Week 30

This update penned the morning of July 23rd to be uploaded at a later date for reasons explained below.

I ended up spending last Monday's Ocean Day holiday afternoon plain video games at a friend's house. It's been a while since we've gotten together so it was a fun change of pace.Tuesday afternoon I had a different friend over to play board games. We re-played a game we haven't played in a while which was also fun.

After chilling out for two day I decided that I should get out and do something on the last day of my three day weekend. Since I needed to get my Foreigner Registration Card renewed anyways I spend Wednesday in Cosmo Square (out in the port area where the Immigration Bureau is located.) The Hard Rock Cafe happened to be on my way so I stopped in for a lunch of potato skins and caesar salad. My next stop was the Bureau where the process for getting a new card was remarkably streamlined and only took about an hour. In usual Immigration office fashion it was a trans-cultural experience. THis time I got chatted up about the Detroit Pistons by a Chilean guy who hated soccer but loved the NBA. MY next stop, after a ten minute walk under a hard Osaka summer sun was the Maritime Museum. As Japanese museums go it wan't too bad. Everything's in Japanese but there are sparse translations here and there. The exhibits were also a little sparse with only nine exhibit rooms and of those a lot of the information was written which made it a little challenging to understand. The central, and by far, the largest exhibit is the Naniwa-maru, a replica sailing vessel from the Edo era that you can board and walk around on. It's suspended in the center of the Maritime Museum's Bond-villian-like dome structure and it's three story mast and sail are quite impressive. After the museum closed at five I headed over to the Osaka World Trade Center's observation deck where I went around and around taking pictures until sunset. About eight I headed across the street to the ATC's (Asia Pacific Trade Center) food cooer and got a Subway sandwich to go and ate it down by the waterfront. Cosmo Square has a monorail line as well as the subway and I rode that most of the way home as a nice change of pace.

When I got home Wednesday evening I started up my computer only to find that my internet was out. I'm not new to working with computers so I tried everything in the book to get my service back up but to no avail. I searched through the literature I got when I signed up for service three years ago and found the customer support number but noted that they were only available from ten to six so I settled in for an evening without 'net access.

Thursday morning I woke up and re-tied everything I could to get my internet back on but, again to no avail. Come ten o'clock I called my service provider's customer service number. After being walk through the steps I had already done ump-teen time again (this time being guided in Japanese) I was transferred to another department which had me repeat the steps again before deciding that there was something wrong with the wiring in my building, not with my computer. In a disastrous turn of fate the hour when a representative could come fix my connection over the weekend lined up exactly with my working hours. I'd be stuck without internet at home for a full week. Feeling dejected I headed into work where I was, once again, greeted by a delightfully light work load. This lifted my spirits somewhat, as getting paid to do "nothing" often does.

Friday was the last high-school shift before their summer vacation. We had two surprise guests as two of my former students came back for a visit. I saw both of them at this past year's graduation but it's been a few month since then. They both seem to be doing well which was great to see. To cut by internet-free boredom in the evening i used my TV as a TV (as opposed to a monitor) for the first time in months and watched one of my favorite animated movies (Summer Wars) that was being broadcast.

Saturday was typically busy but not overtaxing. I came home in the evening and made myself a nice grilled chicken salad and watched last summer's Ghibli film, "Kokuriko-zaka Kara," on DVD.

Sunday's shift at web school dragged on a bit but in the evening I went back to my friend's house for another round of video games. We paused at one point to grab some burrito's from my favorite place for dinner.

This morning my 'net is still out and I was reminded of another problem my building's been facing recently. Just as I was about to turn the shower off this morning the water cut-out. This is, at least, the secede time this week the water's cut out for no reason. The first time it did I realized WHY toilets have a tank of water. For those times when you need "one last flush."

Looking to this weekend I've got to keep myself distracted tomorrow as my ISP is going to fix my 'net Wednesday morning. I also need to call my apartment's management company ant make sure they know the water's been cutting out (I think / hope other tenants have complained too.)

Talking to other teachers it seems everyone's grandmothers all used to say "things come in threes." Looks like no 'net, no water, and the looming prospect of rolling blackouts are my "three" for the month of July.