Busy as I was lately, justifying my miserable research stipend, visiting Japanese universities and writing my Ph.D. thesis (yea I know, it might sound a bit premature, seeing how I haven’t even started on my Ph.D., but this is Japan: in order to get a chance at getting a grant for your Ph.D. you pretty much have to submit your finished thesis, along with the rest of your 200-page application), I nearly let the date slip by…
This month is this blog’s 5 year anniversary. A meaningless token milestone that I would feel very remiss for not celebrating. Also, what would anniversaries be without the self-indulgent navel-staring and faux-emotional look at the past:
Living…
1988 |
… huh… somewhere? (where again?)
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1993 |
… amidst the green pastures, snowy mountains and red brick walls of my catholic boarding school.
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1998 |
… in a rent-optional warehouse, south of Elephant & Castle.
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2003 |
… in a 1.5 tatami room near Gotanda.
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2008 |
… in a 4.5 tatami room near Shin Nakano.
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Spending my days…
1988 |
… studying algebra and grammar.
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1993 |
… studying latin declensions.
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1998 |
… at a variety of hip glossy magazines, most of which never made it through to the 21st century.
|
2003 |
… sleeping. Pouring drinks at a seedy Azabu-Juban bar on the outskirts of Ropponghell.
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2008 |
… plotting world-domination, atop a research center overlooking the imperial gardens.
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Spending my nights…
1988 |
… reading under the sheets.
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1993 |
… on group expeditions to the nearby all-girl boarding school.
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1998 |
… at a variety of hip glossy nightclubs, most of which never made it through to the 21st century.
|
2003 |
… socializing with “snack bar” hostesses at the end of our respective work shifts.
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2008 |
… socializing with old japanese geezers in improbable Shinjuku ojiyas.
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Listening to…
1988 |
… lots of dead German and Italian guys and whatever’s playing on my dad’s turntable.
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1993 |
… still lots of old people’s music with the odd age-appropriate musical ventures here and there (mmn, maybe my first Nirvana?).
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1998 |
… everything under the sun. Serge Gainsbourg, Pulp, Prodigy, Miles Davis, Laurent Garnier, Leonard Cohen, Sex Pistols…
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2003 |
… too many botched karaoke renditions of My Way by heavily inebriated Japanese salarymen to keep track of.
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2008 |
… Polypunk, Fleep and a whole lot of retro-80’s synth tracks with badass electro bass lines.
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Reading…
1988 |
… my dad’s library, in alphabetical order.
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1993 |
… Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Arsène Lupin.
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1998 |
… Burroughs, Anaïs Nin, Baudelaire, Albert Cohen, Boris Vian, Hunter S. Thompson… anything with sex or drugs in it.
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2003 |
… 皆の日本語.
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2008 |
… “Class Discovery and Molecular Class Prediction by Gene Expression Monitoring”.
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Plans for the future…
1988 |
… archeologist.
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1993 |
… that job where you get paid to read books all day.
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1998 |
… astronaut, princess or dictator of a small self-sufficient country.
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2003 |
… assistant bar manager?
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2008 |
… underpaid slave to Science.
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Plans for the night…
1988 |
… hoping there’s no liver for dinner.
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1993 |
… 7:30: dinner. 7:30 to 8:00: recess. 8:00 to 9:00: evening study. 9:30: lights off.
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1998 |
… editorial committee work meeting in a VIP booth at The End.
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2003 |
… go spin some records at Bar Tokyo after my shift.
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2008 |
… drinks in Golden Gai, house party at Aya’s.
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Secret ambition…
1988 |
… understand more than half the words in la Divina Comedia and Midsummer Night’s Dream.
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1993 |
… life without an alarm clock.
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1998 |
… make it alive to the year 2000.
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2003 |
… speak Japanese.
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2008 |
… find a cure for cancer. or hangover.
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wow, 5 years huh? congratulations!
And i really like the idea for this post! Actually my blog’s 5 year anniversary is actually sometime around this month (I think i started it when i graduated university… sigh.) though I’ve not had nearly the adventures you have. But I may appropriate this theme for a future blog post 🙂
hope the path to indentured servitude in the name of science goes well!
“Adventures”? merely hardships aesthetically considered. Trust me: anybody can do it.
3 years doing research, lost in the middle of the Kansai wilderness: what could ever go wrong with this plan?