As you may recall, on Tuesdays I have my “Multiculturalism” class, focusing on Bradford, Chinese takeaways and Rastafarianism. The timing is such that I am guaranteed to feel sooo sleepy that I am almost in the land of nod as soon as I sit down. 3pm – 5pm is my danger zone, and this falls plop-splat right in the middle of this window of doziness.

Hence last week’s drastic action. Not wishing to go through that painful experience again of forcing myself to stay awake – head nodding forward every 30 seconds, bouncing on the desk and waking me up, oh how I loathe that, last week I went to class equipped, my stomach filled with a can of coffee, half a litre of Coke (of the cola variety…), and about 150ml of this terribly expensive wonder drug that I picked up from the convenience store just beforehand.

The effect was remarkable. Wide awake throughout that 90-minute class, and the next. It was only about 6 hours later that I felt the slightest inclination to yawn. What on Earth those little brown bottles contain I don’t know (and I don’t think I want to know) but whatever it is, it certainly messes with your brain.

To make sure it really was this drug that did the trick, not just the coffee and coke, today I cut those two out of my Tuesday diet, and made sure I was EXTRA tired before going into class. Then, I secretly unscrewed the top of the magic bottle, and downed in one the revolting contents.

Well, it was like Eric Eating a Banana (although fortunately the turning-yellow bit didn’t last too long). I was so super-awake and with it that I managed to write a hole 4 page letter to a friend, and take notes on all that was said in class!

I have an idea that it wouldn’t be very clever to take this stuff every day. Still, for occasional occasions of the occasional kind, where sleeping is not really an option, I highly recommend it. It’s called “Chocola BB Light” – can be found with all the other energy drinks in the Konbini.

* * *

So yeah, been highly busy in a highly positive way of late. The trip to Kobe was great. Our friends, whose party it was, had hired out the entire 30th floor restaurant at the Portopia Hotel, situated on the incredibly large man-made island (you’d never guess it) out in the bay. Lovely night-view of Kobe tower and all.

There was also the trip to the world’s largest Fish market (which I plan to talk about in the next podcast), a night out at DisneySea (spectacular show on the huge lake sea), an hour spent goggling in the Apple Store in Osaka… and much more. I’m very pleased with how much I am learning – although most of it has nothing to do with Japanese!

Very much looking forward to January 17th too – last day of uni for 11 weeks. Yipppeeee. Not that I don’t like uni, but there’s just so many other things I want to do at the moment.

fliggeldy floggledy brains all over the place.

Hmm, perhaps this is one of those side effects that’s listed on the side of the bottle, you know, on the label that I can’t be bothered to read…