wait for the grand final because that will mean I'm in Melbourne having a great day!
On Thursday we went to a hotel in Hamamatsu. Junko's parents are members of a group called Resort Trust which own heaps of luxury hotels around Japan, and we can get a room for like a hundred dollars a night. I think they bought membership during the bubble when everyone was loaded. They are amazing places, 5-star everything, pool, spa, awesome restaurants, so we went for night and chilled. Will and I spent most of the time in the pool. He found a book of riddles which he loves. His favourite joke? Why did the snowman in the desert? But he melted! Funny stuff.
Well, yesterday was election day, and apparently the government has been thrown out in disgust by the Japanese. Seventy years and they've had enough. No, actually, the LDP was thrown out in the 90's as well after fifty years of rule, but then there was the sarin attack in Tokyo and a general shitty economy and the Japanese put them straight back in first chance they got. Well, they're out again. Whatever the new guys do, they have to get people to have babies here. The birth rate is the lowest in the world. Did you know the Japanese have less sex and watch more TV than anyone else in the world? They reckon in a few centuries the Japanese people will become extinct if they don't hurry up and procreate. So the new government is going to give people who have kids money. Give me money! Just rememebered that I'm not really helping things by having kids in terms of prolonging the Japanese race, but I still get money. Hah!
I'm still doing Chelean Extreme. The weight workouts are good - short and intense, but I'm going to change the cardio workouts. I have always enjoyed long cardio workouts, and I think they are too short in Chalean, so I'm going to do some of Tony's workouts, and maybe even an Insanity workout here and there. This week, instead of Chalean's Burn Intervals I did P90 Master Cardio Intervals, which is much more intense. I felt really good and strong doing it, much stronger than when I was doing P90 Master all those months ago. I'm throwing in some abs exercises here and there too. I don't like the ones in Chalean. Basically I'm removing anything from Chalean that isn't resistance and replacing it with longer, better stuff. My weight is steady at 81.5 kg, though I feel as though I've eaten my summer holiday allowance, which culminated with Lunch B at a local Indian restaurant on Saturday that put me off food for a good 24 hours. It was a nice way to go out, and from now I'll be concentrating on small, frequent meals and good quality food.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
I Hope Hawthorn Lose
9 minutes to go of the third quarter in the Hawks Bombers match. I don't know who wins, but I hope the Bombers smash them. All this talk about the Hawks being 'nasty'. Spare me. Bombers have just destroyed them whenever the Hawks try to get tough. Rioli is a champion. But what I mean is like when Hodge (playing injured as usual, my hero) tries to slap Loniggan, misses, and Loniggan punches him in the jaw and puts him down. Campbell Brown is upset. Oh dear. Think he might get a kick soon? Did you see those slaps he did? What a faggot. I rate Chance Bateman, Rioli, and Buddy, and I hope Roughhead goes to Sydney next year like I've heard he might. BTW this means too much to Jeff Kennett. That guy is a nutter, always has been. I thought he and Felicity split up. Anyway, bottom line. I hope the Hawks get pumped.
Monday, August 24, 2009
First Week Of Chalean
It's a really nice summer day today. Sunny, but a nice cool breeze to keep things under control. Last night I did "Burn It Off!" which is quick cardio workout, and this morning I did "Recharge" because, as Chalean said, I really deserve to look after my body after working so hard during the week. It was just a quick stretch. I manned it up a little by doing Ab Ripper X afterwards. Still got it, baby.
In the previous post I mentioned how tough Chalean Extreme is on the back. It seems that every exercise involves bending over! Yesterday was no exception, and when I finish a set and my back aches, I often wonder if I'll be paying for it the next day. I feel okay today, but I have had a stiff neck since Thursday. I'll see how I go next week. If I get another crick or hurt my back in any way, I'll think I'll stop doing it.
I'm at a loss for anything to write about. Sports season over, Aussies lost the Ashes, Swans not in the finals, Golf season finished on a sour note. My work is dead boring.
I go to the pool with Will every day I am off. I bought him an inflatable tube thing, and he loves it. Yesterday I was having an ice-cream with Will at a small portable shop run by a nice old lady outside the pool. It was just us, the lady, and a guy I'd pegged as a nutter when I saw him sitting down on the locker room floor putting his shoes and socks on. Listening to him talking to the lady took me back to when I'd been here a year and a bit and I was hanging out at a mate's house who had been here a lot longer. An old couple were arguing in their garden outside. "What are they saying?" I asked my mate, and he interpreted the conversation for me.
"What did you bring me this for? I don't need it."
"You need it to trim the plants."
"I'm not going to trim the plants."
"You have to trim the plants."
"You trim the plants, I couldn't be bothered."
"What do you mean? That's what gardening is. Trimming stuff. What the hell are you doing then?"
And so on. I thought it was so cool to be able to understand what people were saying. It's funny how when we hear people talking in another language and we don't understand what they are saying we assume they are talking about really important stuff. Have you seen that bit in Anger Management (I think, some Adam Sandler movie anyway) when you see two Arab looking guys sitting next to each other on a plane arguing? You think they might be arguing about which one is going to stab the flight attendant and which one is going to rush the cockpit, but when the subtitles come up we find out they're arguing about a scene in The Simpsons.
Well my Japanese is now at a level where I can understand mostly about what people are saying in everyday conversations about everyday things. The nutter was talking to the lady about how test scores are way down from what they used to be when he graduated, kids these days are lazy, etc, straight out of one of the silly current affairs shows they have here, and the old lady's like yea, yea, yea. He is a nutter - there are loads of them here, and the funny thing is he only looked about my age. A bit young to be whining about kids. Then when he gets up to throw his empty can in the bin, she says "Thank you very much!" really loudly, which kind of meant "Go away now!". He leaves, muttering to himself, and then two old ladies, friends of the old lady who runs the shop I assume, come for a visit. How are you? they ask the old lady. She says she's tired from working, which they all say. But she says lately she's drinking some kind of drink, I'm not sure, probably some Chinese tea/extract thing that is popular with old people, and she has been feeling much better. They ask her the brand, and she tells them and one of the friends says Oh don't drink that brand, it's a waste of money. But if I drink it thinking it's good for me, then it is good for me, says the shop lady. You should drink this, says the friend, and brings out a brochure for some other drink. Bah! says the shop lady, everybody has their recommendations. Then they bought some ice-cream (here, Willy asked the lady who bought them, in Japanese, Are you really buying two ice-creams? He couldn't believe it. She laughed and explained that one was for her friend). They sat and chatted about these extract drinks, and then the shop lady said I'm sorry, but if I don't close up soon... and we all made our way to the car park.
So I can understand what they say, but I can't understand the tone, and I can't understand the context. At one stage the shop lady said to the other ladies "Shinpai shiteitadaitte arigatougozaimasu" which is basically "Thank you for your concern" which is pretty polite, isn't it. Are they really friends? I could kind of get that the shop lady was humouring the nutter and wanted him to go away, but what about these ladies? Were they trying to sell her something? I have no idea. If they were speaking English I would have been able to tell their relationship pretty quickly. So even though I understand, I don't understand.
It's really hard here to work out what's going on in a Japanese conversation. One thing is that they usually leave out the subject. So "I went shopping" is just "Went shopping." So a lot of the time I don't have a clue who or what they are talking about. Japanese people have the same problem too, but of course not as often. This creates the converse problem of a foreigner learning Japanese who can't leave the subject out, and ends up sounding like "As for me, I went shopping, and I, in particular, bought a hat" instead of "Went shopping, bought a hat." The second one is the level of politeness. You talk to a person you don't know different to people that you know. Same in English, but it's the hardest thing to do in Japanese, especially when you are expected to do it, like when talking to your boss or business associate. There's a whole heap of special terms and verbs that are required. Foreigners can usually get away with it, unless their Japanese is so good that the Japanese person (rightly) thinks they should know better, but Japanese people new to a company will have to take lessons in learning to talk to their boss and guests from other companies. Learning all of these verbs and expressions and doing it correctly under pressure is really tough, and they probably get peeved when a foreigner is allowed to talk to a higher-up in a way that would get them into trouble. And then, to add insult to injury, the boss might actually enjoy the "natural-ness" of the foreigner, which might in turn lead to special treatment or drinks or a round of golf or something. And on top of that, the foreigner probably leaves at 5:00 every day while the Japanese slave away until 9 or 10 every night. Hah hah, fuck em. So yea, a long way to go, but sometimes I enjoy just being able to listen and to understand everyday conversations. People around the world studying Japanese pay a lot of money for the opportunity to hear two Japanese people talking like they would naturally. It's like living amongst the Rinos in a Kenyan national park as the safari buses drive past in the distance. Not really.
So what have I learnt working here? I might have learnt some stuff, but I still find it hard to apply what I have learnt. I don't say "That's not my job" anymore. If the boss asked me to clean the toilet, I would do it. We have to move desks when we move offices. I hate it when people say That's not my job now. But that's easy. What else. I keep my mouth shut in meetings. Or try to. The Japanese say "The mouth is the root of all trouble." Saying nothing is usually the best option here. What else. I have fallen ass-backwards into too many good situations to think that I am owed anything or that I deserve anything. I think living here has made me realise this. Is it a good thing? Has to be, doesn't it? I am a very ordinary man, completely replaceable, and I have so little professional ambition or initiative that I often feel like a fraud. So when Chalean tells me that I deserve this or that, or when I think that just because I did a day's work that I deserve an uninterrupted hour in front of the TV or a pack of chips, I check myself. I don't deserve shit. If I got what I deserved, I would be in terrible trouble, and so would my kids.
In the previous post I mentioned how tough Chalean Extreme is on the back. It seems that every exercise involves bending over! Yesterday was no exception, and when I finish a set and my back aches, I often wonder if I'll be paying for it the next day. I feel okay today, but I have had a stiff neck since Thursday. I'll see how I go next week. If I get another crick or hurt my back in any way, I'll think I'll stop doing it.
I'm at a loss for anything to write about. Sports season over, Aussies lost the Ashes, Swans not in the finals, Golf season finished on a sour note. My work is dead boring.
I go to the pool with Will every day I am off. I bought him an inflatable tube thing, and he loves it. Yesterday I was having an ice-cream with Will at a small portable shop run by a nice old lady outside the pool. It was just us, the lady, and a guy I'd pegged as a nutter when I saw him sitting down on the locker room floor putting his shoes and socks on. Listening to him talking to the lady took me back to when I'd been here a year and a bit and I was hanging out at a mate's house who had been here a lot longer. An old couple were arguing in their garden outside. "What are they saying?" I asked my mate, and he interpreted the conversation for me.
"What did you bring me this for? I don't need it."
"You need it to trim the plants."
"I'm not going to trim the plants."
"You have to trim the plants."
"You trim the plants, I couldn't be bothered."
"What do you mean? That's what gardening is. Trimming stuff. What the hell are you doing then?"
And so on. I thought it was so cool to be able to understand what people were saying. It's funny how when we hear people talking in another language and we don't understand what they are saying we assume they are talking about really important stuff. Have you seen that bit in Anger Management (I think, some Adam Sandler movie anyway) when you see two Arab looking guys sitting next to each other on a plane arguing? You think they might be arguing about which one is going to stab the flight attendant and which one is going to rush the cockpit, but when the subtitles come up we find out they're arguing about a scene in The Simpsons.
Well my Japanese is now at a level where I can understand mostly about what people are saying in everyday conversations about everyday things. The nutter was talking to the lady about how test scores are way down from what they used to be when he graduated, kids these days are lazy, etc, straight out of one of the silly current affairs shows they have here, and the old lady's like yea, yea, yea. He is a nutter - there are loads of them here, and the funny thing is he only looked about my age. A bit young to be whining about kids. Then when he gets up to throw his empty can in the bin, she says "Thank you very much!" really loudly, which kind of meant "Go away now!". He leaves, muttering to himself, and then two old ladies, friends of the old lady who runs the shop I assume, come for a visit. How are you? they ask the old lady. She says she's tired from working, which they all say. But she says lately she's drinking some kind of drink, I'm not sure, probably some Chinese tea/extract thing that is popular with old people, and she has been feeling much better. They ask her the brand, and she tells them and one of the friends says Oh don't drink that brand, it's a waste of money. But if I drink it thinking it's good for me, then it is good for me, says the shop lady. You should drink this, says the friend, and brings out a brochure for some other drink. Bah! says the shop lady, everybody has their recommendations. Then they bought some ice-cream (here, Willy asked the lady who bought them, in Japanese, Are you really buying two ice-creams? He couldn't believe it. She laughed and explained that one was for her friend). They sat and chatted about these extract drinks, and then the shop lady said I'm sorry, but if I don't close up soon... and we all made our way to the car park.
So I can understand what they say, but I can't understand the tone, and I can't understand the context. At one stage the shop lady said to the other ladies "Shinpai shiteitadaitte arigatougozaimasu" which is basically "Thank you for your concern" which is pretty polite, isn't it. Are they really friends? I could kind of get that the shop lady was humouring the nutter and wanted him to go away, but what about these ladies? Were they trying to sell her something? I have no idea. If they were speaking English I would have been able to tell their relationship pretty quickly. So even though I understand, I don't understand.
It's really hard here to work out what's going on in a Japanese conversation. One thing is that they usually leave out the subject. So "I went shopping" is just "Went shopping." So a lot of the time I don't have a clue who or what they are talking about. Japanese people have the same problem too, but of course not as often. This creates the converse problem of a foreigner learning Japanese who can't leave the subject out, and ends up sounding like "As for me, I went shopping, and I, in particular, bought a hat" instead of "Went shopping, bought a hat." The second one is the level of politeness. You talk to a person you don't know different to people that you know. Same in English, but it's the hardest thing to do in Japanese, especially when you are expected to do it, like when talking to your boss or business associate. There's a whole heap of special terms and verbs that are required. Foreigners can usually get away with it, unless their Japanese is so good that the Japanese person (rightly) thinks they should know better, but Japanese people new to a company will have to take lessons in learning to talk to their boss and guests from other companies. Learning all of these verbs and expressions and doing it correctly under pressure is really tough, and they probably get peeved when a foreigner is allowed to talk to a higher-up in a way that would get them into trouble. And then, to add insult to injury, the boss might actually enjoy the "natural-ness" of the foreigner, which might in turn lead to special treatment or drinks or a round of golf or something. And on top of that, the foreigner probably leaves at 5:00 every day while the Japanese slave away until 9 or 10 every night. Hah hah, fuck em. So yea, a long way to go, but sometimes I enjoy just being able to listen and to understand everyday conversations. People around the world studying Japanese pay a lot of money for the opportunity to hear two Japanese people talking like they would naturally. It's like living amongst the Rinos in a Kenyan national park as the safari buses drive past in the distance. Not really.
So what have I learnt working here? I might have learnt some stuff, but I still find it hard to apply what I have learnt. I don't say "That's not my job" anymore. If the boss asked me to clean the toilet, I would do it. We have to move desks when we move offices. I hate it when people say That's not my job now. But that's easy. What else. I keep my mouth shut in meetings. Or try to. The Japanese say "The mouth is the root of all trouble." Saying nothing is usually the best option here. What else. I have fallen ass-backwards into too many good situations to think that I am owed anything or that I deserve anything. I think living here has made me realise this. Is it a good thing? Has to be, doesn't it? I am a very ordinary man, completely replaceable, and I have so little professional ambition or initiative that I often feel like a fraud. So when Chalean tells me that I deserve this or that, or when I think that just because I did a day's work that I deserve an uninterrupted hour in front of the TV or a pack of chips, I check myself. I don't deserve shit. If I got what I deserved, I would be in terrible trouble, and so would my kids.
The boys, Joey Joe Joe and Silly Willy
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Cooling Down
I like this Chalean Extreme. There is so much lifting. I reckon I'm going to put on way more muscle doing this than I did doing P90X. P90X is still the shit, but This is short and heavy. 9 sets, really heavy weights. 2 criticisms though. Hard on the back! Damn. Lots of bending over. And everything seems to involve shoulder flies.
Had a really good day the other day. We went to the place where the had the World Expo a few years ago. Its a big park in the middle of nowhere now, but it's pretty good. Will played and played.
I'm half way through watching District 9. I can't think of a more original movie since Being John Malcovich. I was kind of hesitant to watch it, I thought it would be like a satirical exploration of segregation and racism etc, which it kind of is, but it's funny! Best movie I've seen this year easy.
Longer post later.
Had a really good day the other day. We went to the place where the had the World Expo a few years ago. Its a big park in the middle of nowhere now, but it's pretty good. Will played and played.
I'm half way through watching District 9. I can't think of a more original movie since Being John Malcovich. I was kind of hesitant to watch it, I thought it would be like a satirical exploration of segregation and racism etc, which it kind of is, but it's funny! Best movie I've seen this year easy.
Longer post later.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
ChaLean Day 1
I did my first Chalean Extreme last night. I like it. It's only half an hour, there's plenty of lifting, and the emphasis is on weight, not reps. I think this will do until the end of the year, when things may get a little Insanity. Like I said, Chalean is aimed at women, so there's a lot of encouragement, and she tells me I'm worth it and I deserve to look good just about every single minute.
There is nothing at work for me to do. What I have been doing is planning my trip home, converting video files into mp4 so I can put them on my ipod, and surfing on the net. Really boring. Thank god it's Wednesday.
I was told that on a Japanese TV show recently, the host asked the audience of 50 people how many of them would die to save the lives of their children. 8 people put their hands up. What kind of people are these?
There is nothing at work for me to do. What I have been doing is planning my trip home, converting video files into mp4 so I can put them on my ipod, and surfing on the net. Really boring. Thank god it's Wednesday.
I was told that on a Japanese TV show recently, the host asked the audience of 50 people how many of them would die to save the lives of their children. 8 people put their hands up. What kind of people are these?
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Chalean Extreme
I went for a really long ride the other day, much longer than I had planned. My motorbike, like most, I'm guessing, does not have a fuel gauge. Instead, it has a reserve tank. So when the main tank runs out, you just switch over to the reserve tank and then you have about 20 or 30 kilometers of petrol to find a service station with. I was just getting up into the mountains when my main tank ran out. I thought I had more, but no dramas, I just switched over to the reserve tank and told myself to keep an eye out for a servo. I got deeper and deeper into the mountains without seeing one, and after about ten kilometers I was starting to get worried. I had one more relatively large town coming up before it got really mountainous and winding. I was pretty relieved to see the sign in the distance when I got to the town. Yes. Now I could relax and fill the tank and go for a nice ride up in the hills proper. Except that the servo was closed. Sunday. Fuck!
My only option was to turn around and go back into town, which I knew was another 12 kilometres away. I would be cutting it pretty fine. If I do run out of petrol, I would have to walk or hitch-hike, and it's 35 degrees and people are going to think I'm a fuckwit foreigner and they would be right. So I turned around and only accelerated when I had to, up hills. The rest of the time I had the clutch in and coasted. Whenever I let my mind wander and think about other things, I was always jolted back to reality when it hit me that at any moment I could run out of petrol and my day would become a nightmare. Finally I got to a petrol station and filled up. I turned around and went back up into the mountains and had a great ride, but I'm feeling it today. My back is nice and sore, and my legs are sunburnt to the shiezenhouzen.
I missed the workout on Saturday, so I doubled up on the Sunday, and then felt so crap yesterday that I had another rest. I had hay fever all day which dragged me down, plus a few late nights watching football and early mornings watching golf. I can't believe Y.E. Yang won the PGA. I hate it when nobodies win tournaments. It devalues the brand. And by the way he isn't the first Asian to win a major. Tiger's half Asian, more Asian than black, so if he's the first black man to win the Masters and everything else, then he has to be the first Asian to win everything too. So they say this guy is the first "Asian-born". Big deal. He can't putt. He comes up out of putts like a middle-aged man whose nerves are shot, and misses everything to the right. Tiger played crap, so it was a really disappointing day. All the majors this year finished up crap.
I've decided to start "ChaLean Extreme," which is a workout series from the same company as P90X, but designed mainly for women. The workouts are short but pretty intense, there's a lot of resistance exercises, and I'm getting a little tired of the P90s. Been doing them for nearly a year! So I'll start that on Thursday.
I think that for the moment I still need to be doing a prescribed schedule of workouts to keep the motivation and discipline up. Maybe in the future I can go out on my own and decide what to do, make a hybrid schedule out of all the workouts I have, but not right now.
My only option was to turn around and go back into town, which I knew was another 12 kilometres away. I would be cutting it pretty fine. If I do run out of petrol, I would have to walk or hitch-hike, and it's 35 degrees and people are going to think I'm a fuckwit foreigner and they would be right. So I turned around and only accelerated when I had to, up hills. The rest of the time I had the clutch in and coasted. Whenever I let my mind wander and think about other things, I was always jolted back to reality when it hit me that at any moment I could run out of petrol and my day would become a nightmare. Finally I got to a petrol station and filled up. I turned around and went back up into the mountains and had a great ride, but I'm feeling it today. My back is nice and sore, and my legs are sunburnt to the shiezenhouzen.
I missed the workout on Saturday, so I doubled up on the Sunday, and then felt so crap yesterday that I had another rest. I had hay fever all day which dragged me down, plus a few late nights watching football and early mornings watching golf. I can't believe Y.E. Yang won the PGA. I hate it when nobodies win tournaments. It devalues the brand. And by the way he isn't the first Asian to win a major. Tiger's half Asian, more Asian than black, so if he's the first black man to win the Masters and everything else, then he has to be the first Asian to win everything too. So they say this guy is the first "Asian-born". Big deal. He can't putt. He comes up out of putts like a middle-aged man whose nerves are shot, and misses everything to the right. Tiger played crap, so it was a really disappointing day. All the majors this year finished up crap.
I've decided to start "ChaLean Extreme," which is a workout series from the same company as P90X, but designed mainly for women. The workouts are short but pretty intense, there's a lot of resistance exercises, and I'm getting a little tired of the P90s. Been doing them for nearly a year! So I'll start that on Thursday.
I think that for the moment I still need to be doing a prescribed schedule of workouts to keep the motivation and discipline up. Maybe in the future I can go out on my own and decide what to do, make a hybrid schedule out of all the workouts I have, but not right now.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Sehr Heiß
Warm. Will had a bit of a fever today so we all stayed indoors and chilled, literally, in front of the air conditioner watching play school and napping and reading. I got a bit restless in the afternoon and went for a bike ride and then came home and did P90 Sweat 3-4. It is amazing the energy riding takes, especially in the arms and shoulders. Every time I ride I find that my arms are tense and rigid, and I'm always having to relax them and shake them out. I love riding my motorbike. I love it how when you're riding the temptation is to look too close in front of you, but if you can look fifty, one hundred metres in front it makes it so much easier. I can be approaching a bend and looking at the bend thinking there's no way I can get through that at this speed, so I brake and get all out of shape and just make a horrible turn. But if I look past the bend and at the next bend or the straight road after it then I just glide through the bend like it wasn't there. It's so counter intuitive that I have to keep reminding myself that it's true, and every time I do it it works. Really fun. Anyway, once I started P90 Sweat 3-4, with the three rounds of arms up, I knew my arms were spent from riding and I had real trouble keeping them up. After that, smooth sailing, and the CH200, the 200 sit-ups, awesome. I really don't want to push myself too hard at the moment, because I think I'd just start 'missing' workouts and fade away. I want to keep in shape, and then when it cools down, give it another shot.
The guy who's paying me to talk to him in English, Nori, is a good guy. He works for Toyota and spent a year and a half in Atlanta so he wants to keep his English going. He was telling me how he found it tough to make friends in America, I'm guessing because most of them are douches, so he went to strip bars and chatted with the strippers. Even went on a couple of dates. He said once he went to pay for a dance but didn't have enough money, so he said the the stripper, "I'll go to the ATM and withdraw money." "Withdraw?" said the stripper. "Is that Japanese?" Ha!
So only a few days of Summer Holiday left. Maybe I forgot to say, but I have got another 10 days off. I probably forgot because this is the default state. Not working. I work nine days this month. You might think that this would mean that when I do get to work I'm raring to go, but the opposite is true. My job would be a lot better if some people weren't there. But then I guess someone else would piss me off. The real question is, do I piss anyone off? Surely not.
The guy who's paying me to talk to him in English, Nori, is a good guy. He works for Toyota and spent a year and a half in Atlanta so he wants to keep his English going. He was telling me how he found it tough to make friends in America, I'm guessing because most of them are douches, so he went to strip bars and chatted with the strippers. Even went on a couple of dates. He said once he went to pay for a dance but didn't have enough money, so he said the the stripper, "I'll go to the ATM and withdraw money." "Withdraw?" said the stripper. "Is that Japanese?" Ha!
So only a few days of Summer Holiday left. Maybe I forgot to say, but I have got another 10 days off. I probably forgot because this is the default state. Not working. I work nine days this month. You might think that this would mean that when I do get to work I'm raring to go, but the opposite is true. My job would be a lot better if some people weren't there. But then I guess someone else would piss me off. The real question is, do I piss anyone off? Surely not.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
P90 Back To Basics
I've started doing P90 again. I'm looking for something that I can stand the thought of doing while it's so warm. This is perfect because it's 30 or 40 of workout as hard or as easy as I want to make it. I did Sweat 3-4 yesterday and absolutely tore it up. I felt better than I have since about day 70 of P90X. I guess a few days of air conditioning will do that.
I went to the immigration centre the other day to pickup my re-entry visa for when I return from Australia. Every time we leave Japan, we have to get a re-entry visa beforehand in order to be able to, you guessed it, re-enter. It's a pain in the ass. $40 bucks, and a three hour round trip into the city. But it means the tickets done paid for and the visas done got, so all set. I just have to wait another 7 weeks.
Busy day today with taking Will to a river and wading and then to a bath house to get clean. It was another scorcher. The problem is that there is not a breathe of wind ever. There was a massive earthquake yesterday morning at dawn. Woke me up. It was looooong, about ten seconds. Usually they are over before you have time to wonder if the house you live in is going to collapse. Not yesterday.
I scanned this picture of Will that we took a few months ago. I think I wrote a blog about it and I said I would scan it and put it up.
I went to the immigration centre the other day to pickup my re-entry visa for when I return from Australia. Every time we leave Japan, we have to get a re-entry visa beforehand in order to be able to, you guessed it, re-enter. It's a pain in the ass. $40 bucks, and a three hour round trip into the city. But it means the tickets done paid for and the visas done got, so all set. I just have to wait another 7 weeks.
Busy day today with taking Will to a river and wading and then to a bath house to get clean. It was another scorcher. The problem is that there is not a breathe of wind ever. There was a massive earthquake yesterday morning at dawn. Woke me up. It was looooong, about ten seconds. Usually they are over before you have time to wonder if the house you live in is going to collapse. Not yesterday.
I scanned this picture of Will that we took a few months ago. I think I wrote a blog about it and I said I would scan it and put it up.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Checking In
Damn it's hot today. High 30's. Nothing much going on. Junko took Will and Jo Jo to one of her friend's house, and I'm guessing Will spent the day playing with Kurumi-chan, the friend's daughter, in their little wading pool. Nice day for it. They are not back yet. I went and bought some undershirts at Uniqlo, some golf balls for the trip home, and a couple of drawing pads for Will. Read some Hyperion, and now typing this instead of watching people fall on their face on Youtube. Still thinking about what to do regarding working out. I was thinking about doing another round of P90 again until is cools down. Quick and easy, and should keep me in reasonable shape until I come back from Oz at the start of October. Yea, I think that's what I'll do. Starting Monday.
Till then.
Till then.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Hyperion
I'm reading Hyperion again. I bought the last book in the series in Hawaii, so I've decided to buy the first three one at a time and read them again. It's about seven people who are making a pilgrimage to visit the Shrike, a mythical killing monster who traditionally kills six and grants the wish of one. It's kind of beside the point because the book is basically each of them telling their story of why they are making the pilgrimage as they travel to meet the Shrike, so it's like six connected but separate short stories. I remember the first time I read it, I loved the first story and thought that they couldn't get any better than that, but they did. The second book in the series continues on with the actual pilgrimage and meeting with the Shrike. The third and fourth books are excellent too. I was reading it this time last year too, all through mum's sickness, so it makes me feel kind of sad, but that's okay. It's a great book.Today is Willy's 4th birthday! Except that I have to work, and after work I have to go and talk with that guy who wants to pay me to talk with him. So we didn't mention his birthday this morning, and we are going to celebrate it tomorrow. We asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and he said "cake." We can do that. He's a great little boy, all he does is sing and dance and draw and play, and I don't know what I did without him. Happy birthday William!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Post P90X
We spent a night at a hotel in Hamamatsu next to a pool/amusement park and spent a couple of days at the pool. The weather wasn't really great, it rained a lot, but it was still warm enough to swim. Problem was that Will really needed to do pooh on the second day but for some reason he wouldn't, so he was sooky all day and it was so annoying. He cried basically all day at the pool, and the first thing he did when we got home at about 5 o'clock was do poohs. So after that of course he felt wonderful and actually said he wanted to go back to the pool. Gotta laugh. He obviously has an issue with pooh. Daniel, the Englishman I work with, says the movie E.T. is good for that. It apparently teaches children to let go of their pooh because E.T. looks like pooh. Will's a bit too young at the moment, but I might try it if this continues.
The other day I took him to a sports store because I wanted to buy a resistance band. I might use it just for a change instead of the weights, and it's also good for traveling. I've never used one before, so I took one out of the box and stood on it in the middle and tried to bring the two handles up for a bicep exercise. But the soles of my shoes were slippery and apparently I wasn't standing on it strongly enough because it slipped off my shoes and came up and whipped me in the right eye. Will laughed, which made me laugh, but damn it hurt. I couldn't open my eye for ten minutes and tears were streaming down my face. I could taste blood in my mouth, but still not sure if that was my imagination or not. I recovered okay and it's fine now, still a little sore, but wow. I bought one at another store the next day because I was too embarrassed to go to the counter in the state I was in.
Saturday was the Okazaki fireworks festival. An hour and a half of the most intense fireworks display you've ever seen. Half a million people usually come to watch them, but this year it rained and rained, and the crowds were well down. We had dinner at one of Junko's friend's house who lives nearby and have a balcony where you can see them well. A good night. Will had a great time.
Today is the anniversary of mum's death, August 3. I'm a little down today, which is to be expected. Plus work is sooooo boring, and I'm buggered from a big four-day weekend. Like I said before, it will be a bit of a jolt when I go home and she's not there. Bayswater is not the centre of Melbourne anymore. Weird. Still, I can't wait to get down there and have some fun with family and friends. I arrive on the morning of the 25th of September, and I'm there until the 5th of October. This time I'm going to schedule the whole trip, because too often when I go home, by the time I've had a beer and played some golf, I wake up and can't think of anything to do except go to Knox. There are so many things I want to see and do that when I finally arrive I draw a bit of a blank. The last two times I was down I didn't even eat fish 'n' chips! Totally forgot.
Workout-wise I'm not too sure what to do. It seems a shame not to be working out while it's not stinking hot, but I think I have to give myself a break. It'll be stinkin' hot soon enough.
Tiger won again on the weekend. A pretty ho-hum affair. Now only two people have won more USPGA events than Tiger; Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan. Comparatively, he's five/ten years ahead of them both. An astounding career so far.
Swans nearly beat St Kilda. We are St Kilda's hoo-doo team, so if they can beat us in Sydney, they must be going pretty good. Swans season mathematically dead. Lately I've been watching games that the Swans aren't playing in. I'm surprised Brisbane got beat. They're my dark horse for the Premiership. I think St Kilda will choke, and so will the Bulldogs. Geelong are the team to beat. Geelong Brisbane grand final for mine.
Well, it's election time here in Japan. That means only one thing; noise! Vans driving around with massive loudspeakers booming slogans and speeches, guys outside train stations with megaphones, even the odd light plane flying around with a P.A. system attached. No shit. The Japanese are so good at ignoring information that you basically have to shout in their ear to get their attention. It still doesn't work though. No one is listening. Apparently the government will be changed for the third time since the war. That's nearly 65 years. I still can't get over that. Man this place is stale.
The other day I took him to a sports store because I wanted to buy a resistance band. I might use it just for a change instead of the weights, and it's also good for traveling. I've never used one before, so I took one out of the box and stood on it in the middle and tried to bring the two handles up for a bicep exercise. But the soles of my shoes were slippery and apparently I wasn't standing on it strongly enough because it slipped off my shoes and came up and whipped me in the right eye. Will laughed, which made me laugh, but damn it hurt. I couldn't open my eye for ten minutes and tears were streaming down my face. I could taste blood in my mouth, but still not sure if that was my imagination or not. I recovered okay and it's fine now, still a little sore, but wow. I bought one at another store the next day because I was too embarrassed to go to the counter in the state I was in.
Saturday was the Okazaki fireworks festival. An hour and a half of the most intense fireworks display you've ever seen. Half a million people usually come to watch them, but this year it rained and rained, and the crowds were well down. We had dinner at one of Junko's friend's house who lives nearby and have a balcony where you can see them well. A good night. Will had a great time.
Today is the anniversary of mum's death, August 3. I'm a little down today, which is to be expected. Plus work is sooooo boring, and I'm buggered from a big four-day weekend. Like I said before, it will be a bit of a jolt when I go home and she's not there. Bayswater is not the centre of Melbourne anymore. Weird. Still, I can't wait to get down there and have some fun with family and friends. I arrive on the morning of the 25th of September, and I'm there until the 5th of October. This time I'm going to schedule the whole trip, because too often when I go home, by the time I've had a beer and played some golf, I wake up and can't think of anything to do except go to Knox. There are so many things I want to see and do that when I finally arrive I draw a bit of a blank. The last two times I was down I didn't even eat fish 'n' chips! Totally forgot.
Workout-wise I'm not too sure what to do. It seems a shame not to be working out while it's not stinking hot, but I think I have to give myself a break. It'll be stinkin' hot soon enough.
Tiger won again on the weekend. A pretty ho-hum affair. Now only two people have won more USPGA events than Tiger; Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan. Comparatively, he's five/ten years ahead of them both. An astounding career so far.
Swans nearly beat St Kilda. We are St Kilda's hoo-doo team, so if they can beat us in Sydney, they must be going pretty good. Swans season mathematically dead. Lately I've been watching games that the Swans aren't playing in. I'm surprised Brisbane got beat. They're my dark horse for the Premiership. I think St Kilda will choke, and so will the Bulldogs. Geelong are the team to beat. Geelong Brisbane grand final for mine.
Well, it's election time here in Japan. That means only one thing; noise! Vans driving around with massive loudspeakers booming slogans and speeches, guys outside train stations with megaphones, even the odd light plane flying around with a P.A. system attached. No shit. The Japanese are so good at ignoring information that you basically have to shout in their ear to get their attention. It still doesn't work though. No one is listening. Apparently the government will be changed for the third time since the war. That's nearly 65 years. I still can't get over that. Man this place is stale.
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