I have to go back to Canada for a funeral. Getting all the documents together was a bit tough. Say what you want about United Airlines, but my husband got me a mileage flight with three days from departure. Let's see Air Canada try that! Had to get my re-entry permit into Japan so I can come back though. Thank god I remembered because it would really suck to remember at the ticket gate and not be able to go. I get to immigrationa and there and there are 92 people ahead of me. I pray f...

Why do I let things pile up on me? At first I thought it had something to do with a lack of self-discipline (but not self-criticism) but now I wonder if something just isn't inherently wrong with me. Do I secretly crave punishing myself with the stress of not getting things done, feeling guilty and panic? Am I an anxiety junkie? I certainly don't subscribe to that "I do my best work under pressure" thing, but it lately it feels like I only do my work under pressure. Enough whining. B...

I dropped my biscotti in my latte. Now I am in the ignoble position of either fishing it out with my fingers (and then licking them then, I guess, as I have no tissue with me), or trying to suck back that latte before the thing disintegrates into soggy crumbles of a decimated sponge. Well, if this is the worst thing that happens to me today, I will be KICKING ass!

I have a lot of Sony stuff. Sony Vaio computer, cell-phone, Clie PDA, video camera. One of the things I had liked about the sony was the memory stick. My cell phone also functions as a walkman (you can all sorts of neat things in Japan). It is basically an MP3 cell phone. I can downlowd my music onto my memory stick via computer and then listen to it on my cell phone or my PDA when I am out and about. I like it. For those two things it is great. So when it came to getting a video camer...

I decided to make a video for my Grandpa to show him about what it is like living in Tokyo. I went out, got my video camera and started recording. I got a Sony digicam. Generally I like the machine quite a bit. I even read the directions before I started which made it a little easier to catch on. Still took me a bit though because I'm not so hot with following instructions (making origami is COMPLETELY beyond me). So great, I have my footage. Now it's time to edit! Not great. The nati...

Recently I wrote a blog called "Tech makes us do wierd stuff" in which I wrote that at least 30% of people in a crowd at an event like a concert have their arms raised high over their heads to take pics with their cell-phone cameras. I need to ammend that. It's more like 90% so that you can't actually see the event with your own two eyes.

I just had the best sandwich for lunch today. A cheddar-cheese tuna melt. Nice crusty bread that wasn't too hard, melty cheese and flavorful tuna salad. This probably doesn't seem like a big deal back home, but I find it pretty hard to get a good sandwich in Tokyo that I haven't paid a fortune for. Then again sandwiches here take on a variation of the theme that I would never dream of at home-- for instance, the potato salad sandwich, the spaghetti sandwich and the fried soba sandwich. The...

This will be my yearly complaint about the lack of central heating in most parts of Japan except Hokkaido (and I have only heard that they have it, I don't know how widely used it is). Probably, I wouldn't even notice if, when I turned on my natural gas heater in the morning, the thermometer didn't read 10 C. Come to think of it, it was probably just as cold in the morning in Canada. I just didn't have any numbers to verify the fact. The nice part about my apartment is that I have a lot o...

Most people in Japan have a camera on their cell phone. Since I am still using my 5 year old phone, I have no idea how much they are. I have thought about getting one, since it would be nice to always have a camera handy for special moments but I will probably wait till this phone is on it's last staticky legs. We had a dinner party a few days ago and near the end of dinner, we all decided to take pictures to commemorate the nice evening. A few people dug out digital cameras and a few dug ...

Great, now I created the blog and I can't think of anything to say. Just like going into Virgin Records. The minute I get in there, I can't remember the name of a single song or artist whose CD I want to buy and I end up leaving in a daze.