A Very Merry Un-Birthday to Me.
Rainy season began about 3 weeks ago. A nice, breezy sunny day, followed by a rainy day and then a wall of humidity that crawled into every piece of clothing and soaked it through. I have made some concessions to the summer this year and have started wearing white and blue in an attempt to keep myself cool - it was the heat rash on an otherwise normal day that persuaded me to finally give in and turn on the aircon. Only two more months of this to go and then typhoon season sets in.
Today is not my birthday, but it IS my birthday on Thursday. And it is a special birthday, for on Thursday I will be 30 years old. I had been planning/hoping that my 30th birthday would signal the end of what has been the second worst decade of my life (my teens unsurprisingly taking the No 1 slot in the shit-stakes), and allow me to begin the fourth decade significantly better off than I had been before. However, I think that the cosmos is playing some kind of joke on me. I'd like to blame God, but seeing as I don't believe in all that lark, I can't really do anything but blame the mysterious cosmic forces who seem to like reminding me again and again that I am a mere stain on the planet. I seem to mired in ever increasing requests for payments, mainly to the Japanese government who want money for this and that and then some more of that. Today I came home to find, not the first birthday card to be delivered through my letter box, but a request for the payment of 180 000yen (that's $1800) in 5 installments over the next 6-8 months. This comes as no surprise, as I have been anticipating its arrival for a few weeks. The surprise for the Japanese government will be that I cannot pay this money back. I'm living on 1000yen a day as it is. I guess I will have to come to some kind of compromise with them...or just not pay it. The only way I can pay this back is if I receive my "Loss of Earnings" payout from the government, but as that seems to have no date upon it, I/the government could be waiting a while.
I become very morose around this time every year. I always mark the year by my birthday and by the New Year and every time I feel that another year of my life has been wasted, though whatever the hell it is I'm meant to be doing instead eludes me. The only things I have learnt from the past ten years are: stay the hell away from drummers, or indeed any kind of musician (though, to be honest, I'm still trying to learn my lesson here); don't spend money, save it - money gives you choices; and only a very few friends exist in the world, and they're often the ones you wouldn't expect to pick you up when you're down.
However, there are good things - good things I should remind both myself and my few readers about. The one thing I am proudest of at the moment is that I learnt my lesson with money and was able to make a choice where so many other people could not. And despite the difficulties and the financial and emotional stress it has caused me, I'm going to be much better for it, though maybe not in the financial sense for some time to come. I've gained so much more experience in the last two months than I did in the two years preceeding them. I could regret that fact that I stayed as long as I did in my dead company, but when in a strange land, with your housing and medical insurance taken care of and a fear that everything else will be as bad as your current situation (and not having the money do anything about it), it's easy to stay. I've also learnt that when things get tough I can take care of myself, and I have people who care enough about me to help. I think my family are still under the impression that I'm a nightmare of a human being, but I think that fact that I have been able to ask so many people for help, and people who have willingly given that help, means that I can't be as bad as I've been told.
Tomorrow is Tanabata - but more on that tomorrow...
Today is not my birthday, but it IS my birthday on Thursday. And it is a special birthday, for on Thursday I will be 30 years old. I had been planning/hoping that my 30th birthday would signal the end of what has been the second worst decade of my life (my teens unsurprisingly taking the No 1 slot in the shit-stakes), and allow me to begin the fourth decade significantly better off than I had been before. However, I think that the cosmos is playing some kind of joke on me. I'd like to blame God, but seeing as I don't believe in all that lark, I can't really do anything but blame the mysterious cosmic forces who seem to like reminding me again and again that I am a mere stain on the planet. I seem to mired in ever increasing requests for payments, mainly to the Japanese government who want money for this and that and then some more of that. Today I came home to find, not the first birthday card to be delivered through my letter box, but a request for the payment of 180 000yen (that's $1800) in 5 installments over the next 6-8 months. This comes as no surprise, as I have been anticipating its arrival for a few weeks. The surprise for the Japanese government will be that I cannot pay this money back. I'm living on 1000yen a day as it is. I guess I will have to come to some kind of compromise with them...or just not pay it. The only way I can pay this back is if I receive my "Loss of Earnings" payout from the government, but as that seems to have no date upon it, I/the government could be waiting a while.
I become very morose around this time every year. I always mark the year by my birthday and by the New Year and every time I feel that another year of my life has been wasted, though whatever the hell it is I'm meant to be doing instead eludes me. The only things I have learnt from the past ten years are: stay the hell away from drummers, or indeed any kind of musician (though, to be honest, I'm still trying to learn my lesson here); don't spend money, save it - money gives you choices; and only a very few friends exist in the world, and they're often the ones you wouldn't expect to pick you up when you're down.
However, there are good things - good things I should remind both myself and my few readers about. The one thing I am proudest of at the moment is that I learnt my lesson with money and was able to make a choice where so many other people could not. And despite the difficulties and the financial and emotional stress it has caused me, I'm going to be much better for it, though maybe not in the financial sense for some time to come. I've gained so much more experience in the last two months than I did in the two years preceeding them. I could regret that fact that I stayed as long as I did in my dead company, but when in a strange land, with your housing and medical insurance taken care of and a fear that everything else will be as bad as your current situation (and not having the money do anything about it), it's easy to stay. I've also learnt that when things get tough I can take care of myself, and I have people who care enough about me to help. I think my family are still under the impression that I'm a nightmare of a human being, but I think that fact that I have been able to ask so many people for help, and people who have willingly given that help, means that I can't be as bad as I've been told.
Tomorrow is Tanabata - but more on that tomorrow...