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While I was out working, Ray had swimming lessons in Patio and the rest of my family enjoyed a picnic there followed by a stint at the in-law's place for the evening.
I arrived in Omiya with about 3 hours to spare before my meeting, so I did the touristy thing and went a-walkin' along new streets! Hurray!
Mere moments after I started walking, people were pushing free ice-cream in my face... Yeah... I can deal with this problem. And so, some very tasty mocha-almond-fudge ice-cream later, I was back to walking... until this Iranian guy shows up and pushes free MacDonald's fries in my face.
So, I figure it's lunch-time and chatted with the guy in Japanese. Turns out he's been here for about 20 years as a real-estate agent. Lamented that his boss looks unfavorably on foreigners trying to get loans for housing.
Walked on but as nobody tried to push free hamburgers on me, figured it was time to head out to the conference.
Arrived a bit on the early side hoping to talk to the presenters a bit before everything got started but had no luck with that.
Had good presentations on teaching global issues in the classroom and on marketing through social media. Yay!
After all was said and done, we went out for a few beers and had some more fun. Good times but I wish they'd scheduled their meeting for some Sunday that was NOT mother's day.
Well, made up for that on Tuesday when I cooked up the best spaghetti Katsuko had ever had. Woot! We ate it while watching Wall-E... a nice movie! Good times were had by all.... just don't tell my boss I wasn't working! 8)
---
Economy
Well, that was fast... last week I was bemoaning the BOJ money-printing and saying that nothing good could come out of that.... the nothing good has started arriving yesterday. Seems the BOJ has had its FIRST unsuccessful bond sale EVER. Too many bonds floating out there, anyone?
---
Fukushima
A couple days ago, there was report in the major newspapers stating that the JGov lied to the people about just about every number they put up since the beginning of the crisis to prevent wide-spread panic. Yeah... well, that's not surprising to anyone who reads this, I hope.
On the radio this morning, there was talk of people getting internal rad. checks at Fukushima Medical Hospital. Seems that an unpolitical number of them have internal cesium contamination. So, the hosiptal is telling them that it's because they eat too much of the local, contaminated food...
Same day... the newspaper tells me that our great leader Noda asked the Chinese and Korean leaders to please buy produce from Fukushima and 7 other banned prefectures... that they're completely safe now. Neither leader deigned to even acknowledge the moron had spoken.
TEPCO has stopped releasing data on the state of its reactors in English. Yeah... I'm sure it was because they want to cut costs or man-power time and definitely not at all that it's because that data gives way too much ammo for foreign analysts who actually LOOK and COMPARE and ANALYSE the numbers to root out falsehoods or alarming changes.
Speaking of alarming changes... TEPCO has a new director: an NHK announcer. Nah... that can't be politically motivated. Every utility seeks the professional advice of announcers to get new insights on engineering and power-grids and the like. Sure.
Further troublesome indicators: The Tokyo bus system will be running some serious red ink this year not because of any management changes or pricing problems but because TEPCO is not paying out a dividend. Yeah... looks like the whole system ran on dividend payments from TEPCO. For some reason, the bus system was the one that received all of the governments' TEPCO shares and the one benefiting from the dividends to make the operation LOOK like it was running in the black. Oops. another failure highlighted.
I have no idea what's going in Fukushima. There has been near-zero news lately. This is not to say that nothing important is happening... just that we don't hear about it.
Not worrying over circumstances of actions, because I recognize which actions are vital to me and I embrace whatever comes out of it. Yes, my face is a little burnt. I still bare it to the sun, albeit a little more cautiously. Yes, I went to have cocktails last night at 9:30 when I knew I wouldn't get adequate sleep and have to deal with walking at night through downtown by my lonesome.
Happiness is freedom from fear.
Happiness is music.
Happiness is not questioning how to approach someone I know, but approaching them first and being directly engaged, smiles and effortless small talk.
Happiness is going to dinner with a friend and speaking freely about everything.
- I feel:
cheerful
Last week I got a invitation: Come and see my boyfriend launch an undead owl from a cannon in Magic bar!
Generally I feel somewhat hesitant about indoor artillery, but as invitations go, it was quite tantalizing, so… The show was good fun and I had a lovely time, no pics sadly, when I watch a show, I watch a show, and after the show it might have been a case of too much cider and giggles…possibly some rum to… well…
Anyway; I would like to recommend the group in question Magikergränd for those in the Scandinavian countries(a lot of the fun comes from the gab and I’m not sure if they do their shows in English). At this event the performers where Arkadia the alchemist, Dr Cagliostro and Holger(the undead owl), and they had a quite steamy feel to them (plus Dr Cagliostro has a curiosity collection, and that never hurts…).
They do a fair amount of medieval~ish events as I understand it, so that is what you can see in most of their videos at Youtube (in Swedish), where you for example get to see how Holger became undead.
I’ve only seen one show with them, but I enjoyed it a lot, so if you are ever in the market for entertainers with a flare, in the nordic countries, you might want to check these guys out.
 |
| From Aetherfest 2012 |
( More pictures under the cut. )
Overall I'm fairly pleased with how it came out. The idea was to incorporate the punk attitude of the patches with a touch of elegance, and I think I achieved that. More more details on the construction of the corset, check out my blog.
Also, since I like to show off the Texas steampunk community, check out this great gallery of photos from Aetherfest.
Thanks,
Baroness Violet von Mickelsburg
Airship Octavia
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It's Wednesday, which means another installment of our new themed posts about Shakespeare and his extensive wordplay. We're delving into words the Bard is credited with coining - at least in as far as their current meanings are concerned!
And as I am literally leaving for the airport as soon as I hit "post", off to far-flung, far-off lands, it seems only fitting that today's Shakespearean Imagination word of the day should be:
luggage : lug·gage : \ˈlə-gij\ (n): something that is lugged; especially: suitcases for a traveler's belongings.
Synonyms: baggage - trunk - valise
The Oxford English Dictionary says that the word's meaning hasn't changed much since the 16th century; the original meaning denoted inconveniently heavy baggage.
First seen in Shakespeare's King Henry IV, Part I (written 1597-1598). The full text of the play may be found here.
Cheers until next week!
- Ubi:work
- I feel:
working - Audible:tick-tock typy-type
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Tomorrow: Off-campus meeting ILLITERAL.
Friday: Embassy doctor ILLITERAL.
Next Tuesday: Dentist ILLITERAL.
Some time around next week: Potentially other ILLITERAL.
In conclusion: ILLITERAL.
(I may be able to write here in bits and pieces anyway, but the beating second form of this particular Bureucracy Monster Boss I'm currently fighting requires many, many fetch quests.)
Crossposted from silmaril.dreamwidth.org. You can comment here or there.
My Uncle Tommy’s blood didn’t clot very well, a disease known as hemophilia, so blood pooled up in his joints. It ate away his cartilage. Near the end of his life, when he moved his elbow, you could hear the bones rubbing against each other whisper-thin, like two dry crackers ground together.
So he walked slow.
So I walked slow.
To this day, Gini tells me I amble glacially – because I’m used to quietly keeping Tommy’s pace, not wanting to upset him. Oh, I could have jogged on ahead; not that Tommy would have been devastated, as I was basically his son and he would have forgiven me the world.
But he had enough reminders that he was broken and frail. He didn’t need another one from me. So I crept at his pace, which only got slower as the years went by, and we passed the time as two humans.
This is what you do when you have a friend who’s disabled.
Let’s be blatantly honest and say that having disabled friends is often an inconvenience verging on annoyance. They can’t get up stairs. They cancel at the last minute because of unpredictable sicknesses. There’s more planning to be find the right restaurant because of their diet.
If you think it’s an inconvenience to you, imagine how it feels to them.
Every day, the world wakes up and punches your pals in the fucking face, telling them “Hey, you know all those things you want to do? You can’t.”
You can choose to be one of those blows. Or you can be understanding and loving and help them to live a better life.
It’s that fucking simple.
They live in a smaller world because of something they don’t have control over. I think a good friend will take that into account, and tread that fine line between “Yes, it’s an inconvenience and you may not always be able to come along” with a lot of love and understanding and bold attempts to make room for your friend because yes, they have a condition and it deserves to be accommodated whenever possible.
Because when you are that sick, you notice the way people cancel plans with you. The way they quietly stop inviting you to parties. The way you don’t defend them when other, healthier people, complain that they shouldn’t have to deal with your issues.
They’re sick, not stupid, and they feel their excision from your life as keenly as a cut. One more cut in a life filled with them.
I’m not saying I was saccharine-sweet to Tommy. I acknowledged the difficulty of his disabledness from time to time, because we were loving humans and that means being honest. But I never made a big deal about the way we had to get to concerts half an hour early so he could get to his seat, or how we had to stay an hour late because the crowds might bump him too hard.
Instead, I used that extra time to talk to him, companionably walking at his cane-pace, as friends. He must have noticed that his hyperactive teenaged nephew was walking slow.
But for a time, he had the ability to live his life as though nothing was wrong with him. And that was the greatest gift I could give him.
Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.
This entry has also been posted at http://theferrett.dreamwidth.org/212382.hhttp://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/a
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