Today was exhausting.  It started off normal enough: I went in, and the workload was steady.  Then, at around 5:00, everything went awry.  I got a request for something that needed to be done today.  No problem, I thought, until I discovered there was negative information that I needed to refute.  Then I needed to save some things as PDFs.  Too bad every time I tried, the computer froze.  After well over an hour of dealing with this, I just printed hard copies.  I turned them in, and soon after discovered that I had translated ONE of the words incorrectly into English.  So I had to do the English translations ALL OVER.  I finally finished at 8:00, barely caught the train, and made it in at about 8:20. 

But then, after passing the Bentley in the drive, I walked in the door to the apartment, and was pleasantly greeted good evening by the receptionist.  I checked for my mail, and proceeded to the door to the elevator.  I reached for my key fob, but before I could place it near the sensor, the receptionist opened it for me.  I walked into my room toward the balcony, looked out onto the city below,  and saw the many Japanese people still working in the adjacent building; I counted my blessings. 

While today was hectic, coming back to a place like this makes it all ok.  I can still get a full night's sleep, and watch tv, eat, etc. for another 2+ hours.  Today was rare, and though painful, it was doable.


A friend of mine who studied with me in Kyoto (and speaks some of the best Japanese I've ever head from a foreigner.  Ever.) wrote me an email.  It contained the following powerful phrase:

All pleasures in Japan relate to money;
all pleasures in Japan can be bought.

This is a subject I wish to explore in some depth.  It is one I hope I can refute or at least mitigate.  For if I cannot, it says some things about me that I don't want to hear...

今日は台風が来るはずだ
今日は台風のように大変だった

Remember when I said "Times will not always be easy, and there is likely to be gnashing of teeth. "?  Well, today was certainly worthy of that description. 

It had nothing to do with being in Japan, but everything to do with being American.  Bureaucracy, process, procedure, protocol: all dangerous words, especially in a place where they are followed to a T.  Get to the post office at 4:01 and it closes at 4:00?  Too bad.  Open a bank account, but not at the right bank?  Too bad.  Open an account at the right bank?  Takes a week to process, which is 5 days late for the next process, which means you're screwed.  And so it goes.

On a happier note, yesterday, I saw a random Japanese girl walking around with a Penn bookstore bag, so I decided to talk to her.  That was fun.  Then today, as I was walking in the elevator bank, someone said,

"Did you go to UWC in Singapore?" I was taken aback for a moment.  Turns out, this guy remembers seeing me in star in "Jesus Christ Superstar" almost 5 years ago.  He had finished an internship in my building, and was visiting people from his team.  We exchanged pleasantries for a time, and bid each other goodbye. 

The world is only as large as your social network is small.

That's both comforting and horrifying.