Latest / Luke's English Podcast / 903. Reading from my Japanese hospital diaries 📘 (Sept 2002)(M4A_128K)

Transcript

903. Reading from my Japanese hospital diaries 📘 (Sept 2002)(M4A_128K) · Luke's English Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, listeners, Welcome back to Luke's English podcast. How are
0:03
Speaker 1: you doing today? Hope you're doing fine. So this is
0:05
Speaker 1: a podcast for learners of English, hosted by me. I'm Luke.
0:08
Speaker 1: I'm an English teacher from England and I've been doing
0:12
Speaker 1: this for ages now, I mean this podcast but also
0:16
Speaker 1: teaching English. Welcome to my podcast. Most of you are
0:19
Speaker 1: familiar with it already, but just in case you're not. Yeah,
0:23
Speaker 1: this is a podcast for learners of English. And in
0:24
Speaker 1: my episodes, I like to do different things. Sometimes I'll
0:27
Speaker 1: teach you vo cab grammar pronunciation, especially in premium episodes.
0:32
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'll tell you stories. Sometimes I have conversations with guests,
0:36
Speaker 1: and at other times I will just talk and talk
0:38
Speaker 1: about pretty much anything, you know. I'll just ramble on
0:42
Speaker 1: about life, the universe and everything. And so here we are.
0:46
Speaker 1: This should be episode number nine hundred and three, and
0:50
Speaker 1: as you can see from the title, I have decided
0:53
Speaker 1: to publish this episode, which I did mention at the
0:57
Speaker 1: end of the last episode of this podcast. So I
1:00
Speaker 1: said at the end of episode nine hundred and two,
1:02
Speaker 1: which was the last one, that I wasn't sure about
1:05
Speaker 1: publishing this episode, which I think is going to be
1:08
Speaker 1: entitled something like Reading from my Japanese Hospital Diary. That's
1:12
Speaker 1: probably going to be the title. I wasn't sure about
1:16
Speaker 1: publishing it, but in the end, I have decided to
1:19
Speaker 1: publish this, as you can see. But my main reason
1:22
Speaker 1: for not being sure about this was that I have
1:25
Speaker 1: actually told this story before several times on this podcast
1:30
Speaker 1: in episodes one hundred and eighteen and seven hundred and
1:34
Speaker 1: seventy one, and so I was a bit reluctant to
1:38
Speaker 1: repeat myself. This will probably be the last time I
1:43
Speaker 1: tell this story on the podcast, unless it comes up
1:46
Speaker 1: in a conversation sometime or something like that. But yeah,
1:51
Speaker 1: this one's going to be called Reading from my Japanese
1:55
Speaker 1: Hospital Diary. And I thought that this might be a
1:58
Speaker 1: bit different to those other episodes in which I talked
2:01
Speaker 1: about being sick in Japan, because I'm actually reading directly
2:05
Speaker 1: from diaries that I wrote while I was in hospital,
2:09
Speaker 1: and I thought that this would probably include other details.
2:15
Speaker 1: And I thought this would probably include other details that
2:19
Speaker 1: weren't in those episodes, like more anecdotes and perhaps some
2:23
Speaker 1: just interesting stuff that I'd forgotten about. And it does
2:26
Speaker 1: have a lot of those things, but also it is
2:29
Speaker 1: still largely a retelling of a story that some of
2:32
Speaker 1: you might have heard at least twice before, So that's
2:36
Speaker 1: why I had my reservations about publishing it. But anyway,
2:40
Speaker 1: but there were enough comments from listeners telling me that
2:44
Speaker 1: I should publish this because people wanted to hear it anyway,
2:49
Speaker 1: and so I've decided to do it. I mean, after all,
2:52
Speaker 1: I do need content, don't I? On this podcast? Publishing
2:56
Speaker 1: new episodes every week does mean that I do need
2:59
Speaker 1: things to publish, and it would be a shame to
3:02
Speaker 1: let this go to waste, considering I took the time
3:04
Speaker 1: to sit down and record this at the beginning of
3:07
Speaker 1: last month. Another reason I had my doubts about publishing
3:11
Speaker 1: this is because, well, I'm wondering if it isn't all
3:14
Speaker 1: a bit too self indulgent or something here. I am
3:18
Speaker 1: talking about this in quite a quite a long episode,
3:23
Speaker 1: But in the grand scheme of things, it's not that important,
3:26
Speaker 1: really is it to spend over two hours dwelling on
3:29
Speaker 1: this weird past experience that I had so many years ago?
3:33
Speaker 1: But somehow it seems like an important moment for me
3:37
Speaker 1: personally in my life. And after all, this podcast has
3:41
Speaker 1: always been a personal thing and a way to share
3:44
Speaker 1: these kinds of experiences. It feels like an important moment
3:48
Speaker 1: for me personally, but I still can't quite put my
3:51
Speaker 1: finger on why. I mean, I think it was a
3:54
Speaker 1: time in my life when I broke down actually physically
3:57
Speaker 1: at least, but also mentally in a way. And those
4:00
Speaker 1: two weeks or is it more like ten days, I'm
4:03
Speaker 1: not sure, but that time really marks a sort of
4:07
Speaker 1: break from the otherwise normal, continuous flow of my life.
4:12
Speaker 1: It's like my life was put on hold for a
4:14
Speaker 1: while and I had this weird experience and then it
4:17
Speaker 1: started up again. And so I can't help looking back
4:20
Speaker 1: on this experience as a sort of threshold or line
4:23
Speaker 1: that I crossed at some point. I don't know. I
4:26
Speaker 1: shouldn't overthink it, of course. Let's just say it was
4:30
Speaker 1: just a weird moment, and it seems like it could
4:33
Speaker 1: be interesting to read what I was thinking. Wow, it happened.
4:36
Speaker 1: So now that I've really sold it to you, I
4:39
Speaker 1: don't think I have. But now that I've really sold
4:42
Speaker 1: the idea to you, let's get started. So this is
4:45
Speaker 1: what you're going to see now, is what I recorded
4:47
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago at the beginning of September, when
4:51
Speaker 1: i'd recently come back from three weeks of holiday and
4:55
Speaker 1: I still had a sun tan, which I think has
4:57
Speaker 1: completely gone now after weeks of rainy, gray weather here
5:03
Speaker 1: in Paris, where I live. So you're going to see
5:06
Speaker 1: when I recorded a few weeks ago on something like
5:09
Speaker 1: the twenty third anniversary of the time when I had
5:13
Speaker 1: a really weird and quite scary experience while living quite
5:17
Speaker 1: far from home in a different part of the world.
5:20
Speaker 1: I just want to say a shout out to all
5:22
Speaker 1: my Japanese listeners. By the way, Hello Japanese listeners, I
5:27
Speaker 1: do want to make it clear that I have a
5:29
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of affection for your country. I love Japan,
5:33
Speaker 1: and I think about my time there very positively and
5:36
Speaker 1: warmly overall, despite the sort of trouble that I had
5:41
Speaker 1: in this particular experience. Also, I want to give a
5:44
Speaker 1: shout out to anyone who's ever fallen ill in a
5:48
Speaker 1: foreign country, many miles from home, unable to speak the
5:52
Speaker 1: local language and feeling very lost and frightened. If you've
5:56
Speaker 1: ever been in that situation, then you will know how
5:59
Speaker 1: I feel when it happened to me. So anyway, let's
6:02
Speaker 1: rewind a few weeks to the beginning of September when
6:04
Speaker 1: I recorded this. So now let the self indulgent rambling
6:09
Speaker 1: continue now in this episode, what I'd like to do
6:14
Speaker 1: is actually read out some pages from a couple of
6:18
Speaker 1: old diaries which I rediscovered recently. And these are diaries
6:23
Speaker 1: from the time when I was stuck in a Japanese
6:27
Speaker 1: hospital for two weeks a long time ago. What is
6:32
Speaker 1: it a long time ago? So I was in that
6:36
Speaker 1: hospital in Japan for about two weeks in September two
6:41
Speaker 1: thousand and two, and I'm recording this in September twenty
6:46
Speaker 1: twenty four, so it's almost exactly twenty two years ago.
6:51
Speaker 1: And yeah, so that's what I'm going to do now.
6:55
Speaker 1: A lot of listeners, long term listeners, you'll be familiar
6:58
Speaker 1: with this story. You've heard me talk about this experience
7:01
Speaker 1: of being sick in Japan. I've told the story a
7:04
Speaker 1: few times, maybe I don't know, two or three times
7:07
Speaker 1: on this podcast before several episodes, one where I was
7:12
Speaker 1: just in my room describing the story, another one when
7:16
Speaker 1: I told the story in front of an audience at
7:20
Speaker 1: the British Council and made a podcast episode about it.
7:24
Speaker 1: And so here we go again, and for some reason,
7:26
Speaker 1: I just can't seem to stop telling this story. But
7:30
Speaker 1: the reason I'm doing it again is because, Yeah, I
7:32
Speaker 1: kind of rediscovered these diaries, so I took diaries. I
7:35
Speaker 1: wrote a diary while I was in the hospital, describing
7:39
Speaker 1: what was going on each day and how I felt
7:43
Speaker 1: and what I was thinking. And it's pretty much every
7:46
Speaker 1: single day of my stay there is recorded. I think
7:50
Speaker 1: I lost track of the days, and I'm not sure
7:53
Speaker 1: I wrote. I think it's every day, maybe not, I'm
7:55
Speaker 1: not sure. But anyway, what I thought i'd do is
7:58
Speaker 1: actually read through the diary and share it with you. Now.
8:03
Speaker 1: I'm not completely sure how this episode will will go.
8:07
Speaker 1: If I'm honest with you, I don't know. Maybe this
8:11
Speaker 1: is going to be very interesting. Maybe it won't be.
8:14
Speaker 1: I have no idea, really, but I thought that I
8:16
Speaker 1: would just at least record it and see and see
8:19
Speaker 1: how it goes, and maybe I'll never publish this. Maybe
8:23
Speaker 1: if I decide that it's just not really that interesting,
8:25
Speaker 1: I won't publish it. But obviously, if you are listening
8:27
Speaker 1: to this, it means that I have decided to publish it.
8:30
Speaker 1: But anyway, we'll see. We'll see. There what are some
8:35
Speaker 1: things I wanted to say about this. So, yeah, I've
8:37
Speaker 1: told this story lots of times before. Yeah, I found
8:41
Speaker 1: these diaries the other day. I thought it could be
8:43
Speaker 1: interesting to revisit what happened and read what I actually
8:47
Speaker 1: wrote at the time. So I ended up in a
8:51
Speaker 1: hospital in Japan. You'll get the details of why and
8:55
Speaker 1: how and stuff, and I spent two weeks there. But
8:58
Speaker 1: in the end, luckily it wasn't serious. It wasn't too serious,
9:02
Speaker 1: but I didn't know that at the time, and when
9:06
Speaker 1: I first went into the hospital, I didn't know what
9:08
Speaker 1: was wrong with me. I felt absolutely terrible, and I
9:12
Speaker 1: didn't really understand what the problem was. I didn't really
9:15
Speaker 1: know what was going on around me in the hospital.
9:20
Speaker 1: I was pretty much the only well almost the only
9:23
Speaker 1: non Japanese person in the hospital at that time. You know,
9:28
Speaker 1: people didn't really speak English. People just didn't really speak
9:32
Speaker 1: English in the hospital, and my Japanese wasn't very good,
9:36
Speaker 1: so I was really kind of lost and had no
9:39
Speaker 1: idea what was going on. Certainly the first couple of days,
9:43
Speaker 1: and as well as feeling physically terrible, I was completely exhausted.
9:48
Speaker 1: My whole body was aching, my head was pounding. I
9:52
Speaker 1: couldn't eat because it was far too painful in my throat.
9:56
Speaker 1: So as well as feeling so terrible, I also had
9:59
Speaker 1: like stomach issues which you don't want to know about.
10:02
Speaker 1: As well as all those things. As well as feeling
10:05
Speaker 1: completely horrible, I was frankly terrified as well. You'll get
10:10
Speaker 1: the details about why. So on the on the first
10:13
Speaker 1: night in the hospital, I remember just lying in the
10:17
Speaker 1: bed trying my best not to panic. I was having
10:21
Speaker 1: really bad panic attacks because obviously I wasn't in a
10:26
Speaker 1: physically in a very good state, and it's it can
10:29
Speaker 1: be hard to relax when you are unwell, you know,
10:33
Speaker 1: it can be hard. It can be hard to kind
10:35
Speaker 1: of feel comfortable and to relax. And as I said,
10:39
Speaker 1: I was also very scared, so I kept having these
10:41
Speaker 1: horrible panic attacks. I was very stressed out. I thought
10:45
Speaker 1: that I might be seriously ill or something. I thought
10:48
Speaker 1: that they were going to operate on me. This is
10:51
Speaker 1: what I was thinking, that they were going to give
10:52
Speaker 1: me an operation. So I was panicking, you know, and
10:57
Speaker 1: having sort of horrible panic attacks't relax. I knew I
11:01
Speaker 1: just needed to rest, and just out of a sense
11:04
Speaker 1: of survival, I had to try to calm myself down
11:07
Speaker 1: and not panic and find ways to keep my mind occupied.
11:11
Speaker 1: And then I ended up spending quite a lot of
11:13
Speaker 1: time in this hospital, and yeah, I found that I
11:17
Speaker 1: had to write. I had to write a diary, and
11:20
Speaker 1: I managed to buy notepads from the little shop they
11:25
Speaker 1: had in the hospital, and I quickly began scribbling down
11:29
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that were going on that
11:31
Speaker 1: I was thinking about. As I said before, in the end,
11:34
Speaker 1: it wasn't that bad, and I'm very thankful that I
11:38
Speaker 1: wasn't too ill. And it does make me think of
11:41
Speaker 1: people who are seriously ill and in hospital and what
11:45
Speaker 1: that must be like. I was actually quite lucky because
11:49
Speaker 1: after about a day, I found out what it actually was,
11:52
Speaker 1: what was wrong with me, and I realized it wasn't
11:55
Speaker 1: as serious as I had sort of worried, and then
12:00
Speaker 1: it was really just a case of getting plenty of rest,
12:03
Speaker 1: and then, you know, that's what I did. And then
12:05
Speaker 1: I just had this very strange experience of being almost
12:09
Speaker 1: the only non Japanese person in this massive hospital on
12:12
Speaker 1: the other side of the world. It turned into a
12:14
Speaker 1: very strange two weeks and a period that I often
12:18
Speaker 1: think about. I mean, actually thinking about it. It was
12:23
Speaker 1: a sort of breakdown and recovery. I suppose anyway, what happened,
12:28
Speaker 1: What was I thinking about at the time. Well, let's
12:30
Speaker 1: read the diary and find out. As I said before,
12:33
Speaker 1: this might I hope this is going to be interesting
12:35
Speaker 1: and not just too self indulgent. Now, one thing, often
12:40
Speaker 1: when I do my episodes, I make the text available
12:43
Speaker 1: if I write everything in advance, if I write notes
12:45
Speaker 1: or scripts in advance, I make that text available either
12:49
Speaker 1: on the screen if you're watching the video version, or
12:51
Speaker 1: on the website. In this case, for this episode, there
12:54
Speaker 1: isn't really time for me to write out everything from
12:58
Speaker 1: these diaries. There isn't really time for me to transcribe
13:02
Speaker 1: it all and write it all out and then give
13:05
Speaker 1: you a PDF of it. Also, these are, you know,
13:08
Speaker 1: just my diary, so I don't necessarily want to make
13:11
Speaker 1: them freely available, even though I'm going to read them
13:13
Speaker 1: out anyway, there isn't let's just say, there isn't really
13:15
Speaker 1: time for me to type these out. Also, don't really
13:20
Speaker 1: want to take photographs of every single page and put
13:24
Speaker 1: them up, So in this case, there won't really there
13:28
Speaker 1: won't be text on the screen. You're not going to
13:30
Speaker 1: be able to read the words that I'm actually saying
13:34
Speaker 1: in this episode, so you'll just have to focus on
13:37
Speaker 1: the spoken word without relying on the written word. This time,
13:40
Speaker 1: I think is this is actually very good for your
13:42
Speaker 1: listening because, if you think about it, when you listen
13:47
Speaker 1: in normal life, you don't get the text, you don't
13:50
Speaker 1: get a transcript of what you're listening to. So I
13:53
Speaker 1: encourage you just simply to focus on the words that
13:57
Speaker 1: you're hearing and just get hopefully get absorbed in the
14:00
Speaker 1: things I'm saying and just trying to follow what you
14:03
Speaker 1: are listening to. This is a listening exercise. Let's say
14:07
Speaker 1: I will explain bits and pieces of English that come
14:10
Speaker 1: up during the episode. Essentially we will be learning English
14:15
Speaker 1: from the from me twenty two years ago. And you
14:21
Speaker 1: know when I was writing this diary that I was
14:23
Speaker 1: just completely being myself and so certain bits of like
14:28
Speaker 1: vocabulary came up that kind of could be interesting for
14:32
Speaker 1: you to learn. So I'll explain some bits of vocab
14:37
Speaker 1: when this happened. Yeah, I was in my mid twenties
14:40
Speaker 1: at the time. My mid twenties, I'd been to university,
14:45
Speaker 1: I'd lived away from home already for a few years,
14:49
Speaker 1: but nevertheless, I still think from this perspective now, I
14:52
Speaker 1: think I wasn't very mature really. I mean, I was
14:56
Speaker 1: fairly mature in my mind, I think, but in terms
15:00
Speaker 1: of the practicalities of life, like being able to look
15:04
Speaker 1: after yourself and being able to, you know, just cook
15:08
Speaker 1: and do all those things, I think I wasn't very
15:11
Speaker 1: grown up still, and that's maybe one of the reasons
15:13
Speaker 1: why I ended up in this state, that I wasn't
15:15
Speaker 1: really looking after myself very well. Now, I think it's
15:18
Speaker 1: probably time for me to just start reading from the diaries
15:20
Speaker 1: and we'll see where we go. I'm not going to
15:23
Speaker 1: read out every single thing I've written in here, because
15:26
Speaker 1: some of this is just too personal for me to share.
15:29
Speaker 1: So I will be, let's say, skipping over certain things
15:33
Speaker 1: and maybe redacting certain details, but I'll read most of
15:38
Speaker 1: it to you, I think. All right, So if you're
15:41
Speaker 1: sitting comfortably or standing comfortably or whatever, let's begin. So
15:45
Speaker 1: this is my hospital diary, and two of them. First
15:51
Speaker 1: one was written on this lovely sort of turquoise pale
15:57
Speaker 1: blue greenish colored pad that I bought in the hospital shop,
16:03
Speaker 1: and it starts like this, Luke's Japanese hospital diary, starting
16:07
Speaker 1: from the back. So I actually decided that I would
16:09
Speaker 1: write from the back to the front, just for the
16:14
Speaker 1: hell of it, and also out of respect for my
16:17
Speaker 1: host nation, Japan. I suppose that's kind of how I
16:20
Speaker 1: was feeling. Normally I would have just, you know, normally
16:22
Speaker 1: in the in where I'm from. Page one is the
16:28
Speaker 1: you know, you get the idea. So I've decided i'd
16:31
Speaker 1: write back to front. So day one, Well, what the
16:34
Speaker 1: hell am I doing here? I'm in a hospital in Japan?
16:37
Speaker 1: How did this happen? Well, I don't know. I don't
16:41
Speaker 1: know means I don't know. I don't know, and I
16:44
Speaker 1: can't be asked to think about it now. If you
16:47
Speaker 1: can't be asked to do something as asked, rsed can't
16:52
Speaker 1: be asked means you can't be bothered. You just feel
16:56
Speaker 1: like you don't have enough energy or you're too lazy.
16:59
Speaker 1: So how did this happen? How did I end up
17:01
Speaker 1: in this place? Well, I can't really be I can't
17:03
Speaker 1: be asked to think about it now. It's an informal expression,
17:07
Speaker 1: it's a little bit rude. Just means I can't be
17:10
Speaker 1: bothered to think about it. I've just been filled with
17:14
Speaker 1: strange pink liquid, and I'm feeling a little sleepy, so
17:18
Speaker 1: I think I'll tackle the whole why am I here
17:21
Speaker 1: problem a bit later. Still, it's highly strange. So I'd
17:26
Speaker 1: been filled with a strange pink liquid that was I
17:30
Speaker 1: don't really know what it was. Someone in the comment
17:35
Speaker 1: section of one of my old episodes did explain to
17:37
Speaker 1: me what that was when I described it before. But
17:41
Speaker 1: they in the hospital. Part of the treatment is that
17:44
Speaker 1: they would hook me up to this IV drip at
17:49
Speaker 1: regular intervals. I'd get a couple of these every day,
17:53
Speaker 1: and the pink one was a kind of see through
17:55
Speaker 1: pink liquid, right, a big bag of it. I don't
17:59
Speaker 1: know how much it was, but it was quite large
18:02
Speaker 1: and it would take a few hours for it all
18:04
Speaker 1: to go into me. So I had a little little
18:08
Speaker 1: thing attached to the one of the veins on my
18:12
Speaker 1: left hand. It was it was like a little metal
18:15
Speaker 1: spike that went into the vein on my left hand.
18:19
Speaker 1: I think it was on the vein on my hand,
18:21
Speaker 1: and that's where they would attach the drip, and then
18:24
Speaker 1: there would be this kind of like metal sort of
18:29
Speaker 1: metal stand with wheels on it, and then a hook
18:33
Speaker 1: at the top, and then this plastic sack with this
18:37
Speaker 1: mysterious see through pink liquid hanging from it, and then
18:41
Speaker 1: a little tube coming down which would be attached to
18:44
Speaker 1: this thing on my hand, and they'd open up the
18:47
Speaker 1: thing on my hand, the catheter, right, they'd open up
18:50
Speaker 1: that and open up the bag, and the stuff would
18:52
Speaker 1: just slowly make its way into my into my blood,
18:55
Speaker 1: into my body. So yeah, so I've just been filled
19:00
Speaker 1: with this strange pink liquid and I'm feeling a little sleepy.
19:03
Speaker 1: So I think I'll tackle the whole why am I
19:05
Speaker 1: here problem a bit later. If you tackle a problem,
19:08
Speaker 1: it just means you deal with it, a bit like
19:10
Speaker 1: in football, if you tackle someone you try and get
19:13
Speaker 1: the ball from them. You can also tackle a problem,
19:16
Speaker 1: meaning deal with it. Okay, it's a bit later, about
19:20
Speaker 1: two pm, and I still feel drowsy, meaning sleepy, But
19:24
Speaker 1: I don't want to sleep now. I'd rather leave that
19:26
Speaker 1: for later. Also, I want to stay awake because I'll
19:29
Speaker 1: have to go downstairs to get a call from Mum
19:32
Speaker 1: and Dad on my mobile, which has to stay switched
19:35
Speaker 1: off up here. So bear in mind everyone that this
19:38
Speaker 1: happened in two thousand and two, which is before the
19:41
Speaker 1: days of like smartphones, and I mean, we had the Internet,
19:47
Speaker 1: but the Internet was not quite as pervasive, meaning everywhere,
19:51
Speaker 1: as it is today. And I had a little flip phone,
19:56
Speaker 1: a little jphone, which allowed me to make phone calls
20:00
Speaker 1: and send SMS text messages. But I wasn't on the Internet.
20:04
Speaker 1: I didn't have any of the things that we have today.
20:08
Speaker 1: I didn't have access to the Internet. I wasn't on YouTube,
20:11
Speaker 1: no social media, none of that stuff that would these
20:14
Speaker 1: days probably have kept me distracted and kept me entertained.
20:18
Speaker 1: I had none of that, So it's just me in
20:20
Speaker 1: a bed with kind of nothing. I did get some books.
20:24
Speaker 1: I did get some mini discs and a mini disc
20:27
Speaker 1: player so I could listen to music, but a lot
20:29
Speaker 1: of the time I was just sitting there, completely bored,
20:34
Speaker 1: just with my own thoughts. So I said, I had
20:39
Speaker 1: to go downstairs to get a phone call from my
20:41
Speaker 1: mum and dad on my mobile, so I'll continue. I
20:45
Speaker 1: must say this hospital is very relaxing. There isn't really
20:48
Speaker 1: anything for me to do except sleep and daydream, which
20:52
Speaker 1: is a nice change from my usual Saturday spent in Nova,
20:56
Speaker 1: rushing around without a moment to plan each lesson So
21:00
Speaker 1: I used to work in Japan. I used to work
21:01
Speaker 1: for this company called Nova, which was a language school.
21:06
Speaker 1: I think they don't exist anymore. I think they went bankrupt.
21:10
Speaker 1: So Nova was a very well known language school as
21:14
Speaker 1: a brand, it was as well known as probably McDonald's
21:18
Speaker 1: or something like that. And you know, you would see
21:22
Speaker 1: Nova language schools, English schools just everywhere in Japan. All
21:27
Speaker 1: the major cities, all the major stations had a Nova
21:30
Speaker 1: next to them, and not the best reputation. It was
21:36
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, what McDonald's did for food,
21:39
Speaker 1: Nova did for learning English, something like that. But there
21:43
Speaker 1: were lots of jobs at Nova. A lot of people
21:48
Speaker 1: like me would go and work at Nova. It was
21:52
Speaker 1: easy to get a job there pretty much. I mean,
21:55
Speaker 1: you know, they had they had they had standards, you know,
21:58
Speaker 1: they they had high standards anyway, So working at Nova
22:04
Speaker 1: was quite quite hard work. You would have to work
22:09
Speaker 1: very hard teaching fairly long days, very intensive teaching all
22:14
Speaker 1: the way through the day. I've talked about it before,
22:17
Speaker 1: the routine of coming into work not knowing exactly what
22:21
Speaker 1: your teaching program would be for that day, looking at
22:24
Speaker 1: the program which would be put on the board, maybe
22:27
Speaker 1: just half an hour before the day starts, and you'd
22:31
Speaker 1: have a look. You wouldn't really have much time to
22:33
Speaker 1: prepare your lessons. You'd be rushing into the classroom teaching
22:37
Speaker 1: maybe fifty minutes with a small group of Japanese people,
22:43
Speaker 1: often quite unprepared, and then when the lesson finished, you'd
22:48
Speaker 1: have ten minutes to do the quick lesson report, giving
22:52
Speaker 1: notes for each student. Put the files back, find the
22:57
Speaker 1: names of the students in your next class, which was
22:59
Speaker 1: going to start within just a few minutes, Grab their files,
23:02
Speaker 1: work out which lessons they needed to do, find the
23:06
Speaker 1: relevant course books, have a look at the pages, quickly,
23:10
Speaker 1: prepare something in like a minute or two, and then
23:13
Speaker 1: rush into the classroom and start the next lesson. And
23:16
Speaker 1: you'd have about nine lessons like that back to back
23:20
Speaker 1: with a lunch break, and often one of those, at
23:22
Speaker 1: least one of those lessons would be a kid's class
23:25
Speaker 1: where you'd rush downstairs and suddenly you're teaching eight little kids,
23:32
Speaker 1: So very intensive teaching, great kind of training for me,
23:37
Speaker 1: but you know that the work was quite intensive. So anyway,
23:42
Speaker 1: it was a nice change sitting in this hospital bed
23:46
Speaker 1: on this Saturday, when normally I would be rushing around
23:49
Speaker 1: without a moment to plan each lesson. So the diary continues.
23:54
Speaker 1: I still can't escape that feeling of I'm sick. It's
23:57
Speaker 1: a little dark cloud hanging over me. My body isn't
24:01
Speaker 1: working properly and it's become dangerous. So I've been put
24:04
Speaker 1: in this place to get special treatment. I never expected this.
24:09
Speaker 1: It's quite an experience. I arrived yesterday after what is
24:13
Speaker 1: already a long story, which I'll cut short here. So
24:16
Speaker 1: this is a kind of like quick summary of the story.
24:20
Speaker 1: So the summer was too hot and too humid. I
24:23
Speaker 1: was also very busy, and I exhausted myself. I think
24:27
Speaker 1: my girlfriend. So that's a Japanese girlfriend I had at
24:31
Speaker 1: the time. She was Japanese, her dad was like half American.
24:35
Speaker 1: Her family were lovely, not that I really met them
24:39
Speaker 1: very much. In fact, I met her dad because I
24:43
Speaker 1: was sick, and that was embarrassing. I have to say that.
24:46
Speaker 1: I'll probably get to that in a bit. But I
24:50
Speaker 1: met her mum once or twice. Lovely family, lovely girl.
24:55
Speaker 1: And but when I got sick, they were all out
25:01
Speaker 1: of the country, and so like the only people who
25:06
Speaker 1: perhaps I could have asked for help weren't there there
25:10
Speaker 1: was the company, there was the school I worked for,
25:13
Speaker 1: But for me, I didn't feel like they were someone
25:18
Speaker 1: I could turn to because really I would just call
25:22
Speaker 1: them to tell them I was sick so I didn't
25:23
Speaker 1: have to work. And then on a personal level, it
25:30
Speaker 1: was probably my girlfriend who was the one who would
25:35
Speaker 1: perhaps be the Japanese person that I would look to
25:38
Speaker 1: for help. I had another couple of Japanese friends as well,
25:41
Speaker 1: But anyway, so my girlfriend went on holiday to the UK,
25:46
Speaker 1: ironically enough, and I came down with a strange fever.
25:50
Speaker 1: I had to work on. I had to work an
25:52
Speaker 1: eight day week. That's working eight days consecutively without a
25:56
Speaker 1: day off, and for most of that time I was
25:59
Speaker 1: feeling under the weather. So if you feel under the weather,
26:01
Speaker 1: it just means you feel kind of sick. My Nightmare
26:05
Speaker 1: Kids class, so that's a kid's class that I had
26:08
Speaker 1: to teach that was a total nightmare and they used
26:11
Speaker 1: to completely exhaust me and I couldn't control them, and
26:14
Speaker 1: it was just I used to dread going into that class.
26:18
Speaker 1: My Nightmare Kids class also took its toll. If something
26:22
Speaker 1: takes its toll, it means it's sort of like you
26:30
Speaker 1: kind of have to pay for it. It takes something
26:33
Speaker 1: from you. It takes your energy away or it somehow. Yeah,
26:39
Speaker 1: it takes something from you. A toll is normally a
26:42
Speaker 1: payment that you have to make to use a certain road.
26:45
Speaker 1: So to travel down this road, you have to pay
26:47
Speaker 1: a toll. So if something takes its toll on you,
26:51
Speaker 1: we use the preposition on take its toll on you.
26:55
Speaker 1: It means basically that it takes something from you. Normally
26:59
Speaker 1: it makes you tired. So my Nightmare Kids class also
27:02
Speaker 1: took its toll. I got to my three day weekend,
27:05
Speaker 1: so that's after eight days of feeling terrible because I
27:09
Speaker 1: was sick with something, and you know, the teaching in
27:12
Speaker 1: this way for eight days straight and it was still
27:15
Speaker 1: very hot and humid. This is kind of near the
27:17
Speaker 1: end of a Japanese summer, and summers in Japan in
27:22
Speaker 1: the area where I was living in Kanagawa Prefecture, not
27:24
Speaker 1: far from Tokyo, the temperature gets very hot and it's
27:28
Speaker 1: very humid. So I got to my three day weekend
27:32
Speaker 1: and spent it lying in bed recovering from flu slash fever.
27:39
Speaker 1: So I thought that I had influenza. Those are the
27:43
Speaker 1: symptoms I had. I was just very tired. I remember
27:45
Speaker 1: my back aching so much. I didn't have the energy
27:49
Speaker 1: to do anything. I could only lie down in bed,
27:52
Speaker 1: and my back had this kind of really horrible deep
27:56
Speaker 1: aching feeling in it, especially up at the top across
28:00
Speaker 1: my shoulders, like deep sort of aching tiredness. It was horrible.
28:07
Speaker 1: I also took a day off sick the previous week.
28:12
Speaker 1: I guess that's before the eight day week. That's why
28:14
Speaker 1: I had to work an eight day week. And by
28:17
Speaker 1: Wednesday that was my third day of weekend, third day
28:21
Speaker 1: of lying down in bed trying to rest. By the
28:25
Speaker 1: third day off, I was feeling a bit better, and
28:29
Speaker 1: I decided that I decided I would go out so
28:32
Speaker 1: that it would be a good idea for me to
28:33
Speaker 1: get out of the apartment and maybe go for a
28:35
Speaker 1: walk or something. And I went out to Kamakura, which
28:39
Speaker 1: was a place near where I used to live that
28:43
Speaker 1: had lots of nice places to go walking with interesting
28:47
Speaker 1: old Japanese temples. So I went out for a walk
28:51
Speaker 1: in Kamakura, and coincidentally enough, while I was walking around
28:55
Speaker 1: one of those temples, I happened to bump into Dave
28:59
Speaker 1: Grohl for from the Foo Fighters and Nirvana. You know,
29:03
Speaker 1: the drummer from Nirvana, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters.
29:07
Speaker 1: I just happened to meet him by coincidence, which was
29:11
Speaker 1: kind of an extraordinary moment for me. And yeah, I
29:17
Speaker 1: was just leaving one of these temples and I saw
29:20
Speaker 1: a group of like foreign people. When I say foreign people,
29:25
Speaker 1: I mean non Japanese people, which is at that time
29:27
Speaker 1: was still quite rare. You didn't see that many foreign people,
29:32
Speaker 1: even in a touristy place like that. And so when
29:35
Speaker 1: you when I saw foreigners, i'd sometimes just kind of
29:38
Speaker 1: like even sometimes you'd say hello, or you just at
29:41
Speaker 1: least have a look at them to kind of maybe
29:44
Speaker 1: guess where they come from or something. And I remember
29:47
Speaker 1: walking past this group and there was the person at
29:49
Speaker 1: the front of the group. I kind of took a
29:51
Speaker 1: look at him, and I thought, funny, I know him.
29:53
Speaker 1: I'm sure I know him. And I kept walking because
29:56
Speaker 1: I was trying to keep myself to myself. I kept walking,
29:58
Speaker 1: and then after a few stay I realized, oh my god,
30:01
Speaker 1: that's Dave Grohl. And I was a big fan. I mean,
30:05
Speaker 1: I still am, but certainly, just like maybe the year before,
30:08
Speaker 1: I'd spent kind of a year on my own and
30:11
Speaker 1: my living at my parents in the countryside. I say
30:14
Speaker 1: living on my own. I was living with my parents,
30:16
Speaker 1: but it was a very quiet year, a kind of
30:18
Speaker 1: year of a lot of solitude, of kind of working
30:22
Speaker 1: in a working in a job I wasn't really enjoying,
30:25
Speaker 1: and spending a lot of time on my own. All
30:28
Speaker 1: my other friends at all, you know, we're all living
30:30
Speaker 1: in different places after having been at university, and I
30:33
Speaker 1: ended up sort of on my own. Spent a lot
30:35
Speaker 1: of time driving around in my dad's car, and I
30:37
Speaker 1: had this tape which was this Foo Fighters album There's
30:41
Speaker 1: Nothing Left to Lose, and I would just for some reason,
30:44
Speaker 1: this particular album was the album I listened to all
30:46
Speaker 1: the time in the car, and it made me feel comfortable,
30:50
Speaker 1: you know, one of those comfortable albums that you listen
30:54
Speaker 1: to that kind of makes you feel better. It was
30:56
Speaker 1: one of those periods. So and then so then out
30:59
Speaker 1: there I was Japan and then working as an English teacher,
31:03
Speaker 1: my first English teaching job. And then yeah, this weird
31:06
Speaker 1: day when I went for a walk and suddenly there's
31:08
Speaker 1: Dave Grohl. It was just so weird, and I talked
31:11
Speaker 1: to him and stuff. I went back to work on
31:15
Speaker 1: the Thursday, and the Friday, and Saturday and Sunday. By Saturday.
31:21
Speaker 1: By the Saturday, I could feel the illness coming back.
31:25
Speaker 1: On Sunday I knew it was tonsalitis. So tonsulitis is
31:29
Speaker 1: an infection of glands in your throat, and the glands
31:34
Speaker 1: the tonsils at the back of your throat, they get
31:36
Speaker 1: swollen and when it gets bad, they get really infected
31:40
Speaker 1: and you can actually see the bacterial infection on the tonsils.
31:43
Speaker 1: They kind of change color, they swell up, and they
31:46
Speaker 1: become incredibly painful. Now I thought it was maybe just tonsilitis,
31:51
Speaker 1: but it was not. I didn't only have tonsilitis. So
31:55
Speaker 1: on Sunday I knew it was tonsilitis. I could feel
31:57
Speaker 1: the pain in my throat. I looked at them in
32:00
Speaker 1: the mirror. I could see that they were swollen. My girlfriend,
32:07
Speaker 1: I think, came back from her holiday with her family
32:09
Speaker 1: around this time, and on the Sunday Sunday night, I
32:14
Speaker 1: managed to arrange with her to see a doctor the
32:17
Speaker 1: next day, which was my day off, and I absolutely
32:20
Speaker 1: had to see a doctor because it felt terrible and
32:25
Speaker 1: I was already now I've written in this diary, I
32:28
Speaker 1: was shitting myself and that's obviously a rude expression. That
32:32
Speaker 1: just means I was really scared. So I felt so
32:35
Speaker 1: bad and I was really scared. Now, tonsilitis is you know,
32:40
Speaker 1: it's not that bad, but if you leave it and
32:43
Speaker 1: it doesn't get treated, then it can lead to more
32:47
Speaker 1: serious things. First of all, it can get so bad
32:51
Speaker 1: that the infection in your tonsils can get so bad
32:53
Speaker 1: that they that it can lead to what's called absesses.
32:57
Speaker 1: These are huge, like whole In this case, it would
33:02
Speaker 1: be hold in my throat that were deeply infected, and
33:05
Speaker 1: that would be very, very, very painful. And then any
33:08
Speaker 1: infection in your body, if you don't get it, if
33:11
Speaker 1: you don't deal with it, then the infection can move
33:14
Speaker 1: to different parts of the body, and ultimately the infection
33:18
Speaker 1: could move into your blood, and if your blood gets infected,
33:20
Speaker 1: that's called sepsis, and that is life threatening. So I mean,
33:25
Speaker 1: you know, that's what would happen eventually. But luckily I
33:28
Speaker 1: was living in a place where there were doctors and
33:30
Speaker 1: medicine and stuff like that. But I still felt, you know,
33:34
Speaker 1: very alienated as someone as a foreigner in this country,
33:39
Speaker 1: and I'd only been there for a few months really
33:41
Speaker 1: at this time. Maybe six or seven months, seven or
33:46
Speaker 1: eight months, no, nine months. Anyway, I arrived in January
33:49
Speaker 1: of that year, so I hadn't even been there for
33:52
Speaker 1: a year, and I still felt very alienated and kind
33:56
Speaker 1: of helpless. Not I didn't I had no idea how
33:59
Speaker 1: to arrange doctor's appointment, nothing like that. And remember there's
34:03
Speaker 1: no internet, really there wasn't. I didn't have a computer
34:06
Speaker 1: at home, so I couldn't just like log onto the
34:08
Speaker 1: internet and just google it. That was not an option,
34:13
Speaker 1: so I, you know, I had to rely on other people.
34:15
Speaker 1: And so anyway, I had to get my girlfriend to
34:19
Speaker 1: help me arrange a doctor's appointment. So and that was
34:21
Speaker 1: for the next day, the Monday, and I had to
34:24
Speaker 1: because it felt terrible and already I was shitting myself.
34:29
Speaker 1: Monday was a national holiday, which means everything is closed,
34:35
Speaker 1: so my girlfriend's mum and dad had to take me
34:38
Speaker 1: to an emergency clinic. The whole experience was totally upsetting
34:43
Speaker 1: and the start of one of my worst weeks. So
34:47
Speaker 1: I remember I looked like a zombie. I felt terrible.
34:52
Speaker 1: I looked awful, And this was the first time I
34:56
Speaker 1: met my girlfriend's dad, and I just felt so ashamed
35:01
Speaker 1: and embarrassed, and I felt like he must have thought,
35:05
Speaker 1: who the hell is this guy? I mean, I've got
35:08
Speaker 1: to say a big thank you to my girlfriend and
35:11
Speaker 1: her family. I don't know if they're watching. I mean,
35:14
Speaker 1: you know, we we didn't. It wasn't like that serious.
35:19
Speaker 1: We weren't even in that much of a serious relationship.
35:21
Speaker 1: We'd only been seeing each other for a couple of
35:24
Speaker 1: months maybe, and then suddenly like that, you know, her
35:29
Speaker 1: and her family are having to look after me. So
35:32
Speaker 1: I have to say a big thanks to them so much.
35:35
Speaker 1: I doubt that they're listening to this, but in any case,
35:39
Speaker 1: just I don't know if I ever showed my gratitude. Really,
35:42
Speaker 1: I don't know if I I don't remember, I must
35:45
Speaker 1: have done. I must have said a big thank you,
35:47
Speaker 1: and maybe i'd bought flowers. I don't remember. But still
35:52
Speaker 1: I would really like to show my gratitude for them
35:54
Speaker 1: to them, because they really helped me. So the whole
35:57
Speaker 1: experience was totally upsetting. Start off one of my worst week.
36:00
Speaker 1: I was very frightened because I'd never been ill seriously
36:03
Speaker 1: in Japan before, and I was in a lot of
36:05
Speaker 1: pain and everyone around me was speaking another language. So
36:08
Speaker 1: I really didn't know what was happening. Luckily, my girlfriend's
36:13
Speaker 1: mum and dad speak good English and helped me. The
36:17
Speaker 1: doctor was very scary. I sat in an upright examining
36:21
Speaker 1: chair and the whole vibe was very old fashioned. I
36:26
Speaker 1: remember this, sitting in like this upright chair with like
36:29
Speaker 1: a neck brace, and my neck was like in this
36:34
Speaker 1: kind of brace thing which holds your neck and head
36:38
Speaker 1: in position. Very uncomfortable upright chair. I sat in the
36:43
Speaker 1: chair and to my left it was like a kind
36:47
Speaker 1: of a table or a cabinet on my left and
36:51
Speaker 1: in the cabinet were all his tools, which really scared me.
36:56
Speaker 1: I could see all these different knives and in instruments
37:00
Speaker 1: and all these different tools all were just there right
37:05
Speaker 1: next to me, and I could see them, and that
37:07
Speaker 1: really scared me, you know, just looking at all those
37:09
Speaker 1: knives and blades and things and scalpels, and there was
37:13
Speaker 1: a big light in my face, and the nurse was
37:17
Speaker 1: wandering around behind me. I felt like there was no
37:21
Speaker 1: real effort to make the patient feel relaxed in my
37:26
Speaker 1: experience in England, in those situations, normally there's this sort
37:29
Speaker 1: of bedside manner which is like a kind of some
37:36
Speaker 1: level of effort to try and make the patient feel
37:38
Speaker 1: a bit comfortable and relaxed. In this particular doctor's surgery,
37:42
Speaker 1: I didn't get that at all, and my overall feeling,
37:46
Speaker 1: not understanding what they were talking about, My overall feeling
37:48
Speaker 1: was a very unfriendly atmosphere, no effort to make me
37:54
Speaker 1: feel relaxed or comfortable. He put antiseptic on a swab,
38:02
Speaker 1: So that's a swab was like a kind of first
38:05
Speaker 1: of all, a long metal kind of long metal rod,
38:09
Speaker 1: like a long metal stick, and on the end of
38:11
Speaker 1: it was like a soft piece of fabric which he
38:18
Speaker 1: dipped into some antiseptic. Antiseptic is stuff that you would
38:21
Speaker 1: put on like an injury or a cut to try
38:25
Speaker 1: and kill bacteria. So he got this long metal rod
38:31
Speaker 1: with this swab on the end, he dipped it into
38:34
Speaker 1: this antiseptic and he poked it right into my throat
38:39
Speaker 1: and directly cleaned. He cleaned my tonsils. Now, bear in mind,
38:46
Speaker 1: at the time, my tonsils were hugely swollen, incredibly sensitive,
38:51
Speaker 1: and not just covered in gray bacteria. But it got
38:56
Speaker 1: so bad that I remember looking in the mirror and
38:59
Speaker 1: it was the bacteria was gray green color all over
39:02
Speaker 1: my tonsuls. And they were starting to go black as well.
39:05
Speaker 1: It was the worst tonsilitis I'd ever had, and I've
39:08
Speaker 1: had tonsilitis quite a lot of times in my life.
39:10
Speaker 1: And it was so bad that the tonsils was even
39:14
Speaker 1: starting to go black and then, and so his his
39:18
Speaker 1: solution was just to just directly clean them rub them
39:24
Speaker 1: with this antiseptic. It was very painful. He also sprayed
39:29
Speaker 1: them a fair amount that he sprayed them with antiseptics,
39:34
Speaker 1: and that caused me even more pain. At one moment,
39:38
Speaker 1: I remember I coughed. I involuntarily coughed this stuff back
39:44
Speaker 1: into his face. It was horrible. So he's there with
39:46
Speaker 1: this thing like rubbing my tonsels and spraying them, and
39:52
Speaker 1: I kind of went, you know, I couldn't help it,
39:54
Speaker 1: and it coughed it all back into his face. I
39:58
Speaker 1: felt so terrible, you know, it was awful, because you know,
40:02
Speaker 1: what you want to be able to do is say,
40:03
Speaker 1: oh God, I'm so sorry, but I just was unable
40:06
Speaker 1: to do that. And at this point I was holding
40:09
Speaker 1: back tears, so I was actually trying not to cry.
40:13
Speaker 1: I felt so awful in every way. I felt physically
40:18
Speaker 1: awful also socially, just felt so ashamed as well. So
40:25
Speaker 1: I left the emergency ward or the emergency clinic with
40:29
Speaker 1: four pills of antibiotics, and the night before I had
40:33
Speaker 1: been praying for antibiotics. He gave me four pills, which,
40:38
Speaker 1: as far as I could tell, was about a day's worth. Now,
40:43
Speaker 1: I'd had tonsilitis quite a lot of times before this
40:47
Speaker 1: particular moment. To be honest, I should have had them removed,
40:51
Speaker 1: but I never got that done. I should have had
40:55
Speaker 1: them removed. But in my late teens and early twenties,
40:59
Speaker 1: I got tonsilitis quite a lot of times, and I
41:02
Speaker 1: was always given a course of antibiotics that would last
41:06
Speaker 1: maybe five days, and that would stop the tonsilitis and
41:10
Speaker 1: they'd go back to normal and I'd just carry on
41:11
Speaker 1: feel better. So I knew how much antibiotics I needed,
41:17
Speaker 1: and it was always the same whenever I had it.
41:19
Speaker 1: I had tonsilitis, I would take antibiotics for a couple
41:23
Speaker 1: of days and it wouldn't make any difference for maybe
41:25
Speaker 1: two days, and it wasn't until the third day that
41:29
Speaker 1: it would kick in and I would definitely feel that
41:31
Speaker 1: the infection was going and then by five, you know,
41:35
Speaker 1: five days later, I'd feel completely better again. This guy
41:39
Speaker 1: gave me four pills, which was supposed to be like
41:42
Speaker 1: a day or two of antibiotics, and they weren't big
41:47
Speaker 1: pills either, So he gave me some antibiotics and some mouthwash.
41:52
Speaker 1: My girlfriend's parents were mega helpful. I got the train
41:56
Speaker 1: back from Zushi. That was the place where I went
41:58
Speaker 1: to the doctors. It's also the place I used to work.
42:02
Speaker 1: Spent Monday feeling terrible. The antibiotics didn't do anything, I remember,
42:08
Speaker 1: because my throat was so horribly infected and so painful.
42:14
Speaker 1: I couldn't eat. I couldn't really eat anything. I tried
42:17
Speaker 1: to eat some mouthfuls of banana, and I tried to
42:20
Speaker 1: drink miso soup, but that's pretty much it. It was
42:25
Speaker 1: just too painful to eat. Even just drinking water and
42:27
Speaker 1: staying hydrated was horribly painful. On Tuesday, I went back
42:31
Speaker 1: to that doctor at his own surgery, with my girlfriend
42:36
Speaker 1: this time, so he could examine me again and give
42:39
Speaker 1: me more antibiotics. I was feeling super crap, like feeling
42:43
Speaker 1: really bad. I got back on Tuesday and couldn't eat
42:48
Speaker 1: because of pain. The doctor gave me painkillers that didn't
42:52
Speaker 1: kill pain, and antibiotics that didn't do whatever they're supposed
42:55
Speaker 1: to do, very upsetting. Spent two days really miserable. At
43:02
Speaker 1: this point, I was just really miserable and just really
43:06
Speaker 1: wanted just to be home. I just wanted to be
43:10
Speaker 1: out of this shitty little room where I was living.
43:18
Speaker 1: Just the outside world at that point where I was
43:20
Speaker 1: just seemed so foreign to me and so uninviting. I
43:25
Speaker 1: just really wanted to be home, but I was miles away.
43:27
Speaker 1: I was like a twelve hour plane journey, which you know,
43:32
Speaker 1: is like a thousand pounds ticket, which the money I
43:35
Speaker 1: didn't have. I felt very far from home, and all
43:41
Speaker 1: I wanted to do was just to be home. So
43:44
Speaker 1: I spent two days feeling really miserable. A Thursday, I
43:47
Speaker 1: met my girlfriend's mum and we decided to go to
43:49
Speaker 1: a different doctor. Okay, so this is the third attempt
43:54
Speaker 1: really to get this dealt with. This new doctor turned
43:57
Speaker 1: out to be one of my students. So I went
44:01
Speaker 1: to this doctor in this town called Zushi, and went
44:05
Speaker 1: into the doctor's surgery, waited and stuff went in and surprise, surprise,
44:10
Speaker 1: it's one of my students. And I had a lot
44:12
Speaker 1: of students who lived in that town who would go
44:15
Speaker 1: and have English lessons, you know, for example, maybe with
44:17
Speaker 1: me on a Saturday morning or something. And so he
44:21
Speaker 1: was one of my students, which was pretty good because
44:25
Speaker 1: he was more friendly and we could communicate better. The
44:28
Speaker 1: other doctor I mentioned was really unfriendly and seemed like
44:32
Speaker 1: a kind of I don't know if I don't know
44:36
Speaker 1: if he was cruel and mean, but I felt like that.
44:41
Speaker 1: I felt like he never really looked at me like
44:44
Speaker 1: a person. I was just a thing in front of him.
44:48
Speaker 1: Whereas this other doctor was way more friendly and already
44:52
Speaker 1: knew me as his teacher, and I felt like we
44:56
Speaker 1: could communicate better. Although having said that, he was a
44:59
Speaker 1: two level so that means he was kind of elementary
45:03
Speaker 1: pre intermediate level in English, so his English was quite basic.
45:08
Speaker 1: But still just the fact that I knew him and
45:09
Speaker 1: he was nice, a nice guy, made a huge difference.
45:13
Speaker 1: He diagnosed me with acute tonsalitis. Acute tonsilitis that means
45:19
Speaker 1: very like advanced tonsilitis, which makes it sound good like
45:25
Speaker 1: see one level tonsilitis, but like basically very bad tonsilitis.
45:31
Speaker 1: Your tonsils, remember those glands at the back of your
45:33
Speaker 1: throat Itis often is a suffix that's added, meaning an infection,
45:41
Speaker 1: right mm hmm. So in this case, tonsilitis an infection
45:49
Speaker 1: of the tonsils, laryngitis for example, an infection of the
45:53
Speaker 1: larynx another part of your throat. So he diagnosed me
45:58
Speaker 1: with acute tonsilitis and put me on an antibiotic drip
46:02
Speaker 1: for thirty minutes. So I remember, I lay down in
46:07
Speaker 1: a room in his surgery while this little bag of
46:10
Speaker 1: antibiotics dripped into my arm for about thirty minutes, and
46:14
Speaker 1: he gave me good painkillers and better antibiotics. He also
46:21
Speaker 1: took a blood test. Now, the doctor had diagnosed me
46:26
Speaker 1: with having tonsilitis, but that wasn't the only thing I had.
46:29
Speaker 1: I think the tonsilitis was maybe a consequence of this
46:32
Speaker 1: other thing that I had. After the drip, I felt
46:37
Speaker 1: better and a lot of the pain in my tonsils
46:39
Speaker 1: went and I could actually eat more. Now, the next
46:43
Speaker 1: day was Friday, which is yesterday, so the day before
46:51
Speaker 1: I wrote this stuff. So this was written on a Saturday.
46:55
Speaker 1: Day one, let's say, or maybe day two was a Saturday,
46:58
Speaker 1: And so the day before I went back to see
47:02
Speaker 1: the new doctor with my girlfriend, and he gave me
47:04
Speaker 1: the results of my blood test. And this bit was
47:08
Speaker 1: really scary because and this was where there was a
47:13
Speaker 1: bit of a miscommunication and a bit of a misunderstanding,
47:20
Speaker 1: which caused me to be very upset. So he gave
47:25
Speaker 1: me the results of my blood test. He said, I
47:27
Speaker 1: had liver damage and high a high level of white
47:32
Speaker 1: blood cells, and I had the eb virus. I had
47:37
Speaker 1: no idea what the eb virus is, And when writing this,
47:41
Speaker 1: I wrote, what the hell is that I wrote? And
47:44
Speaker 1: that I needn't I'd need an operation. So I remember
47:47
Speaker 1: distinctly he said, here's your liver damage. Your liver is
47:50
Speaker 1: a really important organ in your body which helps to
47:54
Speaker 1: filter all the blood in your body, and it breaks
47:56
Speaker 1: down poisonous substances in your body. Now, because I had
48:00
Speaker 1: this infection, a lot of that infection was in my blood. Now,
48:06
Speaker 1: my blood wasn't infected. It was lip my you know,
48:09
Speaker 1: my throat that was infected, but a lot of the
48:14
Speaker 1: the result of that infection meant that my blood needed
48:17
Speaker 1: to be cleaned a lot of the white blood cells,
48:20
Speaker 1: which are there to try to fight against the infection.
48:23
Speaker 1: Those white blood cells can actually still be very damaging
48:26
Speaker 1: to your body as well, and your liver has to
48:29
Speaker 1: do a lot of the work of trying to like
48:33
Speaker 1: essentially clean up your blood, and so your liver gets
48:37
Speaker 1: damaged in this situation, and I had sort of quite
48:40
Speaker 1: a high level of liver damage, which was very worrying
48:44
Speaker 1: because I knew that the liver was one of the
48:47
Speaker 1: most important organs in the body. So he said, you've
48:52
Speaker 1: got liver damage. You have a high level of white
48:55
Speaker 1: blood cells. It was like, here's the normal level, and
48:58
Speaker 1: here's your level, and it was it seemed to be
49:01
Speaker 1: much higher than it should be. And I had the
49:04
Speaker 1: eb virus. And I remember at the time thinking, what
49:06
Speaker 1: on earth is the eb virus? And I was terrified.
49:09
Speaker 1: I thought it was one of those like horrible sort
49:13
Speaker 1: of tropical diseases or something like that. I didn't know.
49:16
Speaker 1: And he said, you will need to go to our
49:18
Speaker 1: hospital and you will need an operation. And at that point,
49:22
Speaker 1: you know, all the blood drained from my face, and
49:24
Speaker 1: I think I just instantly burst out crying or something,
49:28
Speaker 1: because I was so exhausted. It was like the culmination
49:33
Speaker 1: of so many horrible, horrible days and feeling so tired
49:37
Speaker 1: and desperate and exhausted. And when he told me all
49:40
Speaker 1: those things, I suddenly decided or assumed that actually I
49:46
Speaker 1: was really really ill, and you know, I don't know,
49:49
Speaker 1: you kind of hold on and then when someone tells
49:52
Speaker 1: you that I don't know, I just maybe I sort
49:55
Speaker 1: of like assumed the worst or something. I was very set,
50:00
Speaker 1: and again it was a misunderstanding, kind of which I'll
50:05
Speaker 1: explain in a bit. So this was the worst news
50:07
Speaker 1: for me. I think he may have made it sound
50:10
Speaker 1: more serious than it really is, but I will be
50:12
Speaker 1: in hospital for a week. Turns out I was there
50:15
Speaker 1: for longer. For me, the liver damage and the hospital
50:18
Speaker 1: bits were the scariest. I expected him to tell me
50:21
Speaker 1: I was getting better and I'd be fine in a
50:23
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, but that's not what he said. Anyway,
50:26
Speaker 1: I checked into this hospital, which is okay because I'm
50:29
Speaker 1: being looked after and I'm not all alone in my
50:33
Speaker 1: apartment shitting myself again meaning feeling really scared and speculating
50:38
Speaker 1: about everything more later. So, yeah, the fact that I
50:41
Speaker 1: was in hospital was a good thing because, you know,
50:43
Speaker 1: finally I was in a place where I could be
50:45
Speaker 1: looked after right, much better than being on my own
50:49
Speaker 1: in my apartment, where I was speculating about everything, meaning
50:54
Speaker 1: my imagination was running running riot, you know, getting carried
51:00
Speaker 1: way getting you know, getting scared and stuff. So it
51:05
Speaker 1: felt good to be in a hospital, but still so
51:08
Speaker 1: I arrived yesterday and first I had to see the
51:10
Speaker 1: hospital doctor, who is a pretty cool dude, a young
51:14
Speaker 1: guy with a sense of humor. He checked out my tonsils,
51:17
Speaker 1: cleaned up my nose, et cetera. Also, I had an
51:20
Speaker 1: X ray, no problem, and a cardiogram that's kind of
51:24
Speaker 1: like a that's when they check your heart. I had
51:27
Speaker 1: a cardiogram which showed that I was having a few
51:30
Speaker 1: irregularities in that department due to stress and nerves. So
51:34
Speaker 1: I mentioned before I was having panic attacks. I could
51:37
Speaker 1: feel that heart palpitations like an irregular heartbeat. So I'm
51:43
Speaker 1: I'm so, I'm just staying chilled out. So I was
51:46
Speaker 1: just trying to chill out and just trying to relax.
51:52
Speaker 1: My girlfriend stayed with me last night while I ate
51:54
Speaker 1: my dinner, and then left when her parents arrived with
51:57
Speaker 1: my stuff. I don't know where they got my stuff from.
52:03
Speaker 1: Her dad has even given me a pair of slippers. Wow,
52:07
Speaker 1: that was so nice. Uh da da da da da.
52:11
Speaker 1: Skip past that bit. After my girlfriend and her parents left,
52:16
Speaker 1: the nurse hooked me up to another drip, my first
52:19
Speaker 1: in the hospital, one bag of antibiotics and one with
52:23
Speaker 1: vitamins and other things to make my throat and tonsils
52:26
Speaker 1: feel better. The drip was weird and slow. It lasted
52:30
Speaker 1: about four hours. It's a kind of horrible feeling having
52:35
Speaker 1: all this fluid dripping right into your body. I can
52:38
Speaker 1: taste it too, and it's all in my snot and saliva,
52:42
Speaker 1: so I could actually kind of taste It was very weird.
52:46
Speaker 1: It was obviously going into my bloodstream, but I felt
52:49
Speaker 1: it was all in my body everywhere, and I could
52:52
Speaker 1: taste it in my mouth. I had this weird taste
52:54
Speaker 1: in my mouth, and I could it was in my
52:58
Speaker 1: snot that's like the stuff that comes out of your nose,
53:03
Speaker 1: and in my saliva, and even I felt like my
53:06
Speaker 1: fingernails were kind of greasy. It's really really weird. Still,
53:11
Speaker 1: I expect it's making me better, right, I have to
53:16
Speaker 1: go downstairs now to get that phone call, then back
53:19
Speaker 1: up here for another drip. Wa Hey, the party never stops.
53:24
Speaker 1: So somehow I'd communicated a little bit with my parents,
53:28
Speaker 1: and I think my girlfriend's mum was also in communication
53:32
Speaker 1: with my parents, which is also weird because it's like normally,
53:35
Speaker 1: you know, you don't introduce your girlfriend's parents to each
53:40
Speaker 1: other until you get like really serious, and we weren't
53:42
Speaker 1: really that serious. So it was all a bit kind
53:44
Speaker 1: of a bit much for us. So okay, I continue.
53:49
Speaker 1: I finished the drip. I'm full of antibiotics again. I
53:52
Speaker 1: got the phone call from home too. Everything seems pretty
53:56
Speaker 1: calm there. So I had been in touch with parents
54:00
Speaker 1: while feeling sick, and they were trying to you know,
54:04
Speaker 1: comfort me and stuff, but they didn't know what was up.
54:10
Speaker 1: And and but I think that maybe my girlfriend's mum
54:17
Speaker 1: had been telling my parents what it was, and my
54:20
Speaker 1: girlfriend's mum was the one who knew what was going on,
54:22
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't really know what was going on anyway,
54:26
Speaker 1: So it was actually my parents who told me. So
54:30
Speaker 1: I'm I'm continuing to read. They told me I've got
54:33
Speaker 1: glandular fever and that I'm actually in the right kind
54:38
Speaker 1: I'm getting the right kind of care. This makes me
54:41
Speaker 1: feel a bit better knowing that I've got a common
54:43
Speaker 1: thing or popular virus, as one of the doctors said
54:47
Speaker 1: this week, my students. Actually, I'll have to set him
54:51
Speaker 1: straight on that when I see him next. So it
54:54
Speaker 1: turned out I had glandular fever, which is also known
54:57
Speaker 1: as mononucleosis. Yes, a very common thing which loads of people,
55:03
Speaker 1: especially sort of people in their teens or early twenties
55:06
Speaker 1: often get. It's a common virus which causes exhaustion and
55:14
Speaker 1: it can lead to things like tonsulitis. So that was
55:20
Speaker 1: actually very reassuring because I knew that it wasn't that
55:23
Speaker 1: series and it was actually very common. Now, mononucleosis can
55:28
Speaker 1: be it can you know, you can get it badly,
55:31
Speaker 1: you can get it less badly. Some people get mononucleosis
55:35
Speaker 1: and it maybe they're just sort of have to rest
55:38
Speaker 1: for a few days and then they carry on fine.
55:41
Speaker 1: Other people get glandular fever or mononucleosis and it's a
55:45
Speaker 1: bit more, a bit stronger, and it affects them a
55:48
Speaker 1: bit more. And for some people they get it and
55:50
Speaker 1: it really knocks them out for quite a long time,
55:54
Speaker 1: and it can be weeks of rest that you need,
55:57
Speaker 1: and some you get the feeling you never really quite
56:01
Speaker 1: recover from it, that there's always this lingering feeling of
56:05
Speaker 1: tiredness that stays with you, or that you feel the
56:09
Speaker 1: symptoms of it come back every now and then, and
56:14
Speaker 1: that's kind of how it was for me. It took
56:16
Speaker 1: me quite a long time to recover from this mononucleosis,
56:21
Speaker 1: and I felt low energy for quite a long time afterwards,
56:24
Speaker 1: even for like a year the following year, I would
56:29
Speaker 1: kind of go up and down, and sometimes I would
56:32
Speaker 1: feel it it had come back, and I'd feel that
56:35
Speaker 1: sense of deep tiredness again. And even to this day,
56:40
Speaker 1: it comes back to me and I get that feeling.
56:43
Speaker 1: So after having mononucleosis, I used to get migrain headaches,
56:49
Speaker 1: and these headaches would come and be incredibly, incredibly powerful headaches,
56:56
Speaker 1: which would make it very difficult for me to do
56:59
Speaker 1: things moving around, would make my head pound. Bright light
57:03
Speaker 1: would be really really difficult to look at. And still
57:06
Speaker 1: to this day, I periodically get these migrains where you know,
57:11
Speaker 1: it's just a headache that stays with you for a
57:13
Speaker 1: long time, accompanied by that kind of weird sense of tiredness.
57:19
Speaker 1: And I remember I used to get like aches and
57:22
Speaker 1: pains in the back of my head and it was
57:24
Speaker 1: very disturbing. So, going back to that misunderstanding from my doctor,
57:29
Speaker 1: he said, so the thing about the liver damage was correct.
57:32
Speaker 1: The eb virus is actually the virus that causes mononucleosis.
57:36
Speaker 1: It's called the epstein bar the epstein Bar virus. It's
57:40
Speaker 1: the the cause of mononucleosis. Then you will need to
57:46
Speaker 1: go to a hospital. Meant that you should go, and
57:49
Speaker 1: you need to go and rest. You need to be
57:51
Speaker 1: given care because you're really not okay. You can't stay
57:55
Speaker 1: at home. You've got to be looked after for a while.
57:58
Speaker 1: You need at least a week in the hospital. That's
58:00
Speaker 1: what that was for rest, and then you will need
58:02
Speaker 1: an operation. What I was worried about, I was thinking,
58:05
Speaker 1: I'm going to need a liver transplant. That's what I
58:08
Speaker 1: was thinking. That they're going to operate on meat. They're
58:11
Speaker 1: going to remove my liver which has got this weird
58:16
Speaker 1: damage and this problem, and I'm going to be given
58:18
Speaker 1: a new liver. And one of the crazy things that
58:20
Speaker 1: I was worried about was that I'd be given a
58:23
Speaker 1: Japanese liver. And I don't know what. When you're in
58:27
Speaker 1: that state, you kind of worry. You kind of think,
58:30
Speaker 1: does it would a Japanese liver work? Would that work
58:33
Speaker 1: for me? I don't know. It's just human the human
58:38
Speaker 1: body and stuff, and it's just a liver is a
58:40
Speaker 1: liver but I was kind of worried, thinking, is that
58:42
Speaker 1: is that? How's that going to be having a Japanese liver?
58:46
Speaker 1: And then I used to think, would that mean that
58:48
Speaker 1: I'd still be able to drink because some Japanese people
58:52
Speaker 1: there's it's every I don't know what the what the
58:58
Speaker 1: ratio is, but okay, sometimes you go to a bar
59:01
Speaker 1: in Japan and having a few drinks, and there'd always
59:04
Speaker 1: be one Japanese person who'd have one or two drinks
59:07
Speaker 1: and they go all red in the face and they'd
59:09
Speaker 1: fall over and pass out because they lacked a certain enzyme,
59:14
Speaker 1: which meant they couldn't break down the alcohol and they'd
59:18
Speaker 1: get really badly affected by the alcohol. I was thinking,
59:21
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm going to get that guy's liver,
59:22
Speaker 1: aren't I knowing my luck? So all these sort of
59:25
Speaker 1: stupid things were flying around my head. But what the
59:28
Speaker 1: doctor actually meant was you should have your liver. You
59:31
Speaker 1: should have your tonsils removed. That's the operation he was
59:34
Speaker 1: talking about, is that at some point you should have
59:37
Speaker 1: your tonsils removed because it seems that they can be
59:42
Speaker 1: infected quite easily. I never did get my tonsils removed,
59:47
Speaker 1: and I still got tonsilitis occasionally for years after that.
59:53
Speaker 1: These days I don't get it so much anymore, but
59:57
Speaker 1: probably should get them removed. But you know, when you're busy,
59:59
Speaker 1: you don't always have time to get all these things done.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: Bah bah bah bah bah. Let's continue the diary. Is
1:00:06
Speaker 1: this interesting? I hope there's more. I should fly through
1:00:08
Speaker 1: this more quickly. I sent an email to Azusa that
1:00:12
Speaker 1: was a friend of mine. I was in a band
1:00:14
Speaker 1: with her. I was playing drums Asusa was the bass player.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: Sent an email to Azusa saying I won't be able
1:00:23
Speaker 1: to make it to band practice and to tell usu
1:00:26
Speaker 1: Ke Usuke was the other guy in the band. I
1:00:29
Speaker 1: hope she does and that they work something out with
1:00:31
Speaker 1: this new singer who I'm really interested in meeting. It
1:00:34
Speaker 1: turns out looks like we were looking at having a
1:00:37
Speaker 1: new singer in the band. It should be pretty interesting
1:00:40
Speaker 1: with two girls and two guys in the band. And
1:00:42
Speaker 1: me and Usk have been hitting it off well recently,
1:00:45
Speaker 1: hitting it off meaning getting on well, sort of having
1:00:49
Speaker 1: a good relationship recently. Blah blah blah. I've got plenty
1:00:54
Speaker 1: more to write, but dinner is on its way and
1:00:56
Speaker 1: I can't really write a lot in one go anyway more. Now,
1:01:01
Speaker 1: I remember that morning the first morning, and didn't write
1:01:05
Speaker 1: this in the diary, but I remember this that first morning,
1:01:07
Speaker 1: I kind of woke up after a bad night where
1:01:12
Speaker 1: I hadn't slept very well. I woke up in the
1:01:14
Speaker 1: morning in this hospital and one of the first things
1:01:17
Speaker 1: that happened is that a nurse came to me with
1:01:21
Speaker 1: a sort of questionnaire and the questions had been translated
1:01:25
Speaker 1: into English, and she read out the English questions, but
1:01:30
Speaker 1: the translation was really bad and the questions didn't make
1:01:33
Speaker 1: much sense to me, so I tried to answer them
1:01:36
Speaker 1: as well as I could, you know. She asked me
1:01:39
Speaker 1: about how I'd slept and how I felt and stuff,
1:01:42
Speaker 1: and one of the questions was, what were your movements
1:01:45
Speaker 1: last night? What were you or can you describe your
1:01:49
Speaker 1: movements last night? And I thought she meant like how
1:01:55
Speaker 1: much I had moved in bed during the night, like
1:01:58
Speaker 1: my body position or something, So that's what I thought
1:02:02
Speaker 1: she was talking about. So I was like, well, and
1:02:05
Speaker 1: I tried to explain. I was like maybe two hours
1:02:07
Speaker 1: on this side, maybe an hour like this, maybe a
1:02:11
Speaker 1: few hours on this side, But I turned lots of turning,
1:02:16
Speaker 1: turning in bed, and she looked at me and she
1:02:20
Speaker 1: sort of went ah and wrote something down. And later
1:02:24
Speaker 1: what I realized is what that meant was what were
1:02:27
Speaker 1: your bowel movements last night? Because actually when I went
1:02:32
Speaker 1: to the hospital, as well as all the other things,
1:02:34
Speaker 1: I also had diarrhea. So bowel movements means doing pooh. Okay,
1:02:41
Speaker 1: your bowels are part of let's say, part of your bum,
1:02:48
Speaker 1: and when you move your bowels, it means when pooh
1:02:53
Speaker 1: comes out of your bum. Okay, that's a bowel movement,
1:02:57
Speaker 1: it's a pooh. So she wanted to know about the conditions,
1:03:01
Speaker 1: the condition of my pooh and how many times I
1:03:04
Speaker 1: had done a pooh last night because I had diarrhea.
1:03:07
Speaker 1: So what she thought she was asking me was can
1:03:10
Speaker 1: you describe your pooh last night? And my response was, well,
1:03:14
Speaker 1: a couple of hours on this side, a couple of
1:03:16
Speaker 1: hours on that side, and lay on my back for
1:03:18
Speaker 1: a while. She must have thought I was completely mad
1:03:22
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know, So I continue the diary.
1:03:27
Speaker 1: It's about seven pm now and I've finished dinner, taken
1:03:30
Speaker 1: all my medicine. I've got tons of stuff to take,
1:03:34
Speaker 1: one antibiotic, one little cup of painkiller from a bottle.
1:03:37
Speaker 1: It looks like milk, but it tastes of lemon. One
1:03:41
Speaker 1: pill for my block nose, a sachet of stuff to
1:03:44
Speaker 1: stop diarrhea. Also, I have some little throat sweets which
1:03:48
Speaker 1: taste of strawberry, and a nice to suck, and some
1:03:51
Speaker 1: mouthwash for gargling. So I had like a whole collection
1:03:53
Speaker 1: of medicine on the side of the on the bedside table.
1:03:59
Speaker 1: I've been just communicating with a few words like finished, okay,
1:04:03
Speaker 1: call daejobu it I chod dot. This is weird. So
1:04:11
Speaker 1: daijobu is basically like okay, right, feeling okay or okay
1:04:17
Speaker 1: it I means it hurts, jod dot means a little bit.
1:04:23
Speaker 1: The guy opposite me, so I was at I was
1:04:25
Speaker 1: in a ward, a room in the hospital with about
1:04:30
Speaker 1: probably eight beds in it, something like that. I was
1:04:34
Speaker 1: in one bed in the corner of the room next
1:04:36
Speaker 1: to the window, luckily, but there were about seven other
1:04:39
Speaker 1: beds in the room, one opposite me, one right next
1:04:42
Speaker 1: to me. So the guy opposite me is watching the
1:04:45
Speaker 1: baseball and I keep sneaking glances at his TV. So
1:04:49
Speaker 1: keep I kept sort of having a look at his
1:04:51
Speaker 1: television watching the baseball. I've got a TV too, but
1:04:56
Speaker 1: I need a card to get it working, and I
1:04:58
Speaker 1: can't be asked to get it. I can't be asked
1:05:01
Speaker 1: to get one. I should, though, check out the baseball
1:05:04
Speaker 1: and stuff. I'm a bit bored now, which isn't good.
1:05:08
Speaker 1: I think getting that TV card is the right thing
1:05:10
Speaker 1: for me to do. I never actually did get the
1:05:13
Speaker 1: TV card, and I've written next, I couldn't get a
1:05:16
Speaker 1: TV card, no change, I didn't have any money. It
1:05:18
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. I'll have to find another way to amuse myself.
1:05:23
Speaker 1: I was able to walk around the hospital a bit,
1:05:27
Speaker 1: and I wrote, walking around this place, there are some
1:05:29
Speaker 1: really ill people about people in wheelchairs, very old women,
1:05:34
Speaker 1: really weak lying in a bed, people towing frames that
1:05:39
Speaker 1: carry bags of their urine and drips. So there were
1:05:42
Speaker 1: people walking around sort of like with these metal frames,
1:05:48
Speaker 1: and they were dragging the frames along on little wheels,
1:05:51
Speaker 1: and the frames seemed to carry bags of their urine.
1:05:55
Speaker 1: It's really weird. In the toilet there is a rack
1:05:59
Speaker 1: with loads of really stinky bags of urine hanging from it.
1:06:04
Speaker 1: So you go into the toilet and on the side
1:06:06
Speaker 1: there'd be all these bags of yellow urine hanging up,
1:06:09
Speaker 1: and it would really it would sort of smell really bad.
1:06:14
Speaker 1: I said, bad smell. But these people are sick. I'm
1:06:17
Speaker 1: really the odd one out here. I'm young, I'm not
1:06:21
Speaker 1: too sick, and I'm English. The place is filled with
1:06:25
Speaker 1: old Japanese people. What am I doing here? How did
1:06:29
Speaker 1: I get to be How did I get to be
1:06:31
Speaker 1: here doing this? It's ridiculous and funny. I'm just alone
1:06:36
Speaker 1: with my thoughts, but I'm keeping myself amused. I can't
1:06:39
Speaker 1: push myself here, so I'm just playing dumb games to
1:06:43
Speaker 1: pass the time. I just really wanted to try and
1:06:48
Speaker 1: not to challenge myself mentally or physically in any way. Right.
1:06:53
Speaker 1: I just felt like I was just recovering from this
1:06:57
Speaker 1: horrible mental condition as well as physical cool. So I
1:07:02
Speaker 1: can't push myself here, so I'm just playing dumb games
1:07:04
Speaker 1: to pass the time. Last night I spent a lot
1:07:07
Speaker 1: of time playing the ABC game. Basically, I think of
1:07:13
Speaker 1: a topic, however ordinary or stupid, and think of a
1:07:17
Speaker 1: word associated it for each letter of the alphabet, with
1:07:20
Speaker 1: some dumb ass results. For example, animals, you just go
1:07:25
Speaker 1: through the entire alphabet thinking of an animal that begins
1:07:27
Speaker 1: with a then B A anaconda, B bear, C, crocodile,
1:07:33
Speaker 1: D duck. You know, and you just keep doing it,
1:07:37
Speaker 1: try not to think too much. It just keeps your
1:07:41
Speaker 1: mind occupied so that you don't completely panic or get
1:07:45
Speaker 1: really depressed or something like that. Animals easy, movie names,
1:07:50
Speaker 1: places or objects in movies, characters in movies, food, sports,
1:07:56
Speaker 1: past times, art forms, forms or genres of m musical instruments,
1:08:01
Speaker 1: musical sounds on a Yamaha keyboard, bands, songs, beatles, songs,
1:08:07
Speaker 1: place names, boys' names, girls' names, different feelings, et cetera,
1:08:11
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. And I would just keep playing
1:08:14
Speaker 1: that in order to make sure that my mind didn't
1:08:18
Speaker 1: start thinking about other things and getting sort of scared
1:08:22
Speaker 1: or upset. I always get stuck on K and Q
1:08:27
Speaker 1: because I can only think of zoo. Sorry, I always
1:08:31
Speaker 1: get stuck on K and Q, so I could never
1:08:34
Speaker 1: think of words beginning with K and words beginning with
1:08:37
Speaker 1: Q especially, And because I can only think of zoo
1:08:40
Speaker 1: and zebra for Z. I have to incorporate these into
1:08:44
Speaker 1: every category somehow. For example, sports, you've got like zebra racing, pastimes,
1:08:51
Speaker 1: zoo going to the art forms, zoo painting musical genres
1:08:57
Speaker 1: Zimbabwe music, sound, general, zoo noise or zebra nay, et cetera,
1:09:05
Speaker 1: et cetera. You get the picture. A nurse has arrived
1:09:09
Speaker 1: and I know dot dot dot So a nurse arrived
1:09:12
Speaker 1: and I said, I know, meaning I know she's going
1:09:16
Speaker 1: to do something. And I stopped writing. And then after
1:09:19
Speaker 1: she'd gone, I continued. Actually, I thought she was going
1:09:21
Speaker 1: to talk to me in Japanese, but she took my
1:09:23
Speaker 1: temperature thirty seven point one degrees and went away. Over Here,
1:09:29
Speaker 1: they are really conscious about their body temperature and usually
1:09:32
Speaker 1: know it down to the decimal point. In England, we
1:09:35
Speaker 1: don't give it. We don't really give a crap about it.
1:09:37
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we're hot, sometimes cold. I think that's
1:09:41
Speaker 1: not entirely true. I think in the UK we'd probably
1:09:43
Speaker 1: still do pay attention to our temperature and take our temperature,
1:09:47
Speaker 1: especially in especially doctors and nurses. But still I think
1:09:51
Speaker 1: that maybe in Japan they're a bit more focused on
1:09:58
Speaker 1: specific body tempera. Anyway, I think I should chill out
1:10:02
Speaker 1: and play the ABC game again, this time different smells
1:10:06
Speaker 1: z zoo smell. Okay, I played the ABC game. I
1:10:11
Speaker 1: may have to think of something else. I've just about
1:10:14
Speaker 1: pushed that one to its limit. I reckon. I just
1:10:17
Speaker 1: met a funny nurse who asked me what I want
1:10:20
Speaker 1: to eat next week. She gave me options like chicken
1:10:23
Speaker 1: or fish, et cetera. I know I'll be eating a
1:10:25
Speaker 1: lot of chicken and fish and on one day some
1:10:28
Speaker 1: pork and one day tempora and oudon. Actually, looking back
1:10:33
Speaker 1: on it now, it's pretty good, you know. I've got
1:10:35
Speaker 1: to eat all this pretty nice Japanese food. I mean,
1:10:38
Speaker 1: hospital food. We know is not the best food ever,
1:10:41
Speaker 1: is it. But this food that I got in this
1:10:43
Speaker 1: hospital was not too bad, and it was all classic
1:10:46
Speaker 1: Japanese dishes. The guy opposite me is still watching baseball.
1:10:51
Speaker 1: What a boring game? Just an excuse for waving your
1:10:54
Speaker 1: ass in the air and looking serious. I feel restless
1:10:59
Speaker 1: and like my heart is nervous. I'm bored. Mainly, I
1:11:02
Speaker 1: don't need stimulation. I need release or something. Best to
1:11:07
Speaker 1: just slow it all down and just chill out right
1:11:10
Speaker 1: here in the moment. Day two. Okay, it's about two pm.
1:11:14
Speaker 1: I slept really well last night, but my mouth was
1:11:17
Speaker 1: so dry whenever I woke up, and my lips are
1:11:20
Speaker 1: all cracked. I've got the air conditioner next to me.
1:11:24
Speaker 1: In my I've got the air conditioner next to my bed,
1:11:27
Speaker 1: and I think it may be drying me out a
1:11:29
Speaker 1: bit when I close the curtain at night. Still, I
1:11:32
Speaker 1: like this spot. I'm in the corner, out of the way.
1:11:35
Speaker 1: I'm not too close to anyone else. I've got the
1:11:37
Speaker 1: window with a good view, no worries. From the window,
1:11:41
Speaker 1: I can see a view of the valley stretching away
1:11:44
Speaker 1: from me with some round hills. At the sides. In
1:11:47
Speaker 1: the valley are random buildings, typically Japanese. I can also
1:11:52
Speaker 1: see black kites gliding around. So this hospital was in
1:11:55
Speaker 1: a place called Yukoska, which is like just down the
1:11:58
Speaker 1: coast from Tokyo and Yokohama, and it's quite a nice
1:12:02
Speaker 1: part of the world, part of Japan, really not far
1:12:06
Speaker 1: from the from the seaside, and you've got these hills
1:12:09
Speaker 1: that sort of go down towards the coast, And I said,
1:12:15
Speaker 1: I can see black kites gliding around. Black kites are
1:12:18
Speaker 1: these birds of prey, like kind of like hawks that
1:12:22
Speaker 1: would glide around looking for looking for things to eat.
1:12:27
Speaker 1: I spent most of the day lying around listening to
1:12:30
Speaker 1: the ORB and the beatles. The ORB So this is
1:12:34
Speaker 1: the album by the group called The Orb, the sort
1:12:37
Speaker 1: of ambient techno group called The Orb. The album was
1:12:41
Speaker 1: Adventures Beyond the Ultra World. This is their best album,
1:12:45
Speaker 1: but uf ORB is pretty good because of the tunes
1:12:48
Speaker 1: Blue Room and Towers of dub I think Sergeant Pepper
1:12:52
Speaker 1: is my favorite Beatles album. It seems to be somehow
1:12:55
Speaker 1: warm and snug and a bit removed from their other stuff.
1:13:00
Speaker 1: I had a bit of excitement with my drip today.
1:13:03
Speaker 1: So remember I was still getting this intravenous drip going
1:13:10
Speaker 1: into a vein in my hand, connected to these bags
1:13:15
Speaker 1: of mysterious fluid hanging from a metal sort of frame
1:13:21
Speaker 1: that was next to my bed. So I had an
1:13:24
Speaker 1: excitement with a bit of excitement with the drip. The
1:13:29
Speaker 1: drip was nearly finished and I really needed the toilet,
1:13:32
Speaker 1: and then my lunch came. I decided to try and
1:13:35
Speaker 1: walk with the drip to the toilet because obviously I
1:13:37
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to eat my lunch without feeling
1:13:40
Speaker 1: like I really needed the toilet. So I decided, right,
1:13:42
Speaker 1: I'll go to the toilet now, even though the drip
1:13:44
Speaker 1: isn't finished. I'll I'll go and I'll take the drip
1:13:47
Speaker 1: with me on its metal frame. So I decided to
1:13:53
Speaker 1: try and walk with the drip to the toilet. It's
1:13:56
Speaker 1: on wheels, so I thought it would be okay. I
1:13:59
Speaker 1: got to the toilet and noticed the tube, so the
1:14:03
Speaker 1: tube coming out of my hand going into the bag.
1:14:06
Speaker 1: I noticed the tube up to the drip was all
1:14:09
Speaker 1: red and filled with my blood. So for some reason
1:14:13
Speaker 1: it had started going the other way. My blood had
1:14:15
Speaker 1: started going out into the tube and was heading to
1:14:18
Speaker 1: the bag. So I was losing blood into the drip.
1:14:25
Speaker 1: So I slowly went back to the bed and had
1:14:28
Speaker 1: to lie down again. The drip started dripping again and
1:14:32
Speaker 1: the blood went back into my arm. I just had
1:14:36
Speaker 1: to wait about fifteen minutes before the drip finished and
1:14:38
Speaker 1: the nurse came to remove it. Then I went to
1:14:41
Speaker 1: the toilet, relieved myself, washed my hands, and came back
1:14:45
Speaker 1: to eat my lunch. Delicious pork with rice balls and
1:14:49
Speaker 1: some eggplant. Not bad, how exciting. So that was one
1:14:54
Speaker 1: of the most exciting moments of that particular day. All day,
1:14:59
Speaker 1: the guy opposite me has been watching Go on TV.
1:15:02
Speaker 1: I can't understand that game. So Go is like this
1:15:05
Speaker 1: old board game. It's like where you have all these
1:15:09
Speaker 1: pieces on a board. It's a bit like kind of
1:15:13
Speaker 1: like drafts or something. I could not understand it. And
1:15:20
Speaker 1: the guy who just watched go this game on TV
1:15:23
Speaker 1: all day long. So later about eight pm, I had
1:15:26
Speaker 1: a few visitors today, my girlfriend's mum and dad. They
1:15:30
Speaker 1: bought me some flowers. They brought me some flowers from
1:15:34
Speaker 1: my girlfriend. Really sweet. Her parents were really kind and
1:15:40
Speaker 1: said I looked better. I can't believe it. They've been
1:15:43
Speaker 1: so helpful and caring. My girlfriend is coming tomorrow and
1:15:46
Speaker 1: she's going to bring the Two Towers by Tolkien, the
1:15:50
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings, because I've just about finished Fellowship
1:15:53
Speaker 1: of the Ring. So Lord of the Rings is in
1:15:56
Speaker 1: three volumes. So I was actually the Fellowship of the
1:16:01
Speaker 1: Ring and had just about finished it. And luckily my
1:16:04
Speaker 1: girlfriend decided that she'd bring the next book as well
1:16:08
Speaker 1: so I could read that. Then my Nova student doctor
1:16:12
Speaker 1: visited me with his son. I was very prim I
1:16:16
Speaker 1: was very surprised at that he was the doctor who
1:16:19
Speaker 1: arranged for me to come here. Very thoughtful of him
1:16:22
Speaker 1: to check up on me. This evening, a couple of
1:16:25
Speaker 1: my colleagues visited, which was a big surprise. They also
1:16:29
Speaker 1: brought me some flowers, so I missed a popular They
1:16:33
Speaker 1: stayed for a while and we chatted. They seemed genuinely
1:16:36
Speaker 1: concerned and everything. How nice. Now it's eight fifteen pm
1:16:40
Speaker 1: and I'm just about to finish Fellowship of the Ring
1:16:43
Speaker 1: and then probably listen to some tunes and go to sleep.
1:16:46
Speaker 1: Very pleasant. How nice. Also, I learned from one of
1:16:50
Speaker 1: my colleagues that it's possible to get glandular fever from
1:16:54
Speaker 1: a mosquito. It all clicks into place. I've been feeling
1:16:58
Speaker 1: terrible since the mosquito bit me more than fifteen times
1:17:03
Speaker 1: in one night. It's all gone downhill from there. That
1:17:07
Speaker 1: was nearly a week before my girlfriend went away and
1:17:10
Speaker 1: I got sick that damn mosquito. I remember waking up
1:17:15
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night and scratching my arm.
1:17:18
Speaker 1: I looked and there was a smear of blood where
1:17:20
Speaker 1: I'd killed the mosquito instinctively as I woke up. Then
1:17:24
Speaker 1: I noticed all the bites. Three days later, I was
1:17:28
Speaker 1: being driven insane by all the bites. I felt really bad.
1:17:31
Speaker 1: Ever since, it looks like I'll need a couple of
1:17:34
Speaker 1: weeks off after I get out of hospital. I might
1:17:37
Speaker 1: not even go to work until after my parents come
1:17:40
Speaker 1: on a holiday. My parents were due to come like
1:17:43
Speaker 1: the next month for a couple of weeks to have
1:17:45
Speaker 1: a holiday in Japan and see me. So, yeah, the
1:17:48
Speaker 1: mosquito thing. I don't know if it's possible to get
1:17:52
Speaker 1: glandular fever or mononucleosis from a mosquito. I've googled it
1:17:57
Speaker 1: since and have sort of seen some things that suggested
1:18:00
Speaker 1: be possible, but I think it's rare. But anyway, like
1:18:03
Speaker 1: a week before I got really sick, there was one
1:18:07
Speaker 1: particular night where in my room in my apartment, so
1:18:15
Speaker 1: I had like this sliding glass door that led out
1:18:17
Speaker 1: onto the balcony, and I would always make sure the
1:18:21
Speaker 1: door was closed because mosquitos would come in, and they
1:18:25
Speaker 1: would like tiger mosquitoes as well, like really aggressive ones.
1:18:29
Speaker 1: The door had an insect screen as well, one of
1:18:32
Speaker 1: those kind of mesh screens that allows the air to
1:18:35
Speaker 1: come in but not insects. And just this one particular night,
1:18:40
Speaker 1: I opened the mesh screen to go out and hang
1:18:43
Speaker 1: something on my balcony just for a moment, opened the
1:18:46
Speaker 1: mesh screen and closed it again, and in that moment,
1:18:49
Speaker 1: a mosquito must have come in, because I instantly then
1:18:53
Speaker 1: went to sleep, and I was lying down mostly naked,
1:19:00
Speaker 1: without a lot of covers on me because it was
1:19:02
Speaker 1: so boiling hot, and that mosquito that night, I think,
1:19:07
Speaker 1: just bit me about fifteen times all over my body,
1:19:11
Speaker 1: and as I said, I woke up sort of, I
1:19:14
Speaker 1: woke up instinctively scratching my arm and actually killed the
1:19:20
Speaker 1: mosquito in my sleep. So I woke up looking at
1:19:23
Speaker 1: this blood of my arm, thinking what's going on, and
1:19:26
Speaker 1: then realized I've been bitten all over my body by
1:19:28
Speaker 1: this bloody mosquito. And it was so annoying, like the
1:19:32
Speaker 1: bites were so itchy and even prevented me from being
1:19:35
Speaker 1: able to sleep very well. And I wonder, you know,
1:19:40
Speaker 1: I wonder if that mosquito might have caused this infection.
1:19:44
Speaker 1: But it, you know, as I said, it all went
1:19:47
Speaker 1: downhill from there, so who knows it might have been that.
1:19:50
Speaker 1: I mean, they call glandular fever the kissing kissing fever,
1:19:54
Speaker 1: kissing disease or something, and it's typical that it gets
1:19:58
Speaker 1: shared between people when they kiss. But you know, I
1:20:03
Speaker 1: hadn't been going around kissing lots of people. I mean,
1:20:06
Speaker 1: I had with my girlfriend. I wouldn't like to suggest
1:20:10
Speaker 1: that she gave it to me. Who knows, who knows,
1:20:16
Speaker 1: but anyway, it was interesting. So one of my colleagues
1:20:18
Speaker 1: had told me that you can get clangular fever from
1:20:21
Speaker 1: a mosquito. But it's certainly pretty mysterious. But I do
1:20:24
Speaker 1: remember definitely feeling really bad like after that mosquito incident.
1:20:30
Speaker 1: But maybe it's just a coincidence. Day three. It's about
1:20:35
Speaker 1: three to ten in the afternoon, and I'm getting a
1:20:37
Speaker 1: bit bored now. I spent the day finishing Fellowship of
1:20:41
Speaker 1: the Ring, getting a really long drip, dozing, and listening
1:20:44
Speaker 1: to my favorites mini discs. So I had these mini
1:20:48
Speaker 1: discs and a mini disc player. The mini discs had
1:20:51
Speaker 1: like compilations of some of my favorite music on it
1:20:54
Speaker 1: on them, not very exciting. I had a shower and
1:20:57
Speaker 1: a shave today. That's quite exciting. Also, I spoke to
1:21:00
Speaker 1: the bloke opposite briefly. So the man opposite he asked
1:21:05
Speaker 1: me yo costca and I answered with Zushi egg or
1:21:10
Speaker 1: no kyoshidas, which I thought meant I'm an English teacher,
1:21:16
Speaker 1: Zushi no nova des, which meant you know the zushi nova,
1:21:25
Speaker 1: the nova in Zushi, the Zushi of nova. He was like, ah, Soka,
1:21:30
Speaker 1: and that was about it. So that was the depth
1:21:33
Speaker 1: of the conversation I had with the guy opposite me.
1:21:36
Speaker 1: He was like yu Cosca, I said, Zushi English teacher
1:21:41
Speaker 1: Nova in Zushi. Ah. That was it so exciting. I'm
1:21:48
Speaker 1: feeling better, although I can still feel all my glands
1:21:51
Speaker 1: are swollen and my back aches. That may be my
1:21:55
Speaker 1: kidneys or something. The tonsil infection seems to have gone,
1:21:59
Speaker 1: but there's still woln. I slept well last night, another
1:22:03
Speaker 1: nine hours. Wow. Mom and Dad are going to call
1:22:06
Speaker 1: me again at three point forty five, although they don't
1:22:08
Speaker 1: need to. I should phone, as you say, just to
1:22:10
Speaker 1: check that she got my mail. I also my email
1:22:13
Speaker 1: and phone Matt and Motoki Motoki Moto. We're going to
1:22:19
Speaker 1: see Oasis on Sunday, the twenty ninth, so I should
1:22:23
Speaker 1: just let them know where I am and what's happening.
1:22:25
Speaker 1: So actually I had a plan to I had tickets
1:22:28
Speaker 1: to see Oasis in Japan and I was going to
1:22:31
Speaker 1: go with a couple of friends. Also, my girlfriend's kind
1:22:36
Speaker 1: of come and visit me today. I don't know when, though.
1:22:38
Speaker 1: That should be pretty nice. I'll have to thank her
1:22:41
Speaker 1: for the flowers anyway, I'll go downstairs in about ten
1:22:45
Speaker 1: minutes to receive that phone call. My girlfriend's bringing the
1:22:48
Speaker 1: Two Towers. That's the next Lord of the Rings book
1:22:51
Speaker 1: with her, so I can get stuck into that later.
1:22:54
Speaker 1: I bet I go stir crazy later this week. If
1:22:57
Speaker 1: you go stir crazy, it means you sort of go
1:22:59
Speaker 1: a bit mad, and normally because you're stuck in one
1:23:02
Speaker 1: particular situation, a bit like when you're in prison. If
1:23:05
Speaker 1: you just go mad because you're stuck in one room,
1:23:07
Speaker 1: you go stir crazy. I'll probably go It'll probably go
1:23:11
Speaker 1: much faster than I expect more later. So day three,
1:23:15
Speaker 1: it's six, Day four or day three I lost track.
1:23:18
Speaker 1: It's six fifty five am. First thing in the morning.
1:23:21
Speaker 1: I was just woken up by a nurse who is
1:23:24
Speaker 1: really ganky that means sort of energetic. And she said,
1:23:29
Speaker 1: oh hi, because I'm ass and wake up. And she
1:23:32
Speaker 1: gave me a hot towel and put it in my face.
1:23:34
Speaker 1: She just put this hot towel in my face. I'm
1:23:37
Speaker 1: half asleep. I had a strange dream last night. I
1:23:41
Speaker 1: worked in some big company, but I'd been away sick,
1:23:45
Speaker 1: so I'd lost touch with my job, and I was
1:23:48
Speaker 1: doing really badly. I didn't know what was going on.
1:23:52
Speaker 1: My widowed mother, that's my mum who's lost her husband.
1:23:57
Speaker 1: So my widowed mother not so my dad, apparently in
1:24:01
Speaker 1: this dream, had died. My widowed mother was getting married
1:24:05
Speaker 1: to Fred Ward. Fred Ward is a Hollywood actor, So
1:24:11
Speaker 1: my widowed mother was getting married to Fred Ward, who
1:24:14
Speaker 1: was an utter bastard, and we hated each other. I
1:24:18
Speaker 1: remember holding a little plant pot with a little green
1:24:21
Speaker 1: plant and pleading with him to treat my mother well.
1:24:25
Speaker 1: So standing there with this little plant pot with a
1:24:28
Speaker 1: little green plant in it, maybe maybe something like this,
1:24:34
Speaker 1: standing there with this little plant pot and saying to him,
1:24:36
Speaker 1: please treat my mother well. I said, please, we both
1:24:40
Speaker 1: want the same thing. This is in my weird dream,
1:24:43
Speaker 1: my nightmare. But he just slapped the plant pot out
1:24:47
Speaker 1: of my hands. Then we went into the house and
1:24:50
Speaker 1: discovered that an upstairs bedroom was haunted by a ghost.
1:24:55
Speaker 1: It had happened before, but we were all really scared,
1:25:00
Speaker 1: and we stayed in a downstairs room while I began
1:25:03
Speaker 1: to phone the police or someone. We could hear noises
1:25:06
Speaker 1: of the poltergeist this ghost upstairs. Then a lamp floated
1:25:11
Speaker 1: down the stairs and threw itself at me. This is
1:25:14
Speaker 1: all in my dream, right. I knocked it away with
1:25:18
Speaker 1: my hand and I shouted it threw that at me.
1:25:22
Speaker 1: But my mum, who I think was played by Holly Hunter,
1:25:26
Speaker 1: another Hollywood actor, which is strange, said to me, but
1:25:31
Speaker 1: it didn't hit you, did it? And I said, only
1:25:35
Speaker 1: because I defended myself. Then a glass of brandy floated
1:25:40
Speaker 1: into the room and that came towards me and I
1:25:43
Speaker 1: knocked it away, but then I realized that the ghost
1:25:46
Speaker 1: was offering it to me in order to say sorry.
1:25:49
Speaker 1: Very strange. Dreams are weird, aren't they? What do they mean?
1:25:53
Speaker 1: So more stuff to write today. Yesterday my girlfriend came
1:25:57
Speaker 1: to visit, which was nice, although we were interrupted twice
1:26:01
Speaker 1: and didn't really say goodbye to each other properly. Anyway,
1:26:05
Speaker 1: She brought me the Two Towers and I paid her back,
1:26:08
Speaker 1: and she also brought Return of the King, which is
1:26:11
Speaker 1: the third book, because her mum had bought it for
1:26:17
Speaker 1: me as a gift. I was surprised. I didn't expect
1:26:21
Speaker 1: her to buy me another present. I think she's enjoying
1:26:24
Speaker 1: taking care of me, to be honest. My girlfriend also
1:26:27
Speaker 1: brought me some water and tangerines. Moto also visited me,
1:26:32
Speaker 1: which was a real surprise. Shout out to my friend Moto.
1:26:38
Speaker 1: I'd only left a message on his phone about two
1:26:41
Speaker 1: hours before, so I was really surprised when he turned up.
1:26:45
Speaker 1: It turned out that James, my brother, had told him
1:26:49
Speaker 1: I was ill and had given him the address of
1:26:52
Speaker 1: the hospital. He brought me some kettle chips that's like
1:26:55
Speaker 1: crisps and shortbread, as well as an Antonio Carlos Joe
1:27:00
Speaker 1: bam cd as like a Brazilian boss and over artist
1:27:06
Speaker 1: well chosen. I was really glad to see him, and
1:27:11
Speaker 1: he spoke to my girlfriend for a while before he left.
1:27:14
Speaker 1: Then Nadia, this is another one of my colleagues. Nadia
1:27:20
Speaker 1: was a sort of amazing person, really very eccentric and
1:27:25
Speaker 1: energetic and the sort of person who did lots of things,
1:27:29
Speaker 1: organized things, and everyone else got involved in her energetic plans.
1:27:37
Speaker 1: I say Nadia was because unfortunately she's no longer with us.
1:27:40
Speaker 1: I learned when was it ten fifteen years ago that
1:27:44
Speaker 1: Nadia had died, which is kind of sad. But anyway,
1:27:50
Speaker 1: Nadia visited me and brought some kind of jelly snacks
1:27:54
Speaker 1: and a couple of copies of viz VISs a kind
1:27:57
Speaker 1: of funny magazine. She brought me a couple of copies
1:28:02
Speaker 1: of Veers bless her. I introduced her to my girlfriend,
1:28:05
Speaker 1: but they didn't talk a lot. Nardia was quite direct
1:28:08
Speaker 1: as she is, and maybe she scared my girlfriend away
1:28:11
Speaker 1: or something. Anyway, I chatted to Nadia for a while,
1:28:14
Speaker 1: which was funny because she's pretty eccentric and a good laugh.
1:28:18
Speaker 1: Now it's nearly one pm and I've just finished lunch
1:28:22
Speaker 1: and taken my drugs. There are two new patients in
1:28:25
Speaker 1: the room, two old guys. I've no idea what's wrong
1:28:29
Speaker 1: with them. They arrived earlier with their shirts and trousers
1:28:32
Speaker 1: and ties their shirts and trousers and ties on, and
1:28:36
Speaker 1: they're now lying in their respective beds wearing their pajamas.
1:28:40
Speaker 1: I got clean ones, too. The pajamas are a bit
1:28:43
Speaker 1: like jinbay, so they're kind of like looked like a
1:28:46
Speaker 1: little looked a little bit like traditional Japanese clothing where
1:28:49
Speaker 1: you fold them over and tie them on the side.
1:28:53
Speaker 1: I'm getting quite attached to mine anyway. These guys are
1:28:56
Speaker 1: pretty quiet, but one of them is in the bed
1:28:58
Speaker 1: right next to me. He's just right there on the
1:29:02
Speaker 1: other side of the curtain. I think he smells a bit.
1:29:05
Speaker 1: He smells a bit of those bags in the toilet,
1:29:08
Speaker 1: but maybe I'm just over reacting. Sometimes he mutters in Japanese,
1:29:13
Speaker 1: sort of like he seems to sort of like be
1:29:16
Speaker 1: talking to himself, and I listen when he talks to
1:29:20
Speaker 1: the nurses on the other side of my bed. On
1:29:24
Speaker 1: the other side of my bed, I'm lucky because I
1:29:25
Speaker 1: have the big window and I get tons of natural
1:29:28
Speaker 1: light on the whole. It's a very pleasant place to be.
1:29:34
Speaker 1: In the morning, I get sunlight on my feet, and
1:29:37
Speaker 1: in the afternoon I get to watch the view lit
1:29:40
Speaker 1: by sun from behind. Today it's a really clear day,
1:29:43
Speaker 1: so the sky is blue and it's really nice and
1:29:46
Speaker 1: cool outside my kind of weather. The natural light seems
1:29:50
Speaker 1: very clean and blue. It's very nice. I think I'll
1:29:53
Speaker 1: listen to a bit of the orb. I can't believe it.
1:29:56
Speaker 1: This is really pleasant, but I suppose that's the idea.
1:30:00
Speaker 1: The doctor is going to analyze my blood tomorrow. Then
1:30:03
Speaker 1: I'll see how I'm doing. Actually, that guy next door
1:30:06
Speaker 1: does smell of those bags in the toilet. Nasty. Maybe
1:30:09
Speaker 1: I should stop taking my decongestions so I can't smell anything.
1:30:13
Speaker 1: So decongestions are. It's a kind of medicine that you
1:30:17
Speaker 1: take to clear up congestion in your nose. It clears
1:30:21
Speaker 1: the snot out of your nose. So I said, maybe
1:30:24
Speaker 1: I should stop taking them so that my nose gets
1:30:26
Speaker 1: blocked again so I can't smell anything. Actually, that guy
1:30:30
Speaker 1: next door does smell of those bags. Have just read
1:30:32
Speaker 1: that it's about seven thirty pm. Now. I'm still not
1:30:36
Speaker 1: completely sure when I'll be getting here. Sorry, I'm not
1:30:40
Speaker 1: completely sure when I'll be getting out of here. I
1:30:42
Speaker 1: expect it'll be at around I expect it will be
1:30:46
Speaker 1: around Saturday, but even then I'm not sure I'll be
1:30:49
Speaker 1: able to go back to work. Depending on my health,
1:30:52
Speaker 1: I may have to stay away from work until after
1:30:55
Speaker 1: my holiday with the family. That will mean that i'll
1:30:58
Speaker 1: miss about one month of pay. Also, the expenses from
1:31:02
Speaker 1: this time are going to cost about two hundred thousand yen.
1:31:06
Speaker 1: I'll have to pay that when I leave and then
1:31:10
Speaker 1: claim it back from the health insurance company. I'll be
1:31:14
Speaker 1: buggered for cash though, meaning I won't have any cash
1:31:18
Speaker 1: for the next two pay days. That's like two more months.
1:31:22
Speaker 1: So I basically it was going to be a very
1:31:24
Speaker 1: expensive time I wouldn't have any money, so there go
1:31:28
Speaker 1: my savings each month. I can't save anything until at
1:31:31
Speaker 1: least December. Bollocks, I'm still at about nine I'm still
1:31:36
Speaker 1: about nine hundred pounds overdrawn. That's basically in debt. Japan
1:31:41
Speaker 1: is such an expensive place. Eight forty two PM. I
1:31:45
Speaker 1: haven't written about this yet, but there's a guy who
1:31:48
Speaker 1: works in the hospital who speaks English. I was introduced
1:31:52
Speaker 1: to him when I first got here, and he has
1:31:55
Speaker 1: helped me out a few times since then. He's actually
1:31:59
Speaker 1: from Indonese, where they learn English properly in school and
1:32:03
Speaker 1: are more skillful in picking up foreign languages I expect.
1:32:07
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that's true, but they certainly think learn
1:32:10
Speaker 1: English in a different way to the Japanese and learn
1:32:13
Speaker 1: it earlier. Any Indonesians i've met spoke good English. His
1:32:17
Speaker 1: name is Chandra San, although I thought it was Sandra
1:32:22
Speaker 1: at first, so I thought his name was Sandra, which
1:32:24
Speaker 1: is a girl's name, but it turns out his name
1:32:26
Speaker 1: was Chandra Chandarrasan. Anyway, he's a nice guy, and he's
1:32:32
Speaker 1: been and has been really helpful, especially when seeing the
1:32:35
Speaker 1: doctor and when explaining my medicine to me. Although he's Indonesian,
1:32:40
Speaker 1: he seems very comfortable in Japan and also seems quite
1:32:43
Speaker 1: Japanese in character. Polite, a bit nervous or uncomfortable or awkward,
1:32:48
Speaker 1: but he's quite chatty and has a laugh. Today he
1:32:51
Speaker 1: was helping me choose food from the menu. I had
1:32:55
Speaker 1: to choose all of next week's food, although I hope
1:32:58
Speaker 1: I won't be here next week. Sandra San had to
1:33:01
Speaker 1: explain all the food and there were some really funny
1:33:05
Speaker 1: moments where he was in stitches, meaning laughing a lot,
1:33:09
Speaker 1: trying to explain all the typical Japanese foods on the menu.
1:33:13
Speaker 1: Sometimes he was laughing uncontrollably. I think the Japanese and
1:33:17
Speaker 1: their eating habits are very funny, particularly when it comes
1:33:20
Speaker 1: to eating things like Nato. Nato is a kind of
1:33:24
Speaker 1: infamous Japanese food. It's basically soybeans which are starting to
1:33:32
Speaker 1: is it ferment fermented or decomposing soybeans, and they go
1:33:36
Speaker 1: all sticky and they got this very pungent smell, and
1:33:41
Speaker 1: it's kind of like marmite in the UK. Either you
1:33:45
Speaker 1: love it or you absolutely hate it. So Nato is
1:33:47
Speaker 1: a very sort of characteristic Japanese food. I think the
1:33:54
Speaker 1: Japanese are very They're funny with their eating habits, especially
1:33:58
Speaker 1: when it comes to eating things like nata. The culture
1:34:01
Speaker 1: obviously suits Changra well, and I think he's quite tickled
1:34:05
Speaker 1: by its nuances and ins and outs. Tickled meaning sort
1:34:09
Speaker 1: of amused. That's one of the charms of Japan. Their
1:34:13
Speaker 1: whole attitude towards their culture is so charming, just the
1:34:17
Speaker 1: little details and how it's quite clear that they get
1:34:20
Speaker 1: a lot of pleasure from little customs like eating and
1:34:22
Speaker 1: preparing certain types of food. Observing and commenting on Japanese
1:34:27
Speaker 1: everyday customs is always a great source of amusement. Well,
1:34:31
Speaker 1: the guy next to me is sound asleep, like fast asleep,
1:34:35
Speaker 1: completely asleep. I think he still smells a bit, but
1:34:40
Speaker 1: I can't complain. This is a hospital, after all. He
1:34:44
Speaker 1: keeps muttering in Japanese though, and does cliched yawns with
1:34:49
Speaker 1: his mouth open, making a sound. I remember that he
1:34:54
Speaker 1: used to the guy. I just hear him going like
1:35:00
Speaker 1: a cartoon, like a cartoon sound effect of someone yawning.
1:35:05
Speaker 1: But I'd noticed that a lot of Japanese men would
1:35:08
Speaker 1: do those really really sort of like cartoon sound effects,
1:35:13
Speaker 1: stock sound effect yawning sounds like that, and also sneezes. Actually,
1:35:20
Speaker 1: Japanese guys also have mega cliched sneezes too. Achu. They
1:35:26
Speaker 1: don't hold it back either. They just let the sneeze
1:35:29
Speaker 1: take hold and do its business, and they let the
1:35:33
Speaker 1: vocal cords relax while it happens. Often I hear really
1:35:36
Speaker 1: loud and expressive sneezes acha, very funny, Like you'd hear
1:35:42
Speaker 1: that at the station in the morning, come down onto
1:35:44
Speaker 1: the station platform, and you'd often hear like businessmen just
1:35:49
Speaker 1: going hachu hacha ta. Day four, seven forty am. The
1:36:00
Speaker 1: guy in the bed next to me was really noisy
1:36:02
Speaker 1: last night. He spent a lot of time talking in
1:36:04
Speaker 1: his sleep and appeared to wake with a start a
1:36:07
Speaker 1: few times, as if you wake with a start, you
1:36:10
Speaker 1: kind of wake up like that suddenly lots and lots
1:36:15
Speaker 1: of sleep talking and him going ugh. Today, I woke
1:36:19
Speaker 1: with a kind of ulcer on my tongue. An ulcer
1:36:23
Speaker 1: is like a little painful little spot, a painful little
1:36:28
Speaker 1: spot on your tongue. I get ulcers in my mouth
1:36:32
Speaker 1: a lot, actually, and on my tongue, and I got
1:36:36
Speaker 1: them a lot during this period. After having glandular fever,
1:36:39
Speaker 1: I Remember I used to get a lot of ulcers,
1:36:42
Speaker 1: and I tend to get them when I'm very tired.
1:36:44
Speaker 1: So when I get into that kind of glandular fever feeling,
1:36:48
Speaker 1: and I still get it to this day, get like
1:36:50
Speaker 1: a migrain headache that won't go away, feel very tired,
1:36:55
Speaker 1: and then ulcers appear in my mouth. So today I
1:36:59
Speaker 1: woke with a kind of also on my tongue. Although
1:37:01
Speaker 1: it doesn't hurt too much, my left tonsil is giving
1:37:04
Speaker 1: me some grief. I mean it's painful and hurts a
1:37:07
Speaker 1: bit when I swallow so ow ah. First thing this morning,
1:37:14
Speaker 1: the nurse took a sample of my blood. They're going
1:37:17
Speaker 1: to test it, and then later I'll go to see
1:37:19
Speaker 1: the doctor with Chandrasan and she'll tell me how I'm doing.
1:37:23
Speaker 1: I have no idea what the results of the blood
1:37:25
Speaker 1: test will be, but I have a feeling that it'll be.
1:37:28
Speaker 1: It'll show I still have a high The little show
1:37:31
Speaker 1: I still have a high white blood cell count and
1:37:34
Speaker 1: that the glandular fever is still with me. Now I'm
1:37:37
Speaker 1: looking forward to breakfast and I'm a bit pissed off
1:37:39
Speaker 1: about my tonsil hurting. I'm flying through the two towers
1:37:46
Speaker 1: that book, and I'm more than halfway through already. I'm
1:37:50
Speaker 1: glad my girlfriend's mum bought The Return of the King
1:37:54
Speaker 1: for me. It's nearly two pm now I've just got
1:37:57
Speaker 1: to write some notes now so I can clear up
1:37:59
Speaker 1: what's going on. So this is I just this is
1:38:01
Speaker 1: like stuff I wrote down after having seen the doctor.
1:38:04
Speaker 1: Doc says I can leave tomorrow. So phone mister Tatihana
1:38:08
Speaker 1: at Nova to talk to him about payment. Hopefully he'll
1:38:12
Speaker 1: pay the hospital and send the relevant forms for the
1:38:15
Speaker 1: hospital to complete. Then the hospital sends a Rio Shue
1:38:19
Speaker 1: show and medical certificate to JMA, that's the insurance company,
1:38:24
Speaker 1: and they refund. Mister Tatihana, no worries. So these notes
1:38:28
Speaker 1: were all for my own benefits. So I remembered what
1:38:30
Speaker 1: was going on. So phone mister Tatihana, phone Nova, phone
1:38:35
Speaker 1: the insurance company, speak to mom and dad. Phone my
1:38:37
Speaker 1: girlfriend's mum and tell her when I'll be leaving. Apart
1:38:42
Speaker 1: from that, I'll need a Rio Shue show which is
1:38:44
Speaker 1: some sort of like document, and a medical certificate myself
1:38:50
Speaker 1: for my own reference. Questions for the doctor, What should
1:38:52
Speaker 1: I do after I leave? When can I work? Will
1:38:55
Speaker 1: I need medicine. Will I have to report back to
1:38:58
Speaker 1: the hospital at all? Can I drink alcohol or should
1:39:02
Speaker 1: I avoid it? How much rest time will I need?
1:39:05
Speaker 1: Can I take regular showers because they were telling me
1:39:07
Speaker 1: that I shouldn't take showers because my temperature was too high?
1:39:11
Speaker 1: Can I do any kind of exercise? And then when
1:39:14
Speaker 1: I get out, I need to sort out the next
1:39:16
Speaker 1: two weeks with nova bah blah blah blah bah lots
1:39:19
Speaker 1: of other things. Eight point fifty. That evening looks like
1:39:23
Speaker 1: I'll be leaving tomorrow. I've got quite a few questions
1:39:25
Speaker 1: for the doctor, and Chantrasan is going to help me.
1:39:28
Speaker 1: He's been really helpful and also really seems to have
1:39:31
Speaker 1: enjoyed helping me out. I expect translating for me and
1:39:35
Speaker 1: being a kind of counselor for me has been much
1:39:37
Speaker 1: more exciting than his usual job maintenance of things like beds, tables, etc.
1:39:42
Speaker 1: So Chandrasand was actually like a He was kind of
1:39:45
Speaker 1: like a caretaker. He would repair tables and chairs, do
1:39:51
Speaker 1: repairs on things in the hospital. He normally wasn't a translator,
1:39:57
Speaker 1: but he was the only one who spoke any English
1:39:59
Speaker 1: in the hospital. Really, some of the some of the
1:40:02
Speaker 1: high level doctors spoke some English, but none of the
1:40:05
Speaker 1: nurses really did. So Chandrasan would be asked to come
1:40:08
Speaker 1: and help me out. So normally he'd be downstairs, like
1:40:11
Speaker 1: fixing tables, and then he'd come up and have to
1:40:14
Speaker 1: talk to me. I wonder how often he gets to
1:40:18
Speaker 1: have personal contact with the patients. Anyway, Tomorrow will probably
1:40:22
Speaker 1: be quite will probably be quite busy, and I must
1:40:25
Speaker 1: make sure I have everything sorted out in my mind
1:40:27
Speaker 1: before I leave. I've got to deal with the issues
1:40:30
Speaker 1: of my condition and how much rest I need after leaving, etc.
1:40:33
Speaker 1: So I thought i'd be leaving the next day, but
1:40:36
Speaker 1: I didn't. In fact, I spent another week in the hospital,
1:40:41
Speaker 1: the payment issues and stuff. Tomorrow I'll phone nover to
1:40:44
Speaker 1: tell them when I can realistically return to work. I'd
1:40:48
Speaker 1: like to put that off until after my parents' holiday.
1:40:52
Speaker 1: I actually had a holiday booked in my schedule in October,
1:40:57
Speaker 1: but that was like a few weeks, you know, a
1:40:59
Speaker 1: few weeks away. The idea of going back to work
1:41:02
Speaker 1: and going back into that working routine and teaching those
1:41:06
Speaker 1: kids classes, the idea of it was just horrible, I
1:41:10
Speaker 1: had to have to say. So I was really hoping
1:41:14
Speaker 1: I would be able to find a way to avoid
1:41:16
Speaker 1: that and go back to work at the end of October.
1:41:22
Speaker 1: As for now, I've just got one more night in
1:41:24
Speaker 1: my bed, surrounded by my curtain. The guy next door
1:41:27
Speaker 1: continues to make his grunting, sucking, and yawning noises, as
1:41:31
Speaker 1: well as bits of sleep talking and even laughter. The
1:41:34
Speaker 1: room is quite full now, seven people, I think, and
1:41:38
Speaker 1: I'm glad to have had this spot by the window.
1:41:41
Speaker 1: I'll be saying goodbye to it all tomorrow. The nurses
1:41:44
Speaker 1: who I've managed to communicate with, and I've got to
1:41:46
Speaker 1: know their faces. The view from my window. The bloke
1:41:50
Speaker 1: opposite and his chattering, muttering conversation with his family every afternoon.
1:41:54
Speaker 1: The toilet with its sliding door and disgusting smelling bags
1:41:58
Speaker 1: of urine on one wall with their steel lids urine
1:42:02
Speaker 1: stained and corroded. The angelic choral music played throughout the
1:42:10
Speaker 1: ward before lights out at nine pm every night. The
1:42:14
Speaker 1: regular cups of Japanese tea poured from big steel teapots.
1:42:19
Speaker 1: The meals brought on trays with onigiri, fried fish, salad,
1:42:23
Speaker 1: and various Japanese oddities, all edible enough. My medicine little bottle,
1:42:29
Speaker 1: a little bottle with white liquid, and my various pills.
1:42:32
Speaker 1: Having the drip twice a day, one large bottle of
1:42:35
Speaker 1: pink liquid and one small bottle of clear antibiotics. Strangely,
1:42:40
Speaker 1: it became a bit pleasant having the liquid dripping directly
1:42:43
Speaker 1: into my body, although I couldn't feel it except for
1:42:46
Speaker 1: the taste in my mouth and the buildup of snot
1:42:49
Speaker 1: in my nose. The plastic attachment that sticks into my
1:42:53
Speaker 1: left forearm, so it was my arm actually and is
1:42:56
Speaker 1: stuck down with white bandage tape. It doesn't hurt all.
1:43:01
Speaker 1: My cool Japanese pajamas very comfortable. The other patients who
1:43:05
Speaker 1: weren't overly accommodating, but neither was I to them, But
1:43:09
Speaker 1: I expect they all had their own problems to deal with.
1:43:12
Speaker 1: Everyone minded their own business, mostly my Lord of the
1:43:15
Speaker 1: Rings trilogy, which has taken up most of my time here.
1:43:19
Speaker 1: Regular visits to the outpatients area every morning, examine examinations
1:43:24
Speaker 1: by the doctor Yamamoto or the woman with short hair
1:43:28
Speaker 1: who spoke some English. Always I'd spend five minutes at
1:43:32
Speaker 1: the nebulizer, which has tubes that go either into the
1:43:36
Speaker 1: nose or the mouth, and supply antibiotics I think as
1:43:40
Speaker 1: a kind of mist into to be inhaled. So I'd
1:43:44
Speaker 1: have to sit in front of this machine, this big machine,
1:43:48
Speaker 1: and sit down and breathe into this sort of mask,
1:43:53
Speaker 1: and apparently it would it would supply this kind of
1:43:56
Speaker 1: antibiotic mist into my system. I'm leaving tomorrow, but I
1:44:01
Speaker 1: don't think this will be over for a while. It
1:44:03
Speaker 1: takes a few weeks to get over glandular fever, so
1:44:06
Speaker 1: I expect I'll spend some time at home now getting
1:44:09
Speaker 1: bored and having to look after myself and having to
1:44:11
Speaker 1: put up with my flatmate. I had two flatmates. The
1:44:16
Speaker 1: first flatmate I had, I didn't really get on with
1:44:19
Speaker 1: him very well and found him a bit annoying. I mean,
1:44:22
Speaker 1: looking back on it now, he wasn't that bad. I've
1:44:25
Speaker 1: quite enjoyed the sanctuary of this hospital and the convenience
1:44:30
Speaker 1: having other people look after my health while I lie
1:44:33
Speaker 1: around all day reading, daydreaming and listening to music. I'll
1:44:37
Speaker 1: have to continue this spirit when I get home and
1:44:40
Speaker 1: try to take care of myself. I hope the doctor
1:44:42
Speaker 1: gives me more antibiotics and some instructions on what I
1:44:46
Speaker 1: should and shouldn't do. A lot of rest is probably
1:44:48
Speaker 1: a good idea. I expect I'll be over this eventually.
1:44:52
Speaker 1: I can still feel the glands, like a numb, stiff
1:44:55
Speaker 1: or tight feeling around my neck and head. Had that
1:44:59
Speaker 1: for weeks after towards Also, there's a bit of pain
1:45:02
Speaker 1: on my left tonsil, a kind of dry pain, just
1:45:05
Speaker 1: hanging on at the end. I've also picked up a
1:45:08
Speaker 1: couple of mouth ulcers on the roof of my mouth,
1:45:11
Speaker 1: for Heaven's sake, and on my tongue. I hope they
1:45:14
Speaker 1: don't flare up, and I hope they don't spark any
1:45:17
Speaker 1: more infection in the tonsils. Anyway, I fancy getting some
1:45:21
Speaker 1: sleep tonight, So good night. Day five. Well, I'm still here.
1:45:26
Speaker 1: I'm not leaving today, but I'm staying for a few
1:45:29
Speaker 1: more days until my condition improves. My tonsils my tonsil
1:45:33
Speaker 1: lighters has returned a bit, and he's quite painful, although
1:45:37
Speaker 1: I'm really tired. Also, I'm really tired, even though I
1:45:41
Speaker 1: spend most of my time lying down. So I'm here
1:45:44
Speaker 1: because I need rest and care. I wonder how long
1:45:47
Speaker 1: I'll stay, and I wonder how long I can stay
1:45:50
Speaker 1: before the insurance companies say they won't pay Anyway, best
1:45:54
Speaker 1: not to worry about things. Things with the insurance company
1:45:59
Speaker 1: and Nova are start are sorted out for the time being.
1:46:02
Speaker 1: And I'm a bit downhearted because my throat is painful again,
1:46:07
Speaker 1: and I have ulcers on my tongue and on the
1:46:09
Speaker 1: roof of my mouth. It's very uncomfortable. The guy opposite
1:46:12
Speaker 1: me has left. Good for him. I always thought he
1:46:15
Speaker 1: seemed pretty healthy. He's been replaced by the guy who
1:46:19
Speaker 1: was in the bed next to me. He quickly claimed
1:46:21
Speaker 1: the only other window place in the room, clever chap.
1:46:26
Speaker 1: He's still yawning loudly and muttering in his sleep. The
1:46:29
Speaker 1: room is quite full. There are seven of us now,
1:46:32
Speaker 1: so most people have their curtains drawn to protect their
1:46:35
Speaker 1: personal space. A few of them have those urine bags,
1:46:40
Speaker 1: but they're not too smelly. Must be nasty having to
1:46:42
Speaker 1: carry one of them around, though, I don't really understand
1:46:46
Speaker 1: why they did. They Maybe they had Maybe they had
1:46:53
Speaker 1: urine issues or kidney issues. I'm not sure. One guy
1:46:58
Speaker 1: seems to have lots of phlegm. That's like stuff that
1:47:01
Speaker 1: you have to stuff that makes you cough, and he
1:47:07
Speaker 1: gurgles and coughs and spits into a little bowl. Lovely
1:47:12
Speaker 1: being sarcastic. I remember he sounded like Daffy Duck. So
1:47:17
Speaker 1: he made these weird, slightly scary noises when he was coughing,
1:47:22
Speaker 1: and it made me feel like, oh my god, he
1:47:23
Speaker 1: seems so unwell. He'd make these kind of noises, so
1:47:30
Speaker 1: he'd be over there going and then spitting into this bowl.
1:47:37
Speaker 1: It was really horrible. I got a great package from
1:47:40
Speaker 1: home today with good letters, a card from James, some
1:47:43
Speaker 1: photos of home, which made me feel homesick. Information about
1:47:48
Speaker 1: glandular fever. Now I know a lot, and it seems
1:47:51
Speaker 1: to make sense. Rest is most important, and my tonsils
1:47:55
Speaker 1: are sensitive because of the virus. Newspaper cuttings, an Edge magazine,
1:48:01
Speaker 1: and a magazine about computer games. Although I've got a
1:48:04
Speaker 1: bit cut off from the world of video games, it's
1:48:07
Speaker 1: still interesting to read people's intelligent comments about it. So
1:48:10
Speaker 1: I used to be like really into video games for
1:48:13
Speaker 1: a while the end of the nineties. In the beginning
1:48:15
Speaker 1: of the noughties, I was like quite interested in the
1:48:18
Speaker 1: industry and stuff. Maybe I could have worked in the
1:48:20
Speaker 1: video games industry if I'd stayed in Liverpool after university
1:48:24
Speaker 1: and got maybe a job at Psygnosis, which was a
1:48:29
Speaker 1: video games company that was based in Liverpool, could have
1:48:32
Speaker 1: had a totally different career, but I didn't. Anyway, my
1:48:38
Speaker 1: girlfriend said she visited me today and I'll speak to
1:48:40
Speaker 1: mom and dad on the phone later. Not much more
1:48:42
Speaker 1: to tell. To tell you, Chandrasan has proved to be
1:48:46
Speaker 1: a very important person. I bought another notebook where this
1:48:50
Speaker 1: will continue. I also Thursday, I'm staying until the doctors
1:48:57
Speaker 1: think I can go for the insurance. The doctor will
1:49:01
Speaker 1: complete the doctor's note when I leave and I'll give
1:49:04
Speaker 1: it to me to facts blah blah blah blah blah.
1:49:07
Speaker 1: So then I moved on to the other notepad. What
1:49:10
Speaker 1: did I do with it? It is okay. I hope
1:49:13
Speaker 1: you're finding this interesting, Like I said, I wasn't. I'm
1:49:17
Speaker 1: not sure, but I'm just doing this anyway because because
1:49:22
Speaker 1: kind of like I felt like I wrote these diaries, right,
1:49:26
Speaker 1: and when you write a diary you just kind of think,
1:49:29
Speaker 1: what's the point? Is anyone ever going to read this?
1:49:35
Speaker 1: So I didn't want this all to be a complete
1:49:37
Speaker 1: waste of time writing all this stuff and just no
1:49:40
Speaker 1: one ever reading it. I don't know, I just feel
1:49:42
Speaker 1: like at the time I was writing it, I sort
1:49:45
Speaker 1: have hoped that someone might read it, that someone might
1:49:48
Speaker 1: find it interesting, And so that's why I'm I guess
1:49:51
Speaker 1: that's why I'm reading it out because I wanted some
1:49:54
Speaker 1: of this to be heard by someone. Otherwise, you know
1:49:58
Speaker 1: what's going to happen to these diaries when I die? Eventually,
1:50:04
Speaker 1: my wife or my kids or whoever's left are going
1:50:06
Speaker 1: to have to go through my possessions. They'll find this
1:50:09
Speaker 1: bag that I've got here in the office with all
1:50:11
Speaker 1: these diaries in it. Are they really going to read
1:50:14
Speaker 1: that stuff? What's that? I don't know? I mean, in
1:50:18
Speaker 1: any case, maybe they'll just throw those things away. They
1:50:22
Speaker 1: might not have time to read them. Maybe they'll read
1:50:25
Speaker 1: them and find them fascinating. Maybe they'll read them and
1:50:27
Speaker 1: find them shocking because they will learn things about me
1:50:30
Speaker 1: that they didn't know before, stuff that I'm not sharing
1:50:33
Speaker 1: in this episode. In any case, I felt like I
1:50:36
Speaker 1: wanted this stuff to be to be heard, So let
1:50:39
Speaker 1: me continue. There's not that much more, right, So, there's
1:50:41
Speaker 1: just really just a few more pages in this one.
1:50:44
Speaker 1: So day six, five point thirty PM, one of my
1:50:47
Speaker 1: colleagues just visited me. She gave me a really cool
1:50:50
Speaker 1: Star Wars Lego pen with interchangeable parts and a lego
1:50:55
Speaker 1: man Darth Vader with a little cape and a scarred
1:50:58
Speaker 1: face under his helmet and every thing. It's a sort
1:51:01
Speaker 1: of sort of thing. Even when I was twenty five
1:51:02
Speaker 1: years old, that's the sort of thing that appealed to me.
1:51:05
Speaker 1: My colleague Diane is being really great and trying to
1:51:08
Speaker 1: sort things out for me with Nova. She was like
1:51:10
Speaker 1: my sort of line manager senior teacher at the school
1:51:15
Speaker 1: where I worked, and she was being very helpful. Thanks
1:51:18
Speaker 1: to Diane for helping out a lot. It looks like
1:51:21
Speaker 1: foreign personnel have mucked a few things up and haven't
1:51:24
Speaker 1: told the Zushi school that I can't work over the
1:51:28
Speaker 1: next few days. It's making life difficult for the staff
1:51:31
Speaker 1: and teachers. Diane is speaking to Nova now and I reckon,
1:51:34
Speaker 1: it's going to get me some emergen. She's going to
1:51:36
Speaker 1: get me some emergency leave. So Diane was really helpful
1:51:39
Speaker 1: in helping me get some time off. Diane also brought
1:51:45
Speaker 1: me some flowers from the Japanese staff and from my
1:51:48
Speaker 1: new area manager. Very nice. It also looks like I
1:51:51
Speaker 1: won't be able to see Oasis on Sunday. I never
1:51:54
Speaker 1: ever got to see them. I've never seen Oasis live,
1:51:58
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure I ever will. Depends if they
1:52:03
Speaker 1: stay together because they've reformed recently to do a few gigs.
1:52:09
Speaker 1: If they stay together and do more shows, maybe I'll
1:52:12
Speaker 1: go and see them, But depends how much those tickets are. Anyway,
1:52:16
Speaker 1: I won't be out to the Oasis on Sunday. I
1:52:18
Speaker 1: might not even be able to be out of the
1:52:20
Speaker 1: hospital by then. Considering I know so I need so
1:52:22
Speaker 1: much rest. Also, going to the gig wouldn't be a
1:52:25
Speaker 1: good idea. I'm gutted. I was looking forward to seeing
1:52:28
Speaker 1: the Gallaghers and perhaps shouting some abuse at them or something.
1:52:34
Speaker 1: I've got to arrange with Matt how he can get
1:52:36
Speaker 1: the tickets from my apartments. I'll probably have to speak
1:52:39
Speaker 1: to my flatmate and arrange for them to meet on
1:52:41
Speaker 1: Sunday at the apartment. I hope he's there. If not,
1:52:44
Speaker 1: Matt will have to come and visit me here to
1:52:46
Speaker 1: get the key. This is before the days when all
1:52:51
Speaker 1: the tickets were online you could just share them so easily.
1:52:54
Speaker 1: There's a guy in the room now. He arrived yesterday
1:52:56
Speaker 1: or a couple of days ago. He must have some
1:52:58
Speaker 1: throat problem because he can keeps coughing up phlegm and
1:53:01
Speaker 1: spitting it into a plastic bag or a bowl or something.
1:53:04
Speaker 1: All the curtains are drawn around. His bed is grim
1:53:07
Speaker 1: because of the noise. It sounds like an angry, sick
1:53:10
Speaker 1: daffy duck and is really nasty. Poor bloke. Sometimes it
1:53:16
Speaker 1: sounds like he's puking and clearing his throat. It's a
1:53:20
Speaker 1: bit nasty, but it's not as bad for me to
1:53:22
Speaker 1: hear as it is for him to suffer. I've nearly
1:53:25
Speaker 1: finished The Return of the King. The whole Lord of
1:53:28
Speaker 1: the Rings story is an absolute work of genius, amazing storytelling,
1:53:31
Speaker 1: and at times really beautiful. The nurse opposite seems to
1:53:35
Speaker 1: be draining a guy's urine bag into a bucket. The
1:53:39
Speaker 1: throat guy is calling for attention or something. It's all
1:53:42
Speaker 1: comfortable here except for other people's suffering. A few more
1:53:46
Speaker 1: days of rest here and I should go home. I
1:53:49
Speaker 1: won't be able to rest as well there, but I
1:53:51
Speaker 1: feel like I'm not quite as sick as the other
1:53:53
Speaker 1: guys around me. Still, rest is most important for me now,
1:53:56
Speaker 1: and this is the best place for that. Tonsils and
1:53:59
Speaker 1: ulcers are still give giving me jip, meaning giving me pain,
1:54:02
Speaker 1: giving me trouble and I'm tired. The doctor says I
1:54:06
Speaker 1: should just sleep. I'll lie back and listen to the
1:54:08
Speaker 1: orb and vibe out and maybe drift off into a
1:54:11
Speaker 1: sleep or something. Day eight. I woke up yesterday with
1:54:14
Speaker 1: a red rash all over my face and neck. That
1:54:18
Speaker 1: means red spots all over my whole body in fact,
1:54:22
Speaker 1: so I woke up on day eight suddenly big red
1:54:25
Speaker 1: rash all over me. Today it's much worse. My face
1:54:28
Speaker 1: is all red and blotchy, and there are tons of
1:54:31
Speaker 1: red spots all over my neck, body, arms, hands, etc.
1:54:35
Speaker 1: It's a side effect from the antibiotics, but it looks
1:54:38
Speaker 1: really ugly and it's quite hot and itchy. So it
1:54:41
Speaker 1: turns out that I'm allergic to penicillin, which is a
1:54:46
Speaker 1: problem when they were pumping bags of it into me
1:54:50
Speaker 1: every day. It's making me feel a bit depressed, mainly
1:54:55
Speaker 1: because I just look so bad. Still, it could be worse.
1:54:58
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling all that batter. My tonsils have cleared
1:55:01
Speaker 1: up a bit since a few days ago, and my
1:55:04
Speaker 1: alsers have calmed down. The rash is a bit itchy, though,
1:55:08
Speaker 1: I'm a bit paranoid about people visiting me now. I
1:55:11
Speaker 1: feel okay about it, but I wonder how other people
1:55:13
Speaker 1: would react. I don't know what my girlfriend would think.
1:55:17
Speaker 1: I suppose it would be interesting to see her reaction.
1:55:20
Speaker 1: I've got a feeling it would be surprise and amazement
1:55:22
Speaker 1: rather than sympathy. But I don't know. I think she
1:55:26
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to react to me sometimes because she
1:55:28
Speaker 1: doesn't know how I'll react or how I'll feel. I
1:55:32
Speaker 1: think she doesn't say things that are on her mind
1:55:34
Speaker 1: because she thinks it'll piss me off. She doesn't realize that.
1:55:37
Speaker 1: I like it when people speak their minds and ask
1:55:40
Speaker 1: me personal questions. Anyway, I want to see her, so
1:55:43
Speaker 1: I hope she visits me today. It looks like I'll
1:55:46
Speaker 1: be here for another four or more days now that
1:55:49
Speaker 1: this rash has appeared. They're taking another blood test tomorrow.
1:55:54
Speaker 1: Then I'm seeing the dermatologist on Wednesday. Today is Sunday.
1:55:57
Speaker 1: I remember seeing that dermatologist, someone who specializes in skin conditions,
1:56:03
Speaker 1: and he had like he must have when he was younger.
1:56:07
Speaker 1: He must have had like a really bad skin disease
1:56:09
Speaker 1: because his skin was all red with like holes in it.
1:56:14
Speaker 1: He had like really like a really terrible like his skin.
1:56:19
Speaker 1: It was all scarred on his face. That was interesting
1:56:23
Speaker 1: meeting him, thinking, wow, this guy's got This guy must
1:56:27
Speaker 1: have survived some horrible skin condition and that maybe this
1:56:30
Speaker 1: is why he became a dermatologist himself. He was really
1:56:34
Speaker 1: nice guy. I remember that. I don't I don't mind
1:56:37
Speaker 1: staying in the hospital, but I'm starting to get really
1:56:40
Speaker 1: bored now. I'm running out of music and I've finished
1:56:43
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. I might have to get someone
1:56:45
Speaker 1: to run an errand to my apartment and pick up
1:56:48
Speaker 1: some more music, some underpants, and another book for me.
1:56:52
Speaker 1: I'll be seeing the doctor in a while, might be
1:56:54
Speaker 1: a bit embarrassing, and Chandrasan isn't here today, so I'll
1:56:59
Speaker 1: have to struggle with out him. The doctor is really cool, actually,
1:57:02
Speaker 1: he's quite young and friendly and has a sense of humor.
1:57:05
Speaker 1: The nurses in this surgery really annoy me, though. They
1:57:09
Speaker 1: stand around while the doctor is talking to me and
1:57:11
Speaker 1: stare at me with the most amazing, self important and
1:57:15
Speaker 1: knowing expressions on their faces, which I'm sure are not right.
1:57:19
Speaker 1: They just like to look like they're really important, and
1:57:22
Speaker 1: they really understand and agree with what the doctor says
1:57:25
Speaker 1: and does. Also, they nod knowingly when I'm explaining something
1:57:29
Speaker 1: to Chandra in English when I know for sure that
1:57:32
Speaker 1: they can't understand what I'm saying. It just proves that
1:57:35
Speaker 1: their whole demeanor is just for show and isn't backed
1:57:39
Speaker 1: up by any real understanding. There's a bit harsh off me.
1:57:42
Speaker 1: Wasn't it to write that the nurses were all so helpful?
1:57:46
Speaker 1: But I was getting irritated at this point, and for
1:57:50
Speaker 1: some reason, the nurse's behavior was starting to annoy me.
1:57:53
Speaker 1: Day nine, the guy opposite has a visitor, and I've
1:57:58
Speaker 1: seen him before. He wears track suit trousers and football
1:58:01
Speaker 1: boots with molded studs. So the guy pos it would
1:58:07
Speaker 1: have these visitors and one guy would come and he'd
1:58:10
Speaker 1: be wearing football boots. Right now, they weren't football boots
1:58:17
Speaker 1: with studs, you know, the studs on the bottom of
1:58:19
Speaker 1: football boots. He would walk into the hospital ward into
1:58:23
Speaker 1: the hospital room with these football boots on. He walks
1:58:28
Speaker 1: into the room and makes the noise with his studs
1:58:30
Speaker 1: on the ground. Why the hell is he wearing football boots.
1:58:34
Speaker 1: They're not muddy or anything either, So I just this
1:58:39
Speaker 1: really bothered me. I just couldn't understand why this guy
1:58:42
Speaker 1: was wearing football boots. I mean fair enough. Maybe he'd
1:58:46
Speaker 1: been playing football and then went to visit his uncle
1:58:49
Speaker 1: or something in the hospital. But you'd imagine that he
1:58:53
Speaker 1: would take the football boots off, right, especially when walking
1:58:57
Speaker 1: with studs. You know, the sound of studs walking on
1:59:02
Speaker 1: a flat, hard floor. You just think, it's not the
1:59:06
Speaker 1: sound that would bother me. It's just the fact that
1:59:09
Speaker 1: why why did he keep the football boots on? I
1:59:12
Speaker 1: just could never understand that, And I wrote here, it's
1:59:14
Speaker 1: a typical Japanese misunderstanding. Maybe he thinks they're just trainers. Unlikely.
1:59:21
Speaker 1: Why would I assume that he didn't understand? But I didn't.
1:59:24
Speaker 1: I just couldn't get my head around why this guy
1:59:27
Speaker 1: walked in with his football boots on. But there would
1:59:30
Speaker 1: often be those sort of moments in Japan, like things
1:59:32
Speaker 1: that I would I'd just see things and I'd just
1:59:34
Speaker 1: be thinking, what is going on? I just can't understand
1:59:37
Speaker 1: that at all? And then I wrote, maybe he's just
1:59:41
Speaker 1: come from a football game, but you'd expect him to
1:59:44
Speaker 1: take off his boots before visiting his friend or dad
1:59:47
Speaker 1: or uncle in hospital. Very strange. My rash is worse
1:59:53
Speaker 1: and is now all over my body, my face, looks
1:59:56
Speaker 1: ugly and blotchy, and I've got spots all over my
1:59:59
Speaker 1: hands and arms, legs and chest and back everywhere. It's
2:00:03
Speaker 1: pretty fucked up, and it just seems to be one
2:00:06
Speaker 1: thing after another. So after going through all the rest
2:00:11
Speaker 1: of it, you know, then I've got this rash. And
2:00:13
Speaker 1: the rash got pretty bad in some areas, and I've
2:00:16
Speaker 1: still got some little scars. Actually on some parts of
2:00:20
Speaker 1: my elbows, there's still scars, whereas the rash got quite bad.
2:00:27
Speaker 1: I didn't take my painkiller after lunch because I thought
2:00:29
Speaker 1: I didn't need it, but now my tonsils are hurting
2:00:31
Speaker 1: a lot. Clearly I need the painkiller. The doctor and
2:00:35
Speaker 1: nurses have stopped giving me antibiotics now, so the rash
2:00:38
Speaker 1: should go away in a few days. I'm getting so
2:00:41
Speaker 1: bored now. I've listened to most of my mini discs
2:00:44
Speaker 1: and have finished Lord of the Rings. I've got some
2:00:46
Speaker 1: other books and magazines, so I'll just get into them
2:00:49
Speaker 1: and write a couple of letters. Can't do much now
2:00:52
Speaker 1: when I've got my drip on. Though my girlfriend might
2:00:55
Speaker 1: visit tonight. I hope she doesn't mind this rash. I've
2:00:59
Speaker 1: just realized that I've lost track of all the days
2:01:01
Speaker 1: in this diary, I'll have to write the dates each time.
2:01:05
Speaker 1: Now it's nearly ten pm and the guy opposite is
2:01:08
Speaker 1: making all kinds of over the top snoring noises, so
2:01:15
Speaker 1: like that, sucking and snorting, etc. He also moans and
2:01:19
Speaker 1: laughs and stuff in his sleep. Monday, the thirtieth of September.
2:01:23
Speaker 1: This is frustrating. It's about ten point fifteen pm, by
2:01:28
Speaker 1: which time I'm usually asleep here, but instead I'm twisting
2:01:32
Speaker 1: and turning in my bed and going over all my
2:01:35
Speaker 1: failed opportunities with women in the past, and getting more
2:01:39
Speaker 1: and more frustrated as I go along. I can't believe it.
2:01:43
Speaker 1: I'm in a hospital in Japan with glandular fever and
2:01:46
Speaker 1: covered in a red rash, and all I can think
2:01:49
Speaker 1: about are all the embarrassing moments and failed opportunities I've
2:01:53
Speaker 1: had with women in my life. This is just ridiculous
2:01:57
Speaker 1: and I can't believe it. Adding to the stupidity is
2:02:00
Speaker 1: the pen I'm using. One of the students gave it
2:02:03
Speaker 1: to me via Jody, one of my colleagues who visited
2:02:06
Speaker 1: me today. It's pink with a plastic mer lion on
2:02:10
Speaker 1: the top from Singapore. When you press down on the
2:02:14
Speaker 1: nib of the pen. The mer lion lights up with
2:02:17
Speaker 1: a pink light. It's crazy. So I was just writing
2:02:21
Speaker 1: with this kind of silly pen and writing this quite
2:02:25
Speaker 1: serious feeling stuff. I'm just missing my girlfriend. Blah blah
2:02:30
Speaker 1: blah blah blah da da. I'm going to skip past
2:02:34
Speaker 1: some of that stuff. I'm just frustrated, stuck in this
2:02:41
Speaker 1: hospital bed with a painful throat and itchy skin. Tuesday,
2:02:45
Speaker 1: the first of October. It's about seven point thirty pm.
2:02:49
Speaker 1: There's a massive typhoon right overhead now, like a big storm,
2:02:54
Speaker 1: big weather system, strong wind, lots of rain, very strong wind.
2:03:01
Speaker 1: There's a massive typhoon right overhead now. It came in
2:03:04
Speaker 1: off the Pacific Ocean today and its path is directly
2:03:08
Speaker 1: over this area. It's blasting the windows, making them shake
2:03:13
Speaker 1: and whistle and threaten to break. The whole hospital is
2:03:17
Speaker 1: shaking because of the wind. It's quite mad. Really. The
2:03:20
Speaker 1: doctor told me again that I can probably go home today.
2:03:24
Speaker 1: She and there are two doctors who I see, one
2:03:26
Speaker 1: man and one woman. Has to consult the dermatologist who's
2:03:30
Speaker 1: going to have another look at me tomorrow, as long
2:03:32
Speaker 1: as this rash isn't too serious. It seems to have
2:03:35
Speaker 1: calmed down today. I should be allowed to go about
2:03:38
Speaker 1: the rash and the nurses. I remember that that after
2:03:45
Speaker 1: I've been in the hospital for a while and I
2:03:46
Speaker 1: was the only let's say Westerner in the hospital, it
2:03:51
Speaker 1: seemed that words traveled around the hospital and some of
2:03:54
Speaker 1: the nurses decided that they wanted to come and see me,
2:03:58
Speaker 1: because I don't know what it's like these days in Japan,
2:04:01
Speaker 1: but at that time, it was still a little bit
2:04:04
Speaker 1: rare for Japanese people to have much contact with let's say,
2:04:09
Speaker 1: non Japanese people, or at least people from Europe or
2:04:12
Speaker 1: from Britain or something. Westerners. It was still a little
2:04:16
Speaker 1: bit rare, and there's still a little bit of a
2:04:20
Speaker 1: of a novelty for them. So I actually used to
2:04:22
Speaker 1: get visits from nurses that I think weren't even working
2:04:26
Speaker 1: in my ward, and they would come just to kind
2:04:29
Speaker 1: of like have a look at me, you know. Sometimes
2:04:33
Speaker 1: they'd be like two or three of them would come
2:04:35
Speaker 1: at a time, and they'd come and sort of talk
2:04:38
Speaker 1: to me in Japanese. I couldn't really answer, and they'd
2:04:42
Speaker 1: just come and stand there or maybe have a look
2:04:44
Speaker 1: at me, maybe sort of take my temperature or something,
2:04:46
Speaker 1: and I got the distinct feeling they were there just
2:04:48
Speaker 1: because they wanted to see the come and see the
2:04:51
Speaker 1: English guy in the hospital. And I remember once this
2:04:55
Speaker 1: nurse I'd never met before came and told me she
2:04:58
Speaker 1: was going to rub cream into my body, and she
2:05:02
Speaker 1: took my T shirt off, sorry my T shirt my
2:05:06
Speaker 1: pajama top. She took my pajama top off and spent
2:05:09
Speaker 1: quite a long time massaging my back and rubbing this
2:05:13
Speaker 1: cream into me. That was interesting. So so I was
2:05:22
Speaker 1: saying I should be allowed to go home tomorrow. I
2:05:24
Speaker 1: was really depressed and frustrated. Today I'm not even looking
2:05:28
Speaker 1: forward to going home that much, probably because I'm depressed,
2:05:31
Speaker 1: but it feels like I don't like it when my
2:05:33
Speaker 1: flatmate is around, and I just ignore the fact that
2:05:37
Speaker 1: a lot of what he does really annoys me. It
2:05:40
Speaker 1: just seems to be little petty things that he doesn't
2:05:43
Speaker 1: realize he's doing, and he'd probably think I was being
2:05:47
Speaker 1: a wanker for bringing them up, Like if I complain
2:05:50
Speaker 1: to him about them, he'd probably hate me for it. Still,
2:05:53
Speaker 1: I reckon I'm right to get pissed off. Examples he
2:05:57
Speaker 1: doesn't clean or rinse the sink after a shade, and
2:06:01
Speaker 1: leave stubble and shaving foam all over the sink. So
2:06:04
Speaker 1: he'd shave and wash it's fill the sink with water,
2:06:10
Speaker 1: shave right, and then wash his razor in the water,
2:06:15
Speaker 1: and then just pull the plug out and all the
2:06:18
Speaker 1: water would go down into the plug. But then all
2:06:21
Speaker 1: of the bits of stubble, bits of hair that he'd
2:06:24
Speaker 1: shaved off his face and shaving foam would be stuck
2:06:28
Speaker 1: to the side of the sink. He wouldn't clean up
2:06:30
Speaker 1: the sink afterwards, he'd just leave it. So I'd go
2:06:33
Speaker 1: in there to wash my hands, brush my teeth and
2:06:35
Speaker 1: stuff to go to bed, and then I'd have to
2:06:37
Speaker 1: clean up his dirty sort of sink and other things
2:06:42
Speaker 1: he would other petty little stuff. I said, it's not
2:06:47
Speaker 1: too bad. I suppose. Actually, I'm probably being too sensitive
2:06:51
Speaker 1: and I should just chill out anyway. I'm really ready
2:06:54
Speaker 1: to get out of here. The boredom is getting me down,
2:06:57
Speaker 1: and I feel like it's making me tired and sick.
2:07:00
Speaker 1: This typhoon is making everything uncomfortable, along with my itchy rash.
2:07:05
Speaker 1: I just want to be whisked away. I'll try to
2:07:08
Speaker 1: go to sleep strange. I finished Lord of the Rings
2:07:11
Speaker 1: and I was so engrossed. Now it feels like there's
2:07:13
Speaker 1: an empty space in my life. Odd second of October
2:07:17
Speaker 1: six forty am. The typhoon has gone and outside it's
2:07:20
Speaker 1: sunny with a perfectly blue sky, and all is calm.
2:07:24
Speaker 1: Five pm. The doctor told me I can leave tomorrow.
2:07:27
Speaker 1: I kept constantly being told I could leave, but then
2:07:30
Speaker 1: told that I couldn't. The doctor told me I can
2:07:34
Speaker 1: leave tomorrow. Good. I've been getting super bored over the
2:07:36
Speaker 1: last couple of days and feeling pissed off. Now I've
2:07:38
Speaker 1: got to deal with NOVA and apply for medical leave.
2:07:41
Speaker 1: I'm trying to decide how much leave I should apply for.
2:07:45
Speaker 1: The most healthy option would be all the way up
2:07:47
Speaker 1: to my holiday, which is about two weeks. That way
2:07:49
Speaker 1: my body would completely recover, my liver would repair itself
2:07:52
Speaker 1: fully et ce. Or I could apply for about one
2:07:55
Speaker 1: week and work for a few days before the holiday.
2:07:58
Speaker 1: One problem is that my holiday begins on the eighteenth,
2:08:00
Speaker 1: but my family arrive on the fifteenth. It would be
2:08:03
Speaker 1: easier if I could leave right If I could get leave,
2:08:06
Speaker 1: that means time off right up to my holiday, so
2:08:09
Speaker 1: I could meet my family when they first get here,
2:08:12
Speaker 1: I'll go for that. I reckon it will also give
2:08:14
Speaker 1: me a chance to get properly well. I'm screwed for
2:08:17
Speaker 1: money anyway. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do.
2:08:20
Speaker 1: The next two weeks are going to be very quiet,
2:08:22
Speaker 1: and I'll have to try and save as much of
2:08:24
Speaker 1: the cash I have now as possible to last me
2:08:26
Speaker 1: for next month and for as long as possible. I
2:08:29
Speaker 1: remember that two week period. I spent a lot of
2:08:31
Speaker 1: time just really slowing myself down, just trying to live
2:08:40
Speaker 1: without any stress at all, and it was a very
2:08:43
Speaker 1: sort of serene and very peaceful period. Actually, the weather
2:08:48
Speaker 1: had got better, it wasn't boiling hot and humid anymore.
2:08:51
Speaker 1: And it was a really important learning experience for me,
2:08:55
Speaker 1: learning how to de stress and how to live slowly
2:08:59
Speaker 1: and how to live moment by moment in a day,
2:09:04
Speaker 1: and how to start cooking proper food for myself, and
2:09:07
Speaker 1: just how to slow down and live in a more
2:09:11
Speaker 1: mentally healthy kind of way. I just look back on
2:09:14
Speaker 1: that time with it in a really really nice way,
2:09:18
Speaker 1: even though at the time it was like not great,
2:09:22
Speaker 1: but I kind of learned how to relax. I've still
2:09:25
Speaker 1: got this rash although it's not as bad it itches though,
2:09:28
Speaker 1: and really the worst most itchy part, well, I can't
2:09:31
Speaker 1: tell you what that was, but it was extremely inconvenient
2:09:34
Speaker 1: and annoying. At eight o'clock, more visitors, Matt and Moto
2:09:39
Speaker 1: visited me. That was cool. They brought me some food
2:09:42
Speaker 1: and magazines and stuff. Matt traveled a long way to
2:09:45
Speaker 1: see me. Da Da Da Dad. Now I'm alone again.
2:09:53
Speaker 1: This is probably my last night here. What a strange experience.
2:09:57
Speaker 1: I was just thinking, this hospital feels like a little box,
2:10:01
Speaker 1: and I'm living inside, but outside there are just many
2:10:03
Speaker 1: more boxes, all connected. I suddenly felt very claustrophobic in
2:10:08
Speaker 1: this country, like there's no space or free air or
2:10:12
Speaker 1: room to breathe. Japan is great, but I think it's
2:10:16
Speaker 1: just too closed in for me. I feel claustrophobic here.
2:10:19
Speaker 1: I need more space. I did used to get the
2:10:22
Speaker 1: feeling that I was always knocking my head on things,
2:10:26
Speaker 1: or that rooms were always slightly too small for me,
2:10:30
Speaker 1: but also got the feeling that so in the little room,
2:10:34
Speaker 1: outside of that room was just everywhere where I lived,
2:10:40
Speaker 1: I felt like was very very urban, like a very
2:10:44
Speaker 1: built up area, very compressed with so many people all
2:10:48
Speaker 1: living in a small space and so much so many
2:10:53
Speaker 1: buildings on top of each other, and then like high
2:10:59
Speaker 1: rise building with many flaws, and then under those buildings
2:11:02
Speaker 1: as well, whole underground systems with train lines and underground
2:11:09
Speaker 1: car parks and basements, and I just felt like I
2:11:13
Speaker 1: was in the middle of this incredibly compressed and crowded place.
2:11:20
Speaker 1: I feel like I need more silence and more personal space.
2:11:23
Speaker 1: At school, it's kind of a constant probing of my
2:11:26
Speaker 1: personal life, which I don't mind. This would be like
2:11:30
Speaker 1: the way the students would often be very curious about me,
2:11:33
Speaker 1: which I understand because, like I said before, they didn't
2:11:36
Speaker 1: meet many non Japanese people that much, or at least
2:11:39
Speaker 1: people from the UK, and so in lessons a lot
2:11:43
Speaker 1: of the time people were very curious about me and
2:11:46
Speaker 1: would often probe my personal life. Clearly, since then, I've
2:11:49
Speaker 1: got used to that, and in fact, that's kind of
2:11:53
Speaker 1: a lot of what I do on my podcast to
2:11:54
Speaker 1: an extent, like this reading this diary out. But at
2:11:58
Speaker 1: the time I remember it well a bit invasive sometimes
2:12:01
Speaker 1: that students would often be very sort of curious about
2:12:06
Speaker 1: me all the time, which I didn't mind that much,
2:12:10
Speaker 1: although I think being a NOVA teacher really feeds people's
2:12:13
Speaker 1: fevered egos. This is also another feeling. I would get
2:12:17
Speaker 1: that some of the teachers at the school would let
2:12:21
Speaker 1: this curiosity from the Japanese and this sort of sense
2:12:25
Speaker 1: of interest that the Japanese had in us, that they
2:12:29
Speaker 1: would let that go to their head and it would
2:12:30
Speaker 1: make them arrogant. I said, it's a big ego thing
2:12:34
Speaker 1: because you feel like an important and special person, but
2:12:37
Speaker 1: it's also quite pathetic because it's just not real or something,
2:12:42
Speaker 1: or at least Japanese people act really impressed with you
2:12:45
Speaker 1: because they're being polite. Right, So maybe Japanese people are
2:12:51
Speaker 1: being polite when they seem so impressed and interested in
2:12:55
Speaker 1: you and everything you say is like, oh ah, that's fascinating.
2:13:01
Speaker 1: Maybe that's just politeness. But for some people they would
2:13:05
Speaker 1: just go to their heads and make them big headed
2:13:07
Speaker 1: and arrogant. I feel like there are a lot of
2:13:10
Speaker 1: people here that love NOVA and get a lot out
2:13:12
Speaker 1: of it and it feeds their egos, but at home
2:13:14
Speaker 1: they're just very ordinary and unspecial. That's the charisma man phenomenon,
2:13:21
Speaker 1: ego workout or something. I want wide open spaces and
2:13:25
Speaker 1: no people from miles around. Thursday the third of October.
2:13:29
Speaker 1: I was discharged today, meaning allowed to leave the hospital. Finally,
2:13:34
Speaker 1: I just wrote a big final hospital diary entry, but
2:13:38
Speaker 1: in the wrong diary. Now I can't find the other
2:13:42
Speaker 1: diary where that was written. It wasn't in the first one.
2:13:46
Speaker 1: I was reading from some other diary. I wrote this
2:13:48
Speaker 1: long entry, but I can't find it anyway, typical, typical.
2:13:54
Speaker 1: I wanted the whole hospital escapade to be captured in
2:13:57
Speaker 1: this diary, but you'll just have to check the other
2:13:59
Speaker 1: one again. Can't find it. Not that it really matters.
2:14:02
Speaker 1: I wonder what will happen to all these diaries. I
2:14:05
Speaker 1: suppose they just form a general collection of thoughts and comments.
2:14:09
Speaker 1: A lot of it probably sounds the same. But as
2:14:11
Speaker 1: I said in the other diary, I hope someone reads this,
2:14:14
Speaker 1: and not just nosy flatmates sneaking into my bedroom, but
2:14:18
Speaker 1: real people that I love, maybe people I haven't met yet,
2:14:22
Speaker 1: maybe people I have loved for a long time. So
2:14:24
Speaker 1: I was imagining the future when maybe someone would discover
2:14:27
Speaker 1: these diaries and it could be like, now I'm married.
2:14:31
Speaker 1: You know, I'm married, and I've got two kids. Maybe
2:14:34
Speaker 1: those would be the people who would read this one day.
2:14:37
Speaker 1: But At the time I wrote this, I didn't have
2:14:39
Speaker 1: any significant others in my life, you know, other than
2:14:42
Speaker 1: my parents and my brother, you know. So I was
2:14:45
Speaker 1: imagining that maybe the people one day who read this
2:14:48
Speaker 1: will be people I love, or people I've loved for
2:14:50
Speaker 1: a long time, or maybe people I know and I'm
2:14:54
Speaker 1: yet to love. Whoever you are, I hope you have
2:14:56
Speaker 1: shared something with me after reading this, and I hope
2:14:58
Speaker 1: it wasn't just funny and embarrassing, but has at least
2:15:02
Speaker 1: shown you something about me, or the world, or maybe
2:15:05
Speaker 1: even yourself. I think I was being a little bit
2:15:08
Speaker 1: over ambitious with that one. I don't think it was
2:15:10
Speaker 1: quite as profound as I had thought. But what if
2:15:14
Speaker 1: the experience I had I felt was a very profound
2:15:17
Speaker 1: and weird, different experience. Always very difficult to get those
2:15:23
Speaker 1: experiences and feelings down on paper. Sometimes I write here
2:15:28
Speaker 1: just to please myself, and sometimes I write with a
2:15:30
Speaker 1: reader in mind, so I can actually reach someone through this.
2:15:34
Speaker 1: It's very difficult to make emotional connections with people on
2:15:37
Speaker 1: an everyday basis. Imagine this as a kind of message
2:15:41
Speaker 1: in a bottle or a time capsule, or maybe a
2:15:44
Speaker 1: fishing line whatever, however, or whoever. I don't think there
2:15:49
Speaker 1: is anything really special or very informative in my diaries.
2:15:53
Speaker 1: But it's a part of me, not a whole representation,
2:15:57
Speaker 1: but an element of myself, the part that writes in diary.
2:16:00
Speaker 1: So I hope you have felt something from reading this,
2:16:04
Speaker 1: and maybe you've learned something too. That it's no good
2:16:07
Speaker 1: just saying the same old things to yourself and worrying
2:16:09
Speaker 1: about the same things. If you always worry about the
2:16:12
Speaker 1: same things and that never seems to change, why not
2:16:16
Speaker 1: choose to not worry about them? What difference would it
2:16:19
Speaker 1: make to your life? How about making a decision to
2:16:21
Speaker 1: try to make the most of your life. Think positive,
2:16:25
Speaker 1: worry less, but be mindful and considerate of your actions.
2:16:28
Speaker 1: Enjoy yourself, enrich your life. Take risks but be prepared
2:16:32
Speaker 1: to face the consequences. Or don't take risks, but don't
2:16:36
Speaker 1: regret those decisions. Communicate with your loved ones and stick
2:16:40
Speaker 1: by your family. If you have something good to say,
2:16:43
Speaker 1: say it, even if it's just written in a diary.
2:16:46
Speaker 1: It's there somewhere in the world representing you and your
2:16:49
Speaker 1: positive feeling. Don't be too quick to deal out judgment.
2:16:53
Speaker 1: We can't see all the angles in every situation, and
2:16:56
Speaker 1: there's usually some reason for something. Everyone has a place
2:17:01
Speaker 1: in the world, and we all affect each other somehow,
2:17:03
Speaker 1: so try to trust the world around you. This is
2:17:06
Speaker 1: beginning to sound like I'm preaching. I hope you enjoyed
2:17:09
Speaker 1: my hospital diary. I hope I captured the experience for you, Luke.
2:17:15
Speaker 1: So that's it, for what it's worth. Those were my
2:17:19
Speaker 1: Japanese hospital diaries, and I felt compelled to read them
2:17:22
Speaker 1: out to you. I hope that you've enjoyed listening to them, and,
2:17:26
Speaker 1: as I said there, that you learned something from the experience.
2:17:32
Speaker 1: Leave your comments in the comment section, listeners, if you
2:17:34
Speaker 1: have any. I don't know what do you make of
2:17:38
Speaker 1: that whole experience that I had. I mean again, I
2:17:44
Speaker 1: don't think I really managed to kind of get through
2:17:46
Speaker 1: to the real sort of profound stuff, but it felt
2:17:50
Speaker 1: like a fairly profound experience for me. I guess I
2:17:52
Speaker 1: learned to perhaps look after myself. I grew up a
2:17:56
Speaker 1: little bit, learn perhaps how to control my mind a
2:18:02
Speaker 1: little bit more, you know, how to I learned a
2:18:08
Speaker 1: certain amount of I've got a bit of. I learned
2:18:13
Speaker 1: how to find a bit more peacefulness in your mind.
2:18:18
Speaker 1: Or something. Okay, this has got to be the last
2:18:24
Speaker 1: time I cover this story on this podcast. I think
2:18:27
Speaker 1: I've probably got it out of my system now. But
2:18:30
Speaker 1: let me know how that was for you? Was that interesting?
2:18:33
Speaker 1: I mean, what did you get from that? Have you
2:18:37
Speaker 1: ever had a similar experience? Did you ever have have
2:18:40
Speaker 1: you ever had clangular fever? How was it for you?
2:18:44
Speaker 1: And just which things that came up in this episode
2:18:49
Speaker 1: stay in your mind. Which things struck a chord with you.
2:18:52
Speaker 1: Let me know in the comments section. Okay, and I'll
2:18:55
Speaker 1: speak to you again in the next episode. Actually, hold
2:18:58
Speaker 1: on a second. That's not the end, because after finishing
2:19:02
Speaker 1: this episode, I went and had lunch and I just
2:19:05
Speaker 1: thought to myself about a couple of other things I
2:19:08
Speaker 1: wanted to add at the end of this episode just
2:19:11
Speaker 1: to kind of wrap this up. One of those things
2:19:13
Speaker 1: was it's a pity that I couldn't find that I
2:19:15
Speaker 1: can't find that other diary, because I wrote one final
2:19:20
Speaker 1: diary entry which I think summarized the whole experience quite
2:19:25
Speaker 1: well and explained and told the story about what happened
2:19:30
Speaker 1: when I left the hospital and stuff like that. So
2:19:32
Speaker 1: it's a real pity I can't find that. And so
2:19:36
Speaker 1: that that's one thing. Another thing is that I wanted
2:19:40
Speaker 1: to say something about writing a diary. Let's say, let's
2:19:44
Speaker 1: see two things. First thing is that for me personally,
2:19:48
Speaker 1: looking back at some of my old diaries again, I
2:19:52
Speaker 1: feel like I wish I had written more about the
2:19:56
Speaker 1: actual things that happened to me, people I met, places
2:20:02
Speaker 1: I went to, and the stuff that happened. So I
2:20:05
Speaker 1: wish I had given more of an account of things
2:20:09
Speaker 1: that went on. Now, this Japanese holiday diary kind of
2:20:14
Speaker 1: a holiday, This Japanese hospital diary was a bit different
2:20:18
Speaker 1: because I was actually a lot of the time talking
2:20:20
Speaker 1: about things that were happening to me. But my other diaries,
2:20:24
Speaker 1: a lot of those ones are just filled with just
2:20:29
Speaker 1: very introspective stuff, me trying to express my innermost feelings,
2:20:35
Speaker 1: expressing just moments when I would feel frustrated or whatever.
2:20:40
Speaker 1: That's when I would write in my diary. And so
2:20:43
Speaker 1: it's kind of very internal, introspective stuff. And now several
2:20:49
Speaker 1: decades or more after that, I look back at those
2:20:54
Speaker 1: diaries and think to myself, what would have been much
2:20:56
Speaker 1: better would be if I had actually written about the
2:21:01
Speaker 1: things that had happened, places I've been to, people i'd
2:21:04
Speaker 1: seen and written more of an account of each day
2:21:07
Speaker 1: or account of moments in my life with my thoughts
2:21:10
Speaker 1: and feelings attached to it, because I think that would
2:21:12
Speaker 1: be much more interesting to read and also much more
2:21:18
Speaker 1: evocative as well. When you when you read those things again,
2:21:23
Speaker 1: it really brings you back to the feelings, emotions, and
2:21:27
Speaker 1: also it allows you to kind of see what happened,
2:21:29
Speaker 1: how did I react to things. I think that's much
2:21:32
Speaker 1: more interesting. So if you are writing a diary, I
2:21:35
Speaker 1: would recommend that you do write about the things that
2:21:38
Speaker 1: have happened to you. Don't just write about your thoughts
2:21:40
Speaker 1: and feelings without without the events and moments that are
2:21:45
Speaker 1: attached to them as well. Another thing about writing a
2:21:49
Speaker 1: diary is that actually it can be a very good
2:21:51
Speaker 1: exercise for your English. And I've said before that if
2:21:56
Speaker 1: you're looking for ways to work on your English, you've
2:21:59
Speaker 1: got to try and find various ways and for writing.
2:22:04
Speaker 1: I think it's a very good idea to write a
2:22:06
Speaker 1: diary in English, and it doesn't have to be that ambitious.
2:22:09
Speaker 1: You can just write about a couple of things you
2:22:11
Speaker 1: did and the things that you learned from them, or
2:22:14
Speaker 1: things you know, the way you felt about them. You
2:22:16
Speaker 1: can try and express your feelings, describe things you did,
2:22:19
Speaker 1: talk about how you feel. Try and write regularly, even
2:22:22
Speaker 1: if it's just a paragraph each day. That can be
2:22:26
Speaker 1: I think a good exercise because it helps you to
2:22:28
Speaker 1: find your voice in English. Now I spent Let's see,
2:22:32
Speaker 1: I started writing a diary when I was about sixteen,
2:22:36
Speaker 1: and I'm more or less finished writing a diary. I
2:22:41
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe about ten years ago, fifteen years ago,
2:22:48
Speaker 1: something like that, when I decided that it was time
2:22:51
Speaker 1: to stop for various reasons. What was my point? So yeah, yeah,
2:22:59
Speaker 1: So I wrote a diary for like, from maybe the
2:23:01
Speaker 1: age of sixteen to about the age of thirty six
2:23:03
Speaker 1: something like that. So that's about is that twenty years?
2:23:06
Speaker 1: That's about twenty years of diary writing quite a lot.
2:23:09
Speaker 1: I think it did help me with my ability to
2:23:13
Speaker 1: talk and my ability to articulate my thoughts and feelings.
2:23:17
Speaker 1: I think it really did. And I think that writing
2:23:20
Speaker 1: regularly in English, you could be writing about anything, but
2:23:25
Speaker 1: actually putting your ideas down, trying to structure your ideas
2:23:28
Speaker 1: and express yourself in English is a very good exercise.
2:23:32
Speaker 1: So I would recommend doing that writing a diary obviously,
2:23:35
Speaker 1: when you're improving your writing, you've got to think about
2:23:37
Speaker 1: the kinds of writing that you will probably have to
2:23:40
Speaker 1: do in English, which would probably mean writing emails, writing reports,
2:23:46
Speaker 1: maybe writing essays, things like that. You know, what kinds
2:23:50
Speaker 1: of writing do you really will you really need to
2:23:53
Speaker 1: do or do you really need to do? So obviously
2:23:56
Speaker 1: it would be a good idea to practice writing those
2:23:57
Speaker 1: specific types of text, because there's all of the you know,
2:24:02
Speaker 1: there's all the structural things, organizational things, text sort of
2:24:10
Speaker 1: conventions of those sorts of texts as well that you've
2:24:12
Speaker 1: got to practice. But at the basic level, expressing yourself
2:24:16
Speaker 1: in English, in writing regularly, I think, is a very
2:24:19
Speaker 1: good exercise. Okay, what else did I want to say?
2:24:21
Speaker 1: I wanted to maybe just mention what happened after I
2:24:24
Speaker 1: left the hospital. So I was discharged from the hospital.
2:24:29
Speaker 1: I said goodbye to Chantra, managed to say goodbye to him.
2:24:32
Speaker 1: I hadn't really developed any kind of relationship with anyone
2:24:35
Speaker 1: else in the hospital, so I at least said goodbye
2:24:37
Speaker 1: to him and then off I went, after spending yeah,
2:24:40
Speaker 1: about two weeks in there, and I had a bag,
2:24:45
Speaker 1: like a fairly large shoulder bag with all my stuff
2:24:48
Speaker 1: in it that people have brought me clothes and books
2:24:52
Speaker 1: and my mini disc player and mini discs and other
2:24:56
Speaker 1: bits and pieces, so I had that over my shoulder,
2:25:00
Speaker 1: and going out into the world was kind of weird,
2:25:06
Speaker 1: going out into the busy, bustling nature of the world,
2:25:09
Speaker 1: just trying to walk down the street avoiding people crossing
2:25:12
Speaker 1: the road and people getting in your way. It was
2:25:14
Speaker 1: already exhausting just walking to the train station, and it
2:25:19
Speaker 1: seemed like a really long and difficult journey just having
2:25:23
Speaker 1: I was only I was only in the hospital for
2:25:26
Speaker 1: just about two weeks, it's not even that long, but
2:25:28
Speaker 1: you get accustomed to that kind of pace of life
2:25:31
Speaker 1: and the quietness and stuff, and so being back outside
2:25:35
Speaker 1: was tiring. I made it back to my apartment and
2:25:39
Speaker 1: was very tired. It was exhausting carrying the bag, walking
2:25:42
Speaker 1: up and downsteps was really tiring. I still had quite
2:25:46
Speaker 1: a lot of, you know, recovery to do from this
2:25:50
Speaker 1: not very serious condition, right, But the annoying thing was
2:25:55
Speaker 1: I remember I got to my door and looked for
2:25:59
Speaker 1: my keys to open the door to my apartment and
2:26:02
Speaker 1: realized I didn't have it, that I'd given it to
2:26:05
Speaker 1: one of my colleagues. So they could go into my
2:26:08
Speaker 1: apartment and get my stuff for me. So I got
2:26:10
Speaker 1: all the way to my apartment door and couldn't get in,
2:26:12
Speaker 1: and he was in the middle of the day, it
2:26:14
Speaker 1: was like lunchtime or something, and I was so dejected
2:26:18
Speaker 1: and so sort of depressed at that moment. I remember
2:26:21
Speaker 1: just sitting down on the steps with my bag and
2:26:23
Speaker 1: just feeling so bloody sorry for myself and such a loser. Eventually,
2:26:28
Speaker 1: a friend of mine who lived in the same building
2:26:31
Speaker 1: as me, I think I texted him he managed to
2:26:35
Speaker 1: bring me some keys. During his lunch break or something,
2:26:37
Speaker 1: he came and gave me keys to his apartment. So
2:26:40
Speaker 1: I went into his apartment and I spent a few
2:26:43
Speaker 1: hours until my other colleague was able to come and
2:26:46
Speaker 1: meet me and give me the key. I spent a
2:26:47
Speaker 1: few hours just basically lying down on their sofa listening
2:26:52
Speaker 1: to the new Beck album. And this was two thousand
2:26:56
Speaker 1: and two, and Beck's latest album was called Sea Change.
2:27:00
Speaker 1: So I remember lying there listening to Sea Change, which
2:27:02
Speaker 1: is actually quite a sort of sad album. It's a
2:27:04
Speaker 1: fantastic album, but it's quite sad. So I had this
2:27:06
Speaker 1: very sad sort of moment lying there listening to this
2:27:11
Speaker 1: Beck album and then eventually got my key card and
2:27:15
Speaker 1: I was then able to get back into my apartment.
2:27:18
Speaker 1: It was weird to see all my stuff again. And
2:27:20
Speaker 1: then you know, that started my two week recovery period
2:27:23
Speaker 1: where I didn't have to work very as I said before,
2:27:26
Speaker 1: living very quietly and slowly. And then yeah, then my
2:27:31
Speaker 1: parents and my brother arrived and they were here for
2:27:34
Speaker 1: about they were here. They were there for about ten days,
2:27:39
Speaker 1: and that was actually great, obviously because I got to
2:27:41
Speaker 1: spend some time with them after having had this unpleasant experience,
2:27:46
Speaker 1: and showed them around the place and we visited some
2:27:49
Speaker 1: tourist areas. And then you know, I was feeling much
2:27:52
Speaker 1: better when it was time to work again, and you know,
2:27:55
Speaker 1: went back to work and learned how to pace myself,
2:28:00
Speaker 1: how to learn various tricks. As a teacher, you sort
2:28:02
Speaker 1: of learn these tricks over the years of how to
2:28:06
Speaker 1: manage your energy levels, how to prepare yourself in advance,
2:28:10
Speaker 1: and the course books that we used in that particular school.
2:28:13
Speaker 1: I got to know lots of the lessons very very
2:28:16
Speaker 1: well and was able to kind of go into lessons
2:28:20
Speaker 1: knowing that I was going to do, like lessons seven
2:28:22
Speaker 1: a and I just had it all, every step of
2:28:24
Speaker 1: the lesson mapped out in my brain already and had worked.
2:28:28
Speaker 1: You know, doing those lessons again and again and again,
2:28:30
Speaker 1: you kind of learn the best ways to do them.
2:28:32
Speaker 1: So it got easier and easier and more and more enjoyable.
2:28:35
Speaker 1: And the next year of my life in Japan was
2:28:37
Speaker 1: one of the best years of my life as a whole.
2:28:42
Speaker 1: I think I had ups and downs, and the glandular
2:28:46
Speaker 1: fever sort of seemed to come back sometimes, and I'd
2:28:48
Speaker 1: feel really tired, and I'd get migrain headaches and stuff occasionally.
2:28:53
Speaker 1: But you know, I deepened my experience in Japan and
2:28:58
Speaker 1: kind of got involved in other things, like I joined
2:29:00
Speaker 1: another band and played some really interesting concerts with them,
2:29:05
Speaker 1: and just you know, basically went on to have a
2:29:08
Speaker 1: really great twelve months. After two years, I decided I
2:29:12
Speaker 1: had to leave Japan. One of the reasons for that
2:29:15
Speaker 1: was that my mum was ill and I wanted to
2:29:17
Speaker 1: be home to be there. Luckily, she recovered fully and
2:29:22
Speaker 1: the rest of it, of course, as you know because
2:29:25
Speaker 1: she's been on the podcast and the rest of it.
2:29:27
Speaker 1: But I wanted to go home and be there. And
2:29:30
Speaker 1: another reason was that I knew that if I'd stayed,
2:29:32
Speaker 1: if I stayed longer in Japan, then it would have
2:29:34
Speaker 1: been really hard for me to leave. You know, you
2:29:38
Speaker 1: kind of think, right, I'm going to get out now
2:29:40
Speaker 1: after two years, because if I stay longer, I'm going
2:29:42
Speaker 1: to end up here for fifteen years. And I didn't
2:29:45
Speaker 1: want to be that far away from my family. And
2:29:48
Speaker 1: I felt like my life back home, which in a
2:29:51
Speaker 1: way felt like my real life, was waiting for me,
2:29:55
Speaker 1: and I had to go back and try and work
2:29:57
Speaker 1: on some other kind of career. In the end, I
2:29:59
Speaker 1: continued teaching English, so that's kind of part of what happened.
2:30:06
Speaker 1: My girlfriend at the time, who I've mentioned a lot
2:30:08
Speaker 1: during this episode, we broke up a couple of months
2:30:11
Speaker 1: after the events of this episode, not that we were
2:30:17
Speaker 1: ever really that serious. I won't go into all the
2:30:19
Speaker 1: details her parents, and both her and her parents were
2:30:24
Speaker 1: lovely and very sweet. Her parents were so patient and
2:30:28
Speaker 1: helpful with me, and my parents were particularly thankful to
2:30:33
Speaker 1: my girlfriend's parents, you know, for looking after me when
2:30:39
Speaker 1: they couldn't. So that's all I wanted to add at
2:30:46
Speaker 1: the end of this episode. Okay, all right, So I
2:30:49
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this episode for what it's worth, and
2:30:53
Speaker 1: I will speak to you in the next one, but
2:30:55
Speaker 1: for now, it's time to say goodbye, bye, bye b