Deprived Boston sports fan

In memory of a dear friend

2008-10-31T09:33:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've been trying to cope with the loss of a dear friend of mine. With respect to privacy for her family, I shall keep her full name anonymous here.

I met her in November of 2007. It was another new start for me at another recruitment company and I was still getting my feet wet trying to get adjusted to the new atmosphere. I met a new consultant there, who became my friend and whom I felt a very strong connection to. We were working on a project in the office while we waited for accounts to become active in order for us to be dispatched to different clients. It was very tedious work for the first month, and the atmosphere in the office was always prickly, but one thing that always helped was seeing the warm smile of my friend each day at work. It was one of those smiles that really warmed up any room and drew me in.

As I got to know her, I found out that she was married, well-off financially to the point that she didn't need to work for salary, yet she really busted her ass off at work day in and day out. She would arrive at work every morning from 8:30am and leave work no earlier than 8pm. She would sometimes work all the way until 11pm, trying to finish some proposals to be finalized for business deals the next day. She wasn't paid much, but it never seemed to matter to my friend. All she ever wanted was recognition and acceptance from us. "You're doing an amazing job!" "I've never seen anyone work so hard like you before." "You are a very important part of our team!"

Comments like those always seemed to take her smile and warmth to the next level. It seemed like she truly felt alive whenever she felt appreciated for all the hard work she had done. She took so much pride into her work, it may have been a bit extreme.

One time, when she was working onsite at a client, she left the company suddenly. Nobody knew what had happened and I was very worried for my friend. I called her at 11pm one night, just to say hi and ask if she was ok. She told me that she felt betrayed at work somehow, but couldn't really put her finger on any specific moment. She told me that she had a traumatic experience before and it somehow was triggered. She felt so guilty and ashamed, that she really was afraid of what our boss would say. I convinced her to come back and let her know that everything is forgiven and that we truly needed her. She ultimately did come back and things were back to normal for a while.

Some time later, I had to leave the company and she came in to replace my role at the client site. After a few months, I came back to Japan and visited my friend to see how she was doing. When I met her again, she seemed very comfortable and brimmed with confidence. She still had the same smile, the same warmth about her, but this time she also seemed to have an aura of secureness. She was in a great situation and I was so proud of her. I really felt like she was going to do well.

Several months pass and I received the biggest shock of my life. I discovered that my dear friend had passed away.

Business was not going so well at the client site and people were being let go as a result. There was a lot of confusion and my ex-colleagues were now struggling. It was during that time that my dear friend made the choice, to take her own life...

Mere words cannot possibly describe the anguish that I feel now. Her passing was so sudden and then there were signs indicating that her emotional state was unstable and required medication. There were also signs indicating the possibility of her husband being abusive and he would not even allow us to send flowers to her grave. He wouldn't even give us the location or address.

I am so mortified by these turn of events that I feel like I could cry at any given moment. We will never see her smile again, never be able to feel her warmth, and most tragically, I'll never be able to tell her how proud I am of her. I feel so guilty of not staying in touch with her during her darkest hour, when she needed a friend to help her during her time of need. I realize now, too late, that her zealous work ethic was really a cry for help.

I can only find a little solace in knowing that she can no longer feel pain now. She has finally exorcised her inner demons and has found peace for her soul. The only thing that I can do now is to carry on her memory and let her spirit live on inside my soul.

I am going to create a foundation in her name. I don't ever want to see anyone suffer the same fate that my dear friend went through.

Suna, may your soul rest in peace and your spirit live on forever.

Your devoted friend,

Jason Louie

Operation: Stranglehold

2008-07-19T16:48:00.000-07:00

Well, it's about time for another post. Sorry for the delay guys (and gals if any are actually reading this flaming blog). Anyways, try as I might, I can't seem to stop myself from venting my gripes and complaints here. So, rather than trying to fight it, I'm going to embrace the dark side and let it flow through my fingers as they type.

First off, the title of this post is a plan that my friend at work came up with and I named it as Operation: Stranglehold. Basically, our company is yet again, totally being mismanaged with idiotic management. Not only that, but our company is clearly ripping us off by penalizing us with something called a desk tax. The company is losing money, no, BLEEDING money due to unpaid invoices from clients on the IT sales side. My group, the HR recruiting arm, was originally meant to be a minor, secondary means of revenue. Now, it's become the main money maker of the company.

There's only one solution to this problem. Make as money as possible so that we will run the program as we see fit. Currently, as it stands, the more placements we make as a team, the more value we place ourselves in. Eventually, we will come to the point where we can essentially become untouchable from the idiotic powers that be. It'll become a stranglehold.

Back on the wagon...

2008-03-11T07:45:00.000-07:00

Every time I hear this phrase, I always think about the poor soul who faces his/her demons of addiction only to regress. Alcoholism, drug-abuse, gambling, bad boyfriends/girlfriends, we all have at least one evil addiction that pulls us back in for whatever reason.

Well, thanks to those bastards at Blizzard who created the Warcraft series, I'm now back on the wagon of MMORPGs. (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) Just so that you know, I was once the guy who would lock himself in his room eating leftover stuff and drinking large quantities of coffee while playing EQ. I averaged about 4 hours of Evercrack each day and woke up bleary-eyed to work every morning. And believe it or not, I was only minorly addicted, as some of my friends averaged 14 hours a day. I finally quit Everquest, cold turkey, one day. I cancelled my payments, deleted my characters which I had invested countless hours and days developing, and didn't look back. It wasn't that I was bored with the game, just that I realized that there were better things to do instead of logging on.

Now? I'm happily married, living halfway around the world from my hometown...and I back on the friggin' wagon again with WoW. Well, I guess since I'm unemployed at the moment and biding my time until I get hired at a job, it will help pass the time.

Then again, I did read where marriages have been ruined by going down this road...

Becoming reacquainted with American life...

2008-02-29T11:33:00.000-08:00

Four and half years...and counting. I've lived in Japan for about four and a half years and I'm amazed at how foreign I feel having visited Boston since. Long story short, my wife and I feel that it's time to make moves to a new life and new careers. I have nothing against Japan, in fact, I really feel like my maturity and development as a person and professional have grown exponentially. Having said that however, my career potential has some serious limitations should I stay in Japan at my current job situation.

And so, New York is the place that we are looking to settle down in as well as getting the career goals that my wife and I are hoping to achieve. Having stayed in Boston and New York now for the past month, it's amazing to note how many things I miss about Japan and how many things I took for granted in the US.

One of the biggest surprises to me is the response that I've been receiving in the job market. In a span of about 3 weeks, I have received 2 job offers, which I have had to turn down. Had I tried job searching in Japan, the first thing that all interviewers are quick to point out is the fact that I've changed my job more than twice. It's quite a different experience because my confidence was shattered thanks to interviewers using my job changing as an indicator of my lack of character and loyalty. In the US? The interviewers I've spoken to have been scared that they couldn't offer me enough salary (which was true) and that I could become bored with their roles.

I know that if I keep searching, I'll come across the right job for me, one that won't be involved in HR anymore, hopefully. Seeing the field is starting to give me back the confidence that I need and I really can't say enough about the support I've received from everyone involved, especially the headhunters that I've spoken to.

I just hope that I can give everyone a result that they would be satisfied with.

Y'all must've forgot...

2007-09-10T03:26:00.000-07:00

Those were the lyrics of a rap song sung by Roy Jones Jr. himself. Although the song meant that he could still dominate the competition in the boxing world, the actual fight that came after kinda made us forget about him as a contender. Well, that song didn't quite work out for him.

In Randy Moss' case however, that song really fit his performance to a tee after reading about his performance in the game against the Jets. I mean, wow! I really boils down to one thing, the Raiders were really that bad. Of course, it's only one game this season so far...

One thing that I will truly miss this season, seeing coaching rants. The last truly great coach tirade came from Denny Green with his "they were...who WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!!!" rant. I don't think we'll ever see another classic like that one, unless good ol' Herm Edwards comes up with something. Some personal favorites:

"Playoffs!? We're just trying to to win one game! PLAYOFFS?!?!?!?!?!" - Jim Mora
"What do you think about your team's execution?" - reporter asking the Tampa Bay coach
"I'm all for it!" - Tampa Bay coach
"We didn't do diddly poo!" - Jim Mora (will have to check on this, I think it's was from his Saint's days)
"WE PLAYYYYY TO WINNN THE GAMMME!!! HELLO?!" - Herm Edwards (it's up to you now Herm!)

Realization

2007-09-09T03:21:00.000-07:00

The moment I returned to the headhunting business after a successful stint in onsite recruiting at a bank, I realized that the headhunting business just isn't, well...me.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and I realize now that the root of all my troubles wasn't really about the crazy people I worked in the past 2 companies, nor was it about bad management. The real problem is myself.

You see, the main reason why I decided to get into headhunting was to make enough money to support me and Akane. That very same reason is also why I'm not fit to be a headhunter in the first place. The key phrase here is "to make enough money". When considering a career in executive search recruitment, in order to be successful, you can't be thinking about making just enough money. To be a successful headhunter, one has to continually push themselves in order to make money, therefore, such thoughts are not only meaningless, they are also anti-productive.

Let's imagine that a chef who has created a masterpiece of a dish. Can that chef truly be successful if he says to himself "This dish is great, I don't need to create another one for a while." Or how about a certain wide receiver who admits to "taking plays off every now then when running routes?" In those two instances, they won't be successful. Randy Moss has seen successful years while in Minnesota, but overall, Marvin Harrison has achieved much more through his consistency.

For the headhunter, if you stop yourself short and if money is not the most important goal in life, the odds are stacked against you. That's where I find myself now. I've discovered that, to me, money is not everything. Happiness is my ideal version of success. I don't need 200 grand usd per year. If I make 100 grand we'll be fine.

When I worked in the bank for the past few months, I was extremely happy. Akane saw it too. Everything was good again. And then I it was over and I find myself back to headhunting again. Things are bad again.

So it's settled. I'm looking to settle in the finance industry and hope to leave the headhunting business for good. Happiness is not worth sacrificing for the sake of money. Though I say that I haven't been happy doing headhunting, I don't regret anything.

If it weren't for the first headhunting company, I wouldn't have been able to make some truly great friends who will support me through thick and thin.

If it weren't for the second headhunting company, I wouldn't have been able to learn about financial markets and would never have known how interesting that field really is.

If it weren't for my current employer, I never would've had the chance to work at a bank with some truly remarkable people and most importantly, realize what it is exactly that I want to do for a career. If I can just somehow get hired by a bank, I will be extremely satisfied.

Jason takes Manhattan?

2007-09-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, that's a terrible pun, I admit, but there is a very good chance that I will be moving to NYC within the next few years.

How it started was that my wife had been thinking about moving to the states with me for quite sometime, but the outlook in my opinion wasn't really good enough to make me confident in that move. She was thinking that LA would be the best choice and really didn't want to go east considering all the cold weather. I have nothing against LA, it's just that my job prospects don't really look that good there in comparison to NY. At the same time, my wife is really scared of extreme cold weather so I'd have to factor that into consideration.

All that changed once she met up with an old friend of hers who had lived in NY for 2 years. After hearing about all the positive aspects of the big apple, she suddenly had a change of heart and started to become interested. When she told me about her plan, I was at first apprehensive because I didn't have enough time to digest what had just happened.

Several minutes go by and immediately I became excited. Investment banks have made NY their home and that industry is absolutely the one area that I would like to stay in. Having done some searching for jobs in that area, it quickly became apparent that, YES, we CAN do this!

I, for one, am extremely psyched over this. It's not that I don't enjoy Japan, rather, it's really the only place where I have been able to become an independent man and grow as a person. However, if I really want to make that next leap for a truly rewarding career, my chances are much higher in NY. Afterall, I'm still trying to shake off the whole english teacher/headhunter image and it looks like it's a completely uphill battle. Not impossible mind you, just extremely difficult.

Though Japan has been great for me, I've also begun to truly miss certain things that only the US can bring. Thanksgiving dinners with family and friends, NBA, NFL, MLB, cheaper food, more variety in supermarkets, driving, being able to play basketball and tennis free of charge (or at least less than 25 bucks per hour), xmas and new years. All of these things were taken for granted by me and I realize how much I truly miss them all.

Realistically, this idea is at 75% chance of turning into reality. My wife has another 2.5 years of grad school left and my job prospects won't be good until after a couple more years of experience in the investment banking industry. I really do hope it becomes a reality in the near future though.

Time's up...

2007-08-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

*Well, my work at the investment bank will come to an end next week as everything is now running smoothly on the hiring front. Although part of me is really sad to leave this workplace, as I've made a few new friends and the work is satisfying for me, another part of me is really excited to move on to the next project. No matter. I'll have another chance at working under the same circumstances on a permanent basis. I just have to wait...

*Switching gears, I'm currently enrolled into 2 fantasy leagues right now for fantasy football. Now, I'm by no means an expert on fantasy football. I started playing about 3 years ago when my buddies back home signed me up and I've been hooked on it ever since. So, when I got invited to join another league through my friends in Japan, I just couldn't pass it up. Only thing is, I found myself being extremely bored at the new league I joined.

A couple of things killed it for me.
1. The draft started way too early.
2. The draft was on auto pilot.

The draft literally took place about 2 or 3 weeks ago. Who knows what could happen to players during that time? Could you imagine if some poor sap ended up picking Mike Vick via autodraft, only to realize that he's now out of football after 2 weeks have passed?

Secondly, autodrafting. I don't have a problem with saving time in a draft and that's what autopick does. The only problem is, our league's so quiet right now. Nobody's trash talking, no ribbing, nobody's busting chops, nothing. It's boring! I know these guys from working with them previously and they're funny as hell face to face, but it's too damn quiet in the league. I blame this on the autodraft.

Live drafting, even if it's only online, plays an important part in breaking the ice. I ended up going to work late this morning to participate in the draft process for the hometown league and it was much better. We were bustin' each other's chops, egging people on, trash talking, and just cutting loose in general. Anyway, tons of laughs, and now I'm excited for the season since it starts next week. I don't have to wait 3 weeks.

*The debate: Kobe beef versus Yamagata beef.
I've tried Kobe beef in the form of a steak cut from the thigh area. Now, I'm told that the thigh area is usually not the tender part of a cow, but it is hearty. When I tried the Kobe beef version of the thigh, it was tender and hearty, which made for a nice combination.

On the other hand, I've also tried Yamagata beef in the form of a steak strip at a yakiniku restaurant. Maybe it was a different cut, I could've sworn that the Yamagata beef was hands down, the best beef I've ever had. Period.

Before I can give the final judgement, I'd really like to try them both again, this time prepared similar to each other so that it can be analyzed fairly. Gotta make that commission to afford this next chance however...

A complete reversal...

2007-06-26T04:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I can finally comment on my job situation now:

-First off, I am finally no longer unemployed after being cut by my now former company.
No bitterness in that really, I just didn't really care at that point. The one thing that really burned me about it though was how they treated the aftermath. Considering that they really made me jump through hoops to collect my severance pay and then when I finally had to get the Japanese government involved and got paid, my former colleague had the nerve to say that I "ran to mommy and daddy" over this.

-Well, funny thing happened after that. As I went for interview after interview after interview, I finally chose a company that was the right fit. In fact, ironically, I'm the direct client contact of my former employer! Imagine the smile on my face when I received that one email from the "mommy and daddy" guy. "Gee...if I ran to my mommy and daddy, that means I ran to your granny and grand-daddy considering..." Well, you know how my thoughts would finish there...

-My money issue appears to have been solved since my fatter paycheck. Now I can pay for my wife's tuition in full!

-I wrapped up Karate training camp this past weekend and it feels great. My body's in pain (due to food poisoning actually), but I still have the satisfaction of knowing that I finished a training camp.

That's it for now! Things are looking good at just the right time. I'm still married, still have my health (working on that), got a job that I actually like now, and getting paid more.

Over and out!

Warning: I'm not pulling any punches now...

2007-04-13T03:01:00.000-07:00

Alright everyone, please forgive me for I'm about to vent again. And this time, I'm not holding back on anything because I've already crossed the boiling point by a LOT.

First off, I feel like I'm seriously disrespected at work. I've been trying to come up with accurate ways to describe my plight and disrespect is probably the most accurate way to sum it up. This isn't your normal disrespect either. It's not like someone at work who snubs you or slights you. It's the kind where you feel like the entire office is constantly trying to peck at you. It's the kind of disrespect where by saving someone's face, you get rewarded by having people doubt your work ethic.

Well, I'm fucking disgusted and to tell the truth, I'm fucking tired of it.

I'm tired of putting myself in harm's way in order to protect my "teammate", only to have that "teammate" bad mouth me after that incident.

I'm fucking tired of always having to shoulder the responsibility of projects gone wrong when it wasn't even my fucking responsibility in the first place.

I'm really fucking tired of having my "friend" accuse me of slacking off when:
1. I'm in the office from 8:40am - 6:00pm every fucking work day
2. He comes in to work at 11am and leaves work at 5pm

Do I need to take that fucking shit from him? Where does he have the fucking gall to accuse me of slacking off when he doesn't even do shit half the time.

Why the fuck does my ex-teammate hate me so much when I saved that person's reputation by taking responsibility for THEIR fuckup?! Why the fuck does that ex-teammate still give me a look like I killed her dog in front of her face whenever I ask a question to one of my coworkers regarding a project when it doesn't even have to do with that ex-teammate in the fucking first place?

Why the fuck won't my manager give me credit whenever I do something productive, EVEN THOUGH SHE FUCKING ADMITTED THAT MY EX-TEAMMATE FUCKED UP OUR PROJECT?!?!

Why the fuck are there rumors circling around that half the fucking company is getting axed because the boss is pissed that a couple of people quit? Um...newsflash boss...they fucking quit because YOU screwed them! If you're trying to solve the problem, why don't you try looking in the fucking mirror, because you're the fucking problem!

You know what? Enough is enough! I'm tired of all this fucking bullshit at work. I'm tired of constantly being blamed for something I wasn't even asked to do.

...I'm working in fear of losing my job everyday now. I mean, I'm doing everything that they've asked me to do and I complete all the projects in the time given. There shouldn't be any reason why I'm in constant fear of losing my job. So why the hell is this happening to me? Why is it that by doing the right thing and admitting my own mistakes that the ungrateful person gets promoted while I take blame for that person's mistakes? Why is it that the ungrateful person can get what they want by complaining and bitching constantly instead of being a real professional by shutting up and doing the fucking work? Why is it that while I'm doing the fucking work and shutting up that I still get viewed as the weakest link in the company?

...I try to hide all of this from my wife to save her from all the anxiety and fear that I have. I'm keeping everything inside of me as best I can, but I feel like I'm being crushed from my own anger and disgust.

Anyway, to all my friends, this is what I've been going through. Don't worry about me, I'll learn from this experience and move on.

All hail Ikea!

2007-03-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

Ever since I've moved to Japan, I never had any good furniture. When I was in Osaka for 2.5 years, I remember watching tv while sitting on my futon or on the floor. Eating dinner meant sitting on the floor yet again and eating on the kotatsu (short table with a heating unit built-in). Once I moved to Tokyo, I inherited furniture and tons of other essential equipment from a good friend of mine (Mark, I'm forever in your debt!), but still, something was missing in my home. Even though I now possess a sofa, it's too soft for my taste and doesn't feel as comfortable as I would like.

Well, with the revelation that is Ikea, I now have a home that I can't wait to go back to. I won't go through too much detail for fear that this would turn into an advertisement for the franchise, but I will say this much: furnishing your home is not only affordable, it's damn cool!

The sofa that has forced me to sit on the floor to watch tv? No problem! I bought a cheap 2900 yen chair that is surprisingly extremely comfortable to lounge in. As I type this post now, my laptop is resting comfortable on my lap while I'm drinking tea and leaning back in a relaxed position. My feet resting on the aforementioned kotatsu makes the experience complete along with the tv facing me at just the right angle. I do require a tv stand however, since the tv's sitting on the floor, but I'll acquire that soon enough.

Now, at the risk of sounding like an Ikea Ad, I will say that the Ikea store itself is fantastic. There's a huge cafe/cafeteria inside that serves Swedish meatballs, slices of raw salmon, various kinds of pasta and soup, pies, and the best part, free refills on coffee and other drinks!

Food aside, the best part of the store is how they have various rooms setup with Ikea furniture that show how space can be maximized with the proper furnishings. I never would have realized that a 27 sq. meter room with lots of stuff inside could still feel like there's more than enough room through the use of useful furniture.

Buying the furniture is pretty simple enough, though assembling the furniture does require a bit of elbow grease. For a service charge, you could have the staff in Ikea put the furniture together for you, cost is about 1000 yen I think. But, you'd be better off building the furniture yourself at home since you could save at least 10 bucks. Plus, there's a sense of satisfaction in assembling a chair and then sitting on the work you've done.

In the face of so-called insurmountable odds...

2007-02-15T07:16:00.000-08:00

Before I begin this mini-rant, for those of you who work with me and are reading this, believe me, it's nothing personal.

I've come to realize that the negativity that goes around in the office has really taken its toll on mostly everyone, and up until recently, it really affected me. It just seems like most people are jaded in one form or another, and after hearing their plights I know that they all have justifiable reasons to be disgruntled.

Now, it's one thing to be disgruntled when ALL options have been exhausted and there's still no solution in sight. It's a completely different matter when people tell me that no matter what I do, I won't be able to find the solution at the current place, without even trying. THAT, my friends, is giving up before doing anything.

I almost did that. I came about thisclose from giving up and throwing in the towel and basically just running away from my problems. But, people are better than that!

After calmly assessing my situation, I realized that I really haven't done anything. Sure, my rank has been "lowered" to assistant-like status, but I hadn't even begun to take matters into my own hands to improve on this.

After a short conversation with my boss, I put forth my convictions and threw away my fear of retribution. I told him flatly and directly that I really want to take measures to achieve the next step in my professional career and do whatever it takes to get there.

A funny thing happened after that. I fully expected him to refuse my proposal, since my colleagues gave me the sense that he would do that. Instead, he's giving me the chance to do it now and gave me the answer I really wanted.

Whoever is reading, don't ever let anyone talk you out of trying. I know my colleagues were just trying to help by keeping my expectations at a realistic level, but they've also unintentionally tried to make a coward out of me. "It's not about how hard you can hit. It's about how hard you can GET hit, and keep moving forward." So remember folks, before you throw in the towel and give up on something, you owe it to yourself to at least try. If you go down, at least go down swinging so you'll never regret it!

Investment portfolio for $150 per month?

2007-02-10T19:42:00.000-08:00

-According to an article I read on Japan INC, Merrill Lynch and Fidelity both offer portfolio packages for $150 usd per month. It stated that it gives the owner a more flexible/diverse style of investing and since it adds up as each month goes by, the portfolio will grow to a pretty decent-sized investment.

I'll have to do some research into this to find out more about it, but if this is true, it definitely sounds like something that almost everyone should be doing if they're not investing already.

-Global warming is now on the forefront of news, which is a good thing since it's better late than never. What I didn't realize before was what impact the Kyoto Protocol has on major corporations. Carbon emissions trading has become a major business in of itself and the concept is quite intriguing. Putting it simply, all companies acting in the protocol have set limits as to how much carbon they can emit from their factories. Anything over that limit, and the companies involved are penalized by the government. Here's where the business aspect comes in. Companies like Mitsubishi Corp. and Natsource (partner company) specialize in carbon emission trading. What they do is, when companies realize that they are over the limit for CO2, they buy rights to produce extra tonnage from carbon emission trading companies. Eventually, if the companies can get the emission level down to an acceptable level, they often find themselves with extra CO2 credits leftover. They can then sell the extra credit for revenue.

While this method is intriguing from a business standpoint, one has to wonder whether or not this is an effective way to reduce global warming. I guess time will tell, but it's nice to know that something is being done.

Introducing the enemies list...

2007-02-09T08:05:00.000-08:00

Ok, I usually give people 2nd and even 3rd chances when they do something to wrong me. I always try to understand that those people act/react differently under certain circumstances.

But tonight was different. This asshole of a coworker just went out of his way to make an utterly classless act towards my friend and humiliated her for absolutely no reason other than the fact that she works for a rival company. Normally I'd be thinking "what the fuck is his malfunction?" But in this case, it would only be a waste of my valuable time to fire up that thought process.

So, without further ado, here's my enemies list. God help you if you're on it because I'm making it my mission to destroy you.

FL

今なら、てめを打たおす。許されない。

Random ramblings...

2007-02-09T00:02:00.000-08:00

-The first thing that comes to my mind these days is, what the hell is wrong with the Celtics? I mean seriously, 16 losses (and counting) in a row?! Paul Pierce is out with an infected elbow? Wally Sczerbiak (sp?) sprains his ankle on his own teammate's foot, while that teammate is sitting on the bench?!?!?! This smells like a conspiracy all the way through, and hopefully come draft day, we'll hear the words "Celtics with the overall #1 pick select..."

-Speaking of which, who is actually better at this point? Greg Oden or Kevin Durant? Assuming if the Celtics were to get the #1 pick, if you were Ainge, who would you go with? Tough debate on this one and I'd like to hear comments/opinions about it.

-Recently, I've discovered that my stress level has affected me too much. Granted that I work in a stress-filled environment, it's amazing how much negativity is around the office at times. I try to stay positive and try to cheer other people up, but it somehow ended up dragging me down as well. On top of that, 2 of my friends have been laid off by their respective companies, which means that I've been appointed as the motivational speaker/advisor to them. So, in order to combat this issue, I've decided to first-and-foremost take care of my own spiritual and physical well-being as the #1 priority. Coming home from work, I've become a voracious reader of financial magazines and find that it helps to take my mind off of needless distractions. I've also started to resume some martial arts training at home to vent my frustrations off. Finally, the biggest thing that helped (which I feel a little guilty about) is realizing that my situation is much better off than my friends who are struggling, so there's really no need to rush into doing something drastic at this point having put that into perspective.

-Honeymoon plans are gonna be delayed for a year...sucks huh? The timing just isn't right as my wife will be starting grad school soon and taking a major exam in September. Meanwhile, if I last long enough that is, I'll probably be on a company trip for a week in September as well. Ah well, at least it'll give us more time to plan out our honeymoon and make it right rather than rushed.

-That's it for now!

Playing the cards I'm dealt with...

2007-01-20T16:13:00.000-08:00

Recently, I've been looking at other opportunities mainly because of my monthly salary. At 275,000 yen per month, it's sufficient for a single guy, but for a guy who's married this just simply isn't enough.

Upon returning from my wedding trip, I got a call from my friend who's currently a business development manager for a well-known company. He wants me to join his team, due to the past success of our teamwork from the previous company. So, I went to his company to have a talk with his superior and everything went well. After meeting with another member of the team, things were looking really positive and I've been waiting for the final meeting to take place.

...And here's where it gets dicey. I've been waiting for the meeting to be scheduled for almost a month now, but still no word from that company. One of my sources told me now that it's undergoing major restructuring, which doesn't bode well.

Oh well...no matter then. Just as the title says, "I'm just playing the cards that I'm dealt with."

Joining the married club...

2006-12-11T22:26:00.000-08:00

Well, it's official. I've married my girlfriend and have now joined the club of married dudes. And, I have to say, it actually feels good! Having someone to go home to everyday, waking up to see your loved one every morning is a great thing to have. So, to everyone who's cheered me on and supported me to get to this point, thank you all! I never could have done this without you all.

The pictures will be coming in as soon as their developed. Be patient on that one, it'll be worth the wait. Believe me!

Highlights of the wedding:

-MVP of the wedding, uncle Billy. - Man, he was on FIRE at the party. He quoted Nixon during the toast and right when the party was about to become slow, he fired things up with his mad-dancing skills on the dance floor! And he wasn't done with just the dancing, he was an absolute force of nature during our own rendition of American Idol with the karaoke portion. Amazing! Actually no, amazing doesn't quite do him justice...Jaw-dropping, entertaining freak of nature!

-Best assist of the wedding, DJ Sal. - Ever wondered how it would be like having Robert DeNiro being your DJ at your wedding party? That's Sal. He's a clone of DeNiro, I swear! He might not look like him completely, but his demeanor and voice were just spot-on, it was freaky! But, that also meant that no-one, NO-ONE messes with this guy, which meant that the music portion went smooth. Just hearing him talk got me in the mood for Sinatra and Tony Bennett, which, much to my delight, happened to be his favorites too.

-Best suit, the Hakama (male kimono) that I wore during the tea ceremony and reception. When you see the pictures, you'll understand.

-Best dress, Akane's pink dress. My lord, she looked fantastic! She was like a mirror image of Audrey Hepburn, if Akane was a little taller. Again, you'll have to see the pictures to understand.

Anyways, I'll be back to post more on this...

Status green, we are go!

2006-11-21T17:44:00.000-08:00

The past month and a half have been extremely difficult. I've been averaging about 5 hours of sleep every night, I very nearly ended 2 friendships, caused my mom to cry, and caused my fiancee to cry. All of this was due to the impending wedding that is about to take place in the next week and a half.

Before anything can be said, one has to know that the combination of emotional volitility in women and differences in expectations will result in explosions of the emotional kind. In this case, it was the differences in expectations of our wedding.

Now, for anyone who knows me well enough, I don't have any qualms with anyone planning a big event such as this on my behalf. Ultimately, nobody is trying to ruin anything, everyone wants the event to succeed.

So, when I was faced with the crisis of trying to please everyone, I realized that this would be the toughest task I have ever faced because pleasing one side meant hurting the other, and vice-versa.

Thankfully, THANKFULLY, both sides came to a compromise down the middle and the fires were able to put themselves out. Hopefully we can get to that special day without anymore incidents. One can only hope...

Meeting the parents...

2006-11-13T17:45:00.000-08:00

There are so many pressured moments in the world that perhaps it would be good to go over some of the biggest ones in my mind:

-Shooting the final free throws to either win or lose the final game of an NCAA basketball tournament game.

-Making a business decision that could decide the fate of your company. "Should I play it safe? Should I go for broke? Should I sell the friggin' company and run for my life while scores of disgruntled employees go after me?!?!?!?!?!"

-Bluffing at the poker table and putting all your chips in the middle.

-Meeting the parents of your fiancee.

I met with my fiancee's parents this past weekend again. Although this wasn't the first time meeting, we've actually met 3 times before already, this meeting was by far the most challenging. My future brother-in-law, easily the gregarious of the family, couldn't make it to dinner, so I was left to try to make conversations in Japanese with my future in-laws all by my lonesome. It wasn't tough in the beginning, my mother-in-law really likes me and made things go smoothly.

Then, there was the mano-a-mano talk with the father. Nobody else was there, just me and him. THAT'S pressure! On top of that, he speaks nor understands a word of English either. Even more pressure.

Luckily, the theme of our talk was about my work. I have become so engrossed in my work these past few days that I felt comfortable discussing the ins and outs of the financial recruiting industry.

I didn't know how the talk went, but according to my fiancee, he was pleasantly surprised and delighted with my approach to work. His knock on me was that I was a nice guy, but perhaps too passive for the recruiting business. Once we talked, his perception of me changed, which turned out great. Maybe it was the eye of the tiger, but I'm just glad that it went well.

A month of curry, cup o'noodles, and ghetto spaghetti meat sauce, IT'S THE TOKYO SURVIVOR EDITION!!!

2006-10-26T00:22:00.000-07:00

Yep, although I vowed "never to go hungry again!!!" ala Scarlett from Gone with the Wind, I ended up going hungry...again...

Well, I guess this would happen if:

A. I quit my job, took some time off, and joined a new company.
B. Went to Hokkaido and paid for food and lodging.
C. Paid for round-trip air tickets for both me and my bride-to-be.
D. All of the above.

The answer? D! I really felt the pinch this time around. Remember how I had to survive on 100 dollars for 2 weeks? This time I had to survive on 300 dollars for a month. Factor in that I had to pay the electric bill (which the nice people at Tepco turned back on) and I'm staring at 250 dollars for the rest of the month. So, how did I survive this time?

Luckily, I live right next to a 99yen food market. That's right, everything was for 99 yen. This included curry sauce packets, instant noodles, eggs, fruit, veggies, everything. Though half of the stuff was pretty ghetto (dried up old veggies) the rest was actually pretty good. I ended up spending about 300 - 400 yen per day on food and my routine was pretty much, wake up/work/home - repeat. Surprisingly, I didn't actually starve this time around. In fact, I kind of got used to it and I'm going to keep this up since I was able to save so much.

So let this be a lesson learned: Don't diss the 100 yen shops! They'll save your ass in your time of need, believe me!

I'm baaaaack!!!

2006-10-25T01:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's been a long, LONG time again since I've last posted, but now I actually feel recharged and hopefully this will lead to more entertaining posts, and less griping, unless you actually enjoy my griping...

Anyway, the big news...I'm getting hitched! That's right, I'm marrying my girlfriend, Akane, in Boston this coming December. Originally we planned on having a small celebration (30 people tops). Once my mom started to run with this idea however, the headcount's at least at a hundred people and will most likely top that figure. To all of you who aren't going to be in the banquet, believe me, it wasn't personal. It's just that my entire clan is showing up, and my family (close + distant) totals to at least a hundred people. Which means that I had to limit my friends, A LOT! Although if it were entirely up to me, my 9th great-grand-uncle from the 6th dimension of the 4th galaxy would never make the cut. Ok, I exaggerated with the dimensions and galaxies, but seriously, I'll be saying things like "Hello 9th grand-uncle" and "Hello 4th 8th aunt" in Chinese a lot! By the way, "4th 8th aunt" in Cantonese sounds a lot like f-cking b-tch if the tones aren't right. Let's hope that my drunken stupor won't cause that debacle...So, to my friends who didn't make the cut, I'll owe you a beer at a bar and we'll drink to that! That includes Adam and Herman "Top" Gunn.

Without giving away too much and spoiling the surprise, I will say that it's going to be a great show and I'll post pictures after.

Another post coming soon...Over and out!

The prodigal son returns...

2006-02-25T15:50:00.000-08:00

I'm back after a big ass hiatus away from blogging. I'm pretty sure I don't have many readers if any at all, but I do want to apologize to those who actually do read my blog (wow, you guys must REALLY be bored if you do...j/k). Anyways, there are 2 reasons for not blogging in such a long time.

1. I realized that I morphed into the T.O. of my previous job by blogging my complaints about the job non-stop. -my apologies to the gang in Osaka!

2. I have been just way too damn busy at my new job, averaging 11 - 12 hours a day on the job.

There. Now with that out of the way, time for an update...

-As I'm pretty sure you all know, I've moved to Tokyo in December. It is a bit strange to keep the "bostonian in osaka" title for this blog, but that's where my heart will always be in regards to places in Japan. Tokyo is a great place too, but I started out in Osaka and managed to do well there starting from scratch. All the friends that I've made there, all the experiences, it's all very important to me. Anyway, I'm leaving the title the way it is...

-The new job that I have now is headhunting/recruiting. Really cool job, very aggressive atmosphere. Surprisingly, it actually fits me pretty well and I'm really enjoying the pace of the job.

-Places I've visited since coming to Tokyo: Kamakura and Hakone. Kamakura was very very nice. The atmosphere felt a lot like Nara, lots of trees and fresh air. No deer though. Hakone was also very nice. Lots of onsens there and a really great soba restaurant.

-Moment that made me realize I missed something. One of my students sent me an email recently saying that she graduated. She said that while she was happy to graduate, she was also sad to leave the school. Upon reading this, I felt extremely proud that she graduated and is going on to college soon, and I also realized that I miss those kids at my high school. After investing so much time with them, I really did think of them as my own kids.

-Moment that made me realize that Rick Pitino was not the worst GM of our time: Isiah Thomas, thank you so much for toppling the Ricktator! Man, trading away the expiring contract of Penny Hardaway, Trevor Ariza, and a future 1st round draft pick for Steve Francis?! Think of the drama! Francis and Marbury having feuds as to who should be shooting the ball, Larry Brown's head potentially exploding, Penny getting reunited with the very coach he got fired in the first place -Brian Hill! I guess the Celtics aren't so bad after all!

Adventures in apartment hunting...

2005-12-14T17:48:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, I went to Tokyo with my gf to start looking at apartments that we had listed down. Gotta say, it was one of the craziest, most tiring weekends I've ever been through.

1st day: took the overnight bus to Shinjuku. We arrived there at roughly 5:30am and nothing was open save for the Yamanote line in the train station. Since we were cold and exhausted from the bus ride, I suggested that we should get on the loop line and just rest in the train for an hour until places were open. Turned out to be a great idea and we were feeling better already. We arrived at Shibuya, ate some soba for breakfast, had some coffee and tea at a cafe, then went on our way to the first appoinment at 9am, in Onda. We arrived in Onda about a minute late, but I could already see that living in Onda would be far too inconvenient. The express train does stop one train station away from Onda, but the actual train to Onda arrives once every 20 minutes! Upon arriving in Onda and meeting with the real estate agent there, we walked to the apartment that we had listed. The apartment sounded pretty good, on paper. 9 minute walk from the station, 3 rooms, large kitchen (with a kitchen counter!), and very pet friendly (eventually may get a dog here). Only problem is, on the way to the apartment, there's nothing but cemetaries and speeding cars tearing down the rural area. The nearest market (or anything for that matter!) was at least one station away. This place would have been great if I had a pet and a car, but since I have neither and I'm not THAT obsessed with having pets, I turned down that apartment offer without a second thought.

On to Chuo Rinkan: This area reminds me so much of a mini version of Ashiya. Seems like an upscale type of community with many rich folks. Very convenient area and express trains do stop there. We met with the real estate agency called Able over there and looked at a few apartments there. Note on Able: according to my gf, Able has a reputation for being high pressured and aggressive on customers. The staff there seemed to fit that reputation like a glove. Though I really like the Chuo Rinkan area, the apartments they showed us were good, but all had glaring weaknesses. The best apartment we looked at was very tempting indeed, but I would have been forced to join the apartment community (paying an extra community fee) and woud have to help out in cleaning the premises. Another apartment we looked at over there was overpriced and had one extreme weakness, no freaking closets! Somehow, that 2 room apartment was looking more like a 1 room apartment without closets. Reluctantly, we decided that Chuo Rinkan wouldn't be a good fit and moved on to the next place, Ayase. Ayase seemed quite similar to some parts in Osaka, but the apartments that the real estate agent showed us just weren't very good at all. Both places were about 15 minutes away from the station on foot and we could hear EVERYTHING in the apartments. It was frustrating to not find a good place on the first day.

2nd day: We left the hotel in Shinjuku at around 10:30am and headed up to the Chiba area for our next meeting with CLC (real estate agency). Now, it's important to note that Chiba is known by everyone to be a rural area with lots of farmland and not much else. I really wasn't looking forward to it, until we got there. The area was actually really cool and very convenient for me. The first apartment we looked at was definitely a keeper! There was an Aoki store close by, so I can buy good cheap suits for work, a coin laundry place, 24 hr supermarket, 35 minutes away from work by train, and most impressive, 1 minute away from the station on foot! The deal was an absolute steal too. Getting a 2DK apartment 1 minute away from the station and close to a lot of good stores, the rent was only 85,000 yen. Finally, I had at least one apartment that met all the criteria of what I wanted, but there was one more place that I wanted to go check before I sign with this one. We ended up going to Kumin real estate agency, on the Mita line. Now, I gotta say, this was the worst place to deal with. The real estate agent there didn't want to help me at all, looked absolutely uninterested, and was just damn rude to me and my gf. We left there with no hesitation and decided to sign with CLC for the apartment in Chiba. Overall, the trip wasn't much fun, but I felt so relieved that I could find a good apartment on time.

We took the overnight bus back to Osaka that night, but to our surprise, we ended up getting stuck in the middle of a snowstorm in Sekigahara! Our bus was smack in the middle of a traffic jam that didn't move for an hour. We were able to make it to a rest stop and after having some breakfast, started to feel much better. Only problem was, the traffic was so bad that the bus driver said it would take a couple of hours before we could even move on. On top of that, one of the passengers on the bus seemed to be getting crazy, spouting incomprehensible words in a maniacal manner. Cabin fever was my first guess. Luckily, we could call a taxi to take us to the nearest train station in Gifu and took the train all the way back to Osaka. A very tiring experience indeed.

So, to recap for the real estate agencies, it would be helpful to know which ones can help foreigners and which ones won't. Able seems to be ok, as long as you can handle the pushiness of the sales staff. Apamanshop was actually ok, even though they have a reputation for refusing to deal with foreigners. Taisei will not serve foreigners at all, it's their policy. They did treat us professionally though and the agent there did try to make it work. Stay away from Kumin! Just an absolute waste of time and the agent was a smug asshole. CLC is very good. They deal with foreigners all the time and are very helpful.

My days at the BC office are over.

2005-11-28T21:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my last day at the office and I gotta say, it feels really good! First off, I gotta say thanks to everyone who worked with me in the department. If it weren't for those guys and gal, I would have at least said something to SD that shouldn't have been said and make things really uncomfortable. We'll definitely HAVE to hang out sometime soon! Some noteworthy things:

1. The last day was really uneventful. No farewell parties, or pictures taken, or speeches given, just another day at the office. It was...perfect. Seriously, the tension between me and SD had just been growing exponentially during the past 2 months. IF SD had dragged me into a pseudo-good-willed farewell party yesterday, I'd most likely have used the speech portion of the event to voice everyone's frustrations with the state of things. Whatever. Important thing is, I don't need to deal with SD anymore.

2. I met my replacement for my high school position. Generally seems like a level-headed guy with good intentions, which is great. I honestly wish the best for my students.

3. Absolutely MUST get the guys out for drinks some time this week! Said it before, I'll say it again!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

2005-11-24T20:25:00.000-08:00

Yes, this is the time of the year when I miss Boston the most. Just thinking about turkey, stuffing, huge slices of prime rib, playing mahjong against my grandparents, and watching football, all make me wish I could just fly home ASAP. Luckily, there IS a way to get a decent feast here in Japan during this time of season, and it doesn't have anything to do with Colonel Saunders, thank god! I'm talking about a Brazilian buffet, and I'm so happy to go there later tonight to get my feast! As for the football part, still can't watch any games on tv, but there is a remedy for that coming up next week...

Madden 2006 is coming out for PS2 in Japan next week!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Survivor: Osaka edition!

2005-11-14T19:53:00.000-08:00

I now have the dubious distinction of surviving 2 weeks in Japan on $100. Relying on nothing more than resourcefulness and survival instincts, I was able to go through that rough stretch without too much trouble. Translation: eating tons of Cup O'Noodles, cooking leftover pasta and bumming off my gf. Thank god I finally got paid yesterday and can live like a normal person again, as opposed to being a hermit for the past 2 weeks. Seriously though, it took my brain some time to realize that I finally have some spending cash now. Brain: "You mean, I can actually eat something that costs more than 100 yen?!" Anyways, it's over.

This past weekend, I was invited/dragged to join a tea ceremony event in Imamiya by my gf. Although I didn't really plan on going anywhere that Sunday, I did have some interest in seeing what all the hoopla was about. It was pretty interesting to see the whole process of the tea ceremony from behind the scenes. I've already experienced going through the process as a customer, so I was curious to see what happens on the other side. Of course, to make myself useful, I decided to participate in the way that I felt best suited to do so, by washing the tea bowls. In exchange for my services, I was treated to some traditional tea ceremony sweets and green tea. Now, this isn't just your average tea. It had a bold, earthy taste to it. By the time the event was over, I had drunk at least 6 cups of tea and my head was swimming. Heck, maybe the tea's still in my system now.

You Go Girls!

2005-11-07T16:43:00.000-08:00

At the high school I teach at (Torikai) I knew that the girls' basketball team was good. I just never expected them to be ranked 4th in all of Osaka! The coach was practically giddy when he told me this in Japanese and rightfully so. I seriously hope that the basketball team will serve as a symbol for what one can achieve with hard work, perseverance, and focus (elements that most students here sorely lack). In the meantime, I'm hoping that the team will grab the regional championship.

Random rant...

2005-11-02T16:48:00.000-08:00

Ever watch those movies where everyone says it's a great movie, only you don't really find it all that interesting? This happened to me the other night. I started watching "Lovers" (sequel to "Hero"?) the other night and within like the first 15 minutes, I had to change the channel. I don't know, it's a little strange, but I thought it was more boring that what it was supposed to be. Now don't get me wrong, the visuals were great, the cinematography was beautiful, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Ziyi; what could go wrong? Well, maybe it's my personality, but I actually thought that the visuals and cinematography were done too beautifully. It was like looking at a fine art piece, just absolutely gorgeous, but the pacing of the story was what killed it for me. I watched "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" before and I thought that movie was almost great. Almost. The one part that bumped it down to a good movie as opposed to a great movie was the scene where Chow Yun Fat and Zhang Ziyi had that duel in the forest. Again, it was like watching a piece of fine art, but that killed the pace and tension of the story there. "Dances with Wolves" is the perfect example of a promising movie that got killed from overdoing the scenery factor (not to mention that the movie was like 3.5 hours long!) Anyways, I'm all for artistic impression, but if it gets in the way of pacing things, I just can't seem to get interested in it.

My life...as an Everquest character?

2005-11-01T16:30:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I've played Everquest before and thankfully I didn't fall victim to it's addiction too badly. I pretty much played maybe 2 hours every night until I got bored with its tediousness and realized that I needed to go out with real humans. Well, my current plight actually reminds me of the days when I started out a new character in Everquest. First off, what happens to newbies? We all start out broke. That's pretty much where I'm at right now. Thanks to having to pay 38000 yen (about $380) in back taxes owed to the Japanese government as well as buying a roundtrip ticket to Tokyo (bullet train, about $270), I am now left with trying to survive 9 days on 10000 yen ($100). In Boston, I could definitely make that stretch without a problem. In Osaka however, consider this: It costs me 800 yen (8 bucks) to go to the high school and back. I do this 3 days a week. It costs me 1640 yen ($16.40) to go to the elementary school and back. Add an extra MANDATORY school lunch fee (policy forces me to eat with the kids) at 220 yen ($2.20). I do this 2 days a week. Now after adding all of that together, I get 5680 yen in transportation costs for one week. Now, that would set me back a little more than 50% of what I have left. 9 days until pay day. So, how does this all relate to Everquest? Easy!

-You have foraged successfully!
-You have foraged successfully!
-You have foraged successfully!
-You have foraged successfully!
-(Your skills in foraging have improved!)

Luckily, I don't have to do this though:

-You failed in begging
-You failed in begging
-You failed in begging

Guard: You are an affront to all I stand for!
Guard hits Jason for 287 points of damage!
You have been slain!

The challenge of finding an apartment...

2005-11-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

I'll be the first to readily admit that amongst my peers, my current apartment is actually one of the bigger ones. And at about $580 per month, it's almost a steal. Now the time has come for me to find an even bigger apartment. Yes, it's more expensive in Tokyo than it is in Osaka, and yes, I actually need at least a 2DK to move into. Normally, I'd really only need a one room apartment, but I've been put into a unique situation. I've inherited a full queen-sized bed, AND now a sofa. The upside is, I now have great furniture and won't need to go shopping for new stuff. The downside is, I better have the space for it. Luckily, I should still be able to afford some 2DK's that my gf and I have looked at without taking too big of a hit.

Random thoughts...

2005-10-31T18:24:00.000-08:00

-Theo Epstein resigned from his GM post in the Red Sox today. Wow, this is huge. All I can say is, before he became the GM, the Bosox didn't have the swagger it has against the Yankees now. On top of that, he was the one guy who had the cajones to trade away Nomar, reject the A-Rod deal when it became too expensive, bring in Schilling by going to his place for dinner, and assemble the team that ended the World Series drought. Is he perfect? Heck, no! He brought in Renteria, broke up the championship team by letting go of Pedro, Derek Lowe, Orlando Cabrera, and last season's hero Dave Roberts. Was Epstein getting too confident in his own abilities as GM? Maybe. But it still can't be denied, Boston's losing one of the key guys that made the Sox relevant again.

-Manny looking for a trade, again...Man, it never ends with Ramirez does it? I know that everyone in Boston wants Manny to stay because of his bat, but is it really worth it to put up with this never-ending BS? Nevertheless, until the Sox can find a trade scenario that gives them back equal value for Ramirez (his contract pretty much scares the bejezus of anyone except for maybe Steinbrenner), he's staying put.

-Tedy Bruschi- Oh, how I wish I could have been in Boston and watch his return game with the guys. Comparison to Willis Reed? Reed's knee was messed up completely, definitely a huge inspiration for everyone. But, it was in fact, just a knee. Try coming back from stroke and heart operation to tackle guys head-first? Yeesh, I think just recovering from minor stroke and living a normal life is miraculous enough, let alone playing football again! If the Pats are going to win the super bowl, Bruschi is the main reason why, no questions asked!

The dynamics of office politics...

2005-10-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've come to the realization that the company in which I'm working for is currently mired in office politics. This isn't your usual, typical office politics however. In the normal form, co-workers typically compete against each other in order to climb up the power ladder, creating a rift in the team and becoming completely counter-productive. As I said in the beginning however, this is not your usual office politics dynamic.

In this case, the team is fully united and committed to accomplishing a project. There is no in-fighting amongst the peers. Everyone on the team looks out for one another and we don't try to make others look bad for the sake of personal glory. There is one glaring weakness to this team however, the lack of a good leader.

A good leader should possess at least these qualities: organizational skills, experience from the ground-up, flexibility, accountability for their own actions, and loyalty to their team.

Apologies to my colleagues who are reading this, because I know I promised not to rant as much about the job anymore, but believe me, this rant has more to do with standing up for our team rather than just bashing the boss. The current leader of our team does indeed possess organizational skills, experience in the field, and flexibility (to a point). However, accountability and loyalty are qualities that he does not seem to view as important.

Imagine my surprise and disappointment when our leader delivers a speech to the entire team and begins by saying, "Currently, I am working on a major project to be finalized in..." Amazing. He has single-handedly taken all of the credit for the hours and effort that our team put in to the project without acknowledging that we even had anything to do with it all. The truth is, 99% percent of the project was written, created, tested, and edited by our team. Our leader puts in 1% of effort, and the project is his now.

On the subject of accountability, our leader has shown great skills in avoiding blame when things goes wrong with certain projects. For example, last year's project went very well and everything was clicking smoothly, with the exception of one mistake in the transportation of essential materials. Our leader's response? "Well, you should have taken the materials with you earlier last week." Although he said that, he forgot to mention that the materials were not completed yet at that time. Secondly, he promised us that the materials would be delivered on time. Still, not one apology was issued and he managed to put the blame on our team for his shortcoming.

First and foremost, I would like to express my graditude to our team for being exceptionally classy in the face of a classless leader. My loyalty goes to our team and I truly feel that our team does not get the respect that we should. In the meantime, let's keep taking the high-road and don't let things reduce us to the level of our leader.

It's official...

2005-10-27T17:16:00.000-07:00

...As of yesterday, I turned in my resignation letter to my current employer. Rather than dwell on the specifics on what happened, I'm just gonna list the things that I have to get accomplished in preparing for the big move to Tokyo. If you do want to get the specifics, feel free to email or call me:

Things to do within 1 month's time:

-Find an apartment. Yikes, this part scares me the most. I remember moving into my current apartment about 2 years ago and the thought of all the moving and packing isn't leaving a good taste in my mouth. Just gotta remember to do things in steps and leave plenty of time to do it.

-Need furniture. For those of you who've visited my joint, (and it really IS a joint, at best!) you'd no doubt noticed that I don't have any furniture other than my futon and table. Fortunately, this part has been 75% resolved all thanks to my good friend Mark, who's bestowing me with his stuff as he prepares to move out of his current apartment. The biggest prize? A kick-ass queen-sized bed with drawers under it!

*on a side note, I'd like to take a moment of silence in mourning the loss of THE perfect apartment (Mark's). I mean, the apartment has everything! Great view of Yoyogi park, safe and quiet (despite it being in the middle of Shibuya, I still have no idea how it manages to be that quiet! Absolutely mind-boggling!), random celebrity sightings (I happened to bump into the main actor from 'Battle Royale' just across the street), a legendary-great restaurant in the vicinity (seriously ranks up in the top 3 restaurants I have ever eaten in, and I've eaten in a lot of great restaurants), and a GIGANTIC balcony. I'm not kidding, it was like having 2 full-sized balconies joined together in an L-shape. You could invite 20 people over and have a real bbq party and still not feel overly-crowded! That apartment will be sorely missed.

So far, that's all I have on my "to-do list", but it's still gonna be insane for the next month or so, at least until I get settled in. For now, I have to start finding a good apartment, among other things.

-There's gonna be a Halloween event where many foreigners dress up and go nuts on the JR loop line (main Osaka train line). I've been asked to go by a buddy of mine and I have to dress up in a costume. Fortunately, I just realized this morning that I have the perfect costume. I'm going as a Boston sports fan, decked out in Boston sports teams' gear. You saw it here first! If anybody else goes like this, they've stolen my idea!

Big update coming Thursday...

2005-10-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

Haven't written for a while, but I'll get back to it as soon as I wrap up a few things on Thursday first. :)

"Pop quiz, hotshot!!!..."

2005-10-13T17:10:00.000-07:00

...You're given 2 great opportunities, but you need to choose one of them. Choosing either opportunity will greatly affect the outcome of your career.

First choice: The first company is a consulting firm. It can guarantee a lot of money assuming that I can meet performance targets. The drawback is, that field will be the only thing that will be available to me in the future, though I would like to go on to that field as a career.

Second choice: The second company is one of the biggest investing firms in the world. I would gain experience working the global market as the front line support and have great connections. Drawback is, the money is much less than the first company and my true goals will not be realized until one or two years later.

"What do you do!? 'Shoot the hostage, take them out of the equation.'"

Ok, enough corny quotes from a movie. But seriously, this is a really tough decision for me coming up. If I take the first company, I can be making a ton of money and be on the fast track to becoming an HR guy, but I'm pretty much going to be set on being an HR guy, nothing else. If I take the second company, I can learn so much and make some killer connections with the hotshots, but the money's gonna be a lot less and it will take more time to realize my career goal.

...on being enlightened. (Or at least feeling like it)

2005-10-06T20:03:00.000-07:00

Last month has just been wearing down on me. So much so, that I even seriously considered buying a one-way plane ticket home to Boston and leaving all my belongings in Japan behind. First off, I've worked in IT for 7 years (as I've told all of my friends) and I wanted to go back into it. Unfortunately, I'm not qualified enough to really do anything other than being a helpdesk techie unless I go back to school and learn programming. Originally, I intended to go to Temple University in Tokyo as soon as my contract with my current employer expires to enroll into the IT certification program while working full time to support myself. Unfortunately, the IT program was shut down right before I was going to apply for the program. That situation really only left me with 2 options. 1. Just apply to any IT company in Osaka in the hopes of getting a helpdesk position; or 2. Go back to my alma mater and study for 1 year. The 2nd option seemed to be the best choice for me because while the IT job market in Osaka is ok, 99% of the positions required both high Japanese language fluency and programming skills. The bad thing is, my gf is currently going for her lawyer's license, which means she can't go to the states with me, resulting in being separated for 1 year and leading to breakup status. I didn't want to breakup at all and I intend to marry her sometime in the future. However, this also meant that my career would never grow to it's potential. I struggled with that situation in my mind for a good 2 weeks, along with increasingly frustrating arguments with my gf that had no peaceful resolution in sight. In fact, I had been averaging roughly 4.5 hours of sleep for 2 weeks and my motivation was gone. By the end, I found myself awake at 3:30am with only one thought in my mind: Go back home for good. Later that morning, I was in my high school feeling like an absolute wreck when it finally hit me. I'm not cut out to be an IT techie. I never was and I never will be. If IT really was my thing, I never would have struggled to find that kind of job in the first place. Then all of a sudden it hit me - I can still be involved in IT without actually being a tech. I decided that becoming an HR guy in the field of IT would be the best fit. People have said that I'm one of the easiest going guys, coupled along with experience in the field and having good instincts in reading people - it all made sense! So, as my next career move, I'm aiming to become an HR guy in the tech field. Since coming up with that decision, I've been excited and nothing really seems to bother me much anymore. (Even being late to my elementary school in Ashiya didn't bother me much.) Anyways, sorry for such a long rambling journal entry. Hopefully this answers the "what's wrong with Jason?" questions. By the way, me and my gf are doing well again.

Rants! Raves! Drew's the mvp! Madden curse continues!

2005-09-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

A few things to ramble on before I go into fantasy football week 3...

Rants: Don't worry, I won't rant about work this time, I promise. Apparently, the Hanshin Tigers have won and clinched their 2nd division title in 3 years and everyone was going nuts out in the streets of Osaka. A few things irk me though...

1. Everyone cares only about the division title, yet nobody even cares about the playoffs! Why?! This drives me crazy! Regular season records mean everything in this current system. That's just plain wrong! The 2nd best team in the division couldn't close the gap fast enough and now they're complete losers. Oh, the agony! This system just completely murders the thrilling aspect of professional sports! What if one team just has a complete vice-grip on the entire division, like the Cardinals in MLB? I mean, the 2nd best team in their division is behind by like, what, 9.5 games or something? Seriously, if regular season records really mean THAT much to teams, why don't more teams play with complete urgency in every game? Even if all the teams and players try to play with complete urgency in every game, it's impossible to keep up that level of intensity for such a long time. Try imagining Jack Bauer keeping up that level of intensity for 4 straight days...that's what it would be like. Sheesh, if fans are already celebrating like their team won the championship, shouldn't they be celebrating BECAUSE of a championship victory?! In the words of the immortal Jim Mora: "P-Playoffs?! What do you mean playoffs?! We're just trying to win one game!!!"

2. I miss football. TERRIBLY! Here's the flipside to the coin of a baseball season. 17 regular season games, 4 postseason games. Crazy antics of T.O. and Moss, great quotes from Chad Johnson, shaky QBs like Chad Pennington and Kurt Warner, snake-bitten teams like the Jets who lose BOTH their starting QB and backup QB to injuries! Shaky coaching like the Mikes (Holmgren, Shanahan, Tice, hall of famer Martz). Throw all of them in the mix and you've got guys who are so intense, that they scare you when you watch them on tv (watch Ray Lewis sometime, trust me!), hillarious stuff from prima-donna WRs, quotes from Chad Johnson firing up the other team so much that they're looking for blood in the next game, shaky QBs and coaches adding suspense to every game. Add in the final touch of playoff football, where every game is do or die, and it equals to just about the best product of entertainment! Unfortunately, I live in Japan, where the most popular sports are baseball and soccer. Dammit, I miss football!

Rave: Although I do miss football, I was able to catch a little bit of the Broncos - Chiefs game on satellite tv here. The only downsides were that they showed it at 12:20am and that it's pre-recorded. The great thing is, pre-recorded actually means that they cut out ALL the commercials! So now, everytime the coaches call a timeout or when halftime begins, 2 seconds later the next play will start! It's excellent! Like having TIVO without the TIVO, if that makes sense. Furthermore, Al Michaels and John Madden were calling the game! I'm switching to cable, hopefully soon!

Ok, on to week 3:

I won my first game of the season and it felt really good. I still can't believe how it happened though, as Drew (not Brees!) has been absolutely carrying my team this season! Here's my starting lineup:

Drew Bledsoe-QB, McGahee-RB, Barlow-RB (Lewis had a bye week, so I had to grab an extra RB), WRs - Stallworth, Steve Smith, Rod Smith, Gonzales-TE, Chicago D

Well, Bledsoe threw for 363 yards and 2 TDs, and ran for a TD, which basically makes him the co-mvp of my team so far. Steve Smith was just a monster, 3 TDs! Unfortunately, Stallworth didn't even get one catch, though that's mostly Aaron Brooks' fault! Rod Smith was pretty solid though. McGahee was very good. I still couldn't believe that the Bills lost with him rushing for over a 100 yards in the game, but I'm glad he had the numbers. Barlow was mediocre. Not terrible, just mediocre. I probably should have read up on the Broncos/Chiefs rivalry, because the Broncos still own the Chiefs at home and Gonzales didn't get as many catches as he should've gotten, no thanks to Green! Chicago was torn up by the Bengals unfortunately. Still, this was my highest scoring total in one game so far and it was enough to win week 3. Since Dallas is playing against Oakland's non-existent defense, I'm starting Bledsoe again. Stay tuned...

Almost forgot: McNabb needs surgery after getting banged up. He's also on the cover of Madden 2006. The curse is strong with this one...

Fantasy football updates...

2005-09-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's been a while since I've last written about how the league is doing. Again, due to spam attacks, I'm officially using this blog only from now on. Anyways, just some random thoughts about week 1 and week 2.

Week 1:

The Chargers suck at offense so far this year, which means that they've killed my no. 1 QB. Normally, I'd wait and see if the QB can pull himself together and be more patient with the guy, but since he had his career year last year and stunk it up for a couple of seasons before last year, I decided to give him a quick hook. Meanwhile, Leftwich looked good (though I wasn't sure if he was ready to take the mantle of starting QB just yet) and Drew Bledsoe either a.) discovered the fountain of youth and took a big gulp from it; b.) signed a pact with Satan along the lines with Kurt Warner when he was 3 time MVP as well as Tiger Woods when he was tearing up the PGA and terrorizing poor Phil; or c.) proved to everyone that Buffalo really wasn't a good fit for him anymore and that Parcells is really Belichick in disguise. I'm willing to bet on b, though it probably really was the O-line in Buffalo that killed him before. For RBs, McGahee did pretty well for week 1, that was a relief, though Lewis still seems like he hasn't been able to hit his stride yet, although with Kyle Boller as the QB, what's gonna prevent defenses from stacking the line against Baltimore? Anything? Can I pull a Nancy Kerrigan on this and have a dude nail Boller's kneecap with a lead pipe? Sigh...wishful thinking... Anyways, week one seemed ok. I lost the matchup, but it was somewhat close...

Week 2:

Wow, Tampa Bay defense really killed McGahee this week. None of my RBs did well and guess what? NONE of my starters scored ANY TDs!!! The agony! On top of that, Leftwich got creamed in the game against the artist formerly known as the Colts' D. Brees stunk it up again as Marty Schottenheimer (sp?) seems to have forgoten that he still has Tomlinson. KC is doing extremely well with that 1-2 punch combo of Holmes and Johnson, which means that Gonzales isn't needed anymore to score TDs, thus killing my team yet again. The positives for this week? After watching the Bears lose 6-3, I decided to drop my Carolina D in favor for the Bears D. What happens? The Bears single-handedly rallied my team into a deadlocked heated battle against the team I was matched up against. Bears won 38 - 6, on account of their defense doing the scoring! Unbelieveable! I thought I had a good shot of pulling out the win in this matchup...until I noticed that Favre rebounded from his off-game with a vengence, thus destroying my team in the process. One more thing to add, DREW BLEDSOE did it again! He once again became the one QB I should have started this week by torching the Redskins! So, for week 3, I'm pushing that big flashing red button with the "Don't push this button!" sign on it. I'm starting Drew for week 3 and bracing myself for anything.

Probability of a stalker?

2005-09-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

My friend has recently started to teach Chinese lessons privately to students. She, like most of us foreigners in Japan, signed up to a teaching match-making service website which provides potential students who want to study any language with connections to teachers who want to make some extra money on the side. Seems like a good thing to do right? After all, we all could use an extra 30 bucks per hour doing easy work. The only problem is, there are some real wackos out there who get confused by the word "teacher" with "potential girlfriend/boyfriend". My friend is a attractive young Chinese lady and she has had the unfortunate experience of teaching a trial lesson to a guy who's objective is "You are the reason why I want to learn Chinese". Translation: the guy's really just looking for a date. Probability of being a stalker at this point...5-10% So my friend asks me for advice on this situation. Since the guy isn't really serious about learning Chinese in the first place, I told her that she should just drop him before it gets any weirder. She did just that, except that the guy has been emailing her, a lot. Probability of being a stalker at this point...25-40% I wasn't sure how often the guy had been emailing her, but it was enough to creep my friend out. Anyways, she emails me last night and tells me that the guy wants to apologize to her in person and is in the immediate area of her work. She's legitimately scared at this point.
Stalker probability...50-75%. I go to my friend's area, since I was close by anyway, and decided to walk her back to the station. We meet up, had a drink in a bar, and her phone was buzzing every 2 minutes. Yep, it was that dude.
Stalker probability...75%+ Needless to say, I was able to catch the last train home, had a nice talk with my gf, confirmed that my friend got home safely, and went to bed at 1:15am. Of course, I had to wake up 6am this morning to get to school and teach, but heck, it's the long weekend now!

Long weekend, damn I could really use one right about now...

2005-09-15T21:08:00.000-07:00

For once, I'm actually not going to take any shots on poor old SD... Nope, this time the onus is all on me, no excuses...

My high school is preparing for the annual cultural festival, and as a result, classes have been reduced to 40 mins per class rather than the usual 50. Should be a good situation right? Well, that's what I thought, except that I underestimated the lack of focus that the students would have. As a result, one of the classes actually loved the current lesson plan that I created, even though it was reputed to be the WORST class group in the entire school. Nevertheless, that class actually enjoyed it and students (astonishingly!!!) requested more of those kinds of lessons. Of course I was psyched at that point because I finally got that class motivated to actively participate. That's the ONLY class that would actually get anything out of that lesson though, and so the past few classes after that have been borderline disasterous. I take responsibility for that, because it was my lack of preparation that created these results. The only problem is, I'm starting to feel like a burnt out pitcher who's pitched too many innings. I'm losing my stuff, edge, and worst of all, intensity. I do readily admit that teaching is not my career choice and that I'm not all that good at it either. But, I feel like I should do my best to at least motivate and encourage these teens to become prepared adults. It's just that recently, I'm really feeling worn out by the fusion of business and education. The whole concept is inherently flawed as our best efforts in education will occasionally be undercutted by the business aspect. Like I told my buddy Herman before, it's really the frustration of the business that we're in. Still, I hold myself fully accountable for straddling the fence between caring and not-caring. Anyways, to quote Steve Spurrier: I'm close to "losing my give a damn." But, I'm going to get it back, hopefully soon.

The Rosenhaus curse?

2005-09-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, at my other blog I wrote that Rosenhaus clients seem a bit shaky. Not character-wise, like T.O., but physically shaky. For example, T.O.'s been banged up with that groin injury, Edgerrin James has that reconstructed knee, and Javon Walker was banged up in the preseason. So what happens? Javon Walker is now out for the season with a torn ACL. Though I'm not quite ready to put Rosenhaus in the same light as the cursed EA's Madden cover jinx or the SI's cover jinx, or even the Peter King jinx (Danny Wuerful??? Wonder if Julius Jones is gonna last the season this time?) Still, it's worth mentioning that it's 1 for 3 clients now. If all of his clients are injured or have bad seasons, I'm definitely patenting this Rosenhaus curse and taking credit!

The weekend!!!

2005-09-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

The weekend is finally here, and it's about damn time! Work was just brutal yesterday at the office. SD, TRULY living up to his given nickname starts out the day by giving me a "We...are...going to...have a...meeting...at...11." Since the stupid elementary curriculum project was supposed to be finished by the end of the day, I was actually looking forward to having that meeting and finish everything on time. Of course, little did I know that whenever SD says "meeting...at...11." it really means having a meeting at 11:50. Finally we have the meeting and I had every intention of editing and fixing everything that needed to be done. Of course, the meeting lasted for nearly an hour, in which he could have just as easily gotten his point across by saying something like: "please take a look at the changes I made and make your plan like this." Nope, he was going over every single nit-picking detail at a pace that made me feel like I was travelling through an Astral plane. By the time he finished, it was 12:35, which meant that I had to take 25 minute lunch break before I had to do some recording downstairs for a different department.

-Ok, let's imagine you are the manager. You have 1 project that ABSOLUTELY needs to get done by the end of the day. You have one guy assigned to do the project. That guy is dedicated to finishing the project at all costs. You have a bunch of other guys in the office that are doing what amounts to tedious busy work that doesn't need to get done right away. The last part is, another department needs the services of someone in our department for some voice recording. If I'm running the show, I'd give the guy my edited piece and have him work on it like a mad dog with NO DISTRACTIONS, at all costs. I'd have one of the newer guys go down to the other department to lend his vocals for recording. The rest of the guys, I'd have them share the load of editing the last pieces of the project that needs to be done by the end of the day.

-Here's what really happened. I get off to the latest possible start ever thanks to SD's incessant ramblings (I swear he does that because he likes to hear himself talk!) He assigns me to do the voice recording at 1pm (if they REALLY needed only my voice, do it some other f-ing time!!) when someone else could have easily done it because there were 3 guys with the "what should we do?" look on their faces. I get screwed over for lunch because of SD's rambling + 1pm recording session (when added together, it equals one cluster-fuck! There, my first cuss word on this blog, hopefully the last.) After editing and editing and editing, I look up and it's already 4:05pm. My shift ends at 4:30. As the quote of the day says below, "You can't stay over your shift." On top of that, he chops off the last activity of the lesson plan (which I admit, should have been chopped off), at 4:05!!! WTF!?! To make sure of this I said to him: "You want me to create a new activity, from scratch, in 25 minutes, and for it to be finalized?"

Anyway, that was a day from hell. Anymore days like that come up for me, I'm pulling a Larry Brown (job-speculating) with no remorse. I just don't want to put up with that shit ever again.

That concludes this tirade. Now I can get on with my weekend and enjoy it to the fullest. Happy weekend everyone!

Quote of the day...

2005-09-08T18:31:00.000-07:00

"You...are...not...supposed to...stay...longer than...your...shift." - SD telling me that I can't work overtime, even though we needed to crank out a brand new activity in 25 minutes.

Almost blacked out in the middle of class and more friggin' spam!

2005-09-05T19:02:00.000-07:00

Damn I'm tired. I did the live draft online last night which ended at roughly around 1:45am. My team should be solid this year, hopefully. Unfortunately, I had to wake up less than 5 hours later to get to my high school and teach. Luckily, the adrenaline was kicking in and I was doing pretty well. In fact, even the students were motivated for once! Right in the middle of the lesson however, I almost stumbled as my vision started to blur and turn white for split-second. I recovered quickly and nobody seemed to notice, so it's all good.

Quick rant: Spam sucks! Seriously, does anyone really expect to buy useless crap like rubber bands online? WTF! If I could somehow setup a macro that would automatically reply to the spammers with the mother-of-all viruses that destroys their computers in fell swoop, that would make me a very happy bastard.

Quote of the day...

2005-09-01T17:00:00.000-07:00

"No, no, no, it's stupid to do that! Don't give me that!" - new guy to SD as our collective jaws dropped.

Review of the Fedor - Crocop Pride match...

2005-08-30T05:08:00.000-07:00

Ok, I gotta admit, I never really was much of a MMA (mixed martial arts) fan. Having watched tomato cans like Bob Sapp and over-hyped C-rated fighters like Musashi become champions in K1, it pretty much reinforced my disdain for this pro-wrestling kind of fighting. That is, until I finally watched a truly good fight on Pride tonight. Here's my analysis of how the fight between Crocop and Fedor went down. CAUTION: if you haven't seen this fight yet and don't want the results to be spoiled, STOP reading this now!

-----------------------------

Ok, here we go:

Round 1: Crocop's style is kickboxing, meaning that he fights best on his feet, not on the ground. As predicted, Crocop was circling around the ring in an outboxing style, waiting for the opportunity to unleash his vaunted high front roundhouse kick.

Meanwhile, Fedor's style is Sambo, meaning that he fights best on the ground and is extremely deadly at close range. As Crocop was circling around the ring, Fedor did the smart thing and bided his time by sealing off the ring and occupying space.

Crocop jabbed and threw some good left straights. In the middle of the round, Crocop landed his best shot, which turned out to be a heavy-handed jab to Fedor's nose. While stunned, Crocop rushed over and landed 2 more heavy jabs right on Fedor's nose, which subsequently was most likely broken by then. However, when Crocop tried to get in his money shot - the left front roundhouse kick - Fedor was able to duck under the kick and avoid a potential KO. By the time the 2nd half of the round came up, Fedor was finally able to close in on Crocop and tackled him down. While Fedor was able to mount Crocop and had great position to land his heavy shots, Crocop displayed good defensive skills and was able to finish the round unscathed.

Close Advantage: Crocop - I thought he really nailed Fedor with some good punches during their exchange at middle range. Had Crocop been able to land his kick or resumed his rush with more punches, I thought the match could have been finished there. However, even though Crocop had the advantage by breaking Fedor's nose, Fedor's determination was building.

Round 2: The beginning of the 2nd round pretty much started the same way as the first round. Crocop was once again circling the ring to create some space and Fedor was sealing off the ring and moving forward. Crocop finally broke the peace by launching his kick. However, Fedor completely blocked the kick aiming for his ribs. Crocop threw 2 more kicks, one aiming for the ribs, one going for the head...but Fedor calmly blocked those kicks with rock solid blocks. Those blocks seemed to sap the energy out of Crocop and Fedor quickly clinched him, then tackled him down again. This time, Fedor was able to land some great punches and spent much of the round mounting Crocop. Fedor outweighed Crocop and the extra weight seemed to be wearing out Crocop on the ground. Not much action would ensue until the end of the round.

Advantage: Fedor - By this time, it was clear that not only had Fedor made up ground from the first round, the momentum had also shifted in his favor. Crocop did a pretty good defensive job on the ground, but he was getting worn out by Fedor's attacks.

Round 3: Crocop's legs were clearly tiring at this point and he tried desperately to land his kicks, but Fedor successfully blocked all the kicks yet again and still looked like he had the same amount of energy as in the first round. After Crocop's kicks, Fedor rushed in again and tackled him. Fedor landed some good shots, but not enough to KO Crocop. Final decision time.

Decision goes to - Fedor

Turning point - Fedor's defense was just simply amazing. He knew exactly where the kicks would be going and blocked them solidly. On the ground, Fedor's defense actually consisted of head movement. With Fedor's subtle head movement, he made sure that Crocop's punches landed on top of his head, which is the hardest part of the human body, which in turn negated any damage done.

Great fight, the level of skill, guts, and intelligence displayed in this fight was a sight to behold. I think I may be becoming a Pride fan soon...

Quote of the day...

2005-08-29T19:45:00.000-07:00

"You must explain to him that the inner-circle of the loop line is different from the outer-circle of the loop line." - SD giving an explanation of directions. Although this could have been accomplished by simply saying "take loop A to Tennoji"

Back to school, escaped from slow death, and life is all good again...

2005-08-25T16:26:00.000-07:00

Today's the first day back to my high school in a little town called Torikai, and I couldn't be happier.

Checklist:

1. Finished the final final FINAL fricken draft of the lesson plan that slow death created. After all, with all the edits that good ol' SD made, there wasn't a shred of evidence left that I created it. Well, if the lessons go badly, I'm playing the 'matador' card and olaying the blame onto SD.

2. Finished printing out all of the materials required to execute the lesson plans properly. Actually, that was the easy part, relatively pain-free. Still, I would love it if I could literally execute those lesson plans via shredder.

3. Actually had fun in the office yesterday. With guys like HG, AY, HJ, and AH, along with a gal like HK, the crew kept me relatively sane.

Holy crap section:
Alright, everybody in the office already knows about some dude who called looking for our HR guy's private cell number. To sum it up, he's probably some idiot who got pissed off after being rejected a job offer from us. On top of being irrational, potentially being a stalker to our poor HR guy and potentially even giving us a fake name, he went so far as to call SD an 'idiot' during his conversation with him. That's like the kiss of death, there's no WAY SD is gonna hire THAT guy now. Here's the conversation that I had with him:

P.O'ed guy: I'd like to talk to ___ please.
Me: I'm sorry, he's not in the office today. May I take a message?
P.O'ed guy: I'd like his cell phone number then. Thank you.
Me: Hang on a second please...(on hold, while thinking of a good way to reject that stupid request) I'm sorry, I don't have his cell phone number available at the moment. Could you please tell me your name?
P.O'ed guy: What do you mean it's not available? Do you have his number or not?!
Me: Can you at least tell me your name?
P.O'ed guy: My name is R--ert, now will you give me his cell phone number?
Me: Let me transfer you to someone who can help you. (transfers the phone to SD, who is really the DIRECTOR of our department)

Ok, this is where the idiot tells SD off using foul language and calls him an idiot. He then calls back again.

Me: ECC, this is Jason.
R: I'd like ___'s number, now. Thank you.
Me: No.
R: No?
Me: No. We are not allowed to give out anybody's private phone number.
R: Oh really? And why not?
Me: It's against our policy on privacy.
R: That's a convenient way to say it. Do you have his number or not?
Me: (getting fed up with this conversation...) Have a good day Rupert. (hang up)

What a moron.

Internet is back...

2005-08-22T19:40:00.000-07:00

It seems that the nice people at my isp finally decided to reconnect my internet connection. Life is now back to normal, for now...

Work: Once I finish the lesson plans for the dreaded elementary school project, I'll be finally off the hook. Not that I don't like teaching at elementary school, it's just that the curriculum is so damn stupid that it drives me nuts. Let's take a look at the curriculum I was in charge of 'developing'.

3rd graders: Games with hand movement
4th graders: Tongue twisters
5th graders: Exchanging presents
6th graders: Treasures

I have to create lessons based strictly on that criteria. Now if you'll excuse me, I will now light myself on fire.

No internet makes Jason go...

2005-08-17T19:34:00.000-07:00

not crazy, surprisingly enough. Actually I feel a bit liberated now, though I am in an internet cafe to post. Anyways, what's new with me...

1. Ok, yet another change in the quest for more education, instead of going back to Boston to study comp sci, it looks like Temple University in Tokyo would be a better choice.

2. Today's the last day of my vacation and I fully intend to savor every moment until I show up to work tomorrow and have to interact with my boss again. From now on, I'm referring to him as Slow Death.

3. As usual, it's still hot as hell here. The humidity's dropped a bit, but the heat is still up there in the 90's.

Beginning fantasy football...

2005-08-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

Alright, so it's finally about time that I started playing fantasy football. I've never played on any real official fantasy leagues before and the only experience that came close to that was NBA.com's virtual GM, which doesn't really count. Expect me to create a blog strictly for fantasy football. Geez, I can already feel myself turning into a stats freak soon.

Ok, I've just created the blog. Please check out fflosaka.blogspot.com to see what happens. For now, nothing new, just some rants about T.O. and Drew Rosenhaus. I'll start a running diary once the draft starts.

Current state of the Red Sox...

2005-08-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, so the Bosox have won the world series and broke the 86 year old drought. (most people call it a curse) Anyways, following the sox only via internet is a bit annoying, however probably not as nerve-wracking as watching them on tv. The Sox are still in first of the AL east, still beating the "artist formerly known as" Yankees (seriously, what happened to these guys?), yet some writers are still going nuts with their columns about the Curt Schilling as closer drama, the "caveman" in-fighting from Damon, and the annual Manny-wants-out drama.

Ok, enough already! To the Boston fans, the sox are doing just fine. Their still in first place, they still have Manny, and having Schilling pitch in any situation is still better than having him shelved. Relax. The sox have thrived on chaos before, they'll survive. The team chemistry is still there and I'll say again, they STILL have Manny (best damn hitter in the league).

On the other hand, it's up to us as fans to keep caring about the sox. I don't agree with any grace period for teams winning the championship of any sport, about how the fans should not care as much about their teams after they've won. If anything, I hope the fans care about their teams even more than before. Remember, as fans, we bitch about our teams during slumps because we CARE.

The beginning...

2005-08-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

Introduction:

All right, it's been practically 2 years since I've moved to Osaka from Boston. Some things I missed:

1. Pats win the superbowl against the Panthers.
2. Pats win the superbowl against the Eagles, therefore securing dynasty status.
3. Red Sox win the world series.

WTF! Talk about perfect timing to leave Boston, huh! I was happy enough to witness the utter destruction of the Rams during the Pats' first superbowl, but I couldn't believe that I missed the chance to celebrate all of the above mentioned with other crazy Boston sports fans!

The hell am I doing today:
Well, for starters, I'm an English teacher working for a company in Japan. The task for this week is to finish up the curriculum for elementary school students and have it ready for the next school term. Sounds good right? Well, for those of us who've been in this business long enough, hell no! I just finished a lesson on "Treasures" (WTF?) and I still have to create a lesson of "Giving Presents" (Seriously, WTF?!) Anyways, other than that, I'm really just wasting time here doing nothing. The "lessons" will be done on time, whatever, don't really care now. In the words of one of my coworkers here, "I really just can't be bothered to do it" now.