sea breeze

Things to do
1)book hotel between Paris and Disneyworld
2)rent a car to go somewhere nice this weekend…
3)possibly buy a car? Got into a clients Minicoupe two weeks ago. Breaking any independence issues there, but she said no to the free car-free audit approach.
4) Save some money in order to contribute 10 pounds a month to a house that my brother might possibly buy.
5) Fill up the clients fridge with my groceries. Todays meal involved pitta bread and humous (in love with the sluggish stuff), and stick a few cucumbers and tomatoes and hey, you have yourself an Istandwich! How funny am I ?

Thankyou fellow work colleagues for your words of encouragement. The main comment I get, is “amit, your blog is very amusing”. Now is that amusing in the term of , “it takes me away to another land, far away from the laptop and desk of half eaten apples and cold canteen wanter”, or amusing as in “look at Newcastle TRY and get a place into Europe this season!”

HEADLINE NEWS!!! Should have mentioned this earlier.One of my best mates in Japan has decided to tie the knot with who has also become a good friend. I remember the first time I saw the northern monkey, as he tried to seduce a girl away from my radar. I thought, hes a bit old to be teaching isn’t he? Shouldn’t he be working at some finance office? However during the past two years of living in Japan together, iv found out that maybe im the older one. Taking the path less travelled by, I emailed him, after he called me to say calmly he is getting married. I havnt anything else but admiration for those that are brave enough to go out there and get what they want. He has done well!

Maybe there is hope for us yet in London especially when days spent commuting through Bank station. Why does this station, out of all the other depressing stations, remind me of sheep to the slaughter, zombies, or even more depressing, humans without a real sense of life. You become familiar with your surroundings, accept the fact that life is THIS and that there is no choice, and then you trudge along the belt, heads down, metro newspaper in your arm, trying to escape the monotonous noise of high heels and coughs with your Jack Johnson music.

I know im not alone in this common “breaking away from the norm” ideal, but do I think about this as often as other people do? Probably not. Where as I might not be able to quote and hide behind the words of great philosophers and poets who have influenced our way of individual thinking, I at least attempt to show a more simplistic (my middle name – simple!) view.

So, as I always start of in a positive manner, and end up the murky deep end, I think its time to swim back to the shallow and brighter side. When one of your best friends , who I know reads and gives his true honest opinion to the creation of amitosensei, surprises you with this wonderful news, it actually makes you shake. This might be a paper document, but it means vowing to TRY and spend the rest of your life with each other. I hope I can make it for the wedding, and I hope its like it should be, on a beach with a nice breeze, and a small open bar in the back round, or on top of a mountain where they once hiked up together…guys? Yufuin by any chance?

These things are only dreams right now for most of us, and definetly me. However with a bit of patience, I might see myself with a girl in my arms , on a beach, reading bits of my vows which I will no doubt blog for all the world to see!...and Mr Northern Monkey (not allowed to name)…I expect you and your family to be there…

the art of travel...

or even the art of life...

"we change according to whom...and sometimes what we are with. the company of certain people excites out generosity and sensitivity, of others, our competiveness and envy. A's obsession with status and hierachy may lead B to worry about his significance...move B to another enviroent and his concerns will subtly shift"

but...

"what may then be expected to occur to a persons identiy in the company of a mountain, an oak tree, a lake...objects which after all have no conscious concerns and so it would seem cannot either encourage or censor behaviour? and yet an inaminate object may, still work an influenc eon those around it. oaks dignity, pines resolution, laks calk..and in unobtrusive ways act as inspirations to virtue"

opinion of a poet William Wordsworth who fell in love with the countryside, in particular Lake district, and believed that nature was a cure to the damaging effect of cities where they foster a "family of life-destroying emotions, anxiety about our position in the social hirachy, envy at the success of others, pride and desire to shine in th eyes of strangers....perhaps unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective

"dreamt of leaving...for smewhere else, somewhere far away, on another continent, with no reminders the the 'everyday"

but

"we are sad at home, and blame the weather and the ugliness f the buildings, but on teh tropical island we learn that the state of the skies, and the appeareance of the dwellings can never on their own undrwrite our joy nor condemn us to misery.."

i.e. in the words of Amit, "happiness comes from within"

is that you? its been such a long time

or so go the lyrics from my midlands - to japan old friend..a very talented man indeed. He made this song , of which cd, i found lodged between a birthday card and a postcard that i was meaning to send to an old student for christmas. So, i have good intentions. but cant intend to do anything about it.

I had a better picture of you , lying face up on the saga eki after daves last night. However it just wouldnt up load. At least the fact that you're sitting next to a nice girl means that you dont lose "all of your face"

iv realised another thing today (before i continue)..the reason for my blogness-ness is that my familys state of the art wirless connection cuts off every five minutes. this means i am on a constant look out for the "not conected" signal before i click "send"!

this has been one of those "thinking" days..
are we all selfish?
can we all be positive ?
why do we get swallowed up in our own fears and sadness...?
why do we always want more than we need?
is it worth the sacrifice?
do i need to be doing this?

oh well, ifyou think that i have the audacity to answer any of these questions then your sadly mistaken. i dont. im tired of askng myself these questions. firstly because its quite emotionally draining, and secondly because its 1am! tiring indeed!

the thing is, once upon a time, this street answered a lot of those questions. Most of the questions, "answer lies within i guess" says I

anyway tomorrow is , yes u guessed it, another day of auditing mayhem. where the invoices need to matched, the staples need to be inserted in the stapler, and yes alas i need to wear some clean clothes that dont have bread crumbs from last week clinging on for dear life!

the thing is, yes life can be pretty crap, but one of favorite japanese quotes is, and one which luckily was too big to get a tatoo on my back for, was "sumebamiako". this means, no matter where u go, where you ARE , is your capital. what im doing is , yes, quite crap, and why im doing it i dont know, however i am OK. i have a an OK life, with friends, and a girlfriend and a family which cares for me more than i deserve. So does that mean i will be walking into the office with a smile on my face? hell no!

obviously the fact that its friday has an impact, but the scary thing is, hours ago, it was friday. Time has gone so fast since iv started this proffession, that i think iv proved einsteins theory wrong. You really can speed up time! I cant remember what i did yesterday, let alone 6 weeks ago. The worst thing is, iv given up alcohol!

hisashiburi!!!! long time...ca fait longtemps ne?

how do i gain your trust now to read my blogs having not wrote anything for the past week..having left you all hanging by the thread, eyes popping out, searching the screen for some interesting words of wisdom, google, askjeeves..ANYTHING?!?!.you're all suffering from withdrawel symptoms...

Id like to believe that. As you can see, i do think a lot of myself.





However that is not important anymore, there are more important things to deal with. Like the fact that i have NO money. How come i spend more money than i earn. At university i had only 4ooo pound spending money and i survived. baked beans and melted cheese Now i earn a respectable salary, more than teaching, and now i find myself from plus to minus. I see how easy it is to spend money here. So much so, that iv stopped drinking anyway. Im not going to touch the thing that stealeth my money so quickly.

However im not sure that i can stop spending on other things. I am an accountant now, maybe i should form up my own profit an dloss acount. Oh how gay!!

Went to the birtish version of "bestdenki" today...and we spent a total of 3 grand, my dad that is. I look around, an di see signs like "peace of mind, free guarantee", "make your life better with a 50inch plasma tv" and other lovely material offers to make your life that much more worthwhile. ok im not mentioning anything that is not new. Just watch fightclub or read any old hippy book and you will know what im talking about...

but something like this is priceless. If theres one thing iv learnt from Japan, is that you dont have to be in a pretty place to be happy. Im reading a book "the Art of travel"...you dont need to be covered with tvs, slobered with alcohol and a comfy couch to be enternally happy. All you need is someone you love, and a sunset like this and life naturally becomes perfect. This could be anywhere? Luckily for me, this was a 5 minute drive away. I never appreciated as much as i should.

Anyway, this book is highly recomended, its written by a french guy, whose name i cant remember, and it might be slightly over philosophical over a simple topic as travel. However something like that helps you escape the general confusion that surrounds me when im stuck on a computer being told random orders that would make more sense if they were in Russian!!

If you can recollect the scene from Zoolander, when they were asked to find the file in the computer, and the resutl were apelike actions slamming their fists down on the computer. Imgine me then, in the same respect, shirt hanging out, hair all over the place, and when they explain the important life changing need to match an invoice to a number from a desk far far away...i feel like homer simpson..duuuh...

or il just switch off, close my eyes and think about...

OH come on amit!!! stop it now....lets be realistic...what do u think about when they babble ...even more than you???

need a bit of structure

headline news...i have a cold! other breaking stuff...i must lighten up on my blogs ..speaking bout lightening up, i have managed to jog to the high st and back (Seems quite far...) and then play footie, where i blame my new spontaneously bought striking red boots for the fact that i got nut megged 100 times! shit! therefore no matter how many skills i did....which werent that many, apart from a cute little dribble, a neat flick on, and a beckham, shit, i mean (bollocks can any newcastle player be named?)....oh well, scott parker - esque.... so how do i lighten up my blogs.


well, other exciting stuff done this weekend (why do i talk like its already ended?)...was watching 100 most scary moments on tv, on tv. very interesting. most the scary moments were in black and white, when even a train coming towards you was scary as they thought the train would actually come out of the screen. what cowards!ahem...


as u might just have got the idea..i miss japan a lot, and i miss the easy life..but who says a bum in the city cant also find some kind of awesome radical and out of this world kinda sky duuuuuuuuude......
taken whule supposed to be working, went up the top floor, and just looked out into the sky...would rather be out there than in here any day!!!!




going back to the main point...another exciting moment...
mr blair being interviewd by parkinson. not every time you see the primeminister being interviewed on sat night tv. War, war, war..god, war, heart problems, bush, annoying, , the french basically that...



a little after thought...a conversation i just had with my cousin just now on msn
the annoyingness of tea . Well..I like tea and biscuits. She doesn’t like the fact when the bisucit falls in . its horrible. Its like someone gave you a present and just took it away. Its like being told that you were off a stock take and then being told ur on one again..yes these things annoy me…
But not biscuits diving into the bottom of your mug. No…I thing the soggy thing at the bottom is nice. Its waiting for you ..and so you also anticipate..can you scoop it out with your fingers after?will anyone notice? Maybe a spoon if ur in public. If it’s a chocolate covered biscuit, you can expect tea erosion…the chocolate being molded into the flavour of your tea…
I think I have just invented the biscui flavour tea!!!!
I can talk about this for much more….
And I will tomorrow

ANGRY ACCOUNTANTS ANGER AMIT!

Quote from my text to Li “Sometimes, the only thing stoping me from getting up and going, and leaving the idiot job, and idiot people I have to work with…is that fact I found you here”

I cant help myself saying these things. Maybe It can be too much, but I guess it’s the fact that this job stops me from letting my emotions go. I remember like it was yesterday (oh how quaint!), the days when I used to rush in my slippers on the polished floor, and slide into my classroom, to enter the lions den (or in my case, the circus of life!). Students would be throwing paper at each other. Other kids will be exchanging puricura (photo stickers) of their boyfriends, and others will be just looking outside the window, waiting for the next break.

And so that memory crashes onto the dirt, and here I am, sitting opposite some fool(cant be too careful, so no names mentioned), who has managed to buy his qualification for accounting as well as some excess ego. I sit opposite him, typing this ….maybe not the best idea. What do I say when he demands his work? Literally demands…

I think in his backward opinion , he might think this is gentle banter. However, as most of you know, I do get a lot of attention from friends for my , what shall you say, my unique way of thinking (or not so much as it goes)…but this guy, this monkey, bites the wrong biscuit. He continuously blames me for not knowing where things are, where finds it next to his side of the table; plays golf for ages on his phone and then has the audacity to tell me how much work iv done; claims himself to be a ladies man and talk about how not to be gay (when he cant stop talking about kicking someones ass..even mine sometimes)…the thing is im upset by this. Just angry that there are as usual some idiots in this world. Here we have an arrogant accountant who thinks he has been there, done that and those…and it makes me think, why am I here? Why do I have to be with this ignorant fool who thinks that being one position above me, gives him the right to automatically know more about life than I do.

Ok, I might not know how to do this “simple” auditing task, and suddenly I blurt out , “I dont know, because its so bloody boring I cant get it on my head!”…talk about think before you speak! I do try, for some unknown reason, to try and understand. All I see is a brick wall, and my hair falling on the pillow.

I think iv learnt something from one of my favourite students…she used to stare out the window, just dreaming, sometimes with an earphone cleverly hidden under her sleeve. Never used to stop her from dreaming as she was always smiling. She used to say she liked staring at the clouds…

This job makes the clouds look so lovely…and have now 700 songs downloaded onto my mp3!

into the past

currently situated at a place that quite possibly changed the course of English history, and therefore the world, with the consequent colonialism that followed...
1066?
Battle of Hastings? - ofcourse...
im here, in the centre of the Battle, quite literally, the town called Battle. More of a village , with luscious hills and dense woodland. Its not hard to imagine what the past must have ben like, because it hasnt really changed that much.
Damn unfortunate thing is that i forgot my camera. Just imagine walking out of an old resturant which used to be a public inn for wondering pilgrims, and staring at the stone walls of the abbey that William the Conquerer built under the orders of the Pope.

Yes, i read all of this at the station (more of a pit stop), , from a booklet - welcome to the battle - how original...
well im not here for work, but as work isnt so bad, iv managed to go jogging in the morning. so much so, that i dont really get lost in the woods (apart from inside my head), to make it back for some fresh salmon and scrambled egg. Feel oh so british...probably the most i felt in touch with nature since i left the lush paddy fields, refreshing water holes and challenging mountains of Japan.

Oh well, theres only so much of a 2 hour lunch break i can do, before i go back to work. The only drwa back of being here. Work...
the only drawback in my life...