Weeknotes #195

I went to the dermatology clinic on Friday and the good news is that they are confident that the hair removal treatment will work on my body. That’s important because, even after the surgery, there is the risk of my abscess becoming reinfected in the future. The best way to reduce that risk is to remove the hair in that region. The doctor recommended treatment not begin until three months after surgery and that timeline then butts up against the Christmas trip back to Australia so it might not be until next year that I begin the process but it’s good to know it’s possible (my regular doctor wasn’t sure my hair would be compatible).

John had a play date on Saturday that Eri was handling so I took Emma and Rowan out to Shibuya to meet-up with Matthew who happened to be in town for a couple of days with his family. We didn’t have a lot of time which was a shame but Emma had a bit of a chance to talk to Matt’s youngest daughter and Rowan had the (relatively) novel experience of meeting new people.

Speaking of novel experiences, for the first time in my life I seriously thought about starting a YouTube channel. It came about as a result of discussing some videos that Eri and I watched recently involving people raised biculturally in Japan (e.g. this one involving a British woman who was born and raised in Japan). The fact these people share their stories is great but there is a degree to which I always find them lacking and as Eri and I talked I realised that what I keep wanting is a video with the parents. It’s one thing to hear about the experience of growing up in Japan from the point of view of the child but what I’m desperate for is to hear about is the experience from the point of view of the parents. Do you use English at home? How much do you use English at home? What do you do if this affects their Japanese? Do you send your child to Japanese public schools? If not, how do you afford the cost of international schools? And so on and so on.

I’m not sure where the fault lies but our Internet connectivity has become drastically worse over the past couple of weeks. It’s so bad that the YouTube app on the Apple TV buffered multiple times while the kids were trying to watch today (Google’s content delivery networks are so good that, in my experience, if you’re having trouble accessing a Google service, it’s a good sign the problem is at your end). Unfortunately, the Internet is handled by the building manager and other than making a complaint, I’m not sure there’s much I can really do.

Season 3 of Only Murders in the Building wrapped up last week. The resolution didn’t blow my socks off but that’s fine. It’s all about the journey and this journey involved absolutely fantastic Matthew Broderick and Mel Brooks cameos. And there will be a season 4 so I now have that to took forward to!

I somehow completely missed the fact that Loki was coming back. As I started watching the ‘Previously On’ in the first episode of the second season, I realised I’d forgotten almost everything from the first season. Since it’s only six episodes, I decided to rewatch those first before making my way into season two.

I was delighted to see that there’s a ‘deluxe edition’ of the Only Murders in the Building soundtrack for season 3 that includes the songs from the musical that takes place within the show (Apple Music).