« August 2006 | Main | October 2006 »
I'd heard a rumour that the Virgin Megastore in Piccadilly Circus will be selling Xbox 360s at just £100 tomorrow and as I was in the area this evening, I went in to check. It's true - this offer starts when the store opens at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Can you imagine the queues? Before you get excited... I found out that the shop only has fifteen Xbox units to sell! I think I'll go directly to work...
'There must be some mistake... how can my deductions be so high. I'm not even paying into a pension yet!' These were some of my thoughts upon inspecting my pay slip.
It's been a while since being paid for work in this country and I'd almost forgotten how high the deductions are.
As a rough guide, approx. 25% of my salary is deducted for tax and national insurance contributions. Of what is left over, more would be subtracted so should I join the company pension scheme and if I opt for a travel card loan.
Each person has a tax allowance each year - a tax free amount - but my calculations already factor that in... Even though I my gross earning was considerably less in Japan, after deductions my salary wasn't all that much lower than now!
When was the last time you wrote a personal letter and not an e-mail? I've written a letter to send to a friend in Japan who doesn't have Internet access. The sad part about it is that I typed it out and printed it rather than writing it by hand. Though something about this strikes me as wrong, it's still better than sending nothing at all, isn't it?
Eight weeks have past since starting work; time is certanly flying. I'm still trying to adjust to the pace of working life and meeting the demands of relationships, financial obligations and personal goals.
For most of the time at work, I feel relatively calm, but it's outside of work when I really feel stressed. This is as what I have been grumbling about in previous posts, primarily because of a lack of personal time. But now it's more than that. I've realised that I'm slipping into silly patterns.
Lately I've been trying to get to many things done and too quickly. When things could wait til next week or even next month, I've been on a mission to get everything done. Why am I stressing myself out so unnecessarily? STOP!!!
I had planned on following up my last post with a description of how my weekend turned into a nightmare trying to cope with food poisoning - but I don't have time!
I still don't know for sure what it was that messed me up so badly, but I'm not pointing any fingers - I ate lots of different foods on Friday/Saturday. That's all I'm going to say... how boring.
What a roller coaster of a weekend! The whole week had been incredibly busy and I was looking foward to going out, unwinding and forgetting the pressure of work for a couple of days.
There was a leaving do for one of the people at work, so it was off down to the pub on Friday evening. I haven't been drinking much at all during the past year, so after two Stellas - or was that half way through the first? - I was merry and having a good time.
We went to a German beer garden for dinner. I've never experienced anything quite like it. The place was absolutely packed. The noise was deafening with the sound of drunk people screaming at the top of the their voices and pounding huge beer glasses on the tables.
After waiting an hour to order (and nearly losing our sense of hearing), we placed our food orders. I chose a pork escalope with a creamy mushroom sauce and fries. I wasn't all that impressed with my food but I was so ravenous I just scoffed it down anyway. Somewhat more impressive was the huge pig's trotter that somebody else ordered...
I was so glad to get out of that place it's untrue. I'd lost any sense of enjoyment and getting to bed after a long week was my only priority. Ah, the weekend to rest...
Something which surprises me at work is how few people can actually touch type, despite being computing experts. Not that there is anything wrong with typing with your own style, but I just would have expected a higher number of touch typists among programmers and software support teams.
This morning the District Line was severely delayed and the passengers on my train were advised to change to the Piccadilly Line. This meant a round-about trip to work and made me late for the first time, although only by five minutes - yeah, I'm a stickler for time.
The thing is, I check the Transport for London site every morning to see if there are severe delays. If there are any, I can take an alternate route to work. However, of course, on the one day I don't check the website there are terrible delays.
I sampled the joys of walking through King's Cross station at rush hour. Can't wait to try that again...
After a little browsing at Lillywhites, the sports shop at Piccadilly Circus, I was just about to leave when I caught sight of some free magainzines on the 5th floor. I picked up a copy of 'Marathon News', the official magazine of the Flora London Marathon.
On the train home, I read a few of the articles about the London marathon and it got me dreaming again. For some time it's been an ambition of mine to run a marathon. This is rediculous considering the fact that I'm not even a regular runner. I do enjoy running, but tend to do it sporadically at best.
'If I had some goal to work towards, maybe I'd achieve more with my running,' I began thinking. I have a feeling it's just one of those ideas that will never materialise, but you never know! Anyone up for a pretty hard-core challenge? The marathon isn't until next April. How long does it take to train properly for a marathon, anyway?
Despite having tried on numerous occaions, since returning from Japan there is one friend who I haven't been able to get into contact with. I do send the occasional email to 'A-sensei', but never get a reply. I suspected that his mobile phone was blocking my e-mails, as another friend using ezweb discovered the same problem.
Yesterday morning, totally out of the blue, a message arrived in my inbox from A-sensei! I was so pleased to hear from him - the first time in nearly a year and a half. It seems as though he can read e-mail addressed to his phone, but not his PC account, which is strange. In any case, I'm so glad I can contact him again.
Back in Japan we used to play tennis quite regularly. Though he's nearly twice my age, he's impresively fit and we used to play quite a lot of singles on the local clay courts. When I visited Japan on holiday at Christmas time I wanted to meet him, but sadly couldn't get in contact. On my next visit it would be great if we could have another game of tennis.
Two of my friends announced their engagement some time ago. The preparations and build up culminated yesterday when they finally tied the knot. Congratulations, J&D!
The first half of the day proved quite stressful when everything seemed to go wrong. I was travelling from East London, which was on the other side of London to the wedding. After travelling for ten minutes, at around Stratford I realised that I needed the loo... An hour and a half later, I arrived at the station.
To get to the church, people coming by Tube had to get on a bus. I approached a stranger with my map and asked which way to go. It was a confusing bus stop where buses going in both directions stopped. After being given some friendly advice, I got on the bus when it eventually turned up. A few minutes later I phoned a friend just to double check that I was going in the right direction. I wasn't.
After getting off the bus I called some local cab firms but there were absolutely no cabs available. There was nothing for it but to wait for the bus in the opposite direction. Eventually, it came - just as the wedding was about to start. Did I mention I was one of the ushers?
Thankfully I didn't miss too much of the ceremony, but I was disappointed to have missed the bridal march and I felt terrible that I hadn't been able to carry out all my duties. Luckily, there were actually another two ushers who handled everything well.
I have to say the bride was stunning. Her dress was beautiful and her hair looked fantastic, too. Let's not forget the groom, who looked well groomed, no pun intended. He was wearing a suit matching the best man and the ushers (it was heavy and hot!).
We took some confetti and bubble (!) photos outside the church and then J&D headed off to the reception in an attractive classic white car. After about two hours of waiting, I finally dashed to the loo to relieve the pain, before heading off to the reception with everyone else.
Before tennis today I guzzled down a bottle of water. Then during tennis, I downed two bottles of Lucozade Sport and then another 1.5 litres of water. It wasn't until finishing the last of my water did I feel that my thirst had nearly been quenched. Until that point I was so sluggish and playing tennis of the most crappy quality.
It was quite hot, but I don't know why I needed to drink quite so much. Lately I've been drinking more and more water, particularly at work. Then when I come home I gulp down at least a pint of apple juice or again, more water.
Can your body get used to drinking a certain amount of water and then increase your thirst level? A bit like over-eating giving you the ability to eat more? It seems odd how thirsty I am, pretty much all of the time.
I weigh how much?! How could I have lost half a stone in one day? That's what I thought when I hopped on the bathroom scales.
A surprising fact came to light when my sister went to a friends house and happened to use their weighing scales: she was lighter than when at home... It turns out that our scales measure weight at approximately 1/2 a stone (5kg?) heavier than they should do! So my mum had swapped the scales for another set we had, which are presumably more accurate.
This means that for almost a year I thought I was significantly heavier than I actually am! After weighting myself on the other set of scales, I can see that today, I weigh pretty much the same as when I left Japan over a year ago...
Actually, since starting work and making a decision to eat more healthy foods - or at least to cut down on unhealthy foods - I have lost half a stone or so. Well, that's not accurate as it was using the dodgy weighing scales, but anyway...
During the week I was walking around the City early in the morning, as usual with business men and women around me hurriedly making their way to work. Of course, most people are wearing suits and smart clothes. So it shocked me all the more to see someone crossing the road towards me wearing... a shell suit!!!
How long has it been since I've seen that crinkly material? He was wearing the full track suit, mostly in black but with a green trianglular shape diagonally crossing his chest.
I remember shell suits being all the rage when I was a kid. I must have had one when I was about 10 (1990). Apparenly I was one of the first kids in my primary school to have one of these fashionable shell suits. What a trend setter!
Today we had a presentation on the pension scheme on offer at work. I have to say that it was quite enlightening as it's the first time I've ever been told about pensions in detail. Well, I say detailed, but there is only so much you can cover in an hour. Thinking about retirement doesn't seem as crazy as it did a couple of years ago. You've got to plan, haven't you?
Some friends use to tell me about how they wore trainers to work and then change into smarter shoes at the office. Since starting work in the city I have noticed that this isn't that uncommon. I've even started doing the same, myself. Yeah, I know, not so cool, but who cares?
This week's celebrity near the office: Matthew Kelly! He didn't look so massively tall in real life. He looks quite old now and if a colleague hadn't spotted him, I probably wouldn't even have realised.
It's amazing how time slips by. I've been thinking about this year's Japanese proficiency test in December and whether to send in my application. With effecitively just three months until the exam, on top of keeping on top of learning new skills at work, it would be a tough ask. On the other hand, any study would be a bonus and applying for the test would certainly kick-start me into action. Compared to making huge improvements to my Japanese, I am more concerned with maintaining my current level.
Legend Agassi makes tearful exit
Andre Agassi's 20-year career ended in a 5-7 7-6 (7-4) 4-6 5-7 defeat to German qualifier Benjamin Becker at the US Open on Sunday.
What an incredible tennis player! One of the older generation, and one of my personal favourites, Agassi is finally bowing out of the professional game. Played.
