CA

Today's post is a flashback to nine and a half years ago.

"Non-oppressive household", "co-dependent lifestyle choices", "programme", "her therapist" and "meds" seemed to rain down unexpectedly in the middle of any given conversation. One would think this psychological jargon would be used by social workers in a dying city lacking social cohesion.

Instead it was used in the world's cinema capital. The artificial sunshine just couldn't fix everybody's problems but nor could the real sunshine.

Still Busy - Aung San Suu Kyi

I've still been working and studying because the JLPT is on the 5th of December. I really have to pass it this time. I'm not resitting it again!

Working seven-day weeks is taking its toll. On Thursday night I went to bed at 9:30 or so. Or was that Wednesday. I can't even remember anymore.

However, I haven't been too busy to notice that Aung San Suu Kyi is now free. This isn't just good news for Burma but good news for the whole world. Surely the more good people that are free to speak out the more bad people should shudder.

Studying

By the way, my links on the side from my delicious feed haven't been hacked. I'm going to be studying a BSc in Accounting and Finance through University of London.

I'll probably end up doing a bit of blogging about distance learning in the future.

Today I've studied accounting and basic mathematics before I get my reading list, so that I don't feel completely lost. I was surprised at just how easily the maths came back to me.

Homesickness

Being in Japan five years in total, I've witnessed my fair share of people being homesick. Most people manage it either by going home or by complaining. The people who can't get it out of their system just continue complaining. There is a mindset of "This country is so shit because..." or "Back home we don't do that."

Some people get lonely and try to get it out of their system by sleeping around. Somebody I know made numerous racist remarks about "J Sluts" but then slept her way around most of the guys in our social circle (not including me, though at the time I would have been keen enough). She claimed not to find Japanese guys attractive, which is fair enough, but why constantly moan about Japanese women as one homogeneous entity?

People seize the weirdest things to get worked up about as well. A former colleague bemoaned om-rice. "How can you trust a country," he said, tongue slightly in cheek, "that has restaurants dedicated to om-rice? It's only rice, tomato ketchup and egg. It'd be like having a beans on toast restaurant back home."

I'd be more than happy with beans on toast restaurants in England, I have to say. I'm not the world's biggest Om-Rice fan but I can't see it as anything to fixate upon.

In my darker moments, I get annoyed with: Celebrities in advertising; ATM charges; Ayumi Hamasaki; AKB48; political corruption.

But in England I had a higher quality of things to moan about: political corruption; living in a society with 1 security camera for every 12 people; difficult to find a job that pays well.

I can't moan about the country. Instead I let others do it for me. Or mutter about the slowest walkers in the world who congregate at Shinjuku station whenever I'm in a hurry.