I don't why it is but every winter I am in Japan I tend to get sicker and sicker. This year I've had problems with colds, infru, ear infections, pulled muscles and other things that led me to diagnose myself on the internet. It turns out that I'm seven months pregnant. Personally, I'm still more willing to trust the internet than a Japanese doctor. I read an account (on facebook status updates) of another ALT in Kochi who told the doctor in Japanese about six times of a drug they were allergic too and it would kill them. The doctor then prescribed 4 different medications... two of which had the drug in it. Just saying like...

So I feel like death all warmed up for another approaching weekend of failed Japanese study. No doubt I'll end up sitting in my underwear, eating pizza and getting massacred playing teenage Americans on Xbox Live. After two years I finally got my stupid console connected to the internet. I have therefore spend the last week or two listening to the most ridiculous "smack talk" whilst playing football and shooting games. Every American on the internet sounds like the same person. The saturation of the word "faggot" is almost unbelievable. I have had the most fun in the world winding them up. It's like shooting babies in a barrel... stealing candy from fish. Except... my character is in the barrel and all the other fish are sniping me from 200 metres away. My Japanese test is coming up in about 9-10 days. I have failed miserably at my studying. There is just too much grammar and conjugations and exceptions and I don't care and I don't even speak anything that I learn and everyone is better than me and I failed last year too and oh dear. I should be studying right now.

I got really drunk on Wednesday evening. I haven't been drunk for ages... probably since my last few bouts of blog updates. It's possible I only write when I've got the moany comedowns of mid-week to deal with. An old JET friend came back to visit so we gaijin smashed an all you can drink affair at a Korean barbecue place and retired to my house for more drinking. I finished off a fair amount of lovely Bowmore single malt mmm mmm. I drink it with hot water and the lovely peat goes all the way down to my soul and back. I might have one for lunch. You know... to fight off the infru. I saw it on Japanese television. The Japanese man told that it would work.

Anyway... let me conclude with a reason as to why I might be ill all the time. Japanese homes are freezing in the colder months. They don't have any form of heating or insulation. The other morning I went to junior high school early to be part of the yearbook picture. I got a front row seat next to the principals. I don't know how I pulled that one off. Considering I had just woken up... bombed it down the 40 minute drive from the mountains and was wearing my torn converse and a lovely jumper. They made me put my hands on my knees... clenched... and told me to stop smiling. Anyway... back in the office I noticed that I was as cold as I'd ever been. It suddenly occurred to me that every window was open. I closed the one behind me and preceded to watch everyone complain that "Oh it's so cold. Oh isn't it just? Oh it's so cold? Whatever could be the reason?" I then told one of them that HEY MAYBE... MAYBE... we could close the windows?

Oh no no no. "We need to open the windows for fresh air. Fresh air is healthy."