Jun 17, 2012

Don't Care What the Masses Think About Me With My Sweet Goatie


Happy Father's Day, Dad!  And to all the other hardworking dads out there too.  I had some Costco pizza today in your honor!


Jun 11, 2012

Blood Stealers

I translated the Uchuu Kyoudai trailer, if anyone's interested.  :p




Now, a fair warning of some possible TMI.  Feel free to sit this one out.
A few weeks ago i got a postcard in the mail for a free woman's health-check, as well as a very cheap uterine cancer screening.  I've never been big on going in for check-ups, especially after i moved out and no longer had (decent) insurance.  But i figured since i'm paying the health insurance for it here, i may as well take advantage of it.  The women's clinic i went to is literally right behind my apartment building- the back side of the building is the view from my kitchen window.  So i waltzed on over at 11am, up to the reception desk and showed them my free health check card and told them i also wanted to do the uterine cancer check too.  The lady at the desk told me, "There's no female doctor today, is that alright?"  Sure, whatever, to me it's just as embarrassing either way.  She then gave me all these forms to fill out, which took probably about 20 minutes because all the forms were all in Japanese and reading kanji sucks, especially when it's listing a bunch of diseases...

I then got this card and was told to take it down to the weight/blood pressure corner down the hall to weigh and check my own blood pressure.  I had to stick it in this card reader, then go stand on the scale and stick my arm in one of those blood pressure reading machines, and it recorded all the info on my card.  How efficient! i thought.  Then it was time to pee in a cup.  Always a fun time.  But not nearly as fun as waiting.  Waiting. Waiting.  I thought i was going to die of boredom.  Or dehydration, since there were no signs of a drinking fountain anywhere, and it was all warm and stuffy in the waiting room too.  I think i was waiting for about an hour and a half until i was finally called in to one of the rooms to talk to the male doctor.  He was nice, spoke to me in English which was a bit of a relief as i was too irritated after waiting for so long to be bothered to try to understand any more Japanese.  Explained he was going to do the uterine cancer check.  Some lady nurse escorted me to the little exam room and had me prepare myself to sit in the crazy moving chair for the examination.  The chair went up and back and umm.. yeah.  There was a curtain hanging from the ceiling so that i couldn't see the doctor and he couldn't see me when he came in.  Well.. at least not my upper-half.  Kind of a nice courtesy i guess, but then i still have to go back to the next room and talk to him and it's just kinda like, Oh hey!  You were just over there looking at my hoo-haw.  Told me the results would be back in about 4 weeks and to come back then for the results.  Then it was back to waiting for about another hour for my "women's health check".
Which, come to find out, really meant "blood test".  Ohhhh, joy.  I was a baby and had to keep my head turned away the whole time and got nauseous from feeling the needle in my arm.  The nurse was pretty concerned and kept asking if i was alright or if i wanted to lie down.  I declined, and went back out to the waiting room once again.  Not what i was expecting... i was thinking there'd be a little more poking and prodding of boobies and other bits, and less needles and blood-taking.
At least my last wait was under 10 minutes, and i was called up to the counter to pay my 600yen for the cancer screening and they confirmed that i could come back in four weeks to get the results.  As long as it doesn't involve hours of waiting again!  Got to the clinic shortly after 11am, but didn't get home until almost 3pm.  I want to call it a waste of a day, but as i haven't had really any health checks for the good latter part of my life i guess it's not such a bad thing. 

Jun 7, 2012

宇宙に夢中

I haven't had anything note-worthy to post about recently, hence why i haven't blogged anything the past few weeks.  Just working.  A lot.  Studying (kind of).  Cleaning.  Hanging out with the Roomie.  You know, normal people things that would be completely boring to write/read about.
Roomie and i did go see a movie last weekend though.  Movies here are cheaper after 8pm, only 1200yen as opposed to the 2000yen normal price, so Saturday night we went and saw 宇宙兄弟 (Uchuu Kyoudai; Space Brothers).  Roomie really loves Oguri Shun- the actor of one of the main characters- so of course she really wanted to see it, and i really wanted to see it because i love anything that has to do with space.  I was skeptical though, because to be honest i'm not a fan of Japanese films (or really, Asian films in general).  In my opinion they're either really over-acted, or too dramatic/depressing/everyone dies.  Of course not all of them, but i'd say a good majority of them are.  The over-acting thing especially gets to me.  Obviously it is a movie and it's not real-life, but i like some believability in the way people act at least, even if the plot is fictitious and could never happen.  It's just annoying, in my opinion, and a shame too because watching movies in Japanese is great listening practice...
Anyway, rant aside..  I wasn't expecting to be impressed with this but i still wanted to see it anyway, and was actually pleasantly surprised.  It had its weird, quirky moments, but i did enjoy it.  Not one of those movies i regret paying to see in theatres, and i'd even consider buying it on DVD as well.  I was also glad at how much of it i could understand too!  Not 100% of course, but i never felt lost in the dialogue.  Yay. 

  
In other non-exciting news, there was an earthquake last Friday- a 5.2.  I've felt quite a few 5-point-somethings since i've been here; they're still quite frequent and they really don't bother me.  My reckless side actually enjoys them and finds them a little exciting.  But, i just have this irrational fear that the next Big One will happen while i'm in the shower or on the toilet, and the building will collapse and i'll be stuck in such a state..  But back to last Friday- i had just gotten home from work and was settled onto the pot for a poo, when suddenly there was a rumbling from underneath me.  For a second i just thought it was a large truck driving by, but then it worked its way up into the walls until the whole apartment was shaking.  Sure got me up and on my feet pretty quick.

And that's all for now.  Gotta get some studying in before bed.  Work today was very exhausting, but tomorrow's Friday so i just have to push through one more day before the weekend.
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