The Fissel

So yeah, it finally happened. It was bound to, really, sooner or later.

Just a word of warning, this may very well turn out to be one of those (very, very few) posts which aren't so much fun for you to read as they are for me to write. It's all about catharsis, or something. It doesn't even have a Beverage of the timeperiod-since-the-last-post! Or pictures! Go on, treat yourself to something fun instead. I know this great little place called YouTube.

On Thursday, it's Vernal Equinox Day here in Japan. "But of course, they don't call it that, they call it" uhm, 春分の日, which just looks plain weird, wouldn't you say? For average Joa Tanaka (name changed to protect the actual identity of the caller), this is a day to revel in the arrival of Spring, and that his language is far more succinct than English with reagrds to Equinoxes, be they Vernal or Autumnal! And no, I did not just look that up.

It's also a day of mourning. For all the people who miss the winter here, with its let's-see-if-we-can-make-it-colder-inside-than-it-is-outside approach to global warming. I am not one of them. I can't be sure anymore, but I imagine I liked Swedish winter marginally better than the Japanese one, mainly on account of insulation being present in the buildings. But if my Swedish self heard me say that, he'd probably be all like "Yeah, you love the slush and rain, don't you, slush-and-rain-lover!". Apparently, my Swedish self is about seven years old.

Now, as I have previsouly detailed elsewhere, spring is a time of new beginnings, especially here in the land of 2 000 000 vending machines. The school year starts, the cherry blossoms do their thing, and everybody starts going to the park on Sunday because nobody else will probably have thought to do that yet (Yes, they will also be terribly wrong). And so, given that it feels kinda silly to go around in jacket made of actual winter (or should that be made of actual summer?) when it's 15 degrees out, our young hero dons his spring ditto, and heads out into the world.

The first thing you need to in spring is renew something. It's just the spirit of the thing. So instead of renewing things like my apartment (which would cost money) or my pledge to join a gym (which in an of itself wouldn't cost anything, but were it ever to be honored would cost heavily in percentage of body fat), I decide to go look for a job. At the company where I work.

Allow me some build-up-to-the-fall backgroundish reveling. I have never failed to get a job I've applied for. I leave it up to the all mighty Intranet to decide if this is indicative of me only applying for jobs anybody can get, or actually being infused from birth with magic, job-getting powers. I have, on occasion, been offered two jobs at the same time, and - not being ambitious enough to work 80 hours a week at one job, much less two - been forced to cherry-pick. It's all quite stressful. But as it turns out, monkeys apparently do fall from trees (much more colorful than "the sun has its spots", yeah? Joe Tanaka 2, Rest-of-world 0). Not all the time, though, that would just be silly. Also, it would eventually make them stop trying to climb the damn things in the first place, one would hope.

The most annoying thing about - queue overly drammatic Danny Elfman tune - faililng? I have nothing to complain about! The rationale behind the decision is solid, the way the news was delivered was considerate, and as far as I know, the guy deciding is - shock, horror - nice! How am I supposed to work around that, I ask you?

So esentially, for all intents and purposes, this has been a very roundabout way of saying excuse me while I go wallow in chocolate. And then head to the park. It'd be a shame not to, really, on a day like today.