Hey everyone,
Once again, apologies for the long delay on writing one of these. Fun fact: Charly considers this a weekly blog. (Note last blog was written a month ago!)
So... the last few weeks I have felt like someone took out my brain and replaced it with scrambled eggs. I think it all started with coming down with a cold. Somehow, once I was sick, I couldn't get myself to bed on time, I ate badly and therefore had no energy and I got nothing useful done in my free time. My running tapered off to almost nothing, I got super behind on the Wide Island View website and I had a mounting pile of student journals to check on my work desk. It was a bad cycle where the more I got behind, the more panicky and inefficient I got.
However, I'm finally feeling back on track! I had a weekend of nothing but hanging out in Jinseki, catching up on sleep and relaxing mainly. I was then determined to not get low on sleep again (I think all my inefficiency issues stem from tiredness) and to prioritise things. This has meant some small changes - less Japanese study on my phone and throwing my cookie stash in the back of the wardrobe - and some bigger ones - like getting to bed by 9 or 10pm a couple of nights a week so I can get up at 5am to do a big run before work (how to feel virtuous all day in one step: get up at 5am and run 12km!).
This is now the second week of newly-organised Charly. Admittedly I got to bed too late to do another huge run today, but I got up at 6am to run 5km. That proved to be a much bigger ask than I expected. Not until I was dressed, warmed up and outside did I realise it was raining. Like, really raining. Not quite in the downpour category, but wet enough that when I got back the only dry patches were between my shoulder blades, the small of my back and between my legs. When I got in the door in my squelchy shoes I had to immediately strip and eat my porridge in my underwear with a sweatshirt over my shoulders and a towel to catch my hair drips. If there is an exercise god, I hope I get double the calorie burn for running in that weather. It wasn't pleasant.
But it's not only exercise that's back on track - I had a big realisation about the Wide Island View - namely that I was a slack-arse who was not keeping up with everything I should be doing, but also that I should be delegating everything I could. As such, I have handed on the job of the WIV facebook account to the ever-organised Ashley. I am SO happy about this and wonder why I didn't do it earlier. She has created a whole new page, so people can be fans, rather than friends of the fake person, and is slowly posting the links to all the articles loaded in the last couple of months. She is doing an amazing job AND I don't have that job hanging over me anymore. That means when I have time to do WIV stuff, I can focus on the important bits of being editor - that is, actually editing. Yay!
What else was involved in getting my life back on track? I booked our hotels for Bangkok. One is more of an apartment in a complex that has a lovely-looking pool (yay!!) and the second is the Shanghai Mansion, staying in the Ying Hua room ( http://www.shanghaimansion.com/bangkok-hotel/Bangkok-Accommodation/Bangkok-Ying-Hua.html ). It looks AMAZING and I'm so excited to stay there!!
Do you know that story about the rocks in the jar? The one where the professor asks his students how you fit a pile of sand, a pile of small rocks, a pile of larger rocks and few big ones into the jar? If you start with the sand, you'll never fit everything in, but if you start with the big rocks, then the medium, then the small and finish with the sand, you can fit much more? Well, I think my problem was I filling my jar with sand first. Or at least the small rocks. I've now cut the 'small rocks' from my To Do list and have just accepted that if I have extra time I'll sort that stuff, but it's much more important to address my 'big rocks' - sleep, exercise, healthy eating, quality time with Jeff, my teaching and the WIV site. In fact, the last two may be medium rocks (just don't tell the Japanese that my paid employment isn't the highest priority in my life! :P ).
In other news... this weekend just finished was a three-day weekend. We weren't organised enough to go anywhere (I never realised quite how great the Japanese were at making the most of travel opportunities until I found there were zero hotel rooms free in Kyoto and only capsule hotels available in Osaka!!). So we decided to visit Naoshima on Saturday ( http://www.wideislandview.com/2012/08/naoshima-weekend-escape-to-a-land-of-wonders/ ). On Friday we came down to my apartment, ready to get an early morning train to Naoshima. That night we went to a ramen place a few minutes walk from my apartment. As the old guy next to us promised, it was delicious. But within an hour or two of getting back, we both started to feel unwell. Jeff thinks it was the stomach virus that was going around one of his schools, but I think it was suspicious timing that we both got hit within an hour of each other... Whether it was the ramen or a stomach virus (I refuse to consider that it was my homemade rice pudding!), I guess we'll never know, but I'd be very hesitant to eat there again!!
Anyway, on Saturday we felt well enough in the arvo to go shopping at the outlet mall in Kurashiki. We bought Jeff's Christmas present and a Christmas pudding and ended our day by going to a games arcade, where Jeff won himself a Japanese cat toy and me a Rilakkuma toy. So now our work bags are looking very Japanese! We so Japanese. Japanese teenagers. Not respectable working professionals. I think by Japanese standards I really don't act my age. Maybe a little bit by NZ standards too, but by Japanese standards... what's wrong with me that I'm 28 and married with no children?? How does Jeff cope with that?? He needs to teach his wife her wifely responsibilities! Children, house-cleaning and rice for breakfast every day, that's what he should be demanding!
Sorry I'm getting off track there. Jeff sent me a really interesting article on 'devil wives' ( http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/life/7968952/The-problem-of-Japans-devil-wives ) that has got me thinking (again) about the inequalities between the sexes in Japan. Recently I was told this info (quoting here from this article ( http://www.japannewsreview.com/society/national/20071109page_id=2934 ): Japan ranked 91st out of 128 countries in the World Economic Forum’s annual ranking of gender-equal countries presented on Thursday, the lowest ranking among all high income countries except for South Korea and five Middle Eastern countries.
While that is not really surprising, it is still alarming. Sometimes I get used to the differences and think I'm imagining things. When I hear about things like that I feel vindicated, that it's not me going crazy or being hyper-sensitive. I really do live in a country where people are surprised that my husband cooks, where people are surprised that I am married but don't have kids, where I needed my husband to sign my paperwork so I could hire my car and where most of my female students aspire to being wives.
Jeff had a good point about the slow rate of change of these out-dated views - in Japan you usually have three generations living under one roof - and Japanese old people live forever. At home if your granny complains about your clothing you just remember to put a cardi on to keep her happy when you visit, but if you live under the same roof as your grandparents, you are constantly influenced by their attitudes and values. As such, it would take much, much longer to change views. He also suggested that could be why things change in the cities faster than in the country. I think he may have a point... (well, obviously, else I wouldn't have bothered to type it here :P )
I hope this was long enough to thoroughly make up for the month-long drought. I still mean to show you some of the funnier student apology letters. Exam week is coming up soon so I'll try to post some of them then.
I hope you are all well. Remember to put in the big rocks first and have a good week!
Charly
xo
P.S. Please buy raffle tickets! Sales are still pitiful!
