The Week #175
- 🚲 For culture day we went to the park by the river. This was the first time we went in the new car with Leo's bicycle in the back. It fits! we brought our popup tent and ate the finest of 7-11's offerings for lunch. While we were eating, there was another kid on a bike in just an tank-top undershirt (and pants, of course) that reminded me of one of the kids that Yumi met when Leo was just born and we lived in Fujisawa.
And since I'm mentioning this fact, you can probably guess, it was them! They played for about 45 minutes together before they had to go off for lunch. It's such a small world sometimes. - ⚽️ Leo had his first real soccer match in Hodogaya. They played 3 games at 10 minutes each...and I don't think Leo's going to be a soccer star. He was out there, but he didn't go after the ball, always staying a bit back. But still, he seemed to enjoy himself and being with the team.
What was hard was listening to some of the other parents (from the other teams) going into full monster-parent mode yelling at their kids from the sidelines. Not friendly "you got it!", but "what are you doing? move! the game isn't over yet!" in really rough Japanese. They're 5...relax...
It was my first time visiting the park and driving in the general area. Having a smaller car (with instant torque gives me a lot more confidence driving around unfamiliar streets. - 🥵 It also happened to be really hot. Not something I was expecting to say in November, but here we are. 3 days this week it's been 24 - 25C out...we've had over 141 days this year above 25C and I'm over it. Makes me think a lot about the saying that goes around, this isn't hottest summer on record...it's the coolest summer for the rest of your life.
- 📘 I've started a new book - Running is my Therapy (perhaps related to the above 😂). I'm not as brave as Colin to talk too deeply about my mental health online, but since I've been a teenager I've had my share of ups and downs. Thankfully something that passes in a couple of weeks at most and doesn't affect my work. My running matches this, too. My starts are when I'm feeling good / getting out of a funk...and stop when I get into one. One thing I have noticed is that when I run I feel better. So my theory is that if I can just continue the routine a bit longer, the gap between ebbs and flows will also elongate.
- 🎶 The Beatles released their final single, Now and Then. John Lennon wrote the song and recorded a demo playing on the piano. Paul, Ringo, and George tried to finish the song in the 90's, but John's voice wasn't clear enough to mix. It wasn't until they developed the technology for the Beatles documentary to extract audio tracks that they could isolate his vocals enough for them to mix and finish the song. Really good.
Interactions
5
-
like
-
@jamesvandyne it wasn’t culture day but at tsushintai the other day, there was a father letting his son have it, Showa style, over his laziness at baseball practice. You’d think the kid was a POW it was so bad and it went on for a good hour. We were all cringing. Hope that “big man” is proud of himself. 😬
reply -
@rickcogley Yeeash. I don't get it. Part of me wants to go and inform them of the current era, but you know it won't make a difference.
reply -
@jamesvandyne it's the "Ohtani Shohei" effect, with parents mistakenly believing their kid's the next incarnation.
reply -
@jamesvandyne I used to march in drum and bugle corps from 15 to 19 yrs, and the instruction style on the east coast was to yell and use rough language. A fellow marcher friend who later became an instructor and went west to teach, said when I asked him why the west coast corps usually win: "it's simple; they don't yell. It's all about an expected level of professionalism and correct guidance."
reply