..slack but not really..

' funny little frog' - belle & sebastian

feel like i have been neglecting my blog, neglecting friends, neglecting email & just been an all round slacker.
but then i realise how busy i have been. time has really been whipping by, and somehow i find myself in the middle of september.
actually, it's not even the middle any more - more towards the end.
do you realise that it will be OCTOBER soon??? How the hell did THAT happen?!

so, what have i been doing? when i don't really think about it, i think i have done bugger all.
but then i sit down & think about it, i realise i have actually done things.
so, what have i done in the last month?

19th august - went to michael & shingo's 10th anniversary party. well done boys!

20th august - went to osaka for the day for work ; which was torture after the previous night...

21st august - saw PPP live in shibuya with the BC crowd. was a madly insanely fun night...

2nd september - went to toby's sayonara party. i hate saying goodbye, but it's one of the downfalls of living the foreign life. actually, i went through a phase of not making any new foreign friends because i knew they would leave before me & i couldn't bear saying goodbye anymore. luckily indigorayz thawed my cold ways, and put me back on the right track...still not easy though.

4th september - rode a real flight simulator for work - very cool & exciting. did you know that they can pause it during mid-flight simulation? it's really freaky. imagine being in an aeroplane that just stops in the middle of the sky....very very odd....ooh...and they let me fly the thing. also very scary....

7th september - finally went to araku. sandi & me had been talking about going for AGES. so glad we finally made it there. had a truly fun evening & martine, dave & ja-ane turned up too which made it even funner. even though it was my first time there, i felt at home & i will definitely be going back again. and after we left, we had a little adventure of taking the night bus back to tsunashima. don't know if you know, but there are various night buses in tokyo that run after the last train. we got a bus at 1.20 that got us to tsunashima in an hour. was interesting - don't plan to do it every week, but once in a while is cool - and it gave us an extra hour of araku time ;)

8th september - met up with J-Dad for lots of beers & smiles...far too long between beers...definitely can't leave it 4 months again...

12th september - met little green frog climbing up the window of the training centre i was staying at. very very small, cute and green (about the size of a ￥500 coin)

14th september - blue corn for a night of smiles & beer with kevin the german & ryosuke/suzan

16th september - over to sandi's for turkish food & alien. very tasty food. not a big lamb fan, but i loved it! and alien? can you believe that i fell asleep for the famous scene where the alien comes out of john hurts stomach??? shameful...

17th september - out with sandi and the boys to the parasite museum & earthquake museum (actually, it's probably more accurately the 'disaster prevention centre')
the parasite museum was really gross (have a look at sandi's blog for a photo of the consequences of elephantiasis....) and put me off eating ANY type of food (you can get parasites from anything, you know...may as well give up now and just eat a big handful of bugs...)
the disaster museum was equally scare-mongering... i definitely don't want to be in a (japanese) level 7 earthquake. not at all pleasant. was very educational (all in japanese though) and i now know that the first thing you should do in a fire is yell 'FIRE'. know that sounds pretty obvious, but the guy explained that you should do that before you even start trying to put it out. it means that people in the neighbourhood will know that there's something up & either call the fire brigade or come & help you. and in areas of wooden houses (ie most of japan) it's important to know where the fires are.
and afterwards, we went and drank beer in gakugeidaigaku. i definitely needed it - good kids but *so* energy sapping. really don't know how sandi does it and remains sane.

19th september - courtney came down from hokkaido & is staying with me for a week. so last night, we went out to an izakaya, drank too much wine, and put the world to rights. actually, we didn't. we just talked crap. but it was extremely high quality crap.

and that bring us to today.

so, yeah, i have been busy. and that was only the fun things. i managed to fit a shit load of work in around all that.

no wonder i'm knackered...