September 19, 2018

September 19, 2018

Vacation is coming up again…my word, it seems like I just got off vacation, right? I figured I should give an update before October, so here we are. How am I feeling?  Pretty good, overall. I saw my doctor and got a mostly clean bill of health, I’m feeling healthier than I have in a while, more on that later, and I am happy. It’s a funny thing. It’s often been so odd to say I’m happy without a qualifier. But I am. When I was in my 20s, this job would have been more than I could have ever hoped for. Now that I’m in my 30s, it’s something I aspire to in future endeavors…assuming I can’t just stay here. I’d like to stay because I do so love this town.

Anyway, before we get into adventures and the like, let’s break down a few lifestyle changes that came my way from being sick. When I was sick, I had to change a lot of eating habits, including more protein and fruits and vegetables, along with yogurt to help cope with antibiotics in my stomach. It’s helped my bodily systems immensely, so I’ve kept some of those changes and now have a small dinner at work instead of just waiting till after. It’s…I’m not sure if it’s good for weight loss, but I feel healthier and more energetic overall. When I can, I still have soups and honey water, from when I was sick, because it’s become such a part of my lifestyle and sports drinks like Pocari Sweat because I am doing morning exercises again and sweating frequently. My father made a statement/challenge to me of if I walk, not even run but walk, every day, I would lose weight. Let’s stress test that. I’m getting up earlier, around 8:30 most days and walking around 9:00, or biking if I want to head somewhere far away. Usually, it’s for 30 minutes a day and I do sometimes feel tired because of it, but I can tell the soreness is feeding into better health all around. Plus, it’s giving me more time to do stuff at my home that I need to do.

Lifestyle changes out of the way, what have I been up to?  Well, not much. I had a lot and I mean A LOT of doctor appointments to get to the point where I was healthy, so those ate up a lot of time. I also saw my dentist and finished some tooth care. I’ve tried to stay in Natori for rest, but I’ve also tried to get back into my old schedule, like visiting my favorite pizzeria and the bath house. Nothing really all that special. At work, it’s great. I love my students and my co-workers are very supportive. I even got to go to a Mexican restaurant, one of the only ones in Sendai, with one of my team and we had a good time just relaxing in a rare treat. It’s getting cooler too, and I have a list of places I want to see once it gets cool enough for me to wear my coat, so I’m looking forward to that. The rice fields have finally been cut down though, which is a bit sad. It shows that autumn is here. At the school we’ve been busy as well. Along with usual classes and planning, we set up for Halloween and we did some window cleaning, which was surprisingly exhausting. I didn’t think it would be so rough on my muscles.

In terms of local stuffs, oden soup is back and that makes me happy. It’s the perfect above average food. It’s not so wild and amazing you need it constantly, but it stands just above the usual fare you get from home cooking or convenience store meals that it is really convenient. I’ve tried a few new types of oden, like the sausages and chicken skewers and they’re all pretty good. September is also the month of the moon burger here in Japan and I need a few more, I’ve only had two. Hopefully I can get them before they go out of season.

A few random thoughts. I’ve had to get my absentee ballot ready for the November election and I hope I did it right. I don’t want to get into politics here, but we have a few spineless sycophants I’d love to see get kicked to the curb in NC. While waiting for my dental appointment, I got a chance to read some children’s books in Japanese and I forgot how fun they can be. I missed them. I used to read them when I was practicing my Japanese in China, since I had a few of my own. I may be terrible at kanji, but I can at least say my hiragana reading is pretty decent. Writing is slow going, but it is still going and I like where it is heading. Dating is heading nowhere fast, but it’s been a learning experience, though I may shut down my attempts with e-harmony for a bit and try somewhere else. Not giving up, just changing strategies. Not yet, but soon, perhaps. My father had his birthday recently and it saddens me that I wasn’t there for it. It also saddens me that my awesome card will take like three weeks to arrive(seriously, Japan has amazing cards). Finally, we have a Halloween party coming near the end of October and I may have gone a bit overboard with my costume. I just wanted to do right by my school and get something fun and original, so I ordered quite a few items online to get it ready. A tad pricey.

And now, games. Feel free to skip to the end, this is a section I am making for me, hehe. Gwent Homecoming is coming, along with Thronebreaker, which I am happy about. I want to play them and am…cautiously optimistic after the ruination of the game about 6 months ago. I like Gwent, so I want to see it succeed. Magic the Gathering Arena is a game I want to like, but it is just too greedy and devalues the special nature of free to play collectors. In Gwent or Hearthstone or any other card game, you can get a special legendary card and you can only have one. Put it in your deck and good to go. In Magic, to have ANY chance of playing a decent deck, you need FOUR of each legendary card…it’s not worth all the effort, so unless you want to pay, don’t play. Warframe, as far as free to play games go, is awesome. A bit too grindy, but the core gameplay of being a space ninja is so much fun. I even bought into it a little, I was having enough fun with it. My Switch has largely become a port machine, sadly, but at least I’ve had fun with it. Played through Stardew Valley again and finally beat it and got frustrated with another stupidly hard, poorly balanced platformer in Messenger, which I wish was better tuned. And, Dragon Quest 11. My god…such a good game. I’ve always enjoyed the old school nature of Dragon Quest, like no saves in dungeons, scarcity of healing items, etc. but the quality of life improvements in the game just make it so much more approachable, from more save points, to better balancing of enemies and characters, to ways to avoid the grind…so far, it’s a blast and I love the relaxed pace of it, along with the beautiful graphics. It is great. My one regret is my SNES classic has been a bit neglected for newer titles, but I still like having it around for when I get that Final Fantasy or Yoshi’s island or F-zero itch.

I am still tired some days, but I really enjoy life here and am having a grand time. I still worry about the future and I do want to get back to my Japanese training along with my other future proofing ideas, but for now, life is just great. It’s nice to say that. Life here is wonderful.