Someone up there hates me...

...and it's God, I tell ya! God! Why else would it RAIN on me every single day while I valiantly battle my way to school on a bicycle (and then - rubbing salt in the wound - it stops seconds after I get indoors! Leaving me soaked to the bone and FUMING!!)?! Okay, maybe it's not God... but it's someone pretty close to him... his evil henchwoman, Mother Nature perhaps?! She's got PMS and she's taking it out on ME!!! This puts me in a terribly grim mood!

Bring on the snow, at least then I can walk everywhere and not get soaked (I'll slip and fall a lot... and probably blame God or Mother Nature for that too... but then I am a natural whinger! Surely, you must have picked up on that by now?)!!!

Rain sucks...

The end.

Bento

Hah!! Am sooooooo proud of myself because I've FINALLY gone and made my very own bento... looks really Japanese, doesn't it?! I've even gone and bought a complete lunch box set (okay from the Y100 shop), with a little baggie and everything!! Oooh and matching chopsticks!! I'm just turning Japanese, aren't I?! Note the little cherry tomatoes, I added them in as a little in-joke to myself...

A new Fidel pic

From Nathan... Ag hene man!!! Sooooooo oulik...

My fave pics of the week

A karaoke fave of mine - for obvious reasons!

Johannesburg, South Africa - torrential summer rains strike again!!!

No guts

I'm seriously shit scared of having my impacted wisdom tooth removed over here! I've been kind of lacking in the backbone area for the last year or so and I pay for it everytime it gets infected! Am in major pain over here and so not even considering the option of going to the dentist!

I mean, come on, this is the same country where they wanted to stick a whiplike, camera thingie down my nostril just to confirm whether or not I had a throat infection! And no way would I even think about going to the dentist for a surgical procedure in a country where they have a tendency to give you the mildest type of medication for most ailments! I really have these dire visions of having my tooth removed with only a mild aspirin for pain relief. Sorry, but my faith was tested after the nasal probe business and then completely shattered with the rash of misdiagnosed malaria incidents we had over the last year and a half!

So now here I sit, with a swollen right cheek, a jaw that's painful to the touch, an aching ear, difficulty eating (yayyyyy good for the diet) and a terrible headache, all as a result of this stupid impacted wisdom tooth. Siiiiighhhhhh! I take solace in the fact that the infections never last.

More M&E

It's fabulous that we now have a South Africa in which the kids don't know what the f#ck Apartheid is!

Autumn comes to Niigata

Autumn is definitely one of the prettier seasons... and this one has been particularly nice because we haven't gone from summer to an instant Ice Age (as in the past two years), instead it's been a relatively painless transition, which I am totally thankful for. In fact it's been nice and mild, with a bit of a bite to the morning and evenings. Okay, here endeth the weather report. Below are some pics I took over the past two weeks. This post is mostly for those of you who left Japan a few months ago (you KNOW who you are - okay we ALL know who you are!). Just thought you'd be missing Fall in Japan! Hugs

This poor cherry blossom tree got its seasons mixed up!

(just goes to show what mild Autumn it's been)

Bonsai maple tree at an eki

See the face in the sky?! Just a day before a HUGE storm in Niigata
Something wicked this way comes! Mwauhuhahuahauha!!

I caught these three dudes sunning themselves the other day

One of them, up close and personalThe persimmons are out in full force

As are the cosmos!

Wild Roses

My neighbour's garden