Going to school

To coincide with Cian's start in elementary school, I rejigged my classes in the university so that they were all in the morning. I figured that for his first term at least I would have to walk up with him to school for 8:00 am (yes, Cian's school starts at 8:00am. We leave the house at 7:30 which means the boy is usually out of bed by 6:00, which in turn means I am up at 5:30 to make his breakfast. I would like to write that all this is having a wonderfully positive effect on his cognitive development but about the only thing this time schedule has done is make me addicted to Red Bull).
Anyway, given that I am usually in my office just after eight I decided to schedule all my classes for 8:45, the earliest you can start in the university. Then I could leave earlier in the evening to pick up Cian.
This was my plan. I thought of it as a 'good plan', a plan, indeed, that 'might come together'. In short, an A-team type of plan.
Unfortunately, all concerned with my plan thought I was a 'crazy fool'.
Cian decided after three weeks that it was decidedly uncool to be seen walking to school with his old man. His friends didn't seem to mind, in fact quite enjoyed chatting with me as we walked up, but Cian was having none of it. By the end of April a 250 metre exclusion zone had been declared around Cian Takahashi Gaynor and all 'unfriendly' adults were banished forthwith.
For my students the 8:45 class start is (we're still only at the midpoint of the term here) proving to be physically, mentally, and emotionally impossible. It is like teaching a class of zombies. Zombies who'd rather be dead than awake. I'd like to point out to my students that the fascist class time I imposed upon them was in order to facilitate my son, but as said son has happily gone prodigal they have to suffer the consequences. However, I just can't bring myself to look them in their eyes and tell them so. Principally because most of their eyes are closed. For the entire 90 minutes (I tend to only wake them if their snoring drowns out the CD player during the listening sections).
And I too will have to suffer the consequences when they turn in their end of term class evaluations and describe me as the Mussolini of Muroran.

Yuichiro Miura

At yesterday lunchtime, Japan time, 80 year old Yuichiro Miura stood on top of Mt. Everest. In doing so he set a new record for the oldest person to climb the world's highest mountain. "Climbed" though may be a bit a tad expansive as by all accounts he was hauled to the top by a small army of sherpas, and is now in the process of being lowered down the mountain by the same army.
Such mountaineering impurity doesn't matter a damn here in Japan where Miura-san is being hailed as a national hero. He is from Sapporo so his "Look at me, Ma!" moment made the front page and was covered in depth in the Hokkaido Shimbun. He was all over the evening television news last night (though even his remarkable exploits were overshadowed by the even more remarkable plunge in the value of the Japanese stock exchange), and this, I suspect, is merely a prelude to the frenzy that will accompany his return back to Japan.
But, I hear you ask, has he ever climbed Muroran-dake in winter and then stripped off to the waist? No he hasn't, but like all true lovers of the high places, he relishes the feel of the crisp, thin air against his manly skin. Though he could do with a little more chest hair to be truly termed a 'mountainy man'.

Sausages

We had our first barbeque of the year yesterday. In fact, it was our first barbeque ever, 5 crisp sausages worth. We held it beside a lake so that if things went flammable we could sling the whole thing into the water (or, alternatively, if Cian's inferno dreams were realized and we started a raging, uncontrollable forest fire, we could sling ourselves into the water).
Yesterday was also the first real spring day in Muroran; the sun shone, though lazily and hazily, the temperature rose into the mid-teens and Daddy unleashed his winter pale legs (though with that all-season muscle tone) upon an unsuspecting world.
Spring has been late arriving this year. The cherry blossoms are only beginning to bloom now, a full two weeks later than normal; the rice crop has yet to be planted and the winter geese from Russia are sill here, enjoying the chilly weather and craping their communist shite all over the place. Sanae, rather ambitiously, planted some tomatoes and cucumbers yesterday, but today a bone chilling fog rolled in off the ocean, the temperature dived, and most of the plants keeled over in shock.
The geese ate the rest.

Endaka

In August of 2012 the Yen set a new record high against the beleaguered Euro; 94 yen would have bought you 1 Euro.
We didn't go home last year.
This year we are planning to go back to Ireland in August (brace yourselves) and as of Friday's closing prices, it now takes 131 yen to buy 1 euro.
That is a decline, nay base jump freefall, of close on 40%.
Now if you are say, Toyota, you are counting all your yen denominated profits and laughing all the way to the 'ginko'. In the three months from January to March alone the company reported profits of $3.2 billion. For every, single yen the currency drops in value against the dollar, Toyota rakes in an extra 350 million dollars in profit.
But I don't work for Toyota, don't have shares in the company, and don't even drive their cars.
I do however have airplane tickets to pay for. As these have now got ridiculously expensive we have decided to invoke the 'Ghost Protocol'. There is a lot I am not at liberty to tell you about, but what I can tell you is that involves flying home via Dubai, slave traders, indefinite bonded servitude, and Cian.
Yes, we will miss him, but listen he's 6, old enough to make his own way in the world and there comes a time in every parent's life when they must loosen the ties that bind and have somebody else bind them, probably with iron manacles, and allow the boy to experience life in all its verisimilitude, or whatever quota of verisimilitude has been allotted to the notorious salt mines of Taghaza.
But at least me and Sanae will be back for the hurling semi finals in August so it should all end well (as long you are not a Clare supporter).

Spring

This weekend was Golden Week here in Japan, a series of public holidays which meant we 'enjoyed' a four day weekend as both Friday and today were days off. Given the weather though 'enjoyment' was hard to come by and in truth 'Pissy Wet Winter Week' would have been more apt. Since early last week we have had unseasonably cold temperatures with highs here in Muroran barely touching 6 degrees. Mind you in comparison to Obihiro, in the center of Hokkaido, we are positively balmy here. Or rather, I am positively balmy. Sanae and Cian went to Obihiro to visit Sanae's mother over the weekend and really, should have brought their skis. This morning they woke up to this:

At midday the temperature in Obihiro was 1.9 degrees and the snow was still falling. According to this evening's weather forecast, the mercury in Japan's arctic is due to fall to minus 4 tonight.
Minus freaking four! And this is the 6th of May which, according to the Augustinian calendar, is the sixth day of summer. No wonder Japan has remained a resilient unchristian country.
Daddy, meanwhile stayed in Muroran 'working' and, ahem, catching my first waves of 2013, but you'll just have to read about that in 'Mad Hairy Bastard Surfing Magazine'.