Just so we're clear...

I appreciate order. But I keep a messy house most of the time... doesn't bother me.

My coworkers are for the most part meticulously neat, because they are Japanese. And their idea of a logical structure makes wonder if there wasn't peyote in the water supply they grew up with.

It's amazing the questions that don't get asked.

So, am I complaining about my job on my blog? Perhaps.

perhaps

who is it you think you're talking to?

I cherish advice from people who are better at things than I am.

Less so from people who aren't.

Not at all from people who haven't even got an idea what I'm up to.


That's why I really resent lessons on how to live from older folks... especially those whose lessons include "you can't just have fun all the time".

coldcoldcold

So this guy, lets call him my coworker and fellow translator, calls in sick to his job. The boss makes a show of his missing a day at a meeting of the whole company. This being Japan, he is advised that he should go an apologize. Knowing how little rocking the boat pays here, he goes and apologizes... and is told that apologies aren't enough and that he was sick because of what he was doing on the weekend.

Man, you've got to be kidding.

I've been told that I need to take better care of myself too. For the record,

I drink about once a month, and usually limit it to 2 or 3 drinks. I'd estimate that to be about 1/10 of what my average male coworker drinks.

I don't smoke. again different from most of my coworkers

I visit a gym regularly. I know of 2 coworkers that do, in a company of 70 people.

I sleep 6-8 hours a day on average.

I have low blood pressure.

Hell, I have regular, well-formed bowel movements.

I really hope I don't get confronted in a similar way by the boss any time soon. Because asking "In what way specifically does any person here take better care of themselves than I do?" is not going to endear me to him.

IMG_9125

IMG_9125, originally uploaded by ZiggyB.

SVGL. At a certain period in my life, this was everything.

BBC: "people who are good at stuff are gay"

I took this test.

And it tells me that my brain is gender neutral. I scored horribly low on the empathizing scale (a puportedly masculine thing), and showed a preference for female faces (also masculine).

But! I did pretty well on all the ability tests, and half of them are supposed to be men's forte, half women's. Evidently being skilled with words, and being good at "spot the difference" puzzles gets you labeled a chick(-like thinker), regardless of how unempathetic you are.

also, my ring finger seems to be unmasculine in length...

So here's my plan. I'm going to start failing to notice changes in the world around me, I start to not writng very goodly, and get my ring finger removed. That'll drive the ladies up a tree... of LUST!
Also, it can never hurt to be less empathetic. (Your problems are your fault! and you smell)

10 things of 2008

These are more for me than you, dear reader.

1: Run like hell:
I'm shooting for a 10k time of 40:00, a mile time of 5:10, and I hope to just plain run the distance of a marathon without stopping.
2: Push/Pull weight:
I kind of accomplished my goal of bench pressing my own body weight ten times, this year, I'm gonna shoot for 90kg x10. And 10 pull-ups.
3: Write right:
Pass pre level 2 of the Kanji Kentei.
4: I like tests:
I haven't yet decided whether to shoot for a high score on the JTest or the Japanese Business Tests. Will change this when I have decided.
5: Search for Truth, in wine:
Yeah, I can't stand wine. I managed to learn to drink beer and coffee in the last year, now to slay the last of those demons.
6: Reading books, like on paper (english version)
I'm too old to read as little as I do. I'm working on a list of 10 english language books to read this year. So far, I have: Mason Dixon and Against the Day from Pynchon; The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money from Keynes; Demons and Dogs; The Odysee and the Illiad; Ulysees from Joyce; a book on japanese laws I happen to own, entitled "Japanese Law"; and three additional books: one major work of a living philosopher, one more serious book on Japan, and one self improvement/management book of reasonable repute.
7: Reading books, like on paper (Japanese version)
This is probably my the gap in my studies thus far. I've chosen three of the books already, Tsugaru from Dazai, Kokka no Hinkaku (from that math prof guy), and something something Nearly Transparent Blue from Murakami Ryu. For the remainder, I've chosen what kind of stuff to read moreso than what specific books to read: 1 more by dazai, 1 by murakami haruki, 2 by mishima, a non-fiction book on the economic stratification of japan, something with a bunch of slang, and something dirty.
8,9,10: workmoneyfun
The last three relate to private stuff.

dear god

dear god I'm exhausted.

year of the drowned rat.

Hi. It's 2008 here, and pretty much everywhere else now too.

I made an arbitrary run down of things from two007 in the last entry, so I figure I should make an arbitrary run up of 2008 here.

I turn 29 in April, so I can spend 8 months of 2008 wondering what happened to my 20's... something I've been doing as long as I can remember. It also means it just about the last chance to get my books in order before I'm just plain old (30).

So what books are there to get in order? Well,
1. learn to speak the damned language of the country I live in.
I've spent the last half year saving a little too aggressively for my own good. I finally got it through my thick thick skull that busting my ass at saving and wearing my clothes until I'm embarrassed by them is not the most effective way to ensure my future. No amount of investing in a stock market I still don't understand too well is going to make me filthy unbearably rich.
"Investing in myself" as trite as it sounds, has an enormous upside. If I can boost my Japanese language ability another couple of notches, a lot of things change. My job gets easier, and I can begin making myself much more useful. Life outside work, including the social aspect gets that much easier too. And most importantly, it puts me in much better stead for whatever's coming down the pipe over the next 40+ years in this country.
I'm setting aside a whole mess of money to study this year.

2. be a man. on my terms.
I may have made a blog entry to this effect, but I really resent that women are allowed to blithely announce what becomes and doesn't become a man. However, I do have my own ideas about what a "man" is, does, can do.
I'm pretty good about most of the things on my list. There is however on big nasty omission from that list. I'm horrible at even the most mundane encounters with people, personally or professionally. Being conscious of the fact doesn't help. I'm not sure how to explain it so that my solution makes the least bit of sense, but:
I'm gonna go into the lion's den, and learn to go toe to toe with people in the literal and figurative sense at a boxing gym.

3. be a rat (or a pig, or a dog). on my terms.
Everyone hates a nice guy. EVERYONE.
So rather than failing at being nice all the time, I'm going to succeed at being nice sometimes, and a right selfish prick at other times. I'm gonna presume that other people know what they're getting into, and look out for number one. I'm gonna be 50% more of an asshole, and forgive myself 90% more.
However, I'm not so callous as to have a concrete plan for becoming an asshole. (Step 1: push over an old lady)

4. stick to the program.
Last year, I made a list of several goals, and managed to accomplish just about all of them. There were many more that weren't on the public list. Some of those got accomplished, some not. Enough were accomplsished, and the benefit of those goals was good enough that I'm gonna make another list. In the next entry.

5. Almost never write in my blog.
Just like anyone else who has something worth doing with their time, I don't plan on writing here very often.

2007.

best things:
Got a new job that really changes things for me. That new job has also left me with scads of self-doubt and stress.
Finally ended a pretty lame relationship that never meant much to me. Got a new girlfriend who's cute and fun.

best album: dan deacon - Spiderman of the Rings

best movie: I dunno: harry potter 5? I don't really like movies.

issue which seemed to matter to me: 二極化: Japan's got a really sudden and dramatic problem with a polarizing of salaries. I guess I'm on the good side of it so far.

best desert: salty caramel strawberry parfait at royal host

worst food: anago cheese slimy thing that cost too much at a place in shinagawa with nice nighttime scenery.

best scenery: night autumn leaves at the nearby rikugien

how about those 10 goals?
Didn't do a backflip... everyone shat their pants about head injuries, and I just never got around to it.
Didn't pass lvl 3 of the Kanji Kentei. No good reason there. Try for it next year.

And vegetarianism? not being really careful about it, planning on calling it quits soon enough.

Goals for next year? I'm working on them.

exploits of the blog's author

Today I did two neat things:

#1, I bench pressed my own body weight, 70kg, 10 times! (a 2007 goal!)

#2, I finally finally beat street fighter iii. I had been playing about 1 month.



There are however a couple of small but important limitations on those two achievements. I will have to replicate them under proper conditions before I consider them "done".

Do you need a TV? I don't.

So I've got this TV I've been trying half-heartedly to give away almost since the day I got it. But this week I'm gonna make something happen and get that damned little box out of here.

I've gotten frustrated again, and am feeling a sense of stagnation. Sure, I got myself a cracking new job 5 months ago, and haven't really been cooling my heels at the gym either.
Somehow I just can't see the path forward now, and that's getting at me. A couple years ago, I had a sense of where "forward" was, and hit the books. That initiative has made all the difference in my life today. I don't know what's next, or where "forward" is from here, just that I need to get some momentum.

So I brought out the organizing tools again (see GTD entry from ages ago), and am all set to set about something. Not sure what yet, just that I need to clear out all the little old to-do's to set out on some big new doings.
Step one is to reclaim some of my time leakage from the internet, and some of my cash leakage from eating out and a personal inability to bypass a convenience store or starbucks without walking in. Step two is getting rid of the TV.

That's why I'm making this blog entry before I head to ikebukuro to have a gingerbread coffee!

bitch, asshole

I couldn't imagine calling a woman an asshole, or a prick. In fact there are a long list of insults appropriate only to males.
I think there are a couple insults appropriate only to females like slut, and then a third class like cunt and bitch that are appropriate to both, but with very different implications for men and women.

Isn't "bitch" just "asshole" for girls? If I don't like a woman, is it really worse to call her a bitch than it is for me (or worse yet, a woman!) to call a man an asshole, or a prick? How am I to insult women individually without insulting "women" in general?

this has been another sort of anti-feminist post from the desk of a privileged white male.

something good, something bad

good: the getaway
I think this may be the first steve mcqueen vehicle I've seen, as well as the first sam peckinpah movie I've seen. I'm gonna follow up on both of them. Highlight: doc's suit, which in addition to looking good seems impervious to damage or staining.

bad: the tough alliance: a new chance.
There are some people at pitchfork who really think optimistic and dumb lyrics and seemingly ironic production values are the mark of an 8.6 quality album. For me this album is not just overrated (as one of the best rated of the year), but downright bad. If you forget what the synthesizers on commercial radio sounded like in 1991, you can think of this album as a long unnecessary reminder.

a typical Saturday evening for the newly-minted bourgeois

I'm listening to Miles Davis at a reasonable volume and staring at my new air purifier while sipping herbal tea. I am not the me I expected to be.

Lately, life has been uppy and downy. From around the middle of this week, it really couldn't have gone anywhere but back up. I was shivering uncontrollably and heaving deep breaths from the pain of swallowing a mouthful of water. But my number wasn't up yet.

I'm on the road to recovery, and trying to chase out the lingering sick-stink in my apartment and chase down the root of my recent susceptibility to illness. I think I've narrowed it down to two main culprits: exercise and water, both in excess.
I read today that people who work out hard get sick a lot. Maybe I ought to try and be more sane about that than I have been.
Also, the humidity in my apartment seems to make mold almost unavoidable. Today, when I stripped my pillowcase off my pillow to wash it, there were several tiny mold spots on the pillow underneath. The pillowcase had only been on there for about 10 days. Knowing that there's no chance that I'm gonna clean out every nook and cranny in this small but topographically complex apartment on a hyperregular basis, I bought the aforementioned air purifier to help forestall my succumbing to the mold.

Things I can recommend:
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came"
the autobiographical portions of "The Age of Turbulence"
rest
Donguri no Kyowakoku/ Moe (the Ghibli store in Sunshine City)
plenty of liquids
and this game (a flash tribute to Portal)

yes

anti-feminist.

That last entry left a bad taste in my mouth, sorry.

A couple days ago I had a short exchange with an American of Japanese descent about feminism, but I felt a little bit tongue tied and P.C.-bound. I feel like I'm holding back for fear of offending pretty often, but that's beside the point. I was trying to partially redeem the state of women's roles in Japan, by means of critiquing the way things run back home in the states, but I think I sorta choked.

I think I realize now what I was trying to get at. The state of feminism in America is such that not only do people insist that there should be a Women's NBA, but that it IS interesting and that more people should give more attention and money to it. The insistence on equality in the states is so brainlessly literal that men aren't allowed to be better at anything.

The thing is women are allowed to be better at some things. For example, we all take for granted the time-tested idea that women are better at human relations and emotional type stuff, to the point where the courts will give children to women with no means of support over loaded fathers in custody cases.

Now, I know it's not even close to this simple, but!

The things that men are good at, for example feats of strength and violence, are given far too much clout... IN AMERICA. Women are inclined to claim equality on these matters because America is the kind of country where these virtues are "more equal" than the others. In a country where murder by random strangers (or well armed family members or coworkers) can't be ruled out, of course your ability to kill or prevent your own death is important.

Japan isn't that sort of country... thanks in part to the constitution America wrote, but thanks much more to a Zillion year tradition clearly defined roles not only for men and women, but for everyone in each of their 100's of roles.
Now that doesn't mean that women have got it really really good here, but unlike 'merica, women aren't chasing impossible dreams by default. Just really really severe ideals.

the end.

never forgive, never forget, never compare

@ The bomb was bad, and probably not the best solution.
@ The victims of the bomb for the most part suffered less than most victims of the war.
@ In a war of military violence against civilians, the bomb doesn't really stand out.
@ Trying to make people feel bad about one aspect of a multi-faceted history is not reasonable.
@ I don't "get it" because there is no "getting it".

deus ex machina.

I hate deus ex machinas like crazy... but not the literal ones. Like if hephastus all popped up at the end of "revenge of the sith" and gave us a little dose of moralizing before setting everything right with a magic hammer, I could find that charming.

What I despise is our awful modern equivalent. Right at the peak of action, some special, previously unannounced rule is revealed, and all is set right! or some previously inaccessible memory is recalled, or a previously unrecognized ability, or in some other way all the previous struggle is obviated. I blame sci-fi and fantasy for this shit... maybe I'm off-base, but it seems like sci-fi/fantasy stories have the annoying habit so down pat that they must have invented it.

Take a story like the matrix for example, the first one. The whole of the action takes place because of a rule change of physics. bon. In the final moment, the farm boy realizes he's a super hero and flies away. Well, nearly. To tell the truth, the Matrix gave us the sense that it was coming, and it was part of a bigger logic. I don't have too much beef with that, its just a movie that I feel like I can't possibly be spoiling for anyone.

Omniscient narrators are responsible for foreshadowing, JK!

2 beefs. or something fucking sucks in denmark.

"Babel" is not good. I think I can see why some people think it is, but it's not deep or profound, or any of that. It's just a 2 hour slog through people on the brink. My thought is that if you're going to go that route, you're gonna have to make us care about the movie or the characters before you start having them swept up in circumstances.
It felt like I was expected to enjoy the movie for changing the backdrop of a melodramtic soap opera. The Japan vignette wasn't bad tho.

anyway, beef number two is [redacted]

beef 2 is personal demons I have to slay one way or another.

all this time and all this money...

and no time and money to spend it!

Last week I made that list of things that I no longer really give a shit about. But now I got more shit to give than ever before! and I just don't know what to do with myself. So, in hopes of inspiring myself, here are a couple of things that I do care about (order intentionally incorrect).

my skin
my style
money
my health
learning to do things I can't now
fitness
my job
winning
my apartment
running
tidiness
sex
tea
food


italics indicate things I didnt care about two years ago.