Famous People Drink Too Much
And by famous people, I mean me. And by drinking problem, I mean I drink unearthly amounts from PET bottles. How much? Tons. I counted this time as I dumped my PET bottles into the recycling nets. This month I drank 52 bottles. Of those, 42 were over the 1 liter size. That’s a lot of drink. Here’s a photo to prove it. I had to take the bottles down using 2 laundry baskets. Geeze, Deas. Take it easy, I know. In my defense, they told me I shouldn’t drink the water here because the island has no municipal filtration system in place. Therefore, I buy bottled water. (Easier than boiling it.)
You’re thinking…this loser still hasn’t qualified himself as famous. Truth is, I am so far away from being famous it’s not even funny. I was merely referring to the latest i-News Magazine, a publication put out bimonthly by the ICIEA. I was featured along with some other newcomers in the December-January issue. Click on the cover of the magazine to go to a PDF of the page where my blurb is featured. This magazine is available in the central Imabari Library, Imabari Station, the ICIEA office, and by request. I hope to write an article for them for a future issue - just gotta decide on the topic. Any suggestions are welcome. Yay! (By the way, awful picture of me, I know. Not mine. They had to ask around, because they were looking for it while I had no computer of which to speak.)
So…the oranges. I thought it would be so cool to live in and around orange groves. Ehime is famous for mikan oranges - which are mandarins, for the curious. That means my island produces salt and oranges. (Incidentally, it also means that a large portion of my kids reply that they aspire to be mikan farmers when they grow up.) Well, it turns out that it isn’t always all it is cracked up to be. You see, lately, there have been lots of oranges left on the ground to rot. What does this mean? Orange stink permeates much of my environs. Not pleasant. Rotting citrus isn’t pleasant. It’s like riding through an overripe garbage bag…blech. Hopefully this is a short-lived season. Luckily, I have been riding the ferries more often lately, which limits my sour orange experience. I’ve hit the kaisokusen 4 times this week and the car transport ferry 2 times. The cabin of the kaisokusen (fast line) is in the picture above. Starting to feel like a normal commute.
Last comment for today - Yuge High School got overwhelmed by my mad Christmas caroling for the past 2 days. Thursday was full of Nat King Cole (the Christmas Song), Brenda Lee (Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree), and Jose Feliciano (Feliz Navidad). It was great fun. These are my ideas of some classic Christmas songs that are fairly easy to understand. They use less archaic English than songs like “Deck the halls with boughs of holly” or virtually any awesome Christmas hymn. Even if it’s beautiful, it’s not necessarily easy to understand for Japanese high schoolers. Anyway, today, my music was given a backseat ride in favor of the current Japanese popular Christmas songs. What were they? Last Christmas by Wham! and All I Want for Christmas by Mariah Carey. Out of my range. Out of my genre. Need I say more? Nah. Ha ha. Funny stuff, though. I will have you note, I heard more than one kid singing Feliz Navidad after class. How many were singing Mariah Carey? Zero. Ha ha. Gotta love it.