Friday, March 28, 2003

March 28

Ugh! Fighting Darth Throat. Thanks to a cold and a lot of talking in class over the last couple of days, I now have a voice which is a mix of James Earl Jones and a bullfrog. I could probably do a decent version of the famous Budweiser commercial from a few years back. Time to hit the tea and honey.

I see on CNN that the battle map is starting to look a bit crowded in Iraq; kind of like a RISK gameboard after the 7th hour of play. Georgie is getting a bit testy about being questioned on the length of this war but, hey, he and his Cabinet were implying that it would be a bit of a cakewalk before the 20th.

Over here in the Land of the Rising Sun, the (fiscal) year is coming to an end, and come April, everything reactivates from the companies to the TV schedules. University grads are spiffing up their new polyester suits and black bags to enter real society and copious amounts of drinking and abuse. As for me, I'm waiting for CSI to arrive on TV.

Bought a Yellow Magic Orchestra CD a couple of days back. For those not in the know, YMO just happens to be one of the big original bands for technopop which came into being just shortly after Germany's Kraftwerk. The band included Ryuichi Sakamoto, now better "known" to the world at large as the Oscar-winning composer for The Last Emperor. The album I got was "BGM", one of their most techno albums. Their earlier efforts mixed a lot of Oriental flavor and other genres, but this one was pretty pure techno, and it struck me that this was a bit of a precursor to the techno albums of today.

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

March 27

Thanks to a big hole in my schedule which swallowed my classes in the middle of this week, I find myself with a lot of time on my hands to write and watch TV. Two of my classes on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons got canned or given away to somebody else so I've been able to come home quite early and head out quite late. Not complaining too much, for now.

Spring has finally come to stay. My windows are way open and I'm feeling no pain.

After my lone 2-hour class tonight, I'll be heading out to see a fellow teacher off before he leaves the country permanently. When he first came in, I wondered about how popular he would be but it looks like I had nothing to worry about. He's getting a lot of students coming to his going away party tonight.

Monday, March 24, 2003

March 24

Well, Oscars don't really come out here very much, but it was gratifiying to know that Japanese anime, "Spirited Away" aced the Best Animation award.

Having watched this war in live progress for 5 days, I've gotten a very stark perspective of life. While I'm here grumbling sometimes about my job and my boss, there are people half my age half a world away literally fighting for their lives as well as for their country and political philosophy. Heck, five of those people are now in Iraqi custody going through who knows what. At the same time, there are also journalists out there who are risking their lives to get the truth out, two of whom have paid the ultimate price.

Finally after a very long winter, it became warmer; no need for the heater or blankets anymore. Amen.