Wet leaves

This week I heard something very funny but a little unkind.

It seems in Japan there is the expression 'nureha' which means 'wet leaf'. But now the expression isn't just for leaves!

Take a minute to think about wet leaves - have you ever tried to sweep them up? Wet leaves stick to the ground and don't move, it is really hard to budge them.

So now retired men have become 'wet leaves'! Frustrated wives say that their husbands just sit about on the sofa all day doing nothing and not moving.

Please be careful if your wife suddenly says "Nureha ..." :)

A bad shopping experience

Have you ever had the experience of a shop you like changing and becoming horrible?

When I first moved to Tsukuba almost 5 years ago, I went around to some electrical shops and decided that I.O. Denki was my favorite. The staff were nice, the store was very large with many products and the prices were good. I bought many things there, the most expensive being an airconditioner and refrigerator.

I don't know what happened, but about a year ago the store suddenly started to go downhill. The staff became rude, etc. For example, one day I and some other customers were waiting at the clock/watch counter to be served. The clerk was talking on the phone to a customer but ignored the customers in the shop. I thought it was really rude - he could have apologised to the person on the phone, and quickly called another clerk. Finally, he just put his hand over the phone mouthpiece and told us customers to 'Go over to that counter.' He didn't even use polite Japanese. How rude!

Then another day in the computer section, two different clerks told me two totally different things. I decided to go home and check by myself on the Internet ... Not only that, but Japanese friends have told me about bad experiences too, so it is not a 'gaikokujin/English' problem :)

And now, the store has less products. I keep going back because I want to buy one final thing to use up the points accumulated on my store point card. Hmm, it seems the points will go to waste.

If you want a nice shopping experience, please go to Kojima Denki. I really like the staff there who are very kind and helpful. The choice of products on display might be limited, but please ask them if you have something you want to buy. Some shops do have stock but not on display. For example, recently I went to the Gakuen store but the IC recorder I wanted was out of stock. The clerk said she could order it, or I could try another store. She gave me an advertisement showing maps to the other stores in the area. I knew that the model I wanted is the most popular now and is out of stock in many places (not just Kojima), so I called the other stores by phone. I could get the recorder from the Ushiku store even though they didn't have it on display. (The Ushiku store is small so display space is limited.)

Sorry that this post is full of complaints!

Phew!

Phew, what a week!

These past few weeks have been really busy because October is the season to start some new courses. Everything was going okay until my home computer died .... All the last minute things I wanted to do at home, like proofreading, creating sound files, etc, had to be postponed.

Anyway.... everything is okay now :)

But some days I wonder what it would be like to have no computer at all. What is the longest period of time you have not used a computer? (Since you started using a computer regularly.) I suppose my longest time would have been the 10 days I went to Scotland 4 years ago. Other than that, a few days over New Year holidays when I went to Kagoshima.

I read in some newspapers that now it is very common for company employees to TAKE their computers on holidays with them! I've read this on the BBC and on an Australian news website. What is the purpose of a holiday? To RELAX of course! Why should you take your computer so you can keep in touch with the office? Strange ...