Summary of a month

I always intend on updating this blog. When I have an interesting thought, or see a movie, or recall a noteworthy conversation I tell myself to take a minute to write it down. But then I log in to blogger and suddenly the idea doesn't seem as spectacular as I initially thought, or the conversation sounds dumb out of context, or for whatever reason the post is deemed unworthy of uploading. Or I log in and feel like I have to update posts chronologically, and since there are older posts that I haven't finished yet I should get to those first, but I really don't feel like working on them at the time so in the end I log out without posting a single word.

If I continue on this way I'll end up storing half-finished posts indefinitely, so let's delete all my unfinished posts and settle for a brief summary of some of the things heading for the garbage bin.

Chindy
Chindy died this month. He was my bright red Siamese fighting fish. Because he kept picking on everyone else in the tank, Yoshiko named him by combining the names of two friends who constantly pick on her (Chino and ... someone else). I used to keep photo records of all my fish, but it appears I don't have any of poor Chindy. I was going to flush him down the toilet, but decided that cremation had more dignity so he got thrown into the burnable garbage.

VISA
I turned in my application for a new VISA almost four weeks ago and it still hasn't been processed. I keep getting messages from the immigration office saying, "There's something we need to ask. Please call." When will the questions end? I'm beginning to wonder if my VISA will ever get renewed.

Ants
There were little black ants roaming the living room so I sprayed ant repellant all around the windows and doors. Strangely the spray didn't help and their numbers seemed to be increasing. Then one day I watered an indoor flower pot, and witnessed hundreds of ants clutching white babies rushing from the surface to escape drowning. The critters were coming from inside my apartment!

They were fascinating to watch. The soldier ants with big pincers climbed up the vines first to make sure it was safe, then caravans of baby-carrying ants followed. They made little clusters in the folds of leaves and stayed there for over an hour, waiting for the danger to pass. I guess they got tired of me watering the plant and disturbing their home, because after a week the entire colony had disappeared from the flower pot and I discovered they had moved to an aquarium full of dirt that I used to raise beetle larvae in. I put the aquarium in a plastic tray filled with water so they don't escape (no more ants crawling on me in the middle of the night), and have been feeding them cookie crumbs. I'm glad they decided to move to the aquarium. Now I can observe their burrowing and cookie-crumb-stashing through the glass.

You-me Town
You-me Town is the new shopping complex slated to be finished by the end of this month. I don't like it already. It's located where the main road heading out of Beppu toward Oita begins, and they've closed a lane of traffic during construction, meaning the drive to work has turned into congestion hell. It's the only road I can take to get to work, so there's no avoiding the traffic caused by this unsightly cube of a building that blocks the ocean view you used to be able to enjoy from downtown Beppu. Once the complex actually opens, I suspect the commute to work will take even longer from people waiting to turn into the covered parking lot. From the confines of my car, I will likely refer to these people as "bastards".

Facebook
I started an account after hearing about it from so many people. I registered my name and logged out without adding any further information. A week later when I logged in again I was surprised to find that old friends had used it to find me! And not just any old friends, they were people that I'd been wanting to find for years but hadn't had any luck through Google or Friendster or MySpace or whatever other method I'd tried, like the South African pen-pal I used to have - we finally met in London 12 years ago and lost contact after that, but she found me through Facebook! Facebook is wonderful. With Facebook, there is hope.

CNN
A coworker watches the program CNN 360 religiously on satellite TV and last month they asked viewers to send in video questions in response to their "Planet in Peril" series. She sent in a video and they incorporated it into the show this week! First they used it as an example of what kind of videos to send, then they used it again later in the week to spur the discussion held by a panel of experts. It's crazy to think that she was on a national American News program. Here's the first clip that was used on the show, and her comments on what she thought of the discussion program that used her video.

That's all for now. Hopefully my next entry won't take another month :)