Well, had what I consider a good old bônenkai here last night with my second year students at a bar/restaurant in town. My policy generally has been that I am not against going out for a beer or two with former students, but I've never gone out with current students here in the States. We did it all the time in Japan and in grad school every Friday afternoon a group of grad students and profs met at the bar on campus for a few pitchers of beer to celebrate Aloha Friday. Somehow the northern New England culture doesn't seem as conducive to that. It's too bad, really.
I spent about an hour this morning skyping with one of my favorite people on the planet, although we are an unlikely alliance. It was my old karate teacher, or shihan as I call him. Its been a few years since we've been in touch, but I have a student who is moving to Japan in a few months and he wants to train at shihan's dojo, so I emailed him to let him know.
I could say I'm old because I just want to stay home tonight and relax instead of driving down to Cambridge to see The Queers and some other punk bands play at TT The Bears. But age doesn't really have anything to do with it. My sis (4 years older than me) is going down there with a couple other friends who are older than her, and the band is also a good 10 years older than me, at least.
According to my favorite wacky astrologer Michael Lutin what I'm feeling is just par for the course these days, but I'm really feeling like I need to bust some kind of move career wise so I'm making money that is more commensurate with what I do and what I know.
There's no denying the "holiday season" has begun. It's really not my thing. It's not like I'm a scrooge or anything. It's just always kind of been irrelevant to me. My family is Jewish so Christmas was never a major deal. I lived in Japan for a dozen years and survived that whole time without a "proper" holiday. There are things I like about the season, but I don't like the pressure to buy lots of presents. I really don't have the money for it this year now that I'm paying for the girl's school tuition. She gets a lot of financial aid and my folks help out too (but not her father), but it's still a few thousand dollars a year I didn't have to budget for last year.
This week was seriously crazy. Early in the week I got an email from the British bitch who works in the study abroad office informing me that our school has been cut off by our go-to study abroad destination in Japan and I should help them identify and evaluate other programs to replace it.
I have been down and out with the flu for the past few days. It's been a drag.
When a significant other wishes ill on something that really is important to you, while claiming that you mean a lot to him (except for that thing you love, which he hates, which in this case happens to be my dog) which message is the real one?
Northern New England culture is conducive to old Yankee stand-offishness, where I stay out of your business and you stay... read more
on Breaking Boundaries aka 忘年会