the international telephone game

so the last three days of my trip in asia was spent in nagoya, japan with a friend of mine that i met while i was learning korean in seoul. she's japanese, and is currently working at the spanish pavilion at the world expo in aichi (sidenote: did anyone else in the US know that there was a world expo going on japan??) anyway, so the last night i was there there was a goodbye party for one of her coworkers at the pavilion. i was one of maybe 3 people at the party that didnt speak spanish. first off, it was odd being in japan and, instead of having difficulty conversing because everyone was speaking japanese, the difficulty was because everyone was speaking spanish. anyway, at one point in the night, there was a conversation between my friend, eriko, her friend kaori, and two other people, lawrence and his gf (i forget her name, so lets call her 'chica') so most of the people in this conversation spoke at least 2 of the 4 languages being spoken. in order for kaori to speak to chica (partially because of the language barrier, and partially because we were sitting in this order) kaori spoke to eriko in japanese, eriko spoke to me in korean, i spoke to lawrence in english, and he spoke to chica in spanish. note that we were all pretty drunk, and yet apparently, not much was lost in the translations. i found that extremely entertaining, but maybe you just had to be there...

vacation or tour of airports?

so i'm finally back from vacation... although i dont think im all here mentally. i did a quick calculation of how much time i actually spent either en route to/from airports, in them waiting for my flight, or flying, and it adds up to almost 3 full days out of my trip (roughly 70 hrs) is it me or is that just insane? i think i should get an extra 3 days of vacation to make up for that. and this whole jetlag thing blows. i just know my body is going to start shutting down in the afternoon... i wonder if i could get away with sleeping under my desk... i mean, i think only a few people actually walk pass my desk daily anyway. and they'd really have to be looking to catch me...

RANT: door-holding etiquette

yep, this is another complaint that has been inspired by the workplace, but unlike the elevator rant, i think this would still be applicable to any situation.

if im courteous enough to wait and hold the door for you, you should be courteous enough to acknowledge my presence. note that im not looking for a verbal 'thank you' or anything like that. but just a glance in my direction, and maybe a smile or a nod, letting me know that you are somewhat appreciative would be nice. i am not a door stop. or at least i dont think i am. dont get me wrong, im not holding the door just to get recognition. i just think common courtesy is going to shit, and its kind of sad.