Okaeri (Welcome home)

M’s home. I’m so happy, I kept playing Ayaka’s song, Okaeri, in my head all day long.
Okaeri by Ayaka is the theme song for the J-drama Zettai kareshi.
I spent all of Wednesday cleaning the house, but I guess I had let the house go too long unattended. I didn’t pass the white glove test. [...]

Home alone

I haven’t mentioned this, but for the past 5 weeks, M has been in Japan. Her mother was diagnosed with Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma, a kind of lung cancer located in the small vessels of the lungs that function in the oxygenation of our blood (I think). Apparently it is most prevalent in nonsmokers, elderly women and [...]

Cocoons

I have bad eye sight. I’ve mentioned this before, but I can only see out of my left eye–albeit with glasses or a contact lens. My right eye is legally blind. I have a scar on my cornea that prevents me from seeing anything with any clarity. If you taped wax paper on your glasses [...]

Kids–I’ll take ‘em when I can

The other day was Father’s day, but I guess I have no standing as a father anymore. I occasionally e-mail my daughter in Japan, but she hasn’t responded in over a year. I have’t seen her since 1999–the last time I went to Japan–when she was 12 years old. Now she has graduated from a [...]

(My) Decision ‘08

make your own logo

As many of you know, I am usually swamped with work–teaching, grading, advising. You probably also know that I am a J-drama addict. I am currently watching Zettai kareshi (Absolute boyfriend), Muri-na ren’ai (Impossible love), and Rookies (Rookies). There are a few others that the family wants to watch, so I get [...]

Meteor-illogical event

It’s been truly crazy weather of late. Tornados in the flatlands of middle America. Snow in the Rockies. Floods in the upper Midwest. Yesterday I jogged in the stifling heat–over 95 degrees. It’s been at least 10 degrees higher than the seasonal average since Friday. But at least the heat isn’t destructive, and as a [...]

Backward camel

Holy moly! It’s freakin’ cookin’ outside. It’s 95 degrees, 45% humidity and feels like 102 according to weather.com. But I didn’t need them to tell me. I feel like a roast cooking over a low heat. If it would only melt off the fat…
Still, I went running outside for an hour. Well, more like walking [...]

Lifetime sentence

Oh boy, now I really did it.
I just figured out a way to make myself write more… I became a Lifetime Xanga member.
Gulp…

My Office

Messy as usual

I gotta stack of papers to grade: Midterms for Bungo (literary Japanese) from last week, and today’s Lit class midterm. Well, it’s the 12th week of the semester so its really a latter-term exam. I do this to bring relief to my students. They are usually drowning in study during the 7th through [...]

Happy belated
New Year!
Man, have I been out of it or what? How is everyone?