Time flies...

So this weekend, my friends Nigel and Erica-chan put on a grand Scottish dancing party. Designed to showcase their remarkable and distinct Scottish culture. Which is not English. J Unfortunately I had one of my little time-sense lapse periods starting from about Wednesday and leading right up until Sunday morning. This involved forgetting all kinds of things including breakfast on two occasions. Who forgets to eat? I mean really! Forget your keys in the change dish just inside your apartment, sure (did that too), forget to call a friend in Canada at a time that wouldn’t wake the entire household, sure (did that), loose track of time on Friday evening so you don’t realize you’re still working at 9:30 at night and all your friends are at the izakaya already, sure (did that), but forget to eat? Well, I did, but that wasn’t the worst of it. I missed the Scottish dancing. I kept calling people and no one seemed to be picking up their phones. I’d never experienced such a dearth of available companionship. I was almost tempted to call up some of the teachers from work to see if they wanted to hang out and do some lesson planning or something. Ok, probably would have been sitting in an izakaya eating chicken gristle or something. Anyway, I felt like a right shit when I put it all together and figured out as the evening was ending somewhere on the other side of town at the Scottish dancing that I’d made a pretty big scheduling error. I wanted to reformat my hard drive, so great was the embarrassment, and that was just me alone at home watching movies. Few other times in the last decade have I felt like such a goof. Nigel and Erica had been working on the arrangements for the party for about a month and a half and were both keen to have me there. I feel I’ve let them both down, even though I’m sure they both had a smashing time as apparently scores of people showed, such that the little gymnasium they had rented was actually too small for the numbers of revelers. Good on them.

Anyway, I’m spending my morning here perusing the news and trying to figure out what my next lesson plan will be. Nothing I teach from now until the end of the year will actually be tested, as the kids are writing the oral communication final this afternoon. Anyhoo, it will probably just be a bunch of games or something.
While reading the news, I’ve become increasingly aware that biotech seems to be growing its fine tendrils subtly into our collective media consciousness. Reading the news feels more and more like I’m living in a science fiction novel. I read about this creepy little tidbit in New Scientist

Creepy Bone Rings

Strikes me as just a little bit goth, eh? I’m not sure what actual benefits this kind of thing would have for people, but I can only imagine a pair of gloomy star-struck lovers thinking it the perfect metaphor for their shared undying love. Think under-exercised, social misfits with a penchant for too much makeup and live action role-playing. Fantasy comes to life. What’s next? I’m thinkin’ keratin finished bone flatware grown from one’s grandmother’s bone cell culture. The ultimate heirloom.

I just noticed actually that several teachers are going over the listening parts of the various English tests, for which I was the voice. It’s really a bizarre experience hearing your own voice reading things in a slowish, with a relatively pared down vocabulary from two directions at once when every body sense tells you that you are in fact not speaking. Ah, the miracles of MD recording. Far from being an exciting voice, though, I think I could make a good go of reading meditation or sleep aid listening tapes. My voice sounds hypnotic. It will be a wonder if the kids can stay awake through the test. I guess I’ll have done something to lower the level of stress in the room. I wonder if I always sound like that. If so, maybe I should be a hypnotist, a counselor or a psychiatrist. Calm everybody down. Woah, I’ve got to go do something active, sitting here listening to that’s going to put me in the embarrassing position of waking up some time later to find I’ve been drooling on my desk.

Grey, wet, cold... with flowers a bloomin'

Well, it's February, but not like we know it. There should, frankly, still be snow kicking around, but it looks very much like it's given up the ghost for the year. All we get now is the messy rainy weather that ought to be snow storms trundling across the Nihonkai from Russia, bringing all the sunny happiness you'd expect of an official Russian donation. Everyone keeps saying how strange and warm it is this year, but no one besides my students has, at least in conversation, let on that they figure it’s climate change and we’re in for further weirdness and uncomfortable weather.

Well, news flash: it’s climate change and oh, by the way we’re responsible.
Yet more evidence: I give you the BBC (love ‘em)

Greenhouse gases "do warm oceans"

Before and After

Scary. I think I like the pictures of the mountains better now, but warm weather sucks any which way. I’ll never understand people who like the summer because it’s so warm.

Anyway, I’ve just finished about four weeks of the most ridiculously busy days I’ve had in ages. Matter of fact, I can’t ever remember being quite that busy. I’m basically shot. I’m an ex-mind. I go home after work now, not to get ready to hit the gym or head out to a Nihon-go class, but to gather steam to make supper so I don’t end up dragging my sorry ass to the oh so conveniently placed Chinese restaurant, Sushi joint or Konbini. I always want to have a scotch when I get home, even a beer, but I’m taking this Lenten fast thing seriously, as I feel the need to assert my cultural heritage and religious distinctiveness in this sea of ambivalence. What I’m preparing myself for are the cutsie plush Jesus-on-a-Cross or smiling, cutsie Stigmata Jesus dolls that are surrounded by bunnies taking up residence in the store windows or on little commercial displays in the stores. That would about do it for me. I’m sure someone’s already thought of it.

Anyway, speaking of people (or God) cheating death… (is it actually possible to cheat anything if you’re the alpha and omega?)… maybe we won’t have to die after all…

1,000-year lifespan a possibility, geneticist says

I for one will welcome a few extra hundred years. Think of how many languages you could learn in that time! You could be part of a dozen different cultures for a full generation! It would be so fascinating! Wa!
Hell, you’d even get to see the fruits of your reforestation efforts!