Little bro update

Thank you for your concern for my brother-in-law, it's so hard being far away, even in this modern age, information is sketchy, but Ryota is headed to the Gold Coast tonight for a week to see what's going on (and have a little holiday on an insurance paid-for ticket!). At least if Junpei is going to get a life-threatening illness he chose to do it at a very convenient time when we all have holidays!

Things were looking better after he got out of ICU, they were monitoring him, keeping him on blood thinners to make sure there was no clotting in his brain and he was generally alert and able to walk around and stuff. Typical Aussie hospital too, they even let him go to a nearby restaurant for dinner the night his mum got there! Japanese hospital staff would have a brain hemorrhage just contemplating that idea! I hate the over-protective, often seemingly unnecessary hospital system here in Japan, but I have to admit, it makes me feel a little bit safer than the Aussie, "Yeah, you'll be right mate, just got a bit of a sore noggin'!" attitude!

They said that if his CT scan yesterday was all clear then he would actually be able to be released from hospital, but they have found more bleeding and they are now worried that it wasn't an isolated event, but actually caused by... something else... Literally my mother-in-law's words. When I asked her what she thought they meant, brain tumour and cancer were thrown around, and seeing as though he had leukaemia when he was a kid, this is a very fucking scary but quite real possibility.

I've never been close to my brother in law, but I've always had a soft spot for him and hate seeing him go through something so scary when he was just starting to actually live his life by escaping the jikka and seeing the world. Very very sad. They want him to get back to Japan as soon as possible to see about surgery and treatment options, but apparently we'll know more on Monday when he has more tests.

Again, keep him in your thoughts for me!

Gaman

'Gaman' is a great word in Japanese. It may be up there with 'ganbatte' and 'sho ga nai'. It basically means 'suck it up' and it's something that I think Japan is training me very well for.

I bitch a LOT about Japan, but really I love living here, I think when it gets to the point of white, hot rage against Japan, nobody can actually stand staying, they just go. I have my moments but for the most part I love living here.

Then maybe Japan has nothing to do with it, maybe it's just me getting older and wiser? Whatever it is, I'm finding myself accepting the things that I can't change with a lot more grace and maturity than ever before. Even if I do say so myself!

I've always hated change, even when I was a kid, my mum was constantly wanting to change the furniture in my room, just for the hell of it, just for a refresh. And I fucking hated it. If I came home to hear the vacuum cleaner and see the door to my room open I'd instantly get angry because I knew the bed would be under the window or near the door, or somewhere it hadn't been the night before, and I fucking despised it. I was a bit of a selfish cow now I think about it, but it just made me kinda panic, all that change.

Jobs are the same, I only ever had one part-time job for 6 years through school and University, and after coming to Japan have had a total of 4 different jobs in 7 years, and all those changes were not my choice, what with bankruptcy, and babies and stuff. It's a shame I hate change so much, because every big change I've ever made has been for the better, I am just really reluctant to actually do it.

The upcoming arrival of my baby is no exception. I literally had panic attacks at the thought of all the change it's going to bring in the beginning, but I'm starting to accept that it's happening. I can't stop it, so I have to roll with it, do the best I can.
My instant reaction to things I don't like is to kick and scream and cry. (Literally and figuratively...) Just recently, my schedule has been an 8 o clock finish every night of the week except Sunday, I HATED this, it may not seem late but when you have a hungry kid and hungry incompetent twat for a husband, trust me it's fucking late. But I truly feel that I'm adapting, because that's just the way it is. A few years ago I don't think I could have adapted, not without melting down, but I'm surprising myself by 'gaman'ing it and dealing. I'm proud of myself for this, because it's one of my big character flaws and I'm glad that I might be finally growing up.

I think Japan deals with 'gaman' very well, sometimes too well, and it's all rubbing off on me. Now if only I could gaman through Ryota being a dick, then I really will be a fully-fledged Japanese gaman veteran!

Let's gaman!

Perspective

I'm amazed at the amount of comments on that last post! Thank you for all of them, I love a good debate whether opinions are the same as my own or not!

But pissed mails from an ex-girlfriend have kind of been pushed from my mind after discovering that Ryota's brother has had a brain hemorrhage at the ripe old age of 25...

He's in Australia at the moment on a working holiday and had said he'd had a headache for the last 10 days (must have been a shocker of a headache!). I actually feel a bit guilty, Ryota's mum was going to go to Australia and I said it was ridiculous, he wasn't a little boy... Oops.
 But to be fair, he has a track record of sleeping a lot and being generally lazy so I thought it might be a bit of 'away-from-home-stress' and that it would man him up to get through it by himself. The details are sketchy but I'm guessing he'll have to have surgery to stop the bleeding. I may be going for an unexpected trip to the gold coast for translating duties tomorrow but being pregnant and all I'd prefer not to.

Ryota's brother can be a lazy shit but he doesn't have a bad bone in his body and I really hope he's ok, being in hospital in a foreign country is scary shit and I really feel for him. I'd been here for 7 years when I got my tonsils out and it still freaked me out a bit. I feel even more from him being in an Aussie hospital where people are not so understanding when someone doesn't speak English, I hope they go slow for him.

UPDATE: Little brother is in ICU. MIL is flying out tonight so keep your fingers crossed for him. I can't stop fucking googling the worst case scenarios. :(

The old phone check

I think phone checking is quite common in Japan, my J-girlfriends all check their boyfriend's/husband's mobile phone regularly and demand to know what the fuck is going on if there are any hidden folders or locks. It's almost like neurotic, possessive behaviour is a sign of love and dedication here, rather than bat shit crazy, which is the first thing that comes to mind for me. I had a friend who got divorced from his J-wife, but 2 years later she would still make him bento every single day and leave it on his doorstep when he got a new girlfriend. I think that is just nuts, no!? My J-girlfriends felt sorry for the lady and said she must still really love him... Ummm ok.

Anyway, I've never been into phone checking for a few reasons; Number 1, it's an invasion of privacy. 2, it's a little bit fucking mental. 3, I'm not really the jealous type. And 4, Ryota is never out of my hair long enough to be physically possible for him to be cheating. He literally is home at 5:50pm on the dot every single night, rarely goes to nomikais and has very little social life apart from surfing where he comes home sun burnt and full of sand so I'm pretty sure that's where he actually goes. I remember one time he said he was going to the local hardware store and was gone 2 hours, when he got back I was all, "Sooooo hardware store eh, oh yeah!" as a joke, but he actually showed me the 400 different photos he had taken on his phone while browsing power tools so he could buy them cheaper on the internet... There's just no way he could be cheating, too much of a loser!

So all this said, not sure why I checked his phone... OK, I am sure, I'm a curious fucker. Not about cheating, but I think snooping is just in my nature. My Dad is a customs officer and I'm sure that's where I get it, but if there is something to be snooped, my nose will be in it, as long as I know I won't get caught in said snooping. Also, Ryota's been bitching to me about his co-workers on a regular basis but I had a sneaking suspicion he was all chummy with them by phone and mail and then just waits till he gets home to dump all his frustrations on me.

So when he went out running yesterday and left his phone sitting there I had a little peek and was shocked and amazed at what I found. No co-worker gossip, BUT I did find emails from his ex-girlfriend and I swear to fucking god they were EXACTLY the same as some of the mails that have been passed between me and my ex-boyfriend at drunken moments. Well, exactly same except they were in a different language of course... I had actually felt guilty about the odd drunk text to my ex, so knowing Ryota was dabbling in it himself was actually quite comforting!
Basically, there was one mail that she sent him that said something like:

"I'm sorry I'm really drunk and you shouldn't reply to me, but I was just thinking about how much I miss you and want to kiss you again. I know we're both married to different people but I can never forget you..."

Drunken and harmless, but I was almost squealing with excitement at this sudden scandal injected into my otherwise dull life! I was trying to guess his response before I scrolled down, because Ryota has trouble writing a fucking birthday card message let alone a response to some heavy shit like that. He was very gentlemanly and dignified though, his response was some thing like, "It's OK I'm drunk too... (HIGHLY unlikely I think he was just trying to make her feel better!) I often think about you too... It's hard to forget the past..."

His reply was so awkward and choppy, I almost wanted to re-write it and tell him what to say to the poor girl. Then there were a few the next day from her apologising and other random ones where he said he was thinking about something they did together or a funny memory. All pretty damn innocent, but in my world of work, sleep, eat, try-not-to-damage-child, this is juicy!

I'm hoping she'll get on the piss again and send another one, I'll have to do random  phone checking more often!

So, do you phone check?? Ever found anything?? Would you use it against him/her if you did?? I'm so fucking hungry for gossip after this tiny taste!

Ah fuck it

They suckered me in those seductive bitches with their delicate pink petals. (Obligatory boring pictures to follow...)Spring has lightened my mood considerably, although I'm not all sunshine and fucking birds chirping. I HATE pregnancy. But I fucking hate being pregnant in Japan, or more specifically, the fucking nurses at the maternity clinics. I would like to imagine that it's just my stuck-up clinic, but I've heard the same stories so many times. But today was actually a good turning point for me, where I got so angry that I hit a turning point of actually not giving a fuck.

So this is how it went, the doctor always sucks air in through his teeth and tells me I'm too fat, but nothing I can't handle, and he's quite nice about it. But the fucking nurses are awful! I've managed to dodge a few lectures up until now by refusing to go to the fucking 'nutrition seminars' they schedule for me. I had to bluntly tell them that unlike a lot of women who quit their job when they get engaged in this backward country, that I in fact have a job, one that I cannot afford to be away from hearing a nurse bang on about the importance of eating rice, fish and 14 varieties of pickles for breakfast. Ain't happenin' bitch.
But they tricked me today the sly cunts. They got me in a little room by telling me they needed to show me how to do exercise to turn the baby around (he's still breech at the moment). The nurse pissed me off from the very start by telling me the instructions on how to do the exercise in fast and hard Japanese for 10 minutes, before giving saying "Can you speak Japanese?" Ummm yes dumb fuck, that's why I've been nodding and responding to your instructions for the last 10 fucking minutes.
And then came the old fat bomb, she didn't mince words, which is fine, but then said, "So, do you think you can lose some weight...?" And she added a "kana...?" on the end which implies she's talking to a fucking 4 year old with a disability.

And it actually made me happy that she was such a fuck tard, because for the last 8 months I've actually really cared about putting on weight, I've cried about it, stressed about it and possibly developed depression over it. But it was then that I showed her just how much Japanese I could speak, it was quite an impressive rant, at least 2 minutes. I basically told her that I put on the same amount of weight with my first son, I intend to diet like a mother fucker once the kid is out and that seeing as though the bub is measuring smaller than normal, I feel fine, my blood work is fine and if I were in Australia nobody would give a fuck about my weight... That she didn't and shouldn't talk to me about it again. It felt good, she was a bit shocked, and then asked if my first birth was hard. To which I actually snorted and said that of course it fucking was, I don't know too many that aren't but I think it would have been fucking hard whether I was fat or not. And walked out, saying I had didn't need her 400 pieces of paper telling me what to eat, I didn't want to kill any more trees. It was kind of weird that I added that because I actually don't really give a toss about the trees, I just wanted something to say at the end...

I feel liberated and am hoping they don't say anything more to me about it, I'm sure she won't anyway.

Ok, less ranting, more flowers!

Cherry blossoms are shit.

You know, it may be the whole pregnancy depression funk I'm going through at the moment, but I'm getting zero fucking feeling from the old cherry blossoms. Now I usually find flowers as boring as all fuck. Pretty? Yes. Can we move along now? I'm not a gardener, I never will be despite my whole family having orgasms over a perfectly cut lawn or perfect row of pansies. (Ryota included) But cherry blossoms are pretty special because they are a barren, boring tree all year round and then for one week they just explode, and they are more than beautiful, how can they not be in all their pink sweetness. So cherry blossom time is the only time I really appreciate flowers properly. I always take photos and usually blow off something I should be doing to just go walk under the trees and get lost in all the petals. I think I cried when I saw the first blooms last year, just because there had been so much death and destruction and then finally the sign of new life and hope was starting. (And the fact that I'm an emotional dickhead who cries at pretty much anything...)

Of course there are always down sides to cherry blossoms, the hoards of people who ALL say the same fucking thing while snapping pictures with their phones a millimetre from the tree. "KIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!" It fucking drives me insane, but if you can't beat em, join em, I usually just join in the chorus of stupidity to fit in. But other than that, the blossoms bring a good atmosphere, people are outside, in the fresh air, and usually drinking some kind of alcoholic beverage to enhance the beauty of not only the trees, but the girl next to them who they may or may not end up shagging that night. Lovely.

This year? Not feeling it. It's cold for one thing, I don't want to freeze my tits off, it's supposed to be Spring, not a Winter revival, so I can't really feel it while I'm cold. And I just don't feel the same as I usually do... I guess this is because I feel crappy about myself, I can't find beauty in anything else either?? Amateur psychiatrists; go for your life!

In other self-image news, I've stopped eating dinner in a bid to curb my over-sized arse. It makes me as grumpy as fuck but it forces me to bed earlier so it's kind of working for me! I figure I have enough fat stored to last the rest of my pregnancy anyway...

So I hope you are getting more pleasure out of the cherry blossoms than me, I'll dust my camera off tomorrow and give it one more try!

Great expectations

I'm not sure if modern women are spoiled by crappy Hollywood movies, but I'm beginning to think our expectations of men, and of life in general are WAY too high.

Of course this expectation goes straight out the window when it comes to Japanese men, it's a whole new ball game. So I have to wonder, when the mix of high, unrealistic expetations and the whacky Japanese sexist society clash, where does that leave us poor bastards in the middle?

My relationships (or things that could be classed as) have been few and never really what you could call healthy. I sometimes find my mind wandering back to my ex-boyfriend, the most serious apart from Ryochan, and comparing him to my current relationship. Would he be different or act differently because he's not Japanese or simply because he's a different person? Would I be happier with a Western guy than a Japanese one or would I just compare them to Japanese guys and it would all go back and forth. I can't imagine myself with a 'conventional' J-guy, as in workaholic salaryman, but is that just because I'm used to Ryota in his kinda Japanese but mostly weird Westen mixed ways...?

Marriage is a tricky fucker, possibly the hardest part of my life to maintain order, but I remember being single, freshly dumped by my ex-boyfriend and having the fear that I'd never be loved again, I'd be alone, for the rest of my life. Now that I'm never alone, I kind of wish I hadn't taken that single time for granted, wasting the days away with thoughts of: 'Why me?? Why am I destined to be alone!?' Twat I was! Imagine if I was single, I could work without guilt...work out until I puked my guts out without worrying if dinner was prepared or not... Go drinking and screw random hot men... Not have my body taken over by a freakin baby!
And of course there's the flip side, I wouldn't have a little boy pat my belly at night and say "Good night baby...."

 Meh, I could live without the cuteness. Just kidding! But not really...

My life is always going to be full of doubts, regrets and what ifs, anyone who says they have no regrets are either kidding themselves, on some really good drugs, or are much better people than me. I have so many regrets I've lost count, but if we never regretted anything we'd never learn anything, or some shit, right?

Tomorrow marks 7 years ago that I came to Japan, in that 7 years I've managed to drink more alcohol than I care to put a measure on, shagged my way through numerous nationalities, had fights, seen amazing things, fallen asleep in parks, acquired many friends, lost most of them along the way, wound up with a house, car, a husband who I still manage to struggle through with, one and a half kids, a cat and two fish and can safely say that I would never have imagined it this way when I first stepped off the plane. I don't know if my expectations are too high, but the one thing I don't regeret, is having the regrets and disappointments that I've had, they've made for an interesting 7 years if nothing else. Happy Japanniversary to me!

Dear God help me.

For I forgot. I forgot that every year, at the beginning of April, Ryota has a fuck off long holiday. As in he's off from April 1st-12th. Off as in AT HOME. As in in my vicinity 24 fucking 7! Ummmm does the city not care enough for their workers to know that by giving them this ridiculous holiday will surely lead to attempted murder by crazy hormonal pregnant gaijin wife?! And it's not even a holiday! They don't get paid for it, so it's just 12 days of pure hell with negative financial outcome!

Today is day 1 and we didn't do too badly, it's a good thing I'm quite busy, or we'd be seriously fucked. I did have to vacuum around him, there's a little pile of crumbs in the shape of his bum. And he watched a movie while I prepared dinner that I won't be home in time for because I'll be working, but honestly I prefer it that way, nothing worse than a big annoying man faffing around in the kitchen fucking up your schedule. He's on his best behaviour because we went in to the city today and got him a pair of 35,000 yen sunglasses, I figured 1000 yen for each year of his life wasn't too bad for a 30th birthday present, so I forked out and watched him beam like a little kid who just got ice cream.

Tomorrow, who knows? I'm making him tile the genkan to keep him busy and relatively out of the way but fuck me, how am I going to get through it!?