Eriko had an x-ray today.
It seems wrong. Pregnant woman + radiation = Bad for baby. But looking at a variety of documents it seems like it really is safe. And I should probably trust the doctors. I mean, I pay to trust them, right? Is that how it works these days?
The x-rays were in concern about my son being able to work his way out of my wife’s body. The x-rays were only taken today. The examination of them comes on Wednesday.
We’ll see if my genes are too big for my little wife.
I feel like I’m at another plateau with my Japanese learning. I still can’t do everything that I want to do but if I just relax I tend to get by well enough. I need to put on enough pressure and enough heat to keep my studying going, but not too much so that I wear myself out.
Book reading is the big thing right now.
I’d like to be able to pick up a book and read. To do that I need to “suffer” as it were with reading and figuring things out like definitions and readings of words. But I have a complex with trying to get that to a state of enjoyment. I don’t want to tarnish books or games, or manga for that matter, by de-funning them with looking up words all the time.
On the flip side, not knowing is also less fun.
Ah, to know what relaxation is.
Well, that’s not to imply purchasing a baby. Purchasing for the baby would be a better, if more boring, title. Got the little guy a bed, some sheets and a highchair like thing that also can let him recline and nap.
Little guy is going to have a better chair than I do.
Eriko got a little flustered with me because I honestly have no opinion on what color sheets and the like would be best. Being honest isn’t always the best policy I guess. I just don’t see how it matters if it’s blue or green, especially when she tends to have a stronger opinion than I do anyway. (And generally counter to the opinion I have.)
It may have raised concerns that I don’t care about our child, but the truth is that I care about him no matter what color his bedsheets are. It’s kind of hard to make the distinction in any language.
Golden Week is pretty much over. All the holidays that construct it are done. I have work tomorrow and then it’s the weekend, though. So, more time to relax at least.
Or so I’d like to think.
In all my years I still haven’t mastered relaxation time. Days off. Vacation. I have always gotten more done when I had work or school. It’s basic time management priniciples and most people are bad about them. I can’t let it worry me too much but at the same time I need to get a handle on things.
Not sure what manga I’m going to get into next. I’d like to have something to read but nothing really has piqued my interest since I finished 20th Century Boys last month. Monster is okay, but a bit too wordy. I waas enjoying Rave so maybe I’ll have to get back to that. Still, shonen manga always leaves me a little wanting.
Maybe I’ll give Yotsuba& a reread. Should be good inspiration for our son who is due in three weeks.
Only two days of work this week and they are separated by three days of vacation. Sometimes I don’t get things. I mean, the kids aren’t exactly focused today. It’s like a Friday only last weeks’s Friday was really a Thursday. So it’s three days of vacation, one day of school, three days of vacation one day of school which is a real Friday, and then the weekend.
I’m not complaining but why not give us the week off? We could stimulate the economy a little.
It seems a bit silly because while kids get summer vacation here, the working parents don’t get that much time off. So a family trip this time of year would involve the kids skipping school, which is less than optimal. And let’s be frank, Japan needs some economic stimulation right now.
I need stimulation everywhere.
Don’t really have any plans this Golden Week, although I don’t think I ever have. Two years ago Eriko and I went to Hiroshima but other than that I’ve generally stayed at home. I’m not much of a traveller. I prefer to get my stimulation in other ways.
Probably going to take a trip up to Osaka and get a new laptop. I know it does not sound like the most fiscally responsible thing for a man with a child on the way, but I need it for work. Probably going to get the lower end 15†Macbook Pro, but to be honest, part of me wants the 13†or an Air.
I like small things.
Today we had to go to the baby doctor. As of late Monday has been baby doctor day. However since Golden Week is currently in the process of giving most workers in Japan more time off in a row than they tend to get the entire year, the place is a little busy. Going on a Sunday isn’t really a big deal, but there is a different doctor instead of the one Eriko has been going to.
She got over it, though.
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I have keyless entry on my car. In my car? For my car? Maybe “My car is equipped with keyless entry”? I’m not sure what the proper wordage is here. Anyway, sometimes when I get home and attempt to lock my car with it, it won’t work.
I’ll open and close all the doors. I’ll yam on the button like mad. It won’t work. I’ll do a manual lock and go inside. The next time I drive I can’t open it without they putting the key in the lock old school style. I’ll drive to wherever I’m going, get out of the car and press the keyless entry lock button.
And it will work.
Something around my apartment is causing an interference with this system, it seems. I have no idea what it is, however, and it drives me absolutely batty. There is a problem here, and I don’t have the time or resources to figure out what it is. Is it another car? Is it someone’s microwave? Why does it work sometimes when I’m home?
Why do I care?
It really isn’t that big of an issue. I have to lock it manually sometimes. Whoop dee doo. It has a security system installed but I’m not particularly worried about someone breaking into it to steal my shoes. Grand Theft Auto isn’t really big here and I don’t think people steal cars that much either.
And yet, I waste my time trying to figure it out.
Just dropped my wife off at the train station so she could go to a wedding. I wasn’t invited and, believe you me I’m not complaining, but I thought it was a bit odd that they wouldn’t invite the husband of their friend.
We didn’t have a ceremony for our marriage and I wonder how much my wife regrets that. She says she doesn’t. And I believe her, but I don’t know. Just a feeling that maybe she wishes we had a wedding ceremony. However using the money that it would have cost for one day, we spent a week in Disney World together. To me it feels like a better use of the cash because we have a weeklong memory instead of a few hour memory.
Of course I guess the main issue would be that we didn’t have the cash to do both.
I have trouble imagining what I’d do with lots of money. As much as I am a gaming hobbyist, I really don’t think I’d be able to spend that much on it as I’m more interested these days with completing games rather than collecting them. Fancy cars and big houses don’t appeal to me. And brand clothes are something I could do with out.
Of course I’d probably eat a hell of a lot. You can buy some mean steaks with the right amount of cash.
Got to work early this morning, and I’m glad I did. They’re having parent-teacher meetings today1 so my schedule got shuffled all around. Instead of having open periods first and third, I’ll have them the last two periods of the day. If I wasn’t as early as I was, that could have been a problem.
Now that my preparation is done, I’m sitting here filling out my application for the JLPT. I’m planning on taking N1 this time. Since it is the highest level, if I pass it, which will be quite the feat, I’ll be done with the test. I won’t be done with my Japanese studies, but man will it feel nice to not have to worry about people who actually think highly of this test. I can just say I passed N1 and then they can be like “Hey, your Japanese is whatever” based on what I’m saying instead of what the certificate says.
Hopefully.
It’s a bit funny that after I wrote about my schools shrinking yesterday the first thing I saw on the news last night was a report about how a school on this tiny island is closing because its only student just graduated in March.
It’s April and the weather is crazy. I’m starting to regret not writing about the weather every year just so I can go back and ask myself “Was it really this dumb last April?†and have a solid answer. Some places in Japan got snow yesterday, said the news. Nothing here. Not that I’d mind if there was.
It’s just becoming easier to think of it as a nice autumn day rather than a crappy one in spring.
Going on with strange things, I never imagined myself a coffee drinker. Yet once again, I picked up a can ((tiny metal bottle, really) this morning of AROMA BLACK on my way to work this morning. While I don’t know what the benefits of the aroma are, it is definitely black coffee. Quite bitter, but there are just some mornings where downing it helps me focus.
Goodness, what sort of monster have I become.
The negative stigma that I had attached to coffee was mostly from the people who would stubbornly refuse to be useful until they had a cup in the morning. Thankfully my parents were not this way, but having to deal with people like this in college and my first “big person job†was less than pleasant. It is, of course, unfair to be biased against water filtered through crushed beans, but I do try to do my best to avoid being an asshole.
Not sure how that’s working out these days.
