I realized yesterday that almost exactly a month has passed since my last post on this blog, and wondered how and why the time had gone in...and where? Always under time pressure, I have nevertheless been able to make the time to write at least once a week.
'It's therapy, like, you know...' So this post is long overdue, but it's also time-limited: I've given myself 30 minutes between chores, paid work (teaching prep), and real work (academic writing) to try to catch up before Christmas—as low-key as this festival is in Japan, for families at least.
First, because most recent—Last In, First Out— the
zarigani (crayfish) on the left. This is the close-to-'last man standing'—there's one other in a different tank, but I think that he'll go first—of the collection of 14 or 15 crayfish that Julian was given by a teacher at Seán's school, and which muggins here has had the job of feeding and cleaning for several weeks now (since the end of September, I think). Same goes for the fish in another tank upstairs. In more anthropomorphic moments, I feel sorry for this creature in its solitary confinement, with only an algaed rock for company; but who's to say that he's (she's/it's?) not happy as Larry in the best of all possible worlds, or even that happiness is relevant to crustaceans' lives. Pangloss (or Larry) is a good name for him/her/it, though...
To other things domestic. Except for the usual round of colds and minor infections, we're all doing well here, enjoying the most beautiful time of year on Rokko mountain: the air is clear, the views are exceptional, there's little precipitation—though we had a dusting of snow last week, and as the leaves change and fall, can look forward to the ski season: this year, perhaps, Julian will make as much progress as Sean did last January. In spite of all the inconvenience of living so far from the railway station—see, I'm turning Japanese by even admitting this—this year on the mountain has been unique and rewarding one, and I'll be sorry to come down...
My teaching at Kobe College is also drawing to an end: another source of regret to me, though likely one of tremendous relief to my students: it is awfully hard to listen to
anyone for 90 minutes straight (a systemic fault of the Japanese university system, which somehow must believe—if systems can have beliefs attributed to them—that students' attention span can be usefully extended beyond 35 minutes) but it is a real trial to listen to someone lecturing in a foreign language for that length of time, when there isn't even a text book to hold on to. Life is hard, as I tell them. One of the things that I'll miss most about the Okadayama campus are its trees, which are some of the most beautiful I've ever seen growing on university property: here are two autumn pictures taken last week:
As usual, time constraints prevent me from writing properly about the most important subjects: the children. But pictures can reveal a lot. So here are some, with commentary. A general point: understanding my children is for me one of the most bewildering problems in my addled life (or should that be
adult? or is it just an alternate spelling?). I
think—though I'm too closely involved to be a good judge, and too old to know their minds—that each is growing well, enjoying their lives, and discovering new things and new perspectives.
Objectively, I
know that Justin is doing really well because that's what the doctors tell us (though he has yet to stand or crawl properly): he is certainly growing well, and passing developmental milestones at his own pace, and seems to be the happiest of all of us (not, I'm pleased to say, in any muted or overly passive way, but in an open, curious manner). As for Seán and Julian, they both appear to be doing well, and to be content—just as long as they don't spend too much time in close proximity. But maybe that's normal for boys. I can't tell, not having had a brother, and Ayumi doesn't know either. So, here are a couple of ironic and remarkable pictures, in which (i) they both are in the same photo looking at the camera—a new and welcome attitude from Julian who didn't let me take his picture at all until recently; (ii), they appear to like each other. Perhaps this is what they'll remember when they grow up—a beautiful distortion of the daily struggle for dominance and attention...
This morning, as I was trying to get everyone ready for school/nursery, having already taken Ayumi to the cable station, the older boys were watching a programme on
Discovery about parallel universes and other realities. (Breakfast tv needn't be dumb!) First, a cosmologist talked about the mathematical possibility of finding identical copies of oneself somewhere trillions of light years away, but closer to us than infinity by another impossibly large order of magnitude. Then, it was explained to us that even if other "us"es existed, we could never reach them if the universe is ever-expanding. What wasn't adequately explained to us
why we would ever want to meet identical "us"es, in any case). But following this, we had the quantum mechanical alternative: what we call reality is just one of an infinite number of present parallel universes. Heady stuff this, before the 8am watershed. Anyway, the reason for bringing this up is partly related to the reason for my non-posting: I had got into a rut, my reality—or at least my perspective on it—had seized up for a while. So this is, hopefully—in both senses of the word—the beginning of a new
prospective perspective (just in time for New Year!)
PS. Only a real old-school journalist would believe that I kept to my 30 minute deadline on this piece.
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| View of Kobe (Port Island) from Rokko Mountain: December 2011 |
Objectively, I know that Justin is doing really well because that's what the doctors tell us (though he has yet to stand or crawl properly): he is certainly growing well, and passing developmental milestones at his own pace, and seems to be the happiest of all of us (not, I'm pleased to say, in any muted or overly passive way, but in an open, curious manner). As for Seán and Julian, they both appear to be doing well, and to be content—just as long as they don't spend too much time in close proximity. But maybe that's normal for boys. I can't tell, not having had a brother, and Ayumi doesn't know either. So, here are a couple of ironic and remarkable pictures, in which (i) they both are in the same photo looking at the camera—a new and welcome attitude from Julian who didn't let me take his picture at all until recently; (ii), they appear to like each other. Perhaps this is what they'll remember when they grow up—a beautiful distortion of the daily struggle for dominance and attention...
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