GorillaDust In Japan

Injury Report - Day 4

Well, this sucks. I've been sitting around the house in pajamas dealing with this sling, brace, and nasty pain for 3 days now. Lemme tell ya, it's no fun. I got a week off work, but at the moment I'm not positive I'll be able to go back that soon. Since it's my right wing that's down for the count, I can't write class notes, get files, or even use chopsticks. I'm lucky if I can take a shower right now. Anytime I move too fast or bend down I can feel the bone grind, and sleeping has become a monumental task. It looks like it will be around 4 months before it's fully healed, and 6 weeks or so before I can use the arm without much discomfort. Well shit, call me unhappy, but all of this doesn't have me overly pleased. One option is to wait it out here for as long as possible before returning to work, which will most likely jeopardize my promotion, while another option would be to return to the states to try and heal up, which would trash job options here as well. Arrgh, I don't know what to think right now. Stephanie has ruled helping me and has been very patient...no telling how long that will last though...hehe.

OK, back to reclining for me. If I stay up for too long my back gets super-sore. Yeesh, what a way to spend some time.

Disaster...limbs were broken

Well dammit, my snowboarding adventure ended in the most tragic way - I broke my right clavicle (collarbone) and dislocated my right shoulder. ARRGH! I've gotta type with my left hand and everything is quite uncomfortable.

I wish I could say it was something super-dramatic, but in reality I was cruising reasonably fast through a flat area (of which there are many at Japanese resorts) when some people in front of me decided to stop and chat with eachother. I cut right pretty quickly and when I tried to nose straight again, I caught a front edge and went straight down on my right shoulder. I knew something was wrong instantly but just figured it was gonna be sore. I hung out in the snow for a bit and cradeled my arm for a bit, but the pain wasn't going away. After the chatty folk passed me and continued (slowly) down the trail I picked up my snowboard with my left hand, gripped my jacket zipper with my right, and slowly made my way to the next lift - almost 1 kilometer away.

Once I made it there I met up with my ski partner Nick, who had patiently waited for the good 20 minutes it took me to get there. I was in severe pain by now and was only barely holding back some serious curses and tears (I won't lie, some escaped). I assumed I broke my shoulder so Nick grabbed a passing employee and tried to communicate what happened. The guy seemed to understand a little - albeit slowly - that something was wrong, and ended up putting us on a chairlift heading UP! We arrived at a gondola station and, after more communication mishaps because evidently nobody radioed ahead, were sent to sit in a warming hut to wait for the ski patrol and further instructions.

Well, lemme tell ya, the Japanese system for dealing with mountain injuries is completely ineffective. The ski patrol rolled in, looked at my shoulder, and looked confused. The finally got it out that it might be dislocated and called our hotel to arrange transport to the hospital. After another 30 minutes or so we took the gondola down and waited another 30 minutes before our car arrived....then another 30 minutes to the hospital - or should I say hospital #1.

After Kazue from the hotel helped with translations and such, X-rays showed that the collarbone was snapped and the arm was dislocated. I was rather painfully placed in a figure 8 brace which forces the shoulders back and shoves the bone together to hold it in place (lots of bone grinding!), and released to venture to another hospital 200 km away due to the possible need for surgery. I also got some sweet pain medication that dulls the ache but doesn't mess with my head. Nick and I hopped 2 shinkansen, arrived in Oyama around 7:30 (the accident was at 11 AM), and Stephanie took me on another train to go to a hospital near here. After going through the standard emergency room wait, I was X-rayed again and discovered that the dislocation had been fixed during transit, and I proably wouldn't need surgery. Excellent.

So here I sit, somewhat uncomfortable but with fine posture due to the brace and sling. The lame end of this is that it will take upwards of 20 weeks to heal, with maybe 8 weeks wearing this brace. I can remove the sling when the pain lessens, but it might be 10-14 days until that happens. Stephanie has been key helping me out at home, and Nick ruled between the accident and returning to Oyama. Sure wish I could use my right arm!!!

A

Posted by: Gorilla / 2/27/2004 07:11:05 PM  Send Comments

Snowboarding Preparations

I'm starting to prepare, a little late as always, for a journey up to Niigata for a couple of days of boarding with our neighbor, Nick. We're heading up to a little burg called Echigo Yuzawa that contains maybe 6 or so different ski areas. The weather here has been really terrible for snowboarding the past couple of days, but now it seems to have turned a little more wintery. We'll stay at a little minshuku family-type hotel and see what sorta damage we can do in a short time. Check the previous links for other details, but hopefully no limbs are broken.

In other somewhat unfortunate news the Danish anarchist town of Christiania may be on its last legs. According to an article in the Observer the government might just 'civilize' the city before too long. Perhaps the end to one of the most unusual social experiments in Europe. I think Oregon needs to start one of those up. Portland has Dignity Village, but it's not exactly as organized or potentially amusing as Christiania. The same thing has happened in both situations though - people get all worked up about rules appearing and having to follow them. Maybe that's the key issue with why anarchism can never be a viable, permanent social 'institution'.

And just what the hell does Ralph Nader think he's doing getting involved in the campaign again this year!?!?!? I mean, I'm all up for multiple candidates and all that, but jeezus, didn't he learn a lesson last campaign?!?! Arrgh, it makes me so angry. I'm not a massive fan of Kerry, but if we get another 4 years of the Boy President I've gotta stay out of the country. Yeesh...

Unusual Dinner

Last night we went out with some folks and had a new and unusual dish. After eating a few of the normal items like fried shrimp and some tuna sashimi, they broke out some craziness. The stuff looked like a cross between brains and pasta, and was in a little bowl with some sauce and garnish. As it turned out after much dictionary browsing and false-starts, it was fish testicles. That's right, who knew!?! Certainly not me. Well, we tried a little bit and it really wasn't too bad. I think the mere knowledge of what it was kinda put a shock into us, but the taste really wasn't terrible at all. Kind mooshy, not overly flavorful, and pretty soft. Hey, live and learn!

Hobbits

So we're probably the last people in the world to say this, but we finally saw "The Return Of The King". And...it was damn good. Reaaaaally long though - I believe a tad over 3 hours. Due to my advanced age I could barely walk when it was finished. It was also our first Japanese cinema outing, and it went quite well. It was only 1200 yen ($11) a person, and the audience was dead quiet throughout the movie. Even though everybody in this country older than 10 has a cell phone, not a beep was heard. There were little tiny containers of popcorn, but I think we were the only people in the theater who actually bought any, and no plastic wrappers or talking were heard at all. I think that's my main gripe about movie theaters in the states - that people are just plain rude.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that it was a good experience. So there went our 1-day weekend: we're off to Shinjuku in Tokyo tomorrow for more training. The saving grace of the whole day will be that we get to cruise around on the shinkansen (bullet train) for a bit. Rock on!

J-Tunes

One of the nice things here is that you can rent music CDs. It's excellent for taking them home, trying them out, and if you like them, put them on the ol' computer! Shhh, don't tell 'The Man', but it rules. We've been talking about wrapping up an i-Pod one of these days, and we're up to 3.9 gigs of music, so the time might be nearing. We shall see.

Hmm, there's a Japanese language cover of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" on TV - must change the channel.

10-Year Anniversary

Oh, by the way, we are semi-celebrating our 10 year anniversary this month. 10 years ago we met on the fateful evening when Stephanie tried to steal some food from me at a late-night part in Athens, Ohio. I lured her away with some 'Crunch N Munch', and the rest is history.

Cheers, Kanpai, Skol, and Hoo-Wa!!

Lucky Day!

That's right, hot damn, it's Friday The 13th! Stephanie claims that it's a lucky day for her, and I guess it was somewhat. We headed out and...bought me a new used bike! Woohoo! Yupper, we blew 3,500 yen ($35) of our hard earned cash for a used mamachari, and boy is it keen. It's got a powerful bell that plays a small show tune, suspect rear brakes that work when you apply 48 lbs of pressure, and no headlight. It's a purple monster with "Pops" written on the chain guard in rainbow text. Damn, I'm the man!

Once said bicycle was acquired me headed up to Yamaya to purchase food and other such incredible items. Now the most important factor regarding Yamaya is the fact that it doubles as the most incredible liquor store in the galaxy. The store is made up of perhaps 8 aisles, 2 of which are dedicated to Sake, and another 2 to 'liquors of the world'. They have every sort of liquor you can imagine (minus absinthe), from Scorpion Vodka (which does indeed contain a small scorpion) to some sorta odd, Polish moonshine. They must have 100 different whiskeys, 200 different types of Japanese sake, and 200 varied forms of Sho-Chu (sweet potato liquor - evil). Now here's the important part - almost everything is under $10! They also have an incredible selection of wines which are in a back room called "Cave of the Yamaya" for some reason.

Plus, they have cheese...straight outta Wisconsin. It's money I tell you, money!

Anyhoo, we bought some tortillas and cheese, and some scotch for our friend who just turned the big 2-4. We went out on Wednesday with approximately 32 Japanese waitress types with penchants for the booze, and nothing in Yamaya looked too tasty. Having said that, we're gonna pop open a bottle of German Gluwein (hot, spiced wine) and prepare for the onslaught of kids at work tomorrow.

Happy Friday the 13th and Valentine's Day!

Yoga amusement

I'm sitting here amusing myself watching Stephanie do up some Yoga. I'm supposed to go snowboarding on Friday and I should probably do some stretching, but I doubt I'll join in on the Yoga. Crazy stuff. Aside from that it's pretty slack around here. We have some new neighbors from Australia who are some fine folk - much better that the swine Canadians who were there before. Hopefully things around Oyama will be very relaxing for months to come.

'cept for these nasty little mites or something that keep biting me. I'm all itchy and whatnot right now...killin' me! Maybe it's the chicken flu or something.

Cold days and dead birds...

As I teach the students, it's the Same Ol' Same Ol' around here. Nothing too crazy going on in Japan these days except for feverish talk about the chicken flu and SARS. Whenever a student is sick I ask "So you got the SARS!!?" to laughter all around. Good times I tell you. No, actually the meat situation here is pretty dire at the moment - at least for American meat. It seems that Japan has now banned both US beef AND poultry. Yeesh, now we're gonna have to eat Australian meat...what's this world coming to.

Speaking of bird flu, check out this nutty article about dead birds "raining down" in China. Here's an excerpt:

The Yangzi Evening News and the Nanjing Daily said more than 10,000 bramblings dropped like "bird rain" from the sky in Taizhou, in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu, on Tuesday, considered a bad omen at the beginning of the new lunar year.

Indeed, I would most likely consider 10,000 dead birds a bad omen at any time of year, but that's just me. So this was discussed in my classes today, and here is a list of reasons the students came up with about what caused this 'unfortunate' incident:

• Bird Flu (evidently striking the birds is mid-flight)
  
• Drinking poison water
  
• Polluted water
  
• A cloud of poison gas
  
• Magic (Of the black kind, not David Copperfield)
  
• Playing dead after seeing an eagle (I don't make these things up)
  
• Simply too many birds (i.e. it was their time in some sort of Darwinian way)
  

I do think people were joking with some of them. Then again...

Super Bowl Halftime

From what I hear I missed some amusement during the Super Bowl halftime show...they showed a bit of it here, but not the good bit evidently. I was reading about it, and this came up:

``Like millions of Americans, my family and I gathered around the television for a celebration,'' Powell said. ``Instead, that celebration was tainted by a classless, crass and deplorable stunt. Our nation's children, parents and citizens deserve better.''

President Bush said he fell asleep after the first half and missed the show, but the White House weighed in.

Ahahaha, as if he normally doesn't miss pseudo-important events and isn't generally clueless. Of all things, I would have thought he would stay awake for the Super Bowl! It's not as if he's never on vacation at his "ranch" in Texas or putzing around thinking he's a cowboy. Take this as a sign - he doesn't really care about anything unless it directly involves him and his family. Now if it was the Dallas Cowboys playing in the Super Bowl...

Good Times

So we finally got some rain! I swear, it has to be the first rain in 2 months, but it made me feel pretty darn good. These Japanese winters get old pretty quick; sun, sun, and more sun. Some people would kill for winters like this, but not me - I like it rainy dammit!

I stayed up late watching a cut-down version of the Super Bowl. I felt a tad dirty because of CBS being jerks about airing the MoveOn.org ad, but it was good to see some American amusement for a bit. The biggest problem was that I knew everything before it actually happened. I can see how knowing the future would be a pain.

Bicycle number 2 got stolen last week - arrgh! I had it locked up and everything outside the apartment, but I didn't lock the secondary chain lock, and off it went. Yeesh, can't keep a bike in this country to save my life. Well at least it's even - Stephanie lost one and I lost one. Now we have one creaky old Mamachari (old woman's bike) between us. God help that bike...

Been working on planning a little vacation before too long. We're investigating a flight to Phuket, but it seems that all the best deals are at travel agencies where they don't speak any English. It'd be nice to sit on a beach for a little while and do nothing, so we're on it.

Ah, and the haggis. So we tried some haggis last Friday, and as Steve Harris would say, "It was different." Not too bad, nothing I wanna eat for lunch every day, but different. I can now mark it off my list of "To-Do's" though. It was a nice group of people to hang out with for an evening, and the haggis made it all that much more entertaining.

Happy February!