A End Of This Chapter
December 17, 2011
It’s becoming a running joke on this so-called blog of mine that I will apologize to my non-audience for the lack of updates. As stunned as I am at realizing this, but the only other entry this year was in January. This update is in December. Yikes!
I’m guessing that this will pretty much be the last blog entry on this website of mine, at least, in its current form. I’ll still keep the domain and one of these days, if you stumble by, you may notice big changes. Until then, consider this blog on permanent “Under Construction”.
So, as farewell of sorts to my wonderful little diary on the internet, I guess I will end with an overview of how my year was. 2011 has been the most dramatic year in my life and I don’t expect to top it any time soon.
Enter 2011
This year started great. I had finished my first year in a new job and the momentum seemed unstoppable. My kung fu was progressing at a slow clip, but any progression was welcomed. The biggest news was that we found out in November that Eri was pregnant. 2011, the Year of the Rabbit, would see our first child!
3/11 Tohoku Earthquake
The massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami had a tremendous impact in Japan. Yes, that’s stating the obvious but for the first time in my life, a disaster like that had struck closer to home than ever before.
On March 11, I was enjoying a cup of tea in the breakroom at work when the building started swaying slightly. It was nothing surprising – quakes happen all the time in Japan. The minor swaying led me to suspect a moderate earthquake around the Kansai area. When some coworkers checked some news sites, we were all astounded by the level of the earthquake and then the terrifying footage of the tsunami as it swept inland. As close as the Tohoku area is to Kansai, we were still very far removed.
Enter the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors. They would remove any isolation and put us into the (perceived) terror. Firstly, it’s pronounced FOO-KOO-SHE-MA DIE-E-CHI. I heard some media broadcasters butcher this. When the cooling systems failed and explosions were reported at Daiichi, the news jumped all over it. It instantly became a nuclear disaster. For the next six weeks or so, nothing except for footage of the reactor and the tsunami-affected cities would be aired on television. Even the commercial selection became instantly limited to things like insurance, and other risk-management services. (Sidenote: people actually got so sick of certain commercials that they called up those companies and made death threats. They were taken off air soon after.)
I just want to point out right now that nothing I went through could even begin to compare to the suffering that the people who lived in the Tohoku area went through. Many thousands lost loved ones and all their earthly possessions. They, to this very day, may not have any prospects of ever rebuilding what they lost. I’m definitely not going to complain about anything that happened to me. I’m merely recording this as the experiences I went through this year.
I didn’t really begin to worry until I started hearing about flocks of foreigners leaving Japan for fear of the radiation. One of our Saudi students in Kung Fu was flown out by his government. At work, we lost many teachers because their families worried about their safety. My own family called and asked me to come home. Hearing all this, and considering my unborn child, it was very difficult not to feel affected. I was quite stressed out by all this.
Thankfully, Kansai was not swept over by radioactive winds and no one mutated in any fancy way, at least, not in a way that we are currently aware. The following months saw a Japan trying to rebuild and return to some semblance of normalcy.
As fears subsided, attention turned to power consumption and saving energy. Daiichi supplied a big percentage of the Tokyo area’s power needs. Without it, rolling blackouts were instated – stores ran out of items like flashlights, batteries, bottled water, and any other perishable that people hoard in the face of danger. Even in Kansai, with no major power dip, corporations were asked to cut power by 15%.
All in all, this focus on saving energy will be seen as a positive start to this country heading towards being more eco-friendly.
7/31 Birth
The hot summer months only added to the anxiety of waiting for my son to be born. Finally, he was born but not in a smooth, easy fashion. We headed to the hospital early Thursday morning (2am ish) but were turned back as being a false alarm. Nary 24 hours later, we were back in the hospital. So, Friday 2am ish we were there. Neal was born on Sunday around 5am. What a looooong ordeal that was.
Thankfully, he was healthy, everything was where it should be, and the next few months were spent learning how to be a dad. It’s amazing how green we were despite all the attempts to learn as much as we could beforehand. To this day, we still panic over the smallest of things only to be reassured by more experienced parents that in fact, what we are scared of is actually fairly normal.
Neal also made my family make their way over to Japan to visit their first grandchild/nephew. What a riot that turned out to be.
And so it has come to be, that I became a father this year. Without any exaggeration, he is the greatest thing to have happened in my life and I can’t remember how things were without him.
Photography
I’ve always liked taking pictures but never got fully into it. This year, I decided to take it up a notch and learn more. My goal was to take beautiful pictures of my beautiful baby. To that end, I bought my first single lens reflex camera and am still learning and experimenting. It’s paying off in spades – I have some amazing shots that I could have not taken with my beloved point & shoot.
I’ve spent quite a chunk of money this year on equipment and I’m sure I’ll be spending even more in the future. I loving this new hobby of mine and I’m going to rebrand this blog to be more of a photo gallery. Picture = 1K words, right?
Kung Fu
My other passion in life – my fu. This year didn’t have much major news in my fu. Our school continues to trot along. We’ve gained some new faces and lost some old ones. We’ve moved out of the old building and have been practicing at a rental studio for a while then at parks.
I took “paternity” leave for a few months to get to know my baby. My schedule is still too up in the air for me to commit fully to my fu classes.
At home though, I’ve done pretty well I think. I started a more intense exercise regiment. I haven’t perfectly kept it up everyday but I’m proud to say that almost everyday, I do 200 stomach crunches, 100 push ups, technique practice, and sometimes kicking practice. I break this down and do a 100 crunches in the morning and the rest at night, after Neal goes to sleep.
Summary
And that pretty much sums up 2011. 2011 – the year that saw a lot of vast changes not just in my own life but in Japan, and pretty much around the world. I don’t think the political rumblings we saw this year, i.e. the Arab Spring, and the Occupy movement will be ending anytime soon. I think we will look back at 2011 as the year it all started.
As for this blog, who knows. I think turning it into a photoblog makes more sense but I also like the idea of making it more like a travel guide for Japan for non-touristy things. Don’t stay tuned. Don’t hold your breath. Don’t come back too often. Instead, drop by after a long while and you just might be greeted with something other than, “Sorry for the lack of updates.”
Happy new year, everybody!
