Rain...

It's going to rain tomorrow.


ARSE



Yesterday I went out and bought loads of lovely veggies. I got carrots, potatoes, peas beans, lettuce, tomatoes, onions.

Today we received a package from the farm it contained carrots, potatoes, peas beans, lettuce, tomatoes, onions. And a big fat caterpillar that had pooed all over the lettuce.

There he is. Travelled all the way from the Hyogo countryside today. Getting fat off lettuce and shitting in my salad. Still, I didn't kill him, just plucked the lettuce leaf and sent it off to the burnable garbage dump in the sky.

Yesterday I took this:

And took a tin opener and did this:

Then I went to the Post Office and converted it into 49,000 yen. Or about 250 quid. I save my 500 yen pieces.

I am something of am autistic TV watcher. While this, I am certain, is not politically correct or accurate, I am aware that this habit is akin to learning all the names in the phonebook or switching light bulbs on and off. On and off.　For example, over the last week I have watched nearly all the episodes of the US Office. I can watch over 10 episodes back to back. One night last week I You Tubed (because the verb 'to you tube' is as valid as the verb 'to party') American Idol and watched as many American Idol clips I could. All the auditions, good and bad. performances. You name it I watched it. I could have been watching a top quality film with my husband. But no. I would prefer to watch Kelly Clarkson switch places with Randy jackson for shits and giggles and 'show a little of her personality. Three times.

I have also watched the Tempura sketch every night this week. Sometimes more than once. Because I love it.

Battered veg.

And caterpillars.

Success!

The workshop we ran was really good. I really enjoyed it and the feedback was good and the constructive feedback was really useful!


Unfortunately I took the unprecedented step of staying out until 4 the night before. Deeply unprofessional. And I felt like shit. But I wanted to stay up chatting to my 'soon-to-be-in-England' friend. And the bar we were drinking at is our local and they kept topping me up with giant glasses of red wine.

Anyway, as I was delivering the workshop, I realised many things including how much I like collaborating with people, to make my ideas and visions come to life. And also, just what it means to be anchored in certain directions.

Do I have passion?

Anyway, it was great to chat to people and to have people chat to each other. And to have cheese and wine. No wine for me though! Then a few people got together and had dinner together, which was really nice. We were supposed to go to a bbq to celebrate Tom's birthday afterwards, but due to the fact that I had a hangover on top of a cold on top of having delivered the workshop, we headed home and I was in bed by 11.30 and slept all the way through until 11.30 this morning.



Good God.

This week I am going to read a book that doesn't have anything to do with work, or careers or business. Just a work of literature. Written by a writer. Who was intelligent and gifted. And didn't care about careers or business.

For the 5th time I am going to attempt 'The Master and Margarita' by Mikael Bulgakov. I am going to do it this time. I am becoming thick. While reading work-related books are good for acquiring knowledge, they are not well written or creative or and my vocabulary and imagination have suffered at the hands of this change in reading habits. Usually I have a couple of books on the go. But I haven't read anything for so long. I feel ashamed to admit.



Which brings me on to work-life balance. I have to give up a private student. I dreamt about them last night. I love them. But I have to give them up in order to reclaim my life. And reclaim one night. A whole night. An entire night where i may beable to get home as early as 6pm, make dinner and sit doen and eat with my husband before 11 o clock. God I look forward to that. I am hoping that thisis going to have a knock-on effect to the rest of my life too. A mid-week rest will recharge my batteries and set me up for the week. Recently my ife has been too much. Just too much. Too much of everything. I have good life. A realy good life. Rich in so many ways. But I have to get balanced. And sadly I have made the decision, absolutley to cut my Wednesdays. Gutted. But it takes me an hour to get there, and hour to get back and an hour in the middle with the kids. And that is a big chunk of an evening. BIG CHUNK. It has been exhausting me. So after yesterday was over (it really did take A LOT of plannning and preparation) my priorities are changing and I am feeling so great about that. My house is mess today, but rather than frantically tidying to prepare myself for a manic week, I am just sitting an chilling and will go to the Design Festa in a minute.




If it's sunny tomorrow, no school. If it rains, I have to go in.

Pray for sunshine.

MY EVENT! COME ALONG!

It's going to be great!

This Saturday I am hosting a Career Development Forum in Kanda, Bellesalle.


At the consulting and training company that I work for, 7 Seas, I am one of the founding members of the Development Team and we are responsible for creating workshops, presentations and events that are aimed at the English speaking community and expat community in Japan. By expat, I mean it in the generic term! Anyone who is working here from overseas.

For the past 2 months our team have been working really hard to get this event up and running and getting out and networking as much as possible. It has been a real learning experience and pretty tough at times, negotiating budget, negotiating in Japanese for rooms and designing the program and collaborating in all areas. But it has been worth it and now I making my final push to promote the event as we still have some places left!

By the way, I am leading the event. I have designed it and will be delivering. I have lead quite a few events in Roppongi Hills, Academy Hills including English through Gospel Music and English through acting and movies and voice workshops. This is one of the first events, that I have hosted, that is aimed at native speakers and it has been an interesting adjustment to make.

This latest workshop is a product I have been delivering on a 1.1 coaching basis at some of our big clients and which we thought would be a great product to deliver as a workshop.

It is a retrospective look at our career choices, what motivates us to make the decisions we make, as well as using this self-insight to inform our choices in the future. I have been through this process myself, and have found it really interesting and informative with respect to my own choices. All the people I know, I think would really enjoy this process. No magical formula, not telling you what to do, just a good look at the decisions we have made in the past.
Not only that, but it is a great opportunity to network.

Dear Bloggers - is there any chance you could do me the honor of posting this event on your site and I will return the favor by promoting your events. Let's be 'back scratchers'!

If any of you can support my new venture and come along, I would be so happy.

*yoroshiku onegeishimasu*

The Wedding!

The ceremony was lovely, in a little church on the Gold Coast. The bride was very very late, but the bridal party looked gorgeous all in Red dresses. And the bride looked amazing, really stunning, with a bouquet of red tulips and stunning makeup.

I took literally thousands of pictures.

After the ceremony, we headed out into the garden of the church for more photographs and larks, then back to the hotel for a rest then for the reception and wedding breakfast. It was alovely setting and the food was great. The speeches were very moving and there was not a dry eye in the house. Not one. Much respect to Wes and his brother. I was sat next to Carla and Gareth, which was a major highlight. Spending time, although short with them was so great. It really was. And Lewis is just delightful.

Afterwards a few of us went to a Casino, but not for long and I didn't spend much, a couple of dollars on the 'pokies'. Then headed off to bed to try and recover for the next leg of my journey...

Anniversary Flowers

I spent all day at home, tidying and relaxing and watching the US Office. I enjoyed it.

Mr and Mrs F

Mr and Mrs F
Originally uploaded by sigsy.

Yesterday was our REAL wedding anniversary! 1 year since we went down some scrubby steps in the back end of Shinjuku and spent at least 20 minutes at the window of a security office with some old man smoking seven stars and stamped a few bits of paper!

We chose May 18th because my birthday is September 18th, Kei's is August 18th, he proposed on July 18th and we have adopted it as our 'special day'. Feel free to gag right here.

Our plan - dress up nice nice and go to the Park Hyatt for drinks and possibly dinner.
What we did - hung around outside the convenience store for about 5 hours, drinking with friends in order to avoid the cover charge at our local bar. The boys who regularly drink there have named it the 'ladder and plank' due to the fact there are two step ladders and a plank outside. It was good fun though and nice to be outdoors. We popped a bottle of pink champagne and had a toast, so it really reminded us of our wedding in the park. Which was the best day ever.

Then we realised we hadn't eaten so went up ot our local bistro, very late, where Kei realised he was really drunk having drunk a combination of wine, beer, sake and champagne outside the 'Ladder and Plank'. I wasn't as I had sensibly declined anything besides white wine or champagne. So I squeezed in a couple of glasses of Californian Chardonnay, ensuring that, by the time I left the place, I was drunk.

So today I have a bit of a hangover, which is strangely comforting as at least I KNOW why I feel like shit, whereas all last week I felt like utter utter shite without knowing why. Besides that I am working late an awful lot at them moment and it is killing me. I have come to the decision that something has to go. ANd while it breaks my heart, I have to do it and prioritise the things in my life. And getting home at a reasonable hour and being able to eat dinner with my husband is one of those things. Ooh the sun just came out - nice. I slept in until 12 today. Kei is away for the day fishing. He asked me if I wanted to go, but I hate fishing. So does he, he revealed! But hopefull we'll have some nice fresh fish for dinner tonight.

Kei's gift to me yesterday. He wore the shoes I love to see him wear and he never usually wears. Always ask him to, but he never does. No big deal. But that he wore them was a very big deal and they look great. Light beige, suede Campers with dark blue jeans just look great.

"I see your present to me"
" What?"
"You are wearing the shoes I love. Thank you"
"You noticed! "
Smiles.

There was also a lovely bunch of flowers waiting for me when I got home.
Smiles.

The picture is of us on our honeymoon, dancing at teh 'Love Parade' in Budapest.

Happy Birthday to the Righteous Executive Pixie

Fabulous Friends on Friday Night
Originally uploaded by sigsy.

Today is a birthday
They're smoking cigars

On Japan

Today at school, the kids did an activity where they had to give hints to words in order to complete a crossword.

Overheard:

The word 'kitchen'

The hint 'mother'

For the record, the kid guessed correctly instantly.

Welcome to my world...

http://xkcd.com/c249.html

Queensland - the beginning

Well, i've been back nearly a week and I decided it was high time I just done gone and post up a bit. So, I arrived in Brisbane, on a plane that carried a large portion of the company I work for, as well as some former members of the crew. The flight was fine - I slept most of it.

EXCEPT I forgot to order a veggy meal. Gah! So annoying. I made the mistake of bringin this up to the cabin crew, in my ever -so-British, not-very-good-at bringing things up way. And I had sat and thought about it for about ten minutes, what approach to take. We established that there were no left over veggy meals and that there was no choice of meal, so they said they would try and put something together for me.

The crew got together and mustered up all their creative skill and served me...

Three bread rolls. And some salad. Someone call Jamie Oliver. Warn him. Stiff competition.

Breakfast was a sausage embedded deep in some bread. I nibbled the bread from around the sausage. It was disgusting.



A limo met us at the airport. Dude. That was cool.



We got to the hotel at 10 and we couldn't check in. By this time I had been wearing the same clothes for over 24 hours and was minging. We headed out to a shopping mall and had breakfast. I was so hungry and so desperate for something more than bread that I nearly ate grass. But I didn't. I had fresh squeezed juice and veggy treats. I was in heaven. Shops and shops and shops of clothes that fit and people who speak my language. A little too much at times, granted. But nonetheless I enjoyed the enthusiastic sales technique. An octave lower would have been nice.



Finally we hit the hotel, checked in and did dibs on who got in the shower first. I actually made noise. Like the floral essence adverts. Moaning with pleasure as I scrubbed away about thirty hours of pure ming. It was lush. I had a quick leg wax, a very bad manicure, a self pedicure, then set out to have dinner with the bride and groom and other folk.

Not before catching up with our dear friends - the Balstons. In the room next door - yay!
Lewis is great, pottering around, loving walking with help and all active and big. Carla and Gareth look well, but we miss them.













Then we headed out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant







Then after everyone had gone to bed, me Emi and Stosh hit the beach, armed with a few bottles of nice, cheap sparkling wine (can't go wrong with Ozzy wine) and hung out drinking and chatting.



This was a great highlight of the holiday getting to know the people I worked with better. It really was fun!

I'm Back, and I'm Bad

Well, my holiday was just lovely.

I saw a Blogger at the airport (Hello Lulu) but didn't say hello because it didn't seem like a good time. Sorry - next time I'll say hi!

The wedding was lovely - just lovely. The hotel was great. It was fab to catch up with the Balston-Bozzetto family, but heartbreaking to say goodbye.

I caught up with 2 sets of friends, one from Tokyo and one from UK.

The shops in Brisbane are full of hats, scarves and knitwear, because apparently there is a week sometime in August when the temperature plummets, and I do mean plummets, to below 20 degrees on some occassions. At this time Queenslanders can take no chances and must wrap up.

Brisbane is a lovely up and coming city, which very much has a "work in progress" feel about. The South Bank is great and the GOMA is just marvellous.

I left Brisbane at about 7 on Sunday morning and got home at about 8 on the evening. Not bad.

I left my home at about 7 on Monday morning and got home at about 9.30. Where's the logic? I could commute to Brisbane.

I have hardly stopped since I got back and won't stop for a while, so uploading my 2000+ pics and posting to Flickr will be a job to be done at the weekend.