Friday, 4:00pm: I finished my project. If I had a beer, I would drink it in celebration.
I guess it can wait until tonight when we watch the 1971 classic film: Shaft.
Saturday we all went over to our badminton instructor Murai-san's house for a party. Along the way
I actually saw a Hello Kitty car (photo to come)! At the party, we made pizza and were entertained by the antics
of Murai-san's four year-old daughter and seven year-old son. John played the piano while Moui and Miranda dressed in
Murai-san's wife's kimono.
Initially, Murai-san's kids were terrified of us. But the ice broke when I realized that the 4-year-old's
Sailor Moon speak-and-spell was at the same level as my current Japanese abilities.
I've started writing my final report on Image Interpolation. My supervisors aren't so much "interested" in my
results as they are "indifferent". I can't wait to see what I'll be doing next!
Slow week since I have no work. Rumour has it I will be presenting my project to all of AISoft. I hope
they understand English...
Friday the basketball guys invited us to a pool "tournament", with the grand prize being 1100 yen (about $15).
Needless to say I did not win, but had a good time anyway.
Saturday Ryan and I met with Miranda, her boyfriend Tatsuya, and some of his motorcycle buddies to do a time-honoured
biker-gang activity. That's right, we went strawberry picking. For about $15 we were let into a greenhouse and had half an hour to
pick and eat strawberries. I think I stopped at around 80 berries before vowing never to eat one again. After that we went to dinner
at a Chinese restaurant, then to Sega World to play such arcade hits as
Dance Dance Revolution and
Virtual Big Rig. We also spent a
small fortune at the casino.
We played that game where you drop coins onto a moving platform in the hopes it will push a large pile of
coins off the ledge and into your waiting cup. This however did not happen. I'm pretty sure the game was rigged. The game was
called
Treasure Locomotive and features a tiny toy train, laden with coins, choo-chooing around the top. On of the objects of the
game was to get the coin to fall through the
All Aboard sign. That would allow you to proceed 0, 1 or 2 steps towards the final goal,
labeled
Welcome to "Bonus".
Well I learned who I'm going to be working with in the near future: my old friend Massa! Apparently the hackneyed email
filtering program I threw together back in November is going to form an integral part of A.I.Soft's new email processing software. It's up to me to
join my program in an unholy union with Massa's product. It shouldn't take very long, but since my computer is woefully out of date,
it very well might.
I asked Massa if he'd upgrade my PC-- which dates back to when Barq's had bite-- to something more modern. He refused, saying
that a new computer would "use electricity, possibly too much." He had me there.
Cheers to Moui, for submitting some pics from
Chris' birthday. Jeers to Chris for not yet finishing his roll
of film from his
New Year's Trip.
Wednesday Ryan and I went Indoor Rock Climbing with Miranda. It was lots of fun, but at the same time frustrating and exhausting.
It looks so easy, but by the time I hauled by fat butt a third of the way up the wall, I was panting and my arms turned to rubber. After a little
practice (and some helpful tips from Miranda) I started to get the "hang" of it. My favorite superhero has always been Spiderman, so my inner child
got a real kick out of scaling a wall, doing whatever a spider can, including succumbing to gravity. Apparently rock climbing is great for building
forearm muscles (all the semi-professionals there has arms like Popeye). We just might make this a weekly thing.
Friday Guillaume, Moui, Miranda, Tatsuya, Ryan and I went to see a traditional Japanese musical performance. A fellow AISoft co-worker
gave us some free tickets, and since we're all starving for culture, we decided to go. It was quite good. The show opened with a woman playing the organ
who was then joined by a beautiful xylophonist. They played a medley of western classical scores, most of which I recognized. After them, a man and woman
duet played some traditional Japanese music. The man played a bamboo flute, and the woman played some sort of stringed instrument. It sounded beautiful,
and very Oriental. The third act was similar to the second, only with more people. After a brief intermission, some women began the traditional
flower-arranging ceremony while a man played the drum. At first it was very nice, until the man opened his mouth and grunted. He grunted and sighed over
and over while hitting his drum for the 20 minute set. The women continued to arrange lilies and other flowers, unphased by the grunting, sighing man. I'm
not even sure the crowd appreciated his performance judging by the stifled giggles (at first), then the moans of irritation. Thankfully the grunting man was
replaced by a very talented Japanese guitarist who played Spanish tunes. After his set, to all out horror, the drummer came back, and the two of them did
a duet together. The guitarist in his hemp suit playing Spanish songs, and the drummer, grunting and sighing. We were thankful for the end of the show.
Thursday was, without a doubt, the longest day of my life. Around 5:30p.m., Mrs. Takenoiri picked me up in Matsumoto and drove me to her English school
out in the middle of nowhere. I didn't realize it at the time, but the school, which is a single room, is not part of the public system-- it's just for
Mrs. Takenoiri's private English lessons. The building was sort of like a "portable" from Ontario, but it looked like it had been built in the early 50's,
during the post-war revival period. I was thinking how incredibly strapped for cash the Japanese public education system must be to warehouse their students in such a
severe-looking, cement-wall-and-pipes-exposed bunker. Anyways, the kids didn't seem to mind. My job was to say an English phrase and get them to repeat it. This sometimes
became a little bit like a bad sit com:
Me: It's eleven o'clock
Students: It's eleven o'clock.
Me: Hey, that's pretty good.
Students: Hey that's pretty good.
Me: No, I mean, you can stop now...
Students: No I mean you can stop now.
I had a good time, but at the end of 3 classes-- 10p.m.-- I was completely wiped out. And hungry, since I had to skip dinner in order to
be there on time. Mrs. Takenoiri said she'd buy me dinner, along with two Grade 8 boys who also hadn't eaten yet. We ate at "Royal Host", a western-style
restaurant featuring such American classics as spaghetti topped with corn.
Monday morning on my way to work, I was handed a plastic bag outside the train station. Usually the front of the station is full of women
handing out tiny packs of tissues and cell phone coupons. Today it was a package advertising an English school. I was ready to throw it away when I noticed
the spokesperson on the pamphlet. It was none other than stand-up comedian Dennis Leary! I wonder if the English school has any idea what his stand up routine
is like. I would really love to meet Japanese people who had been taught English by Dennis Leary, extolling the virtues of NyQuil.
After receiving my research document about how today's cell phones don't have the capability of showing movies with full sound, my boss
told me he understood, then asked me to write a program for cell phones that shows movies with full sound. I hate Mondays.
I've been filling in some more entries on this web page-- you'll see new comments going all the way back to February.
From now on, whenever Massa's back is turned, I'm going to be working on this web site. That's not just my own personal "work ethic" speaking; it's my promise to you, the viewers at home.
Oops, I made a mistake. I saw another add for the English school, this time with film-star Ewan McGregor as the poster boy. Here's the
flyer I
was given. I guess the leather jacket threw me off, and made me think of the chain-smoking comedian. It might also be the fact I haven't seen a blonde blue-eyed person in 6 months.
We had our final Japanese test on Thursday. I think I did alright, but I'm still not anywhere near the level where I can carry on an intelligent
conversation. We'll get the results on Monday, and post them here.
Wow, it's been a busy week. Monday night John and I played our usual game of squash. Tuesday was our last Japanese lesson of this academic term
(offered free by the city of Matsumoto). Wednesday I stayed late at work getting my Crazy8 game to work on real cellphones. Thursday was our last Japanese
lesson (paid for by Epson). I guess that means any more learning will have to be done on our own time. Thursday I also stayed late with the cellphones. As soon
as I get one thing working, my boss asks me for another, or he reminds me about the presentation I have to give next Friday in front of
the whole company!
Today (Friday) he told me to make sure the program works perfectly for the presentation. I guess he thought I was just staying late every day this week playing games.
Next week (as soon as the pressure is off) I'll post some more pics from my trip to Kyushu, my birthday and around the dorm. I'm also being pressured
into writing another
Miscellaneous Rambling so who knows what you may find...
