Sunday Post from Shikaoi

A busy Saturday, but planned thus because now Sunday is wide open. Recently, on the weekends, I have been eating Bacon and Eggs, instead of my normal fare of Toast. It is a small attempt to ration my scarce Canadian Extra Smooth Peanut Butter. I thing it is a nice change to have a somewhat big breakfast. (Today it was only one and a half strips of bacon and one small egg. It was very good.)

For a Sunday I have already: had breakfast, done the dishes, did a load of laundry; now it is 9:00 AM and I am sitting down to write today's update. I'm listening to the CBC radio one six o'clock news (Mountain time). It sounds like everything is falling apart. No good news today. Lately I have been getting up at 7:30 AM on Sundays to hear CBC's program about books. Today's book was from some Rock n' Roll writer that believed he knew everything about pop music and today's iPod generation. To me he sounded like a fraud and the panel thought his book was boring for various reasons. In his book, the writer convinced himself that the iPod generation don't listen to any music before 1990. He would be surprised to see what's on my iPod. To me, and looking at my family, he sounds very out of touch. Amongst various Radiohead tunes, old songs on my top fifty play are: Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A Changing and 4th Time Around; The Rolling Stones's You Can't Always Get Want You Want and Satisfaction; and Van Morrison's Gloria. Just to illustrate I am well rounded, the oldest song is Beethoven's Cello Sonata No.3 In A Major, very beautiful track. The latest track added was actually an NPR interview about processed foods. But the last piece of music added was Sufjan Stevens' excellent track Chicago, though the album is far far less impressive IMO.

Now CBC's Madly Off In All Directions has come on and it is time to switch to a different internet radio station because that program is most definitely not funny. It should have been cancelled a long time ago. It is a program that makes me very depressed about the state of Canadian comedy; thank goodness for Trailer Park Boys (the early seasons are great).

I have been very surprised recently that many people have commented on how much my Japanese has improved lately, including yesterday. Improving is not something that I can readily notice. The pace of learning is glacial and it feels like I am not learning anything. One thing I find strange is that I study more Kanji than anything else, so it's intriguing that my listening and speaking has improved. Still, it's nice to know on some level I am improving. Korean is becoming increasingly popular to learn, though no where near as popular as English. This is because Korean movies and TV shows have become popular here, thus Korean actors too. I guess everyone wants with speak with them. Yet there is a strong feeling that English is the international language, but I am less convinced. Still, becoming more and more fluent has encouraged me to look at learning another language someday. Sadly, learning a language at this age is many times more difficult.

I guess I will go for a run now.