Coulda Shoulda Woulda

Didn’t

Needed to, wanted to, thought I would be able to, I did not. I should have gone to bed around midnight, instead just before 4 am. Getting to bed earlier than midnight is out of the question as we sit down for dinner at 8 pm and I cannot run the dish washer until everyone else has taken their showers. That does not explain why I hit the rack at 4 am. Nothing does.

Rarely ever able to fall asleep right away, this morning was no different. Getting up just before 9am, I am suffering from lack of sleep and should not attempt any writing effort. But this has been my normal state of late, so it is not going to get better and with classes starting back up next week, worse. Expect rambling.

Been arguing online with an arrogant, insulting and ignorant Japanese national with great command of English over nenkin, the Japanese pension system. Trying to explain that as we who do not know anything about something, we do not know enough, for we know nothing of it, to ask about it. He refutes the findings of two surveys published in Japanese newspapers that found close to 1/3 of Japanese not paying into it and does not acknowledge that the public servant I spoke with at the nenkin office told me that many Japanese also do not know that our taxes do not cover our payments into the pension system. Reminiscent of the arguments that Bare Faced Plague Spreader gets into on other forums, after denying that Japanese would not pay into nenkin as it is “common sense” for Japanese to do so, he later came back and said that those who do/did not do or did so out of laziness or childishness, not because they did not know. This is a first. I have never experienced a Japanese person accusing any portion of Japanese society of anything negative. An individual, yes, but rarely and usually in a way of being humble, as in, “My kid is lazy and doesn’t study.”, when in fact he is the top student in the class. He completely ignores my statement that the nenkin office itself told me that many Japanese are also unaware that they are not making the required payments. He is also the first Japanese to ask about my health insurance status. Never has any Japanese person spoke with me on these two topics before I ran afoul of them, yet they all KNOW that all we gaijin know but are just gaming the system and want our visas pulled.

This is odd for a number of reasons, for if none tell us, how are we to know? “Why, you need to go to the city office and ask!”. How are we to know to ask if we do not know that our taxes are not covering these? “It’s common sense!”. Is their reply. They do not give any other response, if they respond at all, to the question, “How did you first learn this?”.

This and the ginned up fear over the faked “over tourism” that is probably behind the increase in the dirty looks I am getting recently added to the all too real bad behavior of tourist from all parts of the world and the worsening treatment in the house, I have been really looking forward to going back home if just to escape this ugliness. The realities of returning home with nothing keeps me grounded in reality and helps me reign in the flight response. However, my parents are old and my dad needs a lot of care and mom is beginning to have difficulty providing it. Being there to assist may be the best for all of us.

Zoomed with my parents this morning, alone. The kid is in a pissy mood because I turned off the tv after they ignored their mother when she told them to do so. So they would not Zoom with their grandparents; this is the last chance before their 12th birthday. The level of care my dad needs has increased, though it is hoped, temporarily. However, what is not temporary is that he must sleep in bed alone and some of the equipment now takes up the third and last bedroom. No longer a place for me in the home. Electricity is set to increase again. This time 60 some dollars a month atop of the doubling of the bill since 2022. It will be over $300 per month after the announced increase takes effect. Property taxes just jumped too. Long ago my parents told me that they were thankful they bought their home as rent for a single room apartment in the town of less than 8000 was over $700 a month. That was years ago. Recently I read a headline reporting that a 40 hr work week was insufficient to cover rent for a 2 room apartment in all States. Read last week that college grads are unable to land even food service or retail jobs after graduation and have moved back in with their parents. These last two should change soon for the better with all the illegal aliens who are leaving either voluntarily or after a vacation in gatorville.

Shortly before his departure from Japan, I met with fellow substacker DW Shunway who treated me to lunch at a pretty good curry restaurant. I do like curry but did not understand his insistence on curry and that particular joint. Later, in our discussions I learned that he loves curry but cannot get it where he lives in the States. This would be his lat time in a long time to enjoy the dish. I remained honored that he allowed me to enjoy his last curry in who knows how long with him. I do not recall now when exactly we met, was it before or after i was told I must leave my wife’s home. Even if before, readers who have been with me for that past year know that divorce was the most likely destination for the course I was unable to get off of, it got me to thinking about what I would choose for my last meal in Japan.

Thoughts along this line refused to take root, instead, where do I want to have my first meal in the States found fertile soil. I am not sure why this is. Perhaps it is my minds way of trying to stay as positive as possible. One place that had been on my mind for some time was Cracker Barrel. We have nothing like in Japan. It was also a favorite for my reenacting pards and we would even take slight detours to occupy one on the way home from events. Lots of fond memories at the place in general but especially the one closest to home where we messed most frequently. THAT was something to look forward to! Well, I doubt there are any here who are not aware of the recent Bud Lite like move the new CEO of this chain recently made. “Man!” I thought, “Is there anything left back home that I will recognize!?!?”

Thankfully, the back lash has been of tsunami proportions. The two main take aways on this latest go woke, go broke episode is that the fight is far from over and, at least for the time being, downing at the Cracker Barrel of my college days remains a possibility in the real world.

Another fellow Substacker, Alex Fox just posted on the wider issues involved with the Cracker Barrel crack up. Here is a link to he’s excellent post

There is a lot more I would like to say on this but will attempt to do so on his stack when more fully awake. But back to the issue of returning stateside or remaining; it looks more and more that returning home may be a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire.

There are 2 bedroom apartments available in the Tokyo burbs for less than $500 a month. These will not be particularly conveniently located, but they are numerous. I am currently employed and my employment situation has recently greatly improved. As bad as things are here and even though they look to be worsening, I may be better off sticking it out here. Between classes on my one day of classes this past week I stopped by a favorite store of mine to buy more lighting for my new apartment. The store is between three stations I use to get to my job in Akihabara from locations within Tokyo and I walk past it often. They sell solar charged lights.

As you can see, they are compact. They come in two sizes. I started off with one of the small ones for camping. It has been on all of the camping trips the preexfamily has made these past 3 or 4 years. I thought that they would be great to have more of, especially for emergencies. Preexwife didn’t think so, so the first small one has been used by itself until recently. I decided to buy more last year as I thought they might come in handy if/when the break up finally comes. The last I bought before this week was my only large one. The large ones display how much of a charge they have, which is useful. They also told me that the charge lasts longer too. I plan to use these to help keep my electricity bills down, having at least one always fully charged for emergencies, by putting these out in the sun before leaving for work each morning and using them as exclusively as possible for home lighting. Can even easily pack these in a suitcase to bring back to the States if that becomes an eventuality.

Arguing with the Japanese chauvinist, it occurred to me that after getting thrown out, the government will not be able to use my then exwife’s wealth in their calculations for my ability to pay into the nenkin system. I may be able to get a hardship exemption from it. That would be sweet. The kleptocrats greed help split up my marriage but led to gaining only three years worth of payments AND gained another one parent family to help support. Knucklefaucis.

One of the improvements in the employment arena is that I am now helping a US trained MD with his class at the med school. He teachers both 3rd and 4th year med students. Originally it was thought I would aid in both of these classes but as I test the 4th year students on their medical interviewing, I acting as a SP, I cannot. Can’t do both. So I am helping with just the 3rd years. Still, more money than I was expecting to earn this Fall. Had my first class with them Thursday. Appalling. They had two quizzes to take, one was on vocabulary and translation that they were informed of before summer vacation. A large number forget and just wrote their names at the top and sat in silence until time to pass them in. The second was at the end of class and it was over what we covered in class. For both of these, there were many, say like 10% or so, who openly cheated. They looked at their neighbors’ work, some showed their quizzes to those sitting behind them. Witnessing this, I stood next to a group of 9 who were not even trying to hide their cheating. They looked up, saw me, made eye contact, and continued cheating. They were not silent about it either. They were loud the entire class and did not pay attention at all.

The MD running the class said that they were adults and if they do not care for the opportunity we are giving them the results are on them. There were actually 4 teachers in the class room with just over 100 students. The other two are the English Dept. Director and the new sub-director. Despite this heavy presence of teachers, at least 10% talked loudly as if in the cafeteria, another, larger percentage were doing other things from studying for other tests, shopping online or playing with their idiot phones or iPads. Throughout the class. About 15% were obviously, actively participating. I believe there were others who were paying attention but doing so in a manner that made it hard to tell if they were or if they were zoning out. Medical students. Sadly, the only uniqueness of the situation is the open cheating. I had never observed that. Cheating, yes, but they take efforts to hide it. Well, did. I asked my boss about it and she said we can’t do anything about it without getting the charge of “harassment” leveled at us.

I am thinking of filming the class next time, the class meets irregularly, and after I have it sent it out to volunteers to post if I can’t, drop the hammer on them. I plan to take their quizzes and tear them in half in front of them and send them out of the classroom. When called in for the meeting with their parents, I’ll play the video of their little darlings’ behavior in class. If they threaten me with a harassment charge, firing or any kind of censure, they will be informed that the video will be posted on various social media accounts and sent to various news outlets in multiple countries so that all can see the quality of medical education and its students in Japan.

If I have to leave Japan it will not be due to being suckered into the trick me Fauci me nenkin and national health care scams.