Tokyo is Twisting X, XI, XII, XIII and Christmas in Japan

So, I think it last Friday, we had three earthquakes in a row, then we just had another today as well. The ones Friday were at 5:40am, 8:40am and again at 9:40pm. All in the 5.4M range. The one we had this morning was never listed on either usgs.gov or the Japan Meteorological Agency's website. But it felt a little weaker than normal and lasted a very short time.

I am really sick of earthquakes though and can not wait to get home to NY. :(

Now it's Christmas Eve also, and it's my first Christmas away from home/overseas. We've gone out a little to take some pictures of holiday lights but so far haven't seen anything spectacular. We don't have any decorations up in the apartment either, except for a few cards taped to the wall above the TV. It's doesn't feel very festive really. Totally unlike the season in the US.

But here's some pics anyway!

Shinjuku Southern Terrace display:

Wald 9 Cinemas:

Shinjuku Avenue trees:
On our walk home last night from the bowels of Shinjuku, decided to check out a place we had noticed before but never really paid much attention to.

Their website is www.brooklynparlor.co.jp and they feature Brooklyn Lager and Brooklyn Local 1 and Local 2 from Brooklyn Brewery. The prices are reasonable for imports and for Japan (read expensive but worth it). They seem to have a decent food menu and the space looks nice. Pair that with the free live music on occasion and it looks like we found our new place. :)

Closer to our neighborhood we started turning down random alleys and passed through this one. My camera setting wasn't very good at showing how dim and seedy the alley really looked, but that's okay because it wasn't seedy really, just cute and ancient feeling.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Career Moves

Recently, much of my down time (read; hours of sitting at my desk in the office) has been devoted to wondering about the future and wishing fervently for it's arrival. This is due in no small part to my wish for a different position and to get to the next step in my career.

While I've continued to occasionally check the regular sites for job postings in my area of interest, I have also kept on the lookout for any industry news related to international programs in higher ed. Finally, I found this article from The Chronicle. It's a commentary "about the rise of the so-called "global university" and the need for institutions to develop a significant presence in the world beyond the United States." I was excited to see someone putting down in writing the thoughts I've been toying with myself.

Honestly, I've been working with, (not in, unfortunately) higher ed for some time now and have had the opportunity to watch it revolve and mutate from what it was during my own days in undergrad. I had the experience of studying a foreign language and living in a foreign country as part of my studies and followed it up with a grad degree that even more closely dealt with the realities of (learning a 2nd or 3rd language and) living in a foreign country. I've mentioned before that my opinion regarding the future involves more a more global thought process and students will benefit from and often need the experience of a foreign culture to succeed in their chosen career or even just present a broader understanding of the world to their children.

Well, I was glad to see someone else referring to these concepts, even indirectly, but I'm actually much more excited by what the article seems to infer for the future in the realm of international programs in US higher education. I really want to be involved in this industry and I am hopeful, now more than ever that when the time comes for me to move on from my current employer, there will be more than a smattering of opportunities for me to follow up on. Hopefully... Oh I really hope so...

Wandering thoughts

Lately I've been able to relax a little bit/not be so stressed out but the one constant that hasn't gone away is my job. I don't mind it so much for the time being; I don't get depressed once I'm at the office until it starts getting dark outside (think I might have a touch of seasonal depression). But I realized I feel the same way about my current job that I did about my first job out of college.

The one I had out of college was for a Japanese company which had opened their first US branch office. I worked there for 3 years and was miserable from about the midpoint. Mostly it was because the company was hugely in debt, firing the other employees left and right and I had NO WORK to do. I was in grad school by then though so I just kept looking to the future and planned to leave that job once I had my degree. But the fact that I went into that office day after day, week after week, for NO PURPOSE was pretty demoralizing. I had already spent the first 2 years or so listening to the other employees constantly complaining about the fate of the company and their horrible positions/pay/bosses etc. It was hard to keep up any hope of enjoying my job.

I'm really hopeful that once my contract is over I'll be able to do something I really enjoy, whether or not it's with this company or a university or another company. I actually had a whole entry planned to write yesterday evening but I seem to have forgotten most of what I wanted to write about. I'm doing this at work too and the phone keeps ringing interrupting my thoughts... :P

Argh, I just realized I asked someone in our NY office to do something by the end of this week but got their out of office message meaning no one's there because it's Thanksgiving and the office is closed now! And I told the agent they'd do it by Friday. Poo.

I went on another week+ long business trip recently which some of you probably know about. I took some pictures...

Group pic of the group I was traveling with (sorry for the darkness; they didn't pick a very good spot for this) taken in southern Florida

Left to Right: Rachel (from our Korea office), Jessica (client from Taiwan), Saori (client from Japan), Jiny (client from Korea), Atsuko (from our Japan office), Junko (client from Japan), myself, Tiffany (from our Taiwan office) and Lawrence (client from Taiwan).

Rachel, the one looking all cool in her shades on the left, would later go on to run over her foot with her own luggage breaking her pinky toe (according to the x-rays when she got back to Korea) and the very next morning walk smack into a window in the lobby thinking it was an open doorway. The bump and mark on her forehead lasted two days. Seriously, the few clients and myself who witnessed this last incident could not stop laughing for about 10 minutes straight. Even though we could see she had really banged her head hard it was just too funny. Poor girl. Even her husband laughed his butt off when she arrived home this past weekend. ^_^

Tiffany, standing to my left in the pic, spent 5hrs with me walking all over midtown/5th ave the previous Sunday in an intense shopping spree that only ended after she scoured the Coach store on Madison Ave and purchased a $500 purse.

Atsuko, in the middle with the large shoulder bag, was occupied the whole trip with our 2 Japanese VIP clients so didn't have near as much fun as the rest of us. :P

It was WONDERFUL to be back in NYC though! I had arrived on Friday the 13th and spent all day Saturday and Sunday shopping!!! Imagine stores with floors full of racks of clothes and hardly a size 0 in sight! I have never bought so much as I did that weekend. And as a result I ended up paying $150 in overweight fees for the following three flights during the trip... It was all worth it though. Macy's was not as crowded as it usually is and I had a very pleasant time. Outside at night time, I was reminded of just how romantic the city can feel sometimes.

(Of course, as soon as I returned home to Tokyo, I popped in Miracle on 34th Street!)

And walking through the neighborhoods of brownstone Brooklyn, I gazed at the fallen leaves crunching under my feet, the depressed pumpkin remnants from Halloween on some front stoops and smelled the smoke from a few wood burning fireplaces. In the dark of evening, I slowed my walk as I peeped into the parlor floor windows of the magnificent homes in the area and dreamed of having my own some day. It was heaven. I only wish J had been there with me. But it has helped me cope with being stuck in Japan for the next 10 months. I am more determined than ever to get back to Brooklyn ASAP and get our OWN place right away.

Well, I had better wrap it up for now. I have a sales report to complete today. Must not dawdle.

Taipei is Twisting II

Okay. I've had enough. You can stop now. ... Hello?

Seriously, Taipei just experienced another earthquake only 2hrs since the last one. I don't like earthquakes much to begin with, but when I'm alone, in a foreign country, in my pyjamas I like them even LESS.

Can someone please ask the earthquakes to keep quiet for just a little longer? I just want to make it through this contract and head home to hardly-any-earthquakes-ever home next year...

I'm still waiting for either USGS or JMA to post details on this last one but they don't have anything yet... I'll update with the magnitute and location once it's available...

USGS finally put up some info; this 2nd quake was almost exactly the same as the first. Locations was 5miles from the first and depth was 13miles (still pretty shallow I think).

Taipei is Twisting!!!

LOL! So, I'm sitting in a tiny office on the 7th floor of some old building in Taipei. My co-worker from our Taiwan office and I are meeting with one of our clients (a real impatient lady, she's the kind of person who keeps saying, "yeah yeah yeah" as you try to explain something to her). I'm just starting to talk about our university program when suddenly she takes a deep breath and puts her hands on the desk in front of her. Right then, I start to feel like I'm getting faint.

But it's not more than half a second before we all realize the entire building is swinging around pretty violently. It was pretty strong feeling and lasted quite a while. During it we kept thinking the swinging/shaking was easing off, but then another strong push would come and we'd go swinging again. It was a little scary but I have been through so many now, that I found myself more interested in the other people's reactions than in my own concern. However, it really did quite a lot stronger than most of the ones I've already experienced in Tokyo. Perhaps it was my location though. I think the quality of the building was a lot lower than where I am normally... :(

I looked it up and it seems to have been a 5.7M located a little more than 100 miles south of Taipei, and pretty shallow; only 7miles down. Creepy and exciting at the same time. I think our client was really really nervous; she seemed to think we might die at any moment and it didn't help that the earthquake seemed to keep coming in strong, irregular waves.

Oh well. Another item I can check off the list; experience strong quake while at work-in a client's office-in a country I don't live in. ^_^