Bug Gladiators, No Radiators, Border Regulators

A lack of exciting events to report on this week. The banality of salary working existence really begins to bite.

Lunch report: salads, full fishes(eat all of the head, spine and tail, no waste) , soups, rice, bread, fermented root vegetables (carrots/parsnips/turnip), more rice, fried tofu, other yet to be identified materielle of various sizes, shapes, consistencies and flavours.

For the past 2 weeks essentially, there has been an influx of prehistoric six legged creatures into the entrance of the apartment building. They’ve been waging all out battles against each other in the hopes of remaining inside the relative dryness of the building. Preying mantis are the clear dominators, absolutely no mercy to anything, including each other. They seem to like sitting on the wall directly at eye level and flexing their mandibles so as to try intimidate you when you walk in or out. Their main opponents have been these green grasshopper looking things that jump around frenetically at the slightest disturbance, leading to some jump scares in the early morning hours. Little bit of parkour to get out of the stairwell without getting pulled into the bug butchery. As soon as the mantis have finished attacking their external opponents , they seem to turn on each other (I can’t tell if they’re fighting or f&@king but whatever it is it looks violent). Spiders are also in the mix, hiding themselves beneath the lips of the stairs themselves. One count of hornet murder at the hands of hidden spider , can see the martyred corpse slowly being drained bit by bit every consecutive day. It is similar to a gladiatorial exhibition, like a microcosm of whatever the hell is going on in the natural order. It is mad to consider a square kilometre of forest and imagine the thousands of daily battles happening for survival on that level of existence. Just constant fighting out there, makes sense why we started building cities and towns and villages, the relative safety and shelter from nature is fairly significant.

One recurring and noticeable theme is cleanliness and hygiene here. Discipline and rigour in hand washing/sanitization, separate shoes for indoor vs outdoor , large stocks of indoor guest shoes at establishments, separate shoes for bathroom areas vs the rest of the indoor area. The pupils in the schools clean the schools themselves at scheduled times, either weekly or daily, lots of hygiene surrounding food serving obviously, which the students also carry out themselves. On top of this, very clear rules about when to start eating(once everyone is clean and seated) and obtaining permission from a more senior human/consensus to get seconds. I was looking into some Japanese mythology and the theme of cleanliness and purification is quite prominent, featuring in creation myths and early gods etc. Will look more into this, interesting that it’s still reflected in the society.

Fantasy segment:

On the heels of an early week 1 win, make some (now foolish) pre-game decisions and drop the bills defence which racks up 23 points against the dolphins, who I invested a lot into and are now missing their top qb to a nasty concussion. Luckily Achane makes a heroic contribution making up for tyreek hills lacklustre performance. Rejig the defense and flip coins over shaheed/pittman/stevenson and the other lads waiting in the wings. I said last week I’m not in love with the team and I’m not really , especially with a qb room that could be the attendees of a klan/aryan brotherhood rally - paler than milk one and all, no melanin to spare and no pace to burn. However , I do believe we can pull through these first weeks scratching together maybe a 2-2 and with some trickle down waivers build something a bit more exciting. Big week against NFL nutinsider, league leader after week 1 only team to score more points than the inhalers last week, with a 10% surplus. Plenty of prayers and sacrifices this week to secure some sort of reasonable result. If not a win then lots of points please gods.

Had what will probably be a monthly meeting with the fellow foreigner colleagues this week. Plied with yet more paperwork and the inevitable signing of documents written in dense kanji. Have to really trust that I am not agreeing to anything odd. “Mm yes medical insurance, ok, nothing could go wrong there surely hmm”. Receive even more papers at a social event namely the local magazine with a picture of the newcomers in it. Strange feeling to know that everyone knows or has the capacity to know who you are and what you look like and you have a lot of catching up in terms of names and faces in even the closest proximity of people to you. There is a great theory called Dunbars number which I learned about in second year sociology that kind of stuck in my head which states you can only keep track and stay up to date on the goings on of roughly 150 people’s names and faces in your brain. The Dunbar number is now approaching a limit for names to faces, I need to write them down now to keep track on them.

Some more bug news. I’ve been keeping a pretty vigilant border patrol of the personal property so far but unfortunately there was a build up of organic waste from cooking dinners (onion peels/chicken gristle etc) and that started to apply pressure on my more open sectors. Had one leak which caused some consternation one evening. Hunt down the six legged, antenna equipped intruder, engage in open hostilities and inspect the rest of the corners and dark spots for lurkers. Result: massive audit of the open sector (screen door, allows air in but no bugs). Find a breach between the overlapping doors which the critter crawled through. Particularly lax considering the hornet nest right on the border which has not been sterilised yet (part curiosity of what the hell they do or what function they serve and part fear of stinging reprisals). Anyhow, the intruder was merely a scout and no other free riders seem to have entered.

Picture: a segment from a Japanese student English textbook detailing the child labour involved in chocolate production. Considering the old “how many slaves work for you” website (https://slaveryfootprint.org/) that I mentioned earlier , ironic that this should appear. I don’t really know what to make of it, it seems like the labour of children is acceptable. I mean they “work hard all day long” I am not sure what context that work is being carried out in but fair play to them, pulling themselves up by the bootstraps.

Going to Osaka tomorrow. Hopefully have some nice rambling paragraphs from that by Monday/Tuesday.

Keep pushing.