Entries this day: Beach Fast_train Good_day_at_work Green_Car_green_lights Lesson_with_Ayako Misc

Beach

8:55am JST Thursday 6 August 2009 (day 14379)

6am wake up for rock hoppin' fun! I was a bit late(!) getting down there , but it turned out I had plenty of time to get puffed out and I think I made it a *bit* longer than yesterday. I ran five T lengths (up the T bar, then its left side, right side, left side again, then back down the T) before running (jogging (shuffling)) in elongated circles along the water and then up and down the beach hill for a bit.

During my second right side T bar run (make that seven lengths above!), I almost errored when I didn't quite have enough power to jump up from the rocks to the concrete blocks (only about 25 cm higher).. I slightly bruised my left heal, which I can feel when I walk in shoes now. Oh, and on the other side of the bar I sorta stubbed my left toes, but not my big toe, so it hardly hurt. I was like, "good job, feet, keep it up!"

Fast train

9:09am JST Thursday 6 August 2009 (day 14379)

Fast train is strolling slowly today, but I've got a seat to write these journal entries. Now gonna write some email and/or sleeeep. I hope I wake up for Shinagawa!

Good day at work

9:26pm JST Thursday 6 August 2009 (day 14379)

Last day of my first week at work seemed easier than my second to last day of my first week of work. Alfonz flexed his mad programming skillz and showed me a bit of how his brain works; he poured some words into my ears as I half transcribed, half predicted and typed ahead of time what he suggested we do for some input checking. He's definitely a better programmer than I am; perhaps because he always has been, but partially because I had a big-ass break for my first years in Japan, plus my recent 7 month break from most things coding.

But I did get some good stuff done, 99% done with the project we wanted to knock out this week, and he thinks he'll be able to do the rest tomorrow while I join Soness for a concert with a little band called Nine Inch Nails. Ahem, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

Went to lunch at the nearby organic cafe with Kitty, who's pretty much bilingual since birth, though I don't know that she's doesn't know Mandarin as well (family is from Taiwan). We covered a range of topics from life history to PB adventures to other stuff I just forgot what I was going to write because..

Green Car green lights

9:38pm JST Thursday 6 August 2009 (day 14379)

I just found one more awesome thing about Japanese train system.

The JR system uses "Suica" debit cards on which people put money and then pay for trains. Right now I'm in the Green Car of the Shonan Shinjuku Line which requires one to pay a machine outside the train for the Green Car seat. Only reason to pay outside is so that we have a big touch screen to tell our destination so it knows how much to charge the card.

On the train, we sit down and touch the card to a little red light on the ceiling which determines we have paid and turns green. Then the train conductor can come through and make sure everyone is sitting under a green light, and appropriately chastise those who are not.

Though that's all cool, I've seen it all before. The cool thing I just now saw was a guy changing seats! I was like, yo! he's paid, but is now sitting under a red light and then he touched his card to turn his light green and the light over his old seat turned red. Awesome.

9:49pm JST Thursday 6 August 2009 (day 14379)

heehee! Two people just left two seats vacant on the other side of the aisle, so I moved over and moved my green light as well, then played chase-the-red-light with my Suica card. hahahahha I did it, of course, for testing purposes, to make sure such antics wouldn't break the system, crash the train, or anything bad like that.

Lesson with Ayako

9:42pm JST Thursday 6 August 2009 (day 14379)

I left work at 7, walked down the street, and from 7:30 ~ 8:30, I met Ayako for a lesson in Motoya on 2F of Bunkyodo. I hadn't seen her but once, about 3 weeks ago, so I confided in the baristas that I had forgotten what my student looks like. I sat near the first tables and hoped she would recognize me or be recognizable, etc. She did/was.

Lesson focused on her upcoming trip to New York, for which I suggested she visit Magnolia Bakery, Strand Bookstore, and Whole Foods. She may do the first one for her mom, but Ayako is vegan and prolly won't join her for a sugar-shocker cupcake. The Bookstore and Whole Foods are much higher on her list.

Misc

10:00pm JST Thursday 6 August 2009 (day 14379)

Today is the day I knocked onto the floor at work the remainder of my rice (from two days ago), and picked it up by hand, bit by bit.

I copied from my S3 storage space on Amazon servers to my PC 16 files of a lecture by Stanislav Grof, which I'd like for Sabina to hear. Though it's obvious I'm copying them, and though I downloaded them via some torrent site, I wonder if I can buy them online. They were originally sold as casette tapes, but when someone transferred them to mp3, some bits were FFed (FFed is the fast forward way of writing fast forwarded). Not super important bits, I guess, but still, I'd like to respect the cat and listen to the full lecture.

I found a bread shop, called Dos Maggots or something, nestled in Shibuya station today. It's got good stuff, including a cream pastry thing with sliced apricots on it.

Forgot my belt, but my pants are pretty well fitted and stayed up enough that no one likely noticed.

12:35am JST Friday 7 August 2009 (day 14380)

Tonight is the night I heard Soness identify herself as Christian. Woah. I thought she had grown out of that.