Firefox

Now that I have some time to bugger around finally, I have been mucking around with the add-ons of firefox. Seem pretty awesome, although I dont know how to use some of them. Some of them are straight forward. Here is a pic

So........stuff

Well it has been quite the last two months. I sat the GREs, I had my mother over and guided her around the great lands of Japan, I say a particularly difficult Japanese examination, which I think I should just pass, and grew into the role of being a father and primary breadwinner for the family. I will now be working nights, because, you know that family thing I have now.

But for all that I have achieved this year, it all go ass up anytime soon. Ive gotten married to a fantastic beautiful woman, become a father to a fantastically awesome and healthy child, kicked the ass out of the GREs, well, Math and I battled to a draw but I got up into the dizzying levels of percentiles, completed a whole range of applications for various high quality Universities ,improved my Japanese substantially, not just on paper, guided and translated around Japan with just my mum, and after she left, spent three weeks studying like a maniac to pass an important exam (considered to be "business Japanese"), which could be important to my future if I were to stay and pursue a career in Japan.

Problem is, if the US Uni thing falls flat, which it shouldn't, but it might, because, mainly I have no idea what one of my previous lecturers is doing in terms of recommendations, which is a whole convoluted story but given how much work I put in and money paid, Id be rather, perturbed if I failed due to this. (Find out in March)

Secondly, since I spent so much time on the GREs and applications I had little time to study for this test (being able to speak a language decently and pass a test, especially a Japanese test, are completely two different things, especially when those squiggly line things are involved, or what the Japanese like to call, their written language. After checking a few things I am really on the brink of passing it by a small margin. Good effort but damn it, if things really go against me....... (Find out in February)

So here is how my priorities are arranged.

1) Californian University

2) Decent, career orientated job in Japan

3) Return to NZ, sell my soul to the government, probably. Possibility of using the collective bilingualism of our marriage, and exploiting the relative gullibility of Japanese people to do evil in business.

4) Australia. Job or settle for a good NE Asian regional studies program.

5) Aid China in their conquest of the world, because if their really is nowhere in the world for a somewhat capable person to make a living, then, well, everything really has gone to crap. Merit-based achievement my ass. Japan, btw, is the ultimate old boys network.

I wish I could write something more interesting or witty. Or even simply weird. Ive been very focussed lately and really have not done much other than worry about career and future, and gawking at my kid while he sits around doing not much other than being a baby. Really, as someone once said, nothing quite focuses the mind like being hung at dawn, and, really, aside from the asinine crap that goes on at my school, my life, as satisfying (especially if all works out well) as it is, would be of little interest to anyone else. I need to sort out this life thing, ASAP. To be sure, I have plenty of rants, but I'm guessing they would not be of any interest to you, being as disconnected as I am now, as they range from why Japanese people are always screwing up their use of infinitives and gerunds to why my shoes have to be facing the doorway and not just merely arranged neatly. You really have to be here. I think I need at least a year back in, I dunno, some country. I like Japan, but the idea of spending months at a time in two different countries appeals to me a lot, and my searing and inescapable difference from mainstream Japanese society has just got really boring right now. I think if I went away for a year or so, I'd be back with a vengeance, with new vigor for things Japanese, particularly the language, which, I have probably hit a plateau for a bit, and really am only now learning different ways of how to bitch people out in natural Japanese. Its a goal to be sure, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

And most of all, the thing I have the least to complain about is this. Yes, the family.



One thing, one thing I am not looking forward to, and I promised myself I would never endure it, but life got in the way, and that is, spending a winter xmas. Japanese and a fair few Americans look at my in stunned horror when I tell them the idea of being surrounded by snow and cold on xmas is absolutely retarded and not in the slightest bit romantic to me. Give me the bbq, the sports and the beach any day of the week and especially xmas day. And Santa Claus here is basically Colonel Sanders, and Japanese people eat KFC and cake and if they are a young teenage couple, try and find somewhere to make out.

What I am looking forward to is spending a Japanese New Year, as this holiday is no where near as commercial or cynical or plain stupid as Xmas here. I am looking forward to waiting to midnight, bundling up in the gear and going down to a Shrine and drinking warm sweet nihonshu (sake). This should be fun, as it is at least, it does not involve Santa. I really hate Santa now, and Japan made me hate him. One more person asks me if Santa surfs to NZ I might threw him out the window without a single word. Or I might tell him that a really big fucking magical Kangaroo hops its way around Asia through Indonesia to Australia to NZ. Really, its just as plausible a 12 magical reindeer that can fly. Really, what harm could I possibly do?

On that note, since Ill be house bound for a while, I might even update more. Someone should skype me. That would be awesome. Seriously.