Please do it at home bla bla bla

迎春 Happy New Year lovely people who read this blog! It has certainly been a while. For the past few days I keep telling myself it's time to get back on the Geisha train but I've been feeling kind of discouraged and blue since coming back from the snowy North and I'm trying to take some time to do the reflection I should have done last week instead of getting lit with beer and munching on mochi. Despite best intentions I haven't yet clicked back through last year's memories and begun to think about the new ones I hope to make this year. I'm not much of a list maker but I am at a junction this year, where I have some very specific goals in mind that both relate to really trying to make the most of the rest of my (as of yet indefinite) time in Japan and to begin looking towards a post-grad degree in Canada. For the last year, in my mind 2009 has been the last full year I will live in Japan, at least for the next 5 years. Now looking into this year, that prospect is both exciting and scares the shit out of me because it leads to a lot of Irreversible Decisions and Grown-up Choices. As an example, moving to Canada with the beau to go to school while he learns English and then starts his own business. Scary stuff. And I speak English. How will the dynamics of my life change when our roles are reversed and I become the native while he becomes the immigrant and deals with similar issues I have had living here, and then some.

I didn't mean to start on such a sombre note, I just have really mixed feelings about going back to Canada some time next year but I need to leave Japan (at least for some years) to do what I gotta do. Living in Tokyo has never been a permanent plan. When I look at the short time I may have left in Japan I've begun to think of all the places and things left to do here before I leave and it is pretty exciting. It's time to shake things up. This year is going to be life-changing.

Now on to what you really want.

As I dashed through the station at the end of last year and saw this, I initially thought the nice young lady was helping a poor homeless boy. But they are asking her to do it at home? I pondered. I looked closer and apparently they now want us to be considerate of passengers getting on and off the train. Well OK, but this is Tokyo not some inaka train where kids sit on the floor. I've never seen a non-drunk person sitting on the floor of a train in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area (once you get over the border into Saitama or Chiba though...). But let's just go with this suspension of disbelief. I would have preferred to see some hot young high school boys slumped around the doors than some loser with an iphone and a concerned-looking girlfriend who has worked her mouth into a tight cat's bum. This is just a strange and irritating waste of one perfectly good manner month. They better get those creative juices flowing again by February or March's poster is going to be a "Please riot at home" theme.