Friday at work I had a meeting to decide my new project. I have been out of real work for almost 2 months now, and although
I enjoy the free time to do other things (my distance education course, email, this website), I'm really feeling the itch to do some work.
The meeting basically told me that AISoft has no idea what to do with me, and maybe I should think of a new strategy the company should
follow so I will have some work. Now that's management!
Saturday was a combination surprise birthday party for Moui and farewell party for Charlotte. Yukari organized
it, and was quite clever about it. She told Moui that party was for Charlotte (leaving her feeling like everyone forgot her birthday)
and told Charlotte the party was for Moui (leaving her feeling like no one cared she was leaving). It was all good fun. We (about 15 of us)
went to a really good Chinese restaurant and then to karaoke (what else?).
I put some photos online from
Osaka and Kyoto... Enjoy!
My bosses have decided that the Palm program I'm writing will not be just a prototype after all-- they intend to sell it. So,
I've been trying to get that finished as quickly as possible. I wonder what my next assignment will be...
It's been raining off and on this week. I hear rainy season starts soon. The only good thing about the rain is that
it somehow makes my allergies less severe. Recently I've been having my morning sneeze fests, but they haven't been bad on rainy days.
I think I may be starting my new project soon. Emails are starting to spread about possible "goals" and
"directions" and other buzzwords. They'll probably assign me something at 6:00pm on Friday.
UPDATE: I was wrong, I got an email at 4:30 on Friday.
Friday night Ryan, John and I were invited to go out drinking with our friend Takahiro from the dormitory. Our train was cancelled,
so we were 45 minutes late getting to the restaurant. No one seemed to mind. It was at a Chinese restaurant that offered
nomihodai (all
you can drink) for 2 hours. We ate delicious Chinese food (probably the best I've had in Japan) and we all drank a lot.
I went to a basketball tournament near Matsumoto, to play against my team's rivals at the Shimauchi Epson plant. I'm not really
sure who won-- nobody really seemed to care. Afterwards, the other team set up a big barbeque party for us and tapped several kegs of Japanese beer.
For lunch on Monday Tommy, Taizo (two AISoft friends), John and I went to lunch together to eat some Nagano specialties: bee larvae and
grasshoppers. Since Nagano prefecture is very mountainous locals could not raise livestock, and since it does not border the ocean they couldn't catch fish,
leaving only one other major source of proteins: insects. They didn't taste too bad. They taste sweet, and are typically eaten as a beer-snack. Eating insects
is by no means a popular thing to do anymore, but it's interesting to see some restaurants still serve the traditional foods.
Well it stopped raining Saturday, just in time for John's birthday dinner. I had been planning it all week and I've come to the conclusion that I
suck at planning surprises (if you don't believe me, ask
Ang). The Italian restaurant was good
but I had originally planned for French. John suspected something Saturday when I didn't leave his side all day to make sure he wouldn't take off and miss his own dinner.
Regardless, we all had a good time.
On Saturday, I got dragged to tennis at 8:30 AM, even though we'd all been up until 3 the night before.
Monday I went back to the hospital to have my finger looked at. The doctor told me I don't need the splint anymore (yay!), but my finger would require
some physiotherapy to regain full mobility in the finger. Right now my finger won't bend and makes me look quite dainty when I'm drinking something.
Still nothing to do at work... I'll probably be given some work on Wednesday - the day before I leave for Okinawa.
More pictures... these are from
Nara and Kobe. Also, Moui sent me a
photo
she took at the guest house where Chris, Moui and I stayed in Kyoto. The manager of that place was a bit of a nutcase, but I have to admit that she does draw pretty well.
The little guy in the "Bad Way"figure kind of reminds me of Rodin's
Penseur.
Got back to Hirooka from Okinawa around 11:00 Monday night, sunburnt and tired. John and I had an amazing time. I'll
post my journal and some pics soon.
I've put up photos from
Moui and Charlotte's Surprise Party. Enjoy.
Wow, am I diligent or what?
Here's my photos from our Golden Week Trip (finally).
It's been
really hot here the last couple of days. They installed a thermometer in the dorm cafeteria recently.
It clearly labels the temperature range that can sustain human life. Every day this week we've been in the red. As I ate breakfast at 8:30am
this morning, I noticed it read 30ºC! I'm sure around noon every day, any insects or bacteria that live in my dorm room get incinerated
as the room approaches the temperature of the surface of the sun.
Went to the hospital again today. The doctor recommended physiotherapy, and I had my first appointment where a very apologetic
Japanese nurse soaked my hand in a mini hand-Jacuzzi (to soften the muscles, apparently), tried to bend my finger. I kept my cool despite the
blinding white-hot pain that shot through my hand. You see, my finger has not been bent in 2 months. She told me the goal was to get the tip of
my finger to touch my palm. Luckily, that was the long-term goal. I would have fainted if she was to try that on the first day.
Friday night was a party at Moui's. She moved out of her apartment and in with a family as a home-stay. We celebrated the best
way we know how: Ryan brought some bread, Guillaume brought some cheese and wine, and I brought beer and board games. There were 11 of us there,
so we played Monopoly and Risk simultaneously, then switched halfway though. I lost both games.
