Japanese Me

It comes up more often than you’d think – what “you want to be”.  English teachers in Japan rarely plan to do it for life.  There’s something else we’d like to become but for now, for whatever reason, teaching English works just fine. When I say I want to be an interpreter the response has [...]

Read the full story

Surgery went well – I love my doc and my hospital.  Just about everyone in dermatology is female, really good vibes there.  A couple of points I wanted to write down before I forget: – In the States a doctor says, “This shot might sting a little bit” to get you ready.  There’s usually a [...]

Read the full story

Now that I’m typing more Japanese I’m finding I make different kinds of typos.  In English I mostly make letter order mistakes, such as liek for like.  Every once in a while I make a “visual” typo like replacing a p with a b. Here’s a Japanese phrase I was trying to punch in just [...]

Read the full story

I think I haven’t been writing because I’m afraid I won’t top my last entry. Time to get over that. Last weekend I read two novels in 24 hours… a product of a rainy day, free time, and potato chip style summer reading.  Okay, okay, I admit it–I read the first two Twilight novels.  They [...]

Read the full story

In the US the Obama administration is pushing to have the swine flu called “2009 H1N1 flu virus”.  It seems that a similar re-branding effort is happening in Japan.  When I flipped on the tv this morning I saw lots of news about 新型インフルエンザ, literally “a new type/strain of flu”.  Up until now it was [...]

Read the full story

I love Japan but it irks me sometimes.  Allow me to vent, starting with this story: Near the end of last year I was diagnosed with borderline high cholesterol.  This was a shock for me–yes, it runs in my family, but I eat decently and walk a bunch.  Time to walk and exercise some more, [...]

Read the full story

I’ve been watching a Japanese drama about forensic science called Voice.  It follows a group of medical students as they learn about the art of autopsy and determining a cause of death.  The poetic idea is that they pick up the thread of a dead person’s voice to hear the very last thing they wanted [...]

Read the full story

Sure sure, as soon as I leave it pops up all over the place.  And not in a Fisherman’s Wharf/Golden Gate Bridge kind of way.  It’s more subtle.  Like in this ad: See that bus shelter?  San Francisco.  Everything else in the ad looks like it could be anywhere, and that’s the point.  This can [...]

Read the full story