No More 3×5’s

Tomorrow is the last day of this school year. Well, technically, Tuesday is since it is the last day of March, but tomorrow will be the last day of kids lessons, which makes it the last day of the year to me. And honestly, I cannot believe how quickly this year has gone by. Of course, there were the times that I can remember thinking that the school year would never end, but those were mostly in July and December…right before my fun vacations. So, of course I would think that each week felt like an eternity. in the grand scheme of things however, time flew.

I really think that this past year sets the example for adult life. There are always moments that make time pass slowly, but for the most part, the daily routine of our lives makes time pass much more quickly than we are aware of. And in a few days, I will make a new start with a new school year. A year from now, I will probably comment again on how quickly that year went by as well. Now it seems that I am just rambling a bit because Im a little tired, so I will wrap up here and hope to write more coherently in the morning.

Once again, Rascal Flatts does not disappoint with their latest CD. I am not a fan of country music, but I love them so much. Their songs are touching, without being too much. Hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.

From Saturday, my voice has been slowly but surely returning. I still couldnt work on Saturday, but at least I could speak…for the most part. By Sunday, I could speak almost 100% normally, but singing was still completely out of the question.

For the past few days, my speaking voice has been fine, almost as good as new. But singing is still a bit pitchy. I wonder how long that will take to get back to normal.

All in all, I have decided that laryngitis is probably one of the worst illnesses around. Of course, you have to set aside all of the major, life-threatening diseases, because that is another ball game completely. But when it comes to those occasional, anyone could get this kind of disease, my vote is for larnygitis being at the very bottom of the list. I mean, sure, you are not confined to bed and feeling completely horrible, but that is the point. I had to call off two days of work, and I felt so bad about it because I felt completely fine, I just could not talk. At least if I had the flu or a really bad cold, I would have a reason to stay in bed and be miserable, and not feel bad in the slightest that I couldnt work. But, no, I just lost the ability to speak. Since I wasnt working, I felt that I ought to have stayed in bed and been miserable. And I couldnt talk to anyone! That also adds to the totally horrible category. But, I am better now, so I really should stop complaining. At least I wasnt as bad as Erik. Hopefully, my voice will realize that laryngitis is best left alone.

A few funny things that I saw this weekend…

I was waiting outside the subway station when suddenly I heard an ear-splitting alarm from behind me. A boy had tried to go down the up escalator and the alarm was so loud and long that I am sure his cheeks stayed red long after the shrieking alarm ended. And the accompanying, equally as loud  scolding that he got from his mom certainly didnt help matters one bit.

While waiting at an intersection outside of Nagoya station, I glanced around and saw a group of young businessmen, dressed in suits, all probably in their early to mid twenties. It had been raining off and on all day, and all of the guys had umbrellas with them. Nothing unusual about that, until I noticed that the guy furthest to the left in the group was holding his umbrella like a baseball bat. And he was quite serious about, even going so far as to readjust his grip a few times. And just as he was about to launch a full swing, he happened to glance up right at me. One look at the blend of muffled laughter and incredulous disdain on my face caused him to hurriedly drop his umbrella into its corrent position at his side. What kind of person swings an umbrella in the middle of a busy intersection anyway?

At Kasugai station I saw a girl with the side of her skirt completely bunched up and exposing most of her leg unintentionally. It was just shy of every womans nightmare: the back of your skirt tucked into your underwear. If only I knew enough Japanese to have explained her predicament to the poor girl. Luckily, she was wearing colored tights, so it wasnt quite so scandalous.

Doesn’t this just remind you of those awkward middle school dances? Those were good times indeed.

As you may or may not remember, last summer, Jen and I had an internet crisis. We discovered just before going to Thailand for a week that the free internet that we had been enjoying was suddenly cut off with the departure of our neighbors. So, in a mad panic, we hastily arranged a new internet provider and had to endure two long weeks without our virtual lives at the tips of our fingers.

Since August, we have been paying a healthy chunk of change for our now completely legal internet service, and I have to say that our internet worked ten times better when we were stealing it than it does now that we are paying for that. Sometimes our internet is so slow that I feel as though we are being ripped off. But I suppose that this is our penance for using the internet illegally for so long. Perhaps once the scales are balanced again, our internet will suddenly and mysteriously speed up again. But until that day comes, I will continue to reload pages and take bathroom breaks while I wait for pages laden with pictures to load. And Jen and I will continue to complain to each other about how much we despise our current internet proveder.

I have not spoken in about six hours and I think that it is starting to slowly kill me. I mean, I cant even talk to myself! I never realized just how much I tend to use my voice throughout the day until I couldnt use it anymore.  No sighing, laughing, or humming…this really sucks!! And the worst part is that there are no signs that my voice is coming back at all. I am still just as bad as I was yesterday morning when I woke up.

So, here I am just taking a lot of pills that I cant identify, drinking so much green tea with honey that I am peeing every hour, and feeling generally pathetic. Hopefully my trip to the aquarium tomorrow will cheer up my mood somewhat. At least, fish dont expect you to talk to them.

In the continuing saga of my voicelessness, I woke up this morning lacking the ability to speak completely. I could not and still cannot speak in anything above a whisper. No sound comes out whatsoever. I called my personnel boss to fill him in on the situation and he immediately demanded that I go to the hospital or doctor that day. Normally, I would have just ignored that advice, but since my job is dependent on my ability to speak, I agreed and got the necessary information from him. Then Jen, who was acting as my voice throughout the phone call, had the genius idea to send Hiro, her boyfriend, with me to my doctors visit. His Japanese is excellent, he is currently on vacation from work with not much else to do, and, best of all, he has a functioning voice.

So, we arrive at the doctors office around five, and it looks a little suspect, like an office straight out of the 1970s Japan style. After much ado, I see the doctor and with very little preliminary questions about what happened to me, all in very poor English that was more Japanese than English I might add, he proceeds to stick a fiber scope camera up my nose and into my throat. And let me tell you, it was seriously painful! Not something I would ever recommend to anyone. If you can avoid them, please do. And then I thought about other places they use fiber scopes. If it was that uncomfortable in my nose, I can only imagine it down my throat and into my stomach, or exploring my intestines. My sympathies go out to anyone who has ever had to endure a fiber scope.

But, anyway, the doctor then launched into a lengthy discussion in Japanese with a little English interspersed about what he saw with the camera, and it was not good. Apparently, in a normal, healthy person, when you speak, your vocal chords close completely. Strange, yes, seems a bit backwards. But when I try to speak, there is a gap. So, since my vocal chords cannot close, I also cannot speak. And my diagnosis is laryngitis. I had to have a camera stuck up my nose to tell me that I have laryngitis? I could have diagnosed that one myself at home. In fact, I DID diagnose that one at home myself. But oh well.

I then am directed to a series of breathing apparatuses that I can only assume were supposed to assist the healing of my vocal chords in some way. What way that is, I am not so sure. But again, oh well. I had to stick an instrument resembling a glass pipe in my nose and breathe for three minutes like that. I have never felt stupider in all my life, seriously. After that, I had to breathe in a warm vapor through my mouth that caused me to drool like a teething baby all down my chin. And as Hiro so aptly put it, the instruments were straight out of the 1970s. I am not entirely sure how they would replace parts if something were to break.

Finally I was finished and we were free to go. All that hassle for a diagnosis of laryngitis. At least it makes for a good blog. Now I am just left to take five days worth of medicine, and follow the doctors orders to speak softly only, as if I were actually able to do anything other than speak softly.

On a closing note, having laryngitis does have its own amusements. Most everyone that I talked to today started whispering as a natural response to my whispering. It was quite a lot of fun for me!

Today I saw several strange things and I thought that I would relate them to you.

1. I was on the subway today and there was a man walking through the car. I noticed that as he was walking, he was also undoing his belt, which I thought was a little odd, but I have seen worse. When he was directly in front of me, he stopped completely and proceeded to pull down his pants. Luckily for me, it was only a profile shot as he was not directly facing me. It was at that point that my shock took over and I averted my eyes. I am not exactly sure what was going on in front of me, but it maybe seemed as though he were adjusting his shirt or tucking it in, but that does not call for completely pulling down ones pants. But after ten to twenty seconds of doing who knows what, he then proceeded to pull his pants back up and get off at the next stop. It was completely bizzare.

2. While I was walking in Sakae with Hiro, we saw a girl in front of us wearing a thigh-length trenchcoat that hit in the high thigh region. Nothing so unusual about that, right? No, no, no. The problem lay with the fact that it looked as though she wasnt wearing a skirt or maybe any clothing for that matter. She was showing off a lot of skin and it made me wonder why she bothered wearing a skirt or shorts at all because it certainly wasnt hiding anything that normal clothes are supposed to hide.

So, I lost my voice today. Yeah, its pretty much horrible. I lost it after my first class, so I had to continue working for five hours and the quality of my voice decreased with every passing minute. I had to teach a kids class and a regular lesson. I sounded just like a man. Well, maybe more like a pubescent boy actually. But in any event, I was not myself.

I learned from my coworkers and several students that, apparently, the winds have blown in some nasty yellow sand from China and it has made the air extremely dry. So, thus, people such as myself, who are already tired and a little stressed out by the end of the school year, much much more susceptible to throat problems such as laryngitis. And I have a history of losing my voice at very inopportune times, so it is to be expected.

Thus, my voice has gone the way of the wind. Hopefully, a more favorable wind will blow tomorrow and bring it back to me.