Desperate Times

It's like when you download the Spice Girls or some other cheezy song that you hide from your friends but secretly adore, listening to your iPod when you think no one can hear you. Alas, I have downloaded BIlly's Boot Camp as part of my ongoing efforts to KILL THE COW WITHIN. I just looked at the video and I tell you, it looks like the incarnation of all that I hate in life. He's so fake and genki it's not even funny. But alas, his videos have taken this video by storm, and some of my students have lost weight or put on muscle weight.

And some of them look just damn hot in casual clothing...

Oh, I digress...

FAT BE GONE

At first there was denial. It's impossible for me to gain weight. But then my family camer over and lo and behold, I could not get into a pair of pants which I use to wear like crazy. And then there were the comments.

I shall not stand for this.

Sit-ups every half-hour or more while at home! No pigging out - or at least on the weekdays, anyhow. Much less carbs at night. More fucking sit-ups. And yes, I'm downloading (with much contempt) BIlly's Boot Camp. I tell you, I will be slim and Nubian in those pants if it is the last thing I do. I'm going to kill the cow within!

車屋

Saturday night after work last week my godmother and I had dinner at this place called Kurumaya. Clad in kimonos, we were waited on hand and foot right from when we were seated. My godmother was served sashimi on a block of ice. I ate a fish which was cooked whole. It was rather savoury. And as soon as we finished one plate, the next one was brought to us.

I don't think I ever ate so well in my life. And when we left, we were evn walked out beyond the door until the front porch.

It just further emphasizes how I need to marry up.

The Arrival of the Fam

On Tuesday, July 24th, Catherine, my mother and Lise decided to take a trip to the Orient to see long-lost me. We went everywhere and did everything. But the emphasis was on the quality time we spent together. Scaring the shits out of my mother, causing her eyes to almost fall out of her sockets, waving her hands in a fashion that would not deter any expected intruder. Going to karaoke and causing my whole family to cry because I was speaking Japanese. Watching Harry Potter 5. Going to the fireworks with the only person who can sustain 45 minutes of sustained speed-walking and running.

Unfortunately the imouto and the haha are gone now, and soon LIse will be, too. I'll have this house all to myself, and while I am, in a perverse sort of way, looking forward to being alone for a bit, it will be really lonely. It has been hard enough to be without my family for 6 months, and to say that I won't see them for a little less than a year again after this is heartbreaking.

But we did have a lot of good times.

韓国 Kankoku Korea

I'm tired. Korea was great.

Last Thursday, Eri, Lise, and I boarded Asiana flight 101 to Incheon to begin what would become a week stretch of absolute craziness. Maybe it was the cheap abundance of food that made the trip so good. Maybe it was the onsluaght of free sidedishes that come standard with a Korean meal. Maybe it was meeting up with Nam for three nights of absolute craziness. Maybe it was getting free drinks thanks to Eri and then walking away with the bartender's glasses so Eri can puke while Nam defends her honor so we can eventually get back to the cheap hole-in-the-wall, me carrying our drunken damsel in distress half of the way there. Maybe it was the tons of shopping in which each item bought was negotiated, one involving rock-paper-scissors.

Needless to say, it was quite the trip of a lifetime. Never in my life have I lived through such a pell-mell sequence of experiences. Korea is abosulutely chaotic, daunting, and at times dirty. But thanks to Nam, we got through it just fine. And we got a tan, too!

I'll spare you the details of the three-day constipation, however.