Valentines Day 2009

After work last night, I came home to find the house stinking of rancid steamed broccoli – we’d forgotten to put a dish of it away in the fridge before heading off to Saitama the previous day, and what with these spring-like temperatures it had rapidly deteriorated. Windows open, air purifier on full blast …soon […]

Gaijin Bubble – Being a good husband – Taking action

Sunset from our front door The intense feeling of ‘being a foreigner’ is starting to fade. These past few weeks there have been several occasions when I’ve been out and about, and completely forgotten that I’m a member of the 2%(ish) minority population of non-Japanese residents in Japan. Upon arrival back in Japan last September […]

Last day of the year: Looking forward to 2009 and beyond

We’re back at *Twinkle*s parents for New Years Eve, as is the tradition when in Japan. This year I won’t be drinking, following a disastrous incident last time when I, along with *Twinkle*s two sisters’ British partners devoured a whole crate of beer between us – most of it went down my throat. I feel […]

Mumbai, my job, and babymaking

I don’t think I could ever get bored with life. There’s just too much going on. For a start, there’s events in the news. I don’t follow the news religiously, but I have recently subscribed to the Guardian feed on my iPhone – I scroll through the headlines on my way home to keep abreast […]

Married Life: Day 9

When in the past I’ve asked newly-wed friends if marriage changes things, most of them have said ‘sort of but not really’ or ‘no’, having been living together before the marriage for an extended period of time. It’s my experience that it changes everything. But then, our marriage occurred in rather unusual circumstances, and so […]

The Wedding Reception

The wedding website has now be updated to reflect the post-wedding reality of our present existence. Anyone interested in taking a peek can find it at www.twinkleandjoseph.net (with the name ‘twinkle’ being replaced with a name she uses in 1st life). The username is ‘guest’, the password ‘banana’. So there we were. Married, with the […]

Marriage: it’s like a sheep pen on the island of Crete

In the end, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. 6 months apart, followed by 9 days together, then the wedding. It seems to have been a good combination. I recommend it. I’ve been thinking about this feeling I (we) have, this ‘being married’ feeling, and wondering how much it is a result of […]

The night before my wedding

It’s now ten minutes to midnight on the night before my wedding day. I dropped *Twinkle* back to the cottage we’ve rented for her parents, where she will spend her last night before she becomes my wife. It’s been an amazing day. Thinking back over the last 16 hours I feel tearful – we have […]

Marriage – from the pre-wedding perspective

The past couple of days have started to see a change in the relationship between myself and *Twinkle*. I think I know why that could be – the Marriage Effect. It first struck me yesterday when we were driving home to the holiday cottage that we’ve rented about 500 yards from mum and dad’s place. […]

*Twinkle*s arrival and the first of two weddings

The drive to Heathrow airport never takes as long as I expect it to. I think of London as being a long way away, but it actually takes less than three hours to get there from Herefordshire, and what with the airport being located just off the M4 there’s not much in the way of […]

Back in the Alps

As part of my prep for leaving for Japan, I’m going though my box of diaries, which also contains a few DVDs of TV programs featuring me or my friends, and converting them to MP4 format which I can keep on my laptop. One of them I’ve not seen for years is the documentary made […]

The secret to forgiving

I’m now into week 7 of my TSI coaching course. Initial goals I set myself at the beginning of the course have mostly been achieved, thus, when this week I was asked to once again identify problematic areas within my life, I really struggled. In the end, I had to contact one of my coaches […]

The challenges of a long distance relationship

A misunderstanding this week between *Twinkle* and myself has led me to realise that, after 5 months apart, we’ve started to lose touch with one another’s realities. Whilst we do communicate regularly via email (just over 2,500 messages since we saw one another in January), these cannot give us a true picture of the daily […]

The shouting lady

I spent much of today in the library, hammering my dissertation into shape. We’re getting there. All but the conclusion written. This week, the weather has been just beautiful. Real warm sunny days, no need for jumpers or jackets. This brings me such enormous pleasure. It’s been a very long winter, and I was getting […]

IBL Staff-Student Symposium

Full day of work today, from 8.30am to 4.30pm. I say ‘work’, but it was more like hanging out with friends. CILASS friends. Today was the 2nd CILASS Inquiry Based Learning Staff-Student Symposium. Some people may remember me talking about giving a presentation via Skype from Tokyo at last year’s event – well, this time […]

The Family of East Asian Studies and the Opinion of Others

About a week ago, my case study “Making Students Matter: The Family of East Asian Studies” was published on a new section of the University web site. Case Studies Project overview The Case Studies project aims to create a library of examples of good practice in teaching, highlighting success stories in order that academic staff […]

Organic vegetables, Nelson Mandela, and your own thought processes

Ha. It’s another of those nights. Those nights when I go to bed, but feel so excited about everything and nothing that I have to get up again. Part of it’s the music, I know. I’m listening to Everything But the Girl – Walking Wounded. One of the few CDs I ever owned. Bought it […]