not a pool queen after all

a girls' pool tournament was organised for us who don't take it as seriously as the guys. and it was fun! there were four groups of four and whoever won the most games there went on to the semi-final, etc. i hadn't played pool in well over a month and my foot injury had thwarted my Wednesday practice plans... i had about 5 mns practice before actually playing. the practice was great, the first game a disaster. the second game, whilst a little better, i still lost, and the third, where i really got into gear, was against the strongest in the group, so that was me out...

nonetheless, it was great. such a contrast from the guys' tournament, where everyone is so serious and people get really pissed off for having missed a shot. we were all kind of helping our adversaries play if they had no clue. i'm glad i went!

funny

so, apparently, the Iranian president recently said, 'there are no homosexuals in my country.' this makes me laugh. let's face it, even if you wanted to believe it, what are the odds of there not being one single gay person in a whole country? and we're not talking Monaco here, but a hell of a lot of square kilometres...

and just tonight, i saw images of gay boys being hanged in Iran. no gays in Iran, heh? does he know what goes on in his country?

kung-fu style

as my Japanese class seems to have folded, i saw the perfect opportunity to take up kung-fu again. i'd been waiting for this for 7 years, so it was kind of a now or never thing. so off i went to my first introduction class. and boy did i regret it. let me explain.

the first ten minutes were warm-ups. as they should be. but hell for me, when all the exercise i've had the last 3 years is swimming. suddenly, i was asked to do push-ups and sit-ups. not my thing. in fact, i'm totally useless at both, although i did better at sit-ups. i've never understood the point of push-ups... so for those ten minutes, i wondered why oh why i'd decided to do this. i really, really did. but then, luckily, things looked brighter as we went into kicking practice. that was great and that i hadn't lost. my delivery was probably a little off, but otherwise good.

and so i happily went through the motions, getting rid of pent-up energy and basically enjoying myself. yeah! it was great. until we got to the part of the lesson where we started using padded bags to kick at. that's when it happened. not as i kicked, but as i put my foot back down. instead of keeping my weight on the other foot, i decided to put down that one and balance the weight equally between the two. big mistake. especially as the place i happened to put my foot down on was the place where two tatamis met, and therefore not actually a stable place. and there you go. one double-twisted ankle coming right up (it's happened before, i know how it feels).

to be fair, i thought i'd simply sprained it and continued the practice (although not with that foot, but that probably didn't help as that simply meant putting all my weight on it instead), drove home, and didn't think much about it. but then i couldn't really sleep because of the pain. and despite feeling better in the morning, i went all day without thinking about calling my physiotherapist - that's when i realised it was a little more than a sprain. and now, i'm in pain pain pain. and he's probably gonna tell me not to do any kind of sport for another 2-3 weeks (if i'm lucky), and probably never to touch kung-fu again, as it isn't the first time it's given me this kind of grief... but come on, it's not my fault my ankles are weak!

a day without Sarkozy

don't know if you've noticed, but the French president, Mr. Sarkozy, is everywhere. in one day, he will have been to 4-5 places around the country and sometimes out of it. he's everywhere in the media too. all the time. Sarkozy shaking hands with farmers down south, with people on a market up north, in Paris for lunch with a minister, somewhere else in the afternoon... it's never-ending. and so i wonder, does he ever get anything done? and if so, when??

anyway, people are getting just a little tired of seeing him in all the papers, in the news, on TV, etc, so someone's suggested a day without him in the media. can't remember if it's supposed to be the 30th of October or November, but i'm glad someone's gone through the trouble cos i'm personally getting a little fed up with seeing him...

4 years

today, my mother has been dead for 4 years. i miss her. i wish she was still here with me. she was an amazing woman. my hero. i hope i'll be like her one day.

what happened to gentlemen?

i know a few, which is not bad at all, when you think about it. men who will open doors for you and be polite when you're around. sure, when you're not, they do lots of stuff i don't want to know about, but as i'm not around, it's fine. as long as when i'm there, they behave (or at least try to).

now, some guys talk bullshit all the time. it can be mildly amusing at times, but definitely not when they're drinking. we were out celebrating a friend's birthday the other night, and i felt the conversation had gone way past it's 'appropriate' stage about an hour before i left. and apparently, it degenerated quite a bit after i left (sorry T.!).

usually, it's not so much the topic that i find annoying, but the way some men start referring to women. generally with a total lack of respect. i do not need to know how many women someone's slept with recently, nor who's next on the list, for example.

all i want to say is: in your own time guys, not when there are some of us around. and i don't care that we're in the 21st century. some things from the past should definitely be kept.

people don't change

well, it's not entirely true of course. they change all the time, find new interests, decide some things are worth/not worth it, make new friends, lose old ones, etc. what i mean is, some things are ingrained in you and it's very, very hard to change them.

one of my friends dated a guy who, it turned out, used to get angry a lot about the silliest things. when it got to a bad stage, she told him he needed professional help and left him. so he went to see a therapist and came out of that a lot more relaxed and easy-going, so they ended up back together.

i was very impressed. i didn't think people could change, and here this guy was proving me wrong. it gave me hope. until, admittedly after quite some time, the guy went back to his old habits. so i too, have come back to my original position: people don't change. or at least, not forever. at some point, they're bound to go back to the way they were because not being that way takes a huge amount of effort, and let's face it, everyone gets tired of trying hard all the time...

ruby wedding

my parents would have celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary today, if my mother hadn't died.

RWC - 2

i missed the first period of the Wales-Australia game, but the second part was pretty good. from an apparently low start, Wales got fired up after half-time and there was some pretty good stuff going on on the pitch. and i think a score of 20-32 is more than respectable when you're playing against a strong team like Australia. so well done boys! keep it up!

the interview

i recently applied for a job. i already have one, but this sounded interesting: "we're looking for a native Japanese speaker or someone interested in Japan to represent our company in Geneva". not a hell of a lot of information there. but i thought, what the hell. could be interesting.

i got a reply, and we finally managed to have a phone interview over the net. it was all the stranger for his connection being really bad and my having to ask him to repeat everything several times. some stuff i just never got cos i felt so embarrassed (for him). but this was me calling him after 2 failed attempts over the previous weeks, i.e., he never called.

and then we met this afternoon. i thought he was coming all the way down from Belgium, where he's based, but he was actually already in Geneva. and he was 15mns late, which was no big deal, but when you add it all up, it starts to be a bit too much. i mean, he also asked me questions, both over the phone and in person, that he already had answers to (or would have had if he'd read my CV and cover letter thoroughly), and this one question was hilarious: after we'd already established that i lived across the border from Geneva and came into Geneva every day for work, he says "so, you're based in south-western France, right?". uh... no.

so, whilst the job could still be interesting (it's freelance, though, and may or may not lead to much in the end), there seems to be quite a lot of disorganisation going on, and i'm wondering if i really want to work with that...

feet across

me and some guy in the train back from Utsunomiya.

RWC - 1

the rugby world cup started on Friday night. France-Argentina. France lost. i was rooting for them, but what the hell.

then yesterday, New-Zealand-Italy. that was going to be an awesome game. the Haka impressive as always, the Italian team refusing to watch. maybe they should have. they were slaughtered. i usually dislike games where one team is obviously much stronger than the other, but this game was smooth. the NZ game was superb, rehearsed movements flowing against the Italian defense. and it wasn't that the Italians were playing badly. they were doing pretty well. they just got overpowered every time the Kiwis got the ball. the first try was scored in the first minute. 4 tries within 20 minutes. some tries were sheer luck, where no-one was paying much attention or thought there'd been a foul or something. the end score was terrible for the Italians, but they gave us a great show in the second period, which even made some people worried, i'm sure, despite the obvious impossibility of the Italians evening the score.

apparently (F1 is obviously more important than the RWC on my tv), Wales is currently leading Canada, although they don't seem to be playing all that well. let's hope they get going and win!

who's sick?

my father and i fell ill on the same day, about 10 days ago. we live 800km apart, so i thought it was a funny coincidence. at the beginning of this week, though, i felt so bad i actually went to the doctor's, who gave me a week off work. i'm not feeling on top of things yet, but hopefully will by Monday... in the meantime, i had my blood checked, and some of those numbers are through the roof! i have next to no iron in my blood, among other things. the rest is mostly due to being sick right now, so despite the bizarre figures (one thing should be between 6 and 10, but i have 33!), it seems i'm otherwise fine. i do hope the iron deficiency is the reason for my long and frequent illnesses this year...

my father, on the other hand, decided to go for pneumonia and was thus taken to hospital yesterday. there's also something else that's wrong, but the doctors can't seem to figure out what. they did 3 hrs of tests yesterday, to no avail. let's hope they find out what it is...

Takemi's is dead, long live... a crepe shop??

my favourite bar in Japan has closed down. i don't know when it happened exactly. last year, it was still there and i'd been looking forward to having another one of it's famous Irish Coffees this time around. i hate whisky, and i'm not actually that fond of Irish Coffee, but that guy knew how to make the cream just right and that was completely worth the Y900 it cost. the bar itself was tiny, could only sit a maximum of 7 people, which made it nice and cosy. that, and it played old jazz. all of these things made it the best place on earth to spend the late hours of the night, or any other time, really.

i'd first set foot at Takemi's at 18. i had no idea, in those days, that the legal age for drinking alcohol in Japan was 20, but i don't think anyone would have guessed i wasn't legal. on top of that, i was obviously a foreigner on holiday, so there wasn't much harm done. we usually ended up in the bar after having been to another 3, and it was usually around 3-4am when we got there. some of the best hours of my life. i have no idea how Takemi, the owner, made a living, seen as i seriously doubt the 20 or so customers who came in every night could possibly make up for the rent of a prime spot in China Town. but he seemed content and so were we.

so it came as a huge shock when i got the the place last month and saw it was empty. for a moment, i wondered if i'd got the wrong street, the wrong corner. the wrong Takemi's? but no. the place was too small to have been anything else, and i could see the marks the removed furniture had made on the floor and walls alike. the bar had stood there, the improbable lights had hung there... and on the side of the building were the names of the other bars in the building. up on the 5th floor was bar number 3, The Tavern. it was the right place. and just in case i still doubted, the blue Takemi's & Amigos sign was still painted on the door.

so there it was, the end of an era. and this place is being replaced by a crepe shop. a crepe shop! in China Town? is it just me or is the point of China Town to cater customers with all things Chinese? how are pancakes even remotely Chinese? what a sacrilege...

the Archaeologist's adventures - part 5

the Archaeologist was terribly sick. the illness had crept up slowly, then laid low for a while, but suddenly attacked with renewed vigor. like it meant it. and a sleepless night was a very good sign that it meant it. so the Archaeologist called in sick, went to the doctor's, got a week off work and called the site director to confirm she wouldn't be digging all week. the site director's first question was: 'who did you snog, then? not the supervisor, i hope. i wouldn't snog him. he's not here anyway, but really, don't snog him.' the Archaeologist assured the SD that no, she hadn't snogged anyone, was genuinely sick and that it had nothing to do with anyone else who might be on site or not. in case the SD didn't get it, she pipped in that the results of the blood tests would only come in the following evening. 'blood test? what for? sounds like a nose cold to me.' yeah, whatever.

letters

A., N., B., F., D., M., M., Y., Y., D., J., U., F., E.