Shut up, cicadas!

I'm taking a break from the job hunt today. It has been getting me down this week, and it feels like pointless hours wasted away in front of the computer. I like to believe that being super positive can bring good karma or whatever, but the fact is I'm still unemployed with no prospects and no money and that whole mindset is wearing thin. Whenever I feel low I just remember that if I had not quit, I'd be enrolling grotty and complacent students by now. It makes me feel a lot better.

The in-laws are in town, all the way from bonnie Scotland! We've not seen them since the wedding fifteen months ago, so it is awesome to lay eyes on some family again without Skype playing middle man and garbling everything up. They plan to do a massive harbour walk and I am very excited about this prospect. Their map runs from the north side of the bridge right around the west side of the harbour and back to the south side of the bridge in the city. The tourist information centre told them it should take around four days depending on how far you want to walk each day. This makes my heart go doki-doki (Japanese onomatopoeia for a fast-beating heart), 100%! The walks are a huge metaphorical thorn in my time frame, so if I could knock out the majority of it in a week it would pretty much be the best thing ever. It also means saving money on the travel costs as we can get a travel multi-pass and jump on and off everything for that week - this has been an awkward hidden factor of this particular challenge.

As usual, other micromovements towards implementing some other challenges has brought a deafening silence, an aural space immediately occupied by the screech of cicadas having a rave party outside my window. Loudest. Insects. Ever. (no really.) I'm going to try and drown them out with my guitar. Wish me luck.

Scarce weekends

So, today (which is "kyo" in Japanese!) I listed all of the weekends between now and the end of July. And then I filled in all the 'life' stuff I need to do - mostly wedding related things, as what feels like thousands of my best friends get hitched and I need to be available for hen's nights, engagement parties, pre-wedding parties, actual ceremonies - and band stuff, including a long overdue recording session (Did I mention that we were in a band comp and have won all our heats and are now in the final? Well we are. It's a bit rad. The final is Tuesday week and if we win it we get a 5-day studio recording package. But I digress). The point is, empty weekends are like opportunities to eat cheesecake. Infrequent but blissful. Especially if the base is all crumbly. Mmmmmmm. Crumbly cheesecake base. Keeki-o kudesai? (Japanese: Can I have cake please?)

I then looked at all the challenges yet to achieve, and the time frames needed for some of them. It's a tiiiiiny bit nerve wracking, but mostly I'm still wrapped up in a sense of guileless positivity about their completion. Call it denial, whatever it is, it's working for me.

Sorry I haven't posted about Tasmania yet, but I've been applying for jobs and stressing about various other things and also am lazy and haven't got around to it. Y'know. But the short story is that I jumped in a lagoon. I'll tell you about it some time.

Meanwhile I've switched meditation audio and now a lovely Scottish gentleman named Andrew Johnson guides me. His accent is wonderful.

There's an App for that.

I downloaded a ‘Learn Japanese!’ app recently of which I’ve completed the first four lessons. The CDs we’ve been listening to are good up to a point, but seem to move too quickly when you don’t have any visual reference points. It’s difficult to even pick out the pronunciation sometimes, without being able to actually see the word and get a feel for how things are put together. Knowing how to say a full sentence by rote is very different to understanding how the sentence is put together and how the words work individually within it. The App is good for this – I now understand about sentence particles, and how the Japanese avoid pronouns. Instead of saying ‘I eat’ or ‘he eats’ or ‘they eat’, you just say ‘eat’ and then use context to figure out who you mean. Sounds a bit weird but I guess it works.

Our big coast trek from Bundeena to Otford was supposed to be this weekend, but after all the coordination there were no campsites left when I called to book. Of course. I feel a bit stupid for having left it so late but it was a backhanded blessing, in a way, what with the weather being so unbearable. The main problem is that we can’t find another weekend to do it until April at the earliest, so we’ll need to get it sorted out quickly otherwise we’ll have the other extreme and it’ll be too cold.

Next weekend, however, is Tasmania. Tasmania!

I'm learning Japanese I think I'm learning Japanese I really think so

I've almost listened to two whole Instant Immersion! Japanese language tuition discs. All I have retained so far is that 'dozo' means 'please' and 'ginkou' means 'bank'. The rest of it has mostly been a lady speaking incredibly fast and then asking me to repeat her, which is the part where I gaze blankly into the middle distance while my brain makes fart noises under its armpit*. I can see that continual listening will eventually help this stuff sink in, and I guess I am getting used to the sounds, but it is already a bit frustrating. The structure of the recordings themselves is odd. It gives you the Japanese phrase twice, and then you get the translation. The first disc, which mostly covers basic sounds, seems to have no real organisational flow and certainly no context between one phrase at the next – I was amused to learn** the word ‘cockroach’ and then have it followed immediately by ‘that was a delicious meal’. I can’t help but feel ever so slightly concerned that it may be one of those Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook situations, like I’m innocently trying to master a sentence, only to then be instructed that it means ‘Drop your panties Sir William - I cannot wait til lunchtime’ and find a busload of Japanese tourists giggling at me in delight. That would be interesting.

*Yes, my brain has armpits. Didn't you ever do Biology? Geez.
**Of course I say 'learn', but what I really mean is 'was told but instantly forgot'.

Perspective

I am getting better at meditating without distraction in loud or busy spaces, although I am also finding my tea is usually cold by the time I’m back in the land of the conscious. Mindful meditation is what I’m mainly focussing on now. I have been too lazy to charge my iPod shuffle for, oh, over a month now, so I’ve not been listening to my audio in that time.

The weekend had a lot of unpleasantness in it so I will focus on the blessings instead: the coming together of friends, the rare spotting of a giant wombat foraging for food, and the serenity of quiet contemplation at the platypus pools (albeit without seeing any actual platypuses, but a relaxing endeavour nonetheless).

I’ve decided to focus on the challenges that don’t involve any costs until my karma balances out and I can justify paying for silliness again. This firstly means recharging the iPod so I can upload some Learn-Japanese CDs onto it. I figure if the weather is bad and I can’t cycle to work, I can at least spend 40 minutes each day listening to a recording of someone speaking gibberish and then asking me to repeat them until something sticks. If nothing else it might get someone to finally laugh at me on the train.

Music has also become a core default setting in my brain, which is a surprising return after many years of my songwriting habits de-evolving. In anguished moments I find myself thinking it would be nice to just have a few hours with a guitar, or space to sing. Maybe that’s just a reaction to not having had a band rehearsal or gig for a couple of weeks, but this in itself is noteworthy as usually having so much band stuff on can be quite draining. Maybe it’s the subconscious urgency of having to write 19 more songs before next July. Maybe it’s the realisation that singing other people’s songs is rather enjoyable. Let’s also not forget that half-decent busking might actually make me money, a very rousing prospect.

I also just made an appointment to give blood for the first time, so that puts some things in perspective and makes me feel a little better about things in general.