Due to some high-priority issues at work, I didn't leave until after midnight, and had to take a taxi to catch the last train to Shonandai. Unfortunately, I'd waited until there's no way that I would've made it on foot in time, plus it was drizzling out. There's a typhoon in the neighborhood; the howling of the wind will probably keep some people up tonight. It's supposed to blow through in the morning, and after a typhoon it's always hot. Ugh. The rain's "coming down in sheets thick as lead" right now...almost sounded like it was in the room with me.

This morning started out ok: I called into the telecon from home and went over to the post office to open up an account. Effectively I took a half-day of comp time today, because one can only open a P.O. account during the week. I took a number, and had 30 people in line ahead of me. Since it was Sachie's day off, she came along in case I had linguistic issues. In general I was ok, except when it came to the application for the Saison card, which functions as a dual debit and credit card. There was a twit of a sales rep chick there and she wanted me to fill out the form at her counter rather, probably because she gets a commission. Sachie was getting pissed off because she wouldn't let it go, plus the wench reeked for whatever reason. Since there was another long form, I figured ok, why not, but then the chick didn't know what the hell she was doing. I mean, I could follow instructions on the form (in Japanese, of course) and she was telling me the wrong thing and kept contradicting herself! So I excused myself saying that I had to go back to work, which I did. Lunch was a healthy meal of "pizaman" and "chikinkareiman" from 7-11.

Maybe I'm too polite. It's that whole passive-aggressive thing: when I get mad, I get MAD. The problem is, where does one draw the line, to get bent out of shape or not? Once things go too far, it's easy to tell, but by then things are already out of hand.

Anyway, work was a mess. I'd rather not talk about it. However, I think I experienced my first "katakori" (stiff shoulders) from stress today. In my observations, that had been a solely Japanese phenomenon, excepting for the people who do physical labor. I think here it's a measure of exhaustion. Anyway, for me, getting katakori is a dubious achievement at best. The highlight of my day, other than not being rushed in the morning, was talking about some stuff in Japanese with Nakao-san. He's more schooled in literary academic terms than the average Japanese, and on occasion explains some things that I as a foreign speaker find odd. Anyway, he was discussing the breakdown of the kanji radicals: left/right hen vs. tsukuri, top/bottom kanmuri vs. ashi, enclosing radical kamae, and another structure called "nyou" which wasn't in my dictionary. Anyway, the cool part was that he was writing all these kanji down as examples and I could read them. Writing without a reference is another matter of course....

Ah I should mention, Monday was Shimono-san's last day at HGST. She was part of a group hired in 2000, and was one of the first people I worked with when I first traveled to Fujisawa on business. There had already been a farewell party for her amongst her "douki" (coworkers hired in the same cycle) that I had gone to, whereas this was a more open event. She gave a speech early in the day as is tradition, but few could hear it because the crowd was so large and she spoke so softly. A lot of interesting characters came to the farewell party, including a lot of the single middle-aged guys. Apparently she has a fan club. But she's cool, and though I'm bummed that she's leaving, I hope she is happy with her new vocation. (I know vague details but promised not to tell.) There was a nijikai, but it was Monday night and I didn't feel like getting bombed.

'Tis about time to crash. Tomorrow's another long day.