Tag Archives: Life

Experiences

I’m still around!

July 5, 2009 – 23:44

It’s been a little over a week since my last post, but there simply hasn’t been enough time in the day to do everything…

Work in particular has been particularly crazy, even requiring me to work on the weekend when something got hosed during a systems upgrade and we needed to make sure all was good before people came back into the office on Monday morning.

Heck, even today has been a full day with 2.5 hrs of taichi in the morning.  Then I spent most of my afternoon hunting around Tokyo for a rental tuxedo (I’ll post more about that later), then going to the supermarket for groceries, and dry cleaning!

I hope, hope, hope that work will be a little less crazy this week…

My busyness hasn’t all been completely work-related though.  I’ve (still) been searching for furniture and only as of yesterday can I say that I’m pretty much finished.  I’ve been to so many different places to look for a table, chairs, a bed, and a sofa, but simply wasn’t having any luck getting things at the size I needed (the dimensions of my place are rather quirky).  Finally turned to the interwebs and lo and behold, I found some items that sound decent (though I really do wish I could have seen them first).  As of now, all my bookshelves have arrived and I’ve completed building them as well as putting my books away.  Next weekend will see the arrival of my bed, table, chairs, and sofa.  Then I’ll pretty much be done!

I’ve also been doing some “crafts”/DIY projects for my place, and will post pictures of those shortly (which reminds… I think I need to get a new camera…).  I actually have a fair amount of material to put up – I’m just too tired and fall asleep too quickly once I get home!

For now, I’ll just leave you with pictures of my dinner – very spur-of-the-moment with no particular organization.  It was basically “toss all ingredients together and hope for the best” since I didn’t even taste test what I made before eating it!  😛

no images were found

For the curious, it’s simply frying a quarter of an onion (hey, it’s for 1 person, so don’t need more than that!) in sesame oil till golden, adding chopped ginger, mushrooms, and garlic a few minutes later, followed by 1 chicken thigh cut in 3 pieces, and finally dousing the mixture in some soy sauce.  Cover and let sit on the lowest heat for several minutes, uncover, turn, stir, and let sit for another 4-5 minutes or till the meat comes apart easily without showing pink.  No measurements provided because I didn’t bother looking up a recipe – but I’m happy to say it turned out tastily enough (for me anyway!) 😀 (though there is a regrettable lack of veggies…)

That’s all for tonight folks!

Tags , | Permalink | Comment (1)
Thoughts

Still around

March 7, 2009 – 16:34

no images were found

I realise it’s been quite a while since my last post.  Unfortunately, real-life has taken precedence over even blogging.  

As mentioned in my previous post, my co-worker and friend had been laid off and this has meant that the amount of work I’ve needed to do in the office has skyrocketed.  I’m now on early shift which, given the distance I live from the office, makes it necessary for me to wake up at 0430 every day to make it to work by 0700.  From that point, I’m usually on the phone with my counterparts in the US, or running around troubleshooting any number of issues our users are experiencing.  Alot of the time I also find myself acting as the go-between/intermediary between the main support branch in the US and our local Japanese users – and it’s like pulling teeth sometimes to get people to reply or follow-up on trouble requests.  The time zone difference doesn’t help, NOR does the fact that the people in the US typically go home at 15:30!!  I keep thinking they should try coming here, where I have users in the office from 0645 to 22:00.  In fact, that’s been my schedule all week – in the office from 0700 to anywhere between 1900 to 2100.  

Last weekend I also came down with a strange stomach bug.  I literally woke up on Saturday morning around 0900 and had to immediately run to the bathroom to throw up.  Rinse and repeat the same process (with the addition of other unmentionable bodily excretions) each hour throughout the day.  I would literally spend a good 20-30 minutes locked in the bathroom, come back to my bed and collapse for another 30 minutes before having to dash back into the bathroom again.  

Finally in the evening I asked the host family I am staying with if they could drive me to the hospital (well, first I asked if they had any medicine but they recommended the doctor).  We were lucky enough to find a clinic open on the weekend and there I got an IV drip for a couple of hours to replenish all the nutrients/minerals I had lost.  After giving me some medicine, I headed back home.  I stayed in bed all Sunday, weak as a kitten, but was able to pull myself together enough to head off to work on Monday.  I know if my coworker had been there, I would probably have taken Monday off as well, but… 

Well… it’s been a rough week.  At least as of Thursday I’ve been able to move beyond rice gruel (known as okayu here in Japan) and can eat real food without my stomach cramping up and feeling like I might still throw up.  Today I’m staying home all day and catching up on sleep.  Tomorrow will be back to work.  Yay.

Tags , | Permalink | Comments Off on Still around
Thoughts

Random thoughts

January 8, 2009 – 00:01

*WARNING: High potential cheese factor ahead.  This post came out of nowhere…. I had no intention of typing all this out when I first sat down, and am a little surprised at what I’ve written..

no images were found

I came across this post tonight, quite randomly, and thought it was worth mentioning.   It might sound cheesy, silly, or new-agey, and I’m sure some of you (you know who you are!) are rolling your eyes 😉
But nonetheless, I think that many do forget to “stop and smell the roses” so to speak.  We become too obssessed with work (so easy to do here in Japan), desperate to have as much money as possible, always wanting that latest in gadgets/clothes, and feel that we’re “missing out on life” if we’re not keeping up with everyone else, or fulfilling what OTHERS expect of us.  In other words, we’re definitely a culture of “wanting”, of gratification, and tend to judge our own self-worth by the opinions of others – but once we do what others think we should do or get what we think we want, are we really happy?

Are we that badly off just because we haven’t as much money as we want, just because we haven’t traveled the whole world yet, just because we don’t have that Louis-Vuitton handbag?  I don’t think so.  Happiness is what you make of it, is ready to be had at any time, if you’re just willing to look.  Happiness is the noise of snow crunching under your feet in the crisp winter air, with no other sounds around you.  Happiness is when that baby in the carriage on the train makes that weird scrunched up face when they see you.  Happiness is watching that goofy little dog running around, trying to find the perfect spot to “do its business” while its owner scrambles to keep up (that’s more a chuckle-worthy moment, but it does make ya grin 🙂 .  Happiness is when you help someone pick up the coins they’ve accidentally dropped on the ground, and hearing them say “thank you” in surprise as you hand it back to them.

Happiness is not trying to match the expectations of everyone else – you try to do that, and you’ll just go nuts.

You can find moments of happiness everywhere, if you’re just willing to look.  And I’m not dinging the ambitious among us, I’m not in any way judging those who strive and work their butts off so that they can earn more for that trip to Fiji, or have the goal of being the CEO of a company, or anything along those lines.   If they reach their goal and are able to look back on the journey without regrets, but rather with satisfaction and honest pride in their accomplishments, then they’re doing it right.  In fact, they’re probably already looking forward towards their next journey, whatever and wherever that may be 🙂

The flip side to this point of view (and something that I especially need to be careful of), is getting too complacent, too laid back.  Sure, enjoying the journey is the most important part, but there DOES need to be a goal to work towards, and too often my appoach is to enjoy the journey without focusing on any particular endpoint.  In other words – I need to fight my own laziness. 😐

To that end, I’ll list my own little goals for this year – maybe by doing this, I’ll be more motivated to strive for them!

  • Get at least 1 certification in IT
  • Get better at running
  • Learn to drive!
  • Move to my own place (for real this time 😉
  • Save

There are plenty of other subgoals, personality and mentally related, but the above are the more tangible goals and I think working on those will help towards the subgoals.

We may take different journeys, but I think in the end we’re all heading towards similar goals.  I’ll see you all when you get there 🙂

Tags , , | Permalink | Comments Off on Random thoughts