私の生きた証拠

今日は綾子様のお誕生日。あの方は今頃何をなさっているのかわからないが、今日の一日が楽しく過ごせることをお祈りします。

もう32歳になっちゃったんですから、さっさと結婚しなさいよ～

I’ve repointed my arrows. I’m now officially an owner of the 500-dollar Easton sticker, and a user of the X10 arrow, choice of the Olympic archers (including Madam Park Sung-hyun).

For some reason, this just feels good.

After getting my brand new X10s (and going to a lot of trouble pointing [meaning putting in the points] and nocking [meaning putting in the nocks with Teflon tape] and fletching them [meaning putting on the damned spin vanes on doublesided tapes that are irritatingly difficult to put on both the shaft and for the vanes to adhere to]) it turned out that the arrows are too long for me. Which means de-pointing them (requiring the heating and evaporation of large amounts of solidified glue) and wrecking FOUR lighters in a row (meaning melting the interior plastic and some wires - it’s the piezoelectric type which includes electric wires). Along the way I inhaled a lot of glue vapor and no doubt a lot of burnt rubber as well.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that Inoue Mao (井上真央) is just hot. THANKS SENSEI FOR STOCKING AN ISSUE OF AERA WITH HER PICTURE ON THE COVER!!!

I am not even sure why I bother to blog, seeing that sheer inertia at the end of each day seems to stop me dead in my tracks, so to speak. But somehow I feel the need to justify (or maybe just document) my continued existence with SOME sort of records.

Last Monday, I finally succeeded in meeting up with Chikako-sensei for lunch (and passed her the dried banana thingies), and other than ranting to her about certain unpleasant things (which I must have repeated so often that even I am getting slightly sick of ranting about them), I also told her about my more-or-less confirmed departure and return (or as it would seem to me, RETURN, THEN departure) dates, and she has in her kind and generous nature extended to me an offer to lodge me for a week or so (and to arrange for possible ‘homestays’ with her successful bachelor friends). I’m supposed to write to Mr. Otsuka (her father) and detail to him my plans, but owing to inevitable procrastination (exacerbated by my inability to write in Japanese without excruciating effort) I haven’t exactly gotten round to it.

Friday was the day of the release of A level results, and since I was (by some accounts) silly enough to take the Chinese exam, I had results to collect. To cut things short, I managed to get an A somehow. That aside, since I didn’t get A1 for O level HCL I’ll be retaking the exam again. I’m not really enthusiastic about it, to be honest. But that’s for another time.

I don’t really want to talk about the Singapore Polytechnic Shoot, since it was pretty screwed up and our team got conclusively owned by our opponents. However the training I had been doing last week seems to have injured my shoulder considerably and even now I am still feel some pain around.

I had meant this to be much longer, but due to certain circumstances I’m leaving it at this. No doubt this period is the worst for me so far this year. I can only hope it doesn’t last.

Did some things over the past couple of days.

1. Sat for the GP and General Studies in Chinese common test on Friday. Let’s just say that I’m probably going to perform as well as or maybe a worse than what is normal for me.

2. Went for bits of the archery camp. Had the experience of eating two servings of food for dinner (I’ve never been to a camp in which I didn’t eat more than the average person), and four roti pratas in the middle of the night (which Bing, a nice big J5, and Kay Hian, a nice small J5, bought back from somewhere on this island).

3. Went for a CIP activity involving distribution of food supplies to some needy families. I’m convinced that inflation stinks big time in a non-welfare state like this authoritarian militaristic capitalistic oligarchy.

4. Went to shoot after that.

5. On Sunday went to some corner of this island far from civilization (actually an army camp where innocent young men are punished for being born to people who generally support a regime which bases its strength on violation of human rights) for an archery competition. Somehow or other managed to clinch team first position, working in concert with JinJin and Zhanming.

6. On Monday after a short day due to timetable swaps went for lunch with Chikako-sensei. Worked out some preliminary plans for my three-week sojourn in a free land with terrible working conditions. Looks like I’ll be spending a lot on state-of-the-art rail transport, but she still rocks. And her parents too.

7. After lessons today (apparently Chinese was cancelled and I wasn’t aware) I popped down to the range, and shot a lot. And also confirmed a roughly 2-thousand local dollar equipment order. And I got a new fingertab (made in a great nation somewhere to the North-east).

I’m gloating.