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Broadcasting to an audience of three (and a goldfish)...
Comment, ramblings and musings... life through the eyes of a Japanologist...
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Wednesday, July 3, 2002 |
 On the final ferry back from Kure- at 10.15- there were two junior high school boys, who'd been on the same ferry going to Kure also. For all that time, they'd been at juku- cram school. There's something wrong with Japanese education when children have to go for extra schooling in order to be able to do well in school exams. I don't envy them their schedule, either- an evening of lessons after a full day of school cannot be pleasant. In addition, given that more and more elementary school children seem to be going to juku, what's happening to the time for playing outside, for just being a child?
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Heat- humidity
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Ferry for one
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Buto
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Base- face known
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Walking to Koyo
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I like the site Friends Reunited; using it, I made contact with Tim, a friend from school whose email I'd lost (through lack of use, it has to be said...). What's more, the time difference meant that I got a response back almost immediately!
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There is a typhoon coming, apparently. It certainly feels like it...
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Ishin-denshin...
I had the Mayor take a look at my Navy
article before I started the Japanese translation, just to be sure I
hadn't written anything I shouldn't have as an employee of the town.
Anyway, it turned out he'd written almost the same thing as me in his
own article...
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Just met the new man to replace Maeda-san as my 'contact' in the Naval
School. He seems friendly enough, although I have to say that the first
meeting was not exactly auspicious, primarily because the new man seemed
to assume that I had the Japanese ability of a three-year old. Once that
problem was out of the way, though, we got on well enough. I reckon I'll
be able to work with him, although I'm not sure that the partnership will be
as pleasant or as fruitful as it was with Maeda-san.
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Popped to Danke (the camera shop) to get a photograph (for the Navy
article, of course!) copied, and found a huge and horrendous traffic
snarl up outside the shop. A traffic jam that could probably only happen
on this island... a traffic jam of electric wheelchairs!
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Had to phone Tokyo just now, for the first time in ages. I don't know
why, but I'm always a bit nervous making a phone call to the
capital...
Anyway, the call was about the Navy article (what else!),
and when I got through, we went for quite a few sentences with the
person I was speaking to thinking that I was the head of the Planning
Section here! Good to know that my Japanese is up to the mark...
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On top of memories of seagulls and so on, I had a very strange dream
last night. I dreamt that I was tasked with holding a four-night camp in
my house (which wasn't actually my house, but still) for thirty-one
people (and the 'one' was very important). I wonder what on earth this
meant?
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It's amazing how music can bring back memories. I listened to an ELO
track last night, and suddenly, out of nowhere, a memory from- well, it
must be nearly twenty years ago now- flashed into my head, as clear as
anything. The scene was the railway station in Newquay, an early morning
in summer, and we'd just stepped off an overnight train from Derby. The
coolness of the morning promising later heat, the seagulls- everything
came back. But I must have listened to that song a thousand times in the
intervening years, so why did the memory come back last night, I wonder?
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Is there something about summer that obviates the need for sleep? I'm
going to bed after midnight, waking up at just after four, and I'm fine.
But if I did this in winter, I'd be dead on my feet after a couple of
days...
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© Copyright 2003 Nathan Duckworth.
Updated: 8/1/03; 8:15:33 pm.
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