Sick Again

Yesterday, I was feeling pretty bad. Had a rough cough, tired, couldn't breathe so well. At the end of the day I felt alright. This morning I woke up not feeling nearly as good. Since I skipped work yesterday, I decided to "gambate" and go to work. Everyone at school, mentioned how I looked like crap. One by one everyone walked in the room, "Daijoubu desu ka?" (Are you ok?) and I would say "Yes" in english, sort of to spite them. They were just trying to be nice but I was annoyed.

I put my head down to rest for about 10 minutes. Sudden I woke up, my stomach was angry, or maybe my other organs were mad at my stomach and decided to beat it up. I shuffled to the bathroom, hacking the whole way and puked in the bathroom. Ewwww.

I told the nurse, "Daijoubu ja nai" (I'm not ok...). We went to talk to the vice principle. He was a nice guy and since he told me to go home as soon as I walked in this morning, I figured he'd be all right if I went home. He said to go to my base school and tell them the deal. He then picked up the phone and called my base school to tell them what's up. I thought, why should I go over there if you are calling them right now? But I did it anyway.

My VP at my base school is a weasel sort of guy and I'm not a big fan of him. He said all kinds of stuff to me which I didn't understand. I just wanted him out of my face so I said "Ok, ok, hai! Wakarimasu!" (Yes, i understand) and walked out.

At the ATM a creepy L shaped obaachan (old lady / grandma) stared at me like I was a strange talking monkey, walking up right. I stumbed into the hospital with 2 jackets on, I was freezing. The nurse does the intake thing on me and I just gave her my notebook I'd written my symptoms in japanese in. My fever was 38.8 or just under 102. They laid me in bed. After 15 or 20 minutes I saw the doctor. He speaks a bit of English so I told me the story. He told me what I had, even wrote it down, but I can't remember it now.

They IV'd me for a hour and a half and I still had a fever, 39.0, by the end. I got a handful medicine and they sent me on my way.

My fever is coming down now and I'm about to go to sleep. This sucks!

CCR Updated

I stayed in bed sick today. Nothing serious, probably just a cold. But I had time to work on the Catholic Community Radio website.

So family, go over to Catholic Community Radio Podcast and download EVERYTHING!

After spending several hours last night trying to fix some assorted problems with the server, I found a possible hacker attempt. I slept (poorly) on it and looked at it all with fresh eyes. It looks like someone was able to inject some code into the website php. Luckily they weren't able to do anything, thanks to our hosts. I deleted the code and was able to update the blog's code and database as well. I fixed a small problem that we had. Wordpress wouldn't recognize our files as audio files. They were m4a's. I added a few lines to the htaccess file and bam. Still, just in case I re-uploaded the Our Father's House shows as mp3s.

So please go and download them. You can also subscribe to the podcast so that iTunes automatically downloads them. Please enjoy!

Mt. Aso Festival

Although I botched my trip to Korea, I was able to enjoy japanese hippie time. Normally hippies are stinky, offensive and annoying, but Japanese hippies were quite tolerable. They somehow got their kids not to stare at foreigners like we were aliens. +1 Hippies!

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The stage with a hemp peace sign on the back.


Everyone setup tents and lots of them had little shops. In the background, yes, those are teepees.


Some hippie hovels.


Lazy japanese dogs.


We were set up on the edge of the whole deal. Our campsite was down the way. The festival took place on the outer part of Aso -san.


This little girl cleaned all the pots after breakfast. No supervision required! I want one!


Japanese hippies like to write the word "FREE" next to pictures of cannabis leaves. This is misleading. They really mean "Legalize"... Thats how J-hippies roll.


The main stage. You can see a few tent shops. They sold clothes and food mostly.


The teepee in this picture is a little coffee and tea tent. They also served great porridge. More on that later.


Scenery!


More of it! This was just over the hill behind the camp. Some folks were doing yoga or something on the top of the hill to the left of me.


This chap made us organic homegrown veggie chapati.


This doggie woke up when the food was done.


This is the coffee teepee I referred to earlier. We enjoyed chai tea.


After finishing cooking, he played us some tunes on his guitar.


This little Nepalese girl is a natural model and hammed it up for our cameras.


What a cute kid. And the parents weren't weird about her playing with the ugly foreigners.

How to ruin everything

I've been looking forward to going to Korea for almost two weeks. As I was walking out of the door with Chris, I asked him "Do you have your re-entry permit?"

The japanese government in all its wisdom, requires foreigners to purchase a re-entry permit from the japanese government in order to return to Japan. This is a requirement for all foreigners living in Japan. In addition, like all foreigners who come to Japan, when we re-enter, we are photographed and finger printed. This is done under the guise of protecting the japanese from "terrorists".

Chris said "yea, I think so, do you?" I checked my bag and realized that I had never gotten one. The place to get these ridiculous permits is in Nagasaki City or Fukuoka city, both hours away from me. And they are only open about 5 inconvenient hours on week days. My plans were shot and I sat there on the couch mentally beating myself into oblivion. My sieve like memory is something I can never get used to. It helps complicate all my relationships, all my plans, every aspect of my life. I can never view myself as intelligent or clear thinking. The reason I'm so mad about this, isn't just because I can't go, but that I was told to get this permit many MANY times but many different people. I was in the building where they are issued and just didn't bother. I believed I would never be leaving Japan, or that I'd have other opportunities to get it. I've heard there are exercises you can do to strengthen your memory, but I keep forgetting what they are...

Enough wallowing! I shall not be defeated, even by my own brain. I used my friend Eric's wacom pad to trace / draw these pictures. Please enjoy.