Far Cry

I don't play a ton of FPS (first person shooter) games, but some of the reviews I was reading about Far Cry 3 sounded pretty interesting. Particularly I like games where there is a lot of progression and customization. In FC3, there are level-up and crafting systems. Plus the visuals are pretty amazing (again, not usually a reason why I buy games, though).

Anyhow, found a little Japanese! One of the cars is sporting some katakana on the dash, reading "Far Cry."

Never know where it's gonna crop up, apparently.

Obligatory Parties

I kind of miss going to 忘年会 (end of year parties, usually held by a company or workplace for its employees). Survey says, however, that most office workers in Japan don't really enjoy them.

According to a Metarika study, 62.6% of office workers regard company drinking parties (飲み会) as a pain in butt (37.4% saying they are fun)

■会社での飲み会は楽しいと思いますか？ 面倒だと思いますか？
楽しい......37.4％
めんどう......62.6％

■あなたの職場の飲み会は、どれくらいの頻度で行われていますか？
月に1～4回......33.0％
半年に1、2回......33.8％
一年に1、2回～ほとんどなし......30.6％

The second question there asks respondents how often their work holds these (obligatory) drinking parties. The responses from top to bottom are "1-4 times a month," "once or twice every half year," or "once or twice a year, almost never."

Maybe I enjoyed my schools' parties more than the typical employee because (a) I wasn't worked to the bone and spending almost every waking hour with my coworkers and (b) I didn't really feel obligated to attend; I just did most of the time because it was fun. Or maybe it's just because teachers are awesome and know how to throw a beastly party.

Upswing

運が変わったかな。注意して褪せないほうがいいと思うけど・・・実は、自分は子供の時から高望みしちゃう人なんだ。そしてがっかりしやすいから、時々上がったり下がったり人間だ。Heh...

Lately there have been some pleasant changes. One of my best friends and his awesome (J) wife moved from Pennsylvania to a town about 40 minutes away. I've gotten used to being somewhat solitary, but it will be a nice change to have friends living nearby.

Things at work are improved a bit, I feel. I still need to get out of there and find something more fulfilling (and financially sustaining), but I've been working on improving my attitude. It's not that I felt I had a bad one before, but I've been trying to be more productive and quicker with my work. And I do feel like it's helped me feel a little better about it. 時々つまんないのに。

And I've been talking a lot with someone I met recently who is very...refreshing? Special, for sure. There are a lot of positive things I could say, but for now I won't.

I don't want to jump the gun on anything, but I just feel like things have been a lot brighter and more fun the past couple of weeks.

Tomorrow I'll be going to a 忘年会 party with Ben and Chika (the previously mentioned friends) after work. I really should start blogging about Japan-related activities and organizations in D.C...

Anyhow, that's it for now.

J-Word Play #31 (Answer)

Whoops - a sparse amount of posts this month, but there's been a lot going on. I'll need to redouble my efforts.

Kudos to Cocomino for solving the last riddle, which was:

上がったり下がったりする野菜って何でしょう？

Our answer is...

かぶ (stocks, turnip)

Our December riddle asks "What vegetable goes up and down?" This one isn't so much tricky as demanding of your vocabulary skills. かぶ is the common pronunciation for both stock (as in the stock market, hence up and down) and the common turnip.

J-Word Play #31

It's been a bit, so here's a new one for you:

上がったり下がったりする野菜って何でしょう？
(あがったりさがったりするやさいってなんでしょう？)

If you know the answer, shoot me a quick email (blueshoe[at]jadij.com).

Funky Forest

I happened to stumble upon this clip of a Japanese movie on YouTube. "Weird" doesn't adequately describe it. The film's title is ナイスの森 (Funky Forest in English), and I'm a little surprised I've never heard of it before. Have any of you readers seen it?

Anyway, here is the clip. I don't really know the context, but I don't image that would really change much:



I'm thinking I may need to watch this.