You know times have changed when...

You find a free DVD inside your cornflake packet. Maybe in 20 years there will be free Apple laptops in bumper-size crisp packets.

Plumbing New Depths of Depravity

I was looking for my personal name cards, which I haven't seen in ages, so I decided to look in my winter coat in case they were still in one of the pockets. I reach in and feel something soft, sticky and squidgy in there, like bluetack. I pull it out, wondering what it could possibly be and find that it's a dried plum, a thoroughly mouldy dried plum. Where did it come from? Well, I have some recollection of being given a dried plum by someone and not wanting to eat it straight away so I put it in my pocket... but when? I haven't worn that coat for over a month, so that little dried plum must have been moulding in there for all that time. Yeesh.

Shenanigans!

"No legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply manipulation or attempts to monopolize transportation. And no-one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbour, or interfere with democratic movements."

Who else could say this but Dick Cheney, in Vilnius, criticizing Russia on its own doorstep.

Argh, the hypocrisy! It burns!

Question

What does this sign mean?



There's a hilarious discussion devoted to what it could mean on Fark.com, which is where I found it in the first place...

My two favourite possibilities are:

-"Do Not Attempt to Stand Up Straight While Standing on Your Dog's Nine-Foot Peener or You WILL Bend it"
-"Dogs With Nine-Foot Dicks Deserve to be Carried"

J'ai pas envie de faire mes putain de devoirs. Alors quoi faire? Le Fuck it.

Eventually something had to give. Deep down I knew that my insane schedule couldn't keep going on as it was, and this came to me as a kind of epiphany this (Sunday) morning on the way to work. I was walking to my office in a business area of Tokyo that was completely deserted because even the die-hard salarymen were at home asleep and I spent the whole day in front of a computer screen in an empty office. I refuse to spend the rest of my twenties like that.

So I decided to scrap my Japanese lessons because they were inconveniently placed in the middle of the afternoon, four times a week for an hour and a half each, plus homework; they were screwing up my entire schedule. Plus, as I said, my classmates are no great joy to be with and being a research student this pain is worth nothing as I can't even get credits to contribute to my master's course next year. Worst of all I effectively had no time to do any of the research I'm actually being paid for - I've only read one article in a whole month, which is really not right! Getting rid of these lessons makes everything else fall comfortably into place and gives me a freedom of choice over how I organise my time. I feel so much better knowing I don't have to do any FUCKING HOMEWORK any more!!

Through the Looking Glass.

The last three to four weeks have been nuts: juggling study and two part time jobs has been pretty exhausting... but rewarding, and I think I have it under control now.

So the last three to four weeks, in no particular order.

University is pretty good. I'm taking advanced Japanese classes and beginners Chinese classes. Not sure about how many friends can be made out of current classmates as they all come across as too young and into different things. There was a strange coincidence in my Japanese class as there is a guy who was at the same school as me when I was sixteen. Took me a while to realize because he's grown and his attitude has apparently changed a bit for the worse since. He doesn't seem to recognize me at all - in fact he's too f***ing cool to even say hello, which suits me fine. I live content with the knowledge that I know who he is and he doesn't know who I am. I get a kick out of the international atmosphere of the place: Japanese is the only language that a Russian classmate and I can use to talk to each other. Meanwhile, the library is heaven, everything the UL at Cambridge should be: seven floors of modern facilities, total quiet and privacy. Many students go there to sleep.

Tokyo Art Beat has been pretty time-consuming work but has been the fuel to the new fire of my social life, which is a great bonus. I've met a lot of interesting people in the last two weeks and it led to me writing a short 200 word preview of an upcoming exhibition for the Japan Times, which was published a couple of days ago. Hopefully will lead to more, longer freelance work.

My photography exhibition is coming up at the beginning of June. Slightly concerned about number of things that have to be done by then, but know it will be fine.

Just came back from three well-earned days of holiday in Osaka, where I stayed with Emily. Despite it being Golden Week and millions of Japanese people thronging into the countryside we managed to go to two places that were free of all this hullabaloo. One was this mini-hike to an abandoned temple in the forest. It was literally this Alice-in-Wonderland experience: we walked to the edge of the suburbs of Osaka, down a backstreet and there the concrete ends and the woods begin. Within ten seconds the massive city had completely disappeared behind us and we were deep into this dense natural landscape - woods, mountains, rivers - psychologically a million miles away from urban Japan. I can't describe how rare and unusual it is to have this experience in Japan.