The Week #320

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  • ⚽️ Ted Lasso is back on (🎉). I'm very glad it's been renewed and given he's coaching the women's team in Richmond, it opens an entire new storyline. The first 3 episodes have been fantastic.
  • 🍕 We had one of Leo's classmates and family over pizza and it was a success. It was nice to be able to talk with other foreign parents about school, raising families in Japan and the like. I also have a sudden unexplained urge to visit Sri Lanka. Maybe a good use for the miles I've been accumulating.
  • 🧽 The dishwasher broke. During the dry cycle it just made some beeps and started flashing. As it broke on the weekend I had to wait for the manufactuer to open so I could call to get someone to repair it. I was expecting to have to do all my dishes by hand for a week, but they were able to come out and fix it same day. There was a leak somewhere in it that had been going for a while, so replacing a part fixed it up. They're meant to last 10 years, so hopefully this repair gets it another 3 to actually reach the target lifespan.

    The repair man was fairly soft spoken. As we were finishing up, I got semi-nihongo jouzued, but it was in the context of when he saw my name and called he was nervous because...would he be able to communicate. And that I could communicate and communicate well, he was relieved. Recently he's been doing a lot of repairs for Chinese customers and that's been difficult.

    Yay for me, but also,  I can't help but wonder if experiences like his bubble up and is one of the drivers behind the surge with the far right in Japan and the increasingly strict requirements for permanent residency. (No idea where he stands on all of it, it wasn't a political conversation and just something he said in passing.)