Five-hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Already : Hatachi Archives
Five-hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes Tuesday August 29
Today marks the one-year anniversary of my arrival in Japan. What a better time to make a little year-in-review. Let's see if I can't account, numerically, for some of the neat things I've done:
- Wasted about one-third, or one-hundred seventy-five thousand two hundred minutes, of that time sleeping or rolling around in bed, and one-fortieth of the entire year, or thirteen thousand six hundred and eighty minutes, on my two bicycles.
- Learned over two thousand characters, their meanings, their readings, and their stroke order, and then summarily forgot one-third of all of them, only being able to identify them on sight.
- Ate in excess of one hundred and fifty eggs. Go look at how many eggs that is is some time. That's one big omlette. Yeah.
- Consumed my entire body weight in rice. Twice.
- Attended three hundred and twenty classes in eight months.
- Bought three new suits, which also facilitated the acquisition of one job, which then facilitiated the acquisition of a working visa.
- Said the phrase "I've been here since last August," followed by their response, followed by "I also studied when I was in college for three years," in Japanese appoximately eighty times. I can say this better than anything else, thus perpetuating the myth that I can indeed speak some Japanese.
- Moved once, keeping my pattern of moving once a year. I may try to break that pattern next year.
- Received twelve new stamps in my passport despite only being in three countries.
- Thought "this is really ridiculous but I'm going to let it slide because everyone here is Japanese and maybe there's something I just don't get" more than seven times. More than three of these times were in karaoke rooms.
- Successfully married zero times, and bore a startling zero children.
- Sent over one thousand two hundred and forty e-mail messages on my PC, and another seven hundred on my phone.
- Used over three hundred tea bags, often resteeping, equating to a two-cup-a-day habit.
- Posted about eighty-seven blog posts. And I know you read everyone one of them.
Now, maybe I should set some goals for the following year?
- Pass the highest level Japanese proficiency test in December
- Stay in touch with the Stateside as not to lose touch with all my friends
- Relearn those characters I forgot
- Visit my family and friends at least once
- Rule the Tokyo underworld in my free time
