ENG/JAP Lit

Regular work day. Lots of translations, though found out another coworker speaks pretty good English and is an English Lit. major from Sophia University. I can’t figure what would be worse... the Japanese Lit. or the English Lit. major. Oh wait... would English Lit include Dostoyavski’s Crime and Punishment? If so, I greatly pity the man. Luckily I believe that counts as Russian so the poor man may have dodged the bullet. Then again... I got Naomi senior year of college...in two languages... ick. If you haven’t read Naomi, do yourself a favor... DON’T.

So Tokyo has this interesting quirk in comparison to Kansai (Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Kobe). People tend to ignore people who don’t have direct relation to them business or otherwise. Unlike Kansai, I don’t get random conversations on the train or when I’m walking on the street. On the flip side, I have found that asking to pet peoples dogs is a really good way to get around it, and get fur therapy to boot. Pity I can’t find a friendly neighborhood cat. The one by my work hasn’t been around the last week, preferring to sun in the garden behind the shop it lives at, or so I’m told.

It’s odd. I got a reminder about 9/11 today, and even 8 years later, thinking about it feels like a punch in the gut. I keep wondering if something will happen while I’m out of the country, or how badly I would have been clawing up walls if something like that happened while I was out here. We have a phone chain in place along the family, but still. Ironically, since Tokyo is supposed to have a major catastrophic earthquake sometime in the next 30 years perhaps I’m the one more likely to have an adventure. Not to mention the missile North Korea tried to fire over Japan in March... which just happened to have a flight path over not one but two major nuclear power plants in Northern Japan... Once again, on the plus side, it is great incentive to get a disaster kit together. Think I’ll get right on that Saturday since work is making up in hours for the 5 day weekend of silver week.