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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 17, 2002 |
 One of the benefits of having the following day off is being able to
stay up late (makes me sound like a ten-year old, doesn't it?). Well,
not having to get up early the following morning meant I was able to
watch Steve Jobs' keynote speech from Macworld New York, streamed over
the internet as an MPEG-4 stream. Ah, the cutting edge of technology! I
liked the look of the new version of Mac OS X ('Jaguar', but for some
reason pronounced 'jagwyre') and some of the new apps, but I'm not too
happy about having to pay $49 to carry on using my iDisk...
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Great. I brought up the subject of my new contract this afternoon (given
that the present one ends next Friday), and Koguri-san calmly informed
me that they hadn't bothered to get everything approved! Well, I knew
they had, but for some reason there was no paperwork. But did Koguri
check things out? Did he look for the missing paperwork (his
missing paperwork)? Did he seem in the slightest bit bothered? No. He
got a cup of coffee and relaxed, chatting, by the window. I, on the
other hand, pulled out every file I could find relating to my job, piled
everything on his desk, and started going through things, with a look
like thunder on my face. I think this look, coupled with muttered
threats to start throwing said files around the office, was what made
Masaki-san step in, and we sorted things out. But what really annoys me
is that while there was never any real problem (they wouldn't have been
able to get the budget passed if they hadn't had approval for my new
contract), equally there was no need for things to have to get so
frantic. It's just bad management.
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Something I'd been meaning to do for a while was to check how many days
of holiday I had left, given that they only last until the end of this
month. Well, out of 34 days for this month, I'd used... a whole seven.
27 days left, and six possible days to use them!
Well, whatever I do
I'm going to lose some holidays. I can carry over 15 days, giving me a
good 40 days' holiday for next year, but even so, losing a possible 12
days of holiday hurts. Admittedly I don't take as many days off
as I could, but part of this is that I'm always too busy. I suppose this
is all part of working in Japan; nobody else in the office takes their
full quota of holidays either.
Anyway, I'm going to get that 'lost'
12 days down as much as possible. Starting tomorrow...
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The first meeting of the Planning Committee for this autumn's Festival Etajima; as I expected, all most of the 'committee' was to sit and listen to the three or four main players.
Still, it meant a free lunch...
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Another day, another amusing Nagareda episode. On the bus to
Seinen-no-ie for the planning meeting, Nagareda-kun was convinced that
the pattern of the seat material had been chosen to represent the
pattern of sunlight rippling in water (this being an island, and all
that). So convinced, in fact, that as we left to come back he asked a
member of the Seinen-no-ie staff. 'Iya, zenzen!' ('No, not at all!') was
the direct reply...
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Indeed, the 'Mother of all Storms' didn't even end at six. All through
the morning there were flashes of lightning, and the rain was so
torrential that 'torrential' doesn't even begin to sum it up. At times,
it was almost a white sheet of water. There's something almost
exhilerating about a good storm like this.
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Breakfast Show Staple Randomhaiku of the day (from The Genuine Haiku Generator)
ingenious pensive
raucous piano rusting
asinine cocoons
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Was woken up around 1 o'clock by an incredible electric storm. And I
mean incredible- I've never ever seen anything like it. The sky was
almost white with continuous flashes of lightning (perhaps blankets of
lightning might be better); there was scarcely a second between flashes.
In addition, there was no thunder for the first while (perhaps the
lightning was so thick and fast that the thunder couldn't get a word in
edgeways), and this actually made things wierder.
Later the thunder
did come, and the storm continued, albeit less ferociously, until 6
o'clock. Spectacular, if somewhat scary in its intensity.
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© Copyright 2003 Nathan Duckworth.
Updated: 8/1/03; 8:20:51 pm.
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