The Pulse

Once, someone I would come to care a great deal about asked me if I understood Japanese music. I don't remember what I replied. Maybe it's not all that important.

I just spent a significant amount of time cleaning out my closet. This is one of the most exciting things to happen to me recently. Never mind the returning to Sweden, the thesis-writing, and the at times quite disgusting kitchen in the dorm I shall inhabit for another month or so, before I finally (or should that be hopefully?) graduate university. No, it's the closet, it's definitely the closet.

See, it was kinda full. So going through it in all its massiveness, I realised something. Being a self-proclaimed "Jeans-kille" (feel free to make up a meaning if you don't understand the Swedish bit), you can probably tell a lot about me over the past four years or so by the jeans lying in at the very bottom of the pile. Feelings of "wow, I can still get them on!" soon morphed into "wow, I actually wore those!? Regularly? Not to mention willingly?" But yeah, it was a fun five minutes.

Other things that have happened since coming back here include seing a shopping cart turned upside down, and put on the green, uhm garbage-disposal-pipe-thing outside my current domicile. Felt very artisitc.


Also, I was asked to take my clothes off. By a doctor, quite obviously. You see, and this is where the real point of this entry starts to become clear, I got a job. At IKEA. In Japan. Five years, starting in February next year. It's a pretty long time for someone who gets bored if there's 30 seconds of commercials on TV, but there you have it. I shall live there, I shall work there. I shall hopefully even enjoy it there, if I'm lucky. According to the old Swedish saying, "He who lives, shall see".

Anyway, that doctor. He was a pretty funny guy. In order to get the contract sent to me, the last stage is a medical examination. And a dental one, don't get me started. I'm working for a company selling furniture, not going to space here, people. But yeah. So I went and had all types of examinations known to man. I not only found out that I'd grown some .5cm at the tender age of 25, making me a hair over 6'3" (See what I did there, mixing the metric with the not-so-metric? Sit back and watch the universe explode, that's all I have to say), I also had my heart-rate checked. In various places. Such as the tops of both my feet. That was the first time that pretty experienced doctor had been asked to do that, and he did it laughing all the way at the anality (yup, that too is a word) of the form I'd been asked to get filled in.

...

I should really be doing something furthering my goals of graduating and job-starting instead of writing more stuff here right now. So yeah, I'll go and have a shower.

The Babarovsk

Those are some very Russian-looking mountains. I suspect they may secretly harbour a love of redistributing wealth.

This is not the first time I'm enjoying the sight of Babarovsk, up close and personal. It's a fine city, and by my calculations, I will have had a chance to bask in its glory some 10-15 times already, with more to come, hopefully as soon as the beginning of next year.

Well, I guess that might have been a bit misleading. While it's true that I am enjoying the sight of Babarovsk, and it's true that it is indeed up, it's not really close, nor very personal. But you can trust me on the bit about the mountains looking Russian.

I've never accessed the Internet (note the capital) from 30 000 feet before. It kind of makes me feel like I'm the first person ever to do it, like I'm live-blogging some press conference from the Moon where important things have been decided by important people, possibly regarding the recent boom in cheese imports. Sadly, I realise this is not the case, but that's never the less what it feels like.

You see, I am going somewhere. At approximately 568 mph, the friendly monitor informs me (can a monitor be friendly?) Like many other places worth going, it's going to take a fair bit of time to get there. I will be served food again. I will probably not love it, but that's what's going to happen. I will eat said food, as I am now someone who spends most of his time desperately trying to convince the world around him - in this case the city of Babarovsk in Eastern Siberia - how awfully grown up he is. Deep down, though, all I'll be thinking about is that Seinfeld bit when he mocks - mocks, I tell you! - airline captains for going on the PA right after liftoff to drone on about routes and weather. "Maybe I should do the same. Maybe I should get a bullhorn and just go 'I'm gently pouring myself a glass of cola. I'm taking up the bag of peanuts. But no, I won't eat them now, I'll save them for later!'"

At a point like this, when you haven't updated a blog in say three or so weeks due to endless social interaction with others of your own species and miniscule amounts of actual work thrown in for good measure, you'd think I'd try to sum up the past three weeks, four months, or any other arbitrarily chosen period of time. But there's a time and a place for that, and none of them are either here nor now. Instead, I shall just post some random pictures that have been left unposted, for whatever reason, and leave it at that. For now.

Possibly the last twelve payphones in all the land, gathered in Tokyo Station.

The place which serves the meanest Avocado Burger in all of Tokyo. Believe me, I've been around.

Behold! The Future!

A Tower, and not just any Tower.

One small part of one fine dinner. Just missed the smoke spewing out of that thingie on the left there by about three... minutes.

A different Tower from the one above.

My lunch. If only wishing made it so...

That's it for now, I guess. Have used up half my battery already, and since I'm not in Business or First, I'm gonna have to make do without Power. That said, it's not like I don't have anything else to do to occupy my time. There's always the in-flight movies, which of course are far suckier than the ones they apparently showed on the way here. Now with extra static goodness since my side of the plane apparently has some sort of problem. With the electronics. Not exactly what you wanna hear when your rocking out over the ol' Verkhoyanskiy Mountains.