Well after four long years, university has finally come to an end. I’m not going to lie and say it’s all been peaches and cream (though I probably could since I don’t like cream … peaches … hmm … they’re ok I guess), but I know there have been a variety of challenges I’ve had to overcome. I know for a fact that my final exam was a nightmare, so I’m hoping to have got by on my (equally bad) essay for that module.

For now all I can do is try to relax a little bit.

This cat gets it.

The placement information for JET still hasn’t been issued yet, however with the events that have taken place in Japan I can still hang by and wait patiently (still hoping for somewhere not that far North however. Remote island? Fine, just make it warm).

I’ve also gone back to Lotaku lately, updating another page and planning the next few. I’m happy I can finally get the time to do some more of my small projects without having to worry about kanji and vocab tests as well as vast amounts of unmemorisable readings. Guhh … I’m not going to miss academia.

DrainsAid - It's like an alarm clock made of faeces

“Oh … shit!”

DrainsAid (yes they remove the space between the two words because … um … no I couldn’t find a reason either) had two trucks and were up the road doing … something. But this ‘something’ meant that not only was I going to miss the bowl of Shreddies that I was looking forward to (after I went and got milk the night before specially for it), but I also had to get the hell out of my room, lest I wish to vomit into my laundry hamper and further stink up the place.

I opened my bedroom door and was punched in the face with a brick-like fist of something I can only describe as a mummy’s arse, and the worst part was that my mouth was open. After wretching somewhats nastilly and giving all my inner strength to keeping the contents of my stomach down (I had eaten a mars bar during the night), I threw myself back into my less odour-filled bedroom and quickly shut the door. I threw on some clothes, any clothes, it didn’t matter which. I jotted down DrainAids phone number on a post it and shoved it in my pocket, took a photo of one of the trucks from my window, grabbed a can of air-freshener from the cupboard, stuck my head under my blanket and took a deep breath, and ran through the house spraying every cubic centimeter of air I could. After feeling faint, I crawled back to my room and stuck my head back under the blanket. Taking another deep breath I headed downstairs, where the smell had yet to have much of an impact (our toilets are on the middle floor, my floor), and was then out the door.

I wanted to call DrainsAid to find out why we hadn’t been given any notice that our house would be given the delightful aroma of swine-sphincter, but couldn’t stomach the idea of making a phone call on the middle floor. As they have a freephone number I headed to the phone box around the corner. Unfortunately there was someone already in there when I arived; a dying bee. Having already been subject to a wasp attack back when I was a lad, I didn’t fancy sharing any space with a pissed-off stinging thing-a-mi-bob. I popped to the next phone box along, only to find his equally dying and pissed off twin brother.

I took a walk down the road to my next nearest phone box. No bees in this one, just a lovely pile of sick. It didn’t smell though, and as long as I watched my footing I didn’t step in it; I really didn’t fancy looking for yet another phone box.

I got through to a guy at DrainsAid at about 2:10pm. I gave him details of what was happening and asked him why we weren’t told about it in advance. He said that he couldn’t find it on his system, but would give me a call back when he finds out. Poor guy sounded so downtrodden, perhaps they’re sorting the drains out outside their offices too, I thought.

I headed down to the Unipol (my landlords) office to see if they’d been told anything about works in the area, but again they’d heard nothing. They said that they too would get in touch with DrainSaid and see if they could find something out. Good ol’ Unipol. They asked me to get back in touch with them if the house still stank at about 4 o’clock, so in the meantime I headed to the Union for a bit of a nose.

While in the bookshop, nosing at the old crap that people don’t want section (aka 2nd hand books, three of which I ended up buying today), my phone rang. Unfortunately it stopped ringing before it had chance to actually make any noise. I had my phone in my hand so felt it vibrate, but it stopped just as I looked at the screen. I couldn’t even call them back, the buggers withheld the number. I knew it wasn’t Unipol (they don’t withhold their number and they actually wait for you to answer the phone), so I had a hunch it was DrainalAids.

HG Air Neutraliser for all Bad Smells - £4.57 at Amazon

DrainAid explained to Unipol that they had drainage work scheduled in the area either on Monday or tomorrow (I won’t lie, I don’t remember which), so it couldn’t possibly have been them. Oh DrainsAid, don’t be so silly. You know in this day and age everyone hates liars (and also carry phones with cameras). I explained to the guy at Unipol that I had taken a picture of one of the vans, to which he said he’d call them up again and then give me a call. After leaving the office I had a good look at the picture to see if I could see the license plate as well. My first camera phone wasn’t as good as this.

I had a call not too much later. Apparently DoughnutAid had indeed been working up the road on an Emergency call out due to some of the flats accross the road getting flooded. Now to me that’s a good enough reason for not giving us notice. There’s no need to claim that they weren’t there and there’s definately no need for the half-arsed attempt of “calling you back”. The only result from this is that DrainsAid now look like an unprofessional organisation who don’t even know where their own staff are.

Silly buggers.

I went to the pub and caught the end of the South Africa Vs Mexico match (it is World Cup time after all), before heading home to air out the house a bit more.

As usual with my complaints I invite DrainsAid to comment on here and will send them an email to let them know about the entry. It’s getting a bit late so I’ll probably do the Japanese version to this in the morning.

Now if you think back my new year’s post I mentioned a very kind woman on a train who gave me and a friend a biscuit and a mandarin orange, and how if that had been England it would have been a very scepticle moment. In fact here’re my very words.

One thing I forgot to write about in the last entry is about the kindness of others here. On the train to get our hair cut, we were sitting across from and elderly woman wearing a facemask. Facemasks are a common sight here as people wear them to either try to stop the spread of any disease they have (or have been in contact with), or to try to help them avoid a common illness going around. As we were leaving the train she tapped me on the arm and held out a mandarin and a biscuit. I couldn’t translate what she said well, but she was giving them to us as a gift. We were stunned and had absolutely no idea why, but this kind of generosity back home would have caused a lot of scepticism.

Well one chap’s taken note of this act of kindness and a lot of other occaisions of people helping people on his own blog, Seeking and Sharing Stories of Kindness and I think it’s a brilliant idea. In a time where people are trying to sue each other for pointless things (I used to work in Claims Direct’s call centre and boy there were a few weird ones), it’s nice to see that there are still people about who are willing to look out for their fellow man. So far he has 6 posts of kind deeds, so if you have a story to add to the (hopefully) ever growing list, do let him know!

However once in a while an anomoly occurs and you get some little smart-arse who’s studied nothing but English Classics in their short little lives and can do such a task. This in turn must mean that there is hope for people wishing to strike up a conversation, even a short one, with a complete stranger and not have it go AOT like someone carrying something very expensive and slipping on a pile of mochi.

To the point then. Today a friend and I were in a park in Umeda practicing kanji on white boards and seemed to draw the attention of a (possibly) homeless man. As he came closer I saw him staring down at my whiteboard (covered in miscellaneous kanji combinations). I explained to him we were doing kanji practice and our conversation began.

The conversation ended as quickly as it started as he went off to join some friends a few meters away and we continued our kanji practice. After a while, partly due to boredom and the kanji for the name 今井 (Imai), we ended up playing a few games of noughts and crosses, followed by me testing whether or not my friend new へのへのもへじ (henohenomoheji).

Quote from Wikipedia

Henohenomoheji (へのへのもへじ) or hehenonomoheji (へへののもへじ) is a face drawn by Japanese schoolchildren using hiragana characters.

The word breaks down into the seven hiragana characters he（へ）, no（の）, he（へ）, no（の）, mo（も）, he（へ）, ji（じ）. The first two “he” are the eyebrows, the two “no” are the eyes, the “mo” is a nose, and the last “he” is the mouth. The outline of the face is made by the character “ji”, with the dakuten forming the ear. Children use henohenomoheji as the faces of kakashi (scarecrows).

This have caught the ears of our visitor who had returned and seemed very eager to show us some other variations of the game. Unfortunately I never had the chance to ask him what they were that he drew, but I did take some photographs of them, and will ask some friends when I next see them.

Speaking of photos, there’re going to be new photo’s on the blogspot page daily for a while! In the mean time, here’s a video of Darth Vader (aka Dave Prowse from Bristol) doing what he does best. Also, did you know R2D2 (aka Kenny Baker) was a Brummie? o_O