In Recovery
It looks like the nature of the IE bug that I thought causes words to appear misspelled sometimes is unclear at this time. I have contacted Microsoft and they are looking into the matter... I received this from (another?) anonymous reader... BTW, Mom swears it wasn't her... and checking the serer logs, I see that is true... sorry to that AAA for give the credit for finding that bug away...
Actually the bug makes 95% of the words appear to be spelled correctly - which is how I knew my PC was infected: I know you can't spell that many words correctly. There is another bug similar to it in a lot of word processing programs called "Spelling Checker."
Raining again. I am told that rainy season ends on Tuesday of the week after next.
Despite the rain which has a definite physical and mental effect on me, making it one-hundred times harder to get up in the morning, and pushing me over the deep-end into a spiraling vortex of negativity last week (as you can see by my posts) I feel much better now. This happens every once in a while. I wind up taking a week off of trying to make the situations I don't like and am completely unsatisfied with better, and simply wallow in them and try to brighten my day with complaints. It's nice though... a good dose of minor bi-polarizm to give my life some pizzazz. Now I'm a creeping back into a constructive phase.
I'm not sure what happens to me in the unsatisfied times, but I was at a friend's place tonight who is rich enough for cable TV and happened to see a little bit of a discovery channel program about cosmetic surgery. They were talking about Body Dysmorphic Disorder where people becomes pre-occupied with a non-existent or minimal cosmetic defect. I began to wonder if I don't suffer from Life Dysmorphic Disorder sometimes... Even though I know that I am far from "behind" where I have to be at this age in life and career, and I have a good job, and am as good as it or better than most people are at their own jobs given the same experience level, I always become pre-occupied with some non-existent or minimal feature that I view as a fault, and would like to be a little better... thus I am a chronically unsatisfied.
A few days ago I was talking about how I am frustrated at work by the lack of ideas and motivation... I received this from a reader regarding that, and I think it is really worth sharing... I suppose I should get permission first, but instead I'll just take it down if I receive any death threats as a result of posting it.
you mentioned a lot about Japanese-ness issues. and I was one of those who love to attribute negatives to the japanseness. but I start to dislike this way to describe things though it is easy, handy and sensemaking to some extent as you say. the reason is the argument has connotation of that the culture is homogenous, and the culture is static. but it is not true. although Japanese culture is much more homogenous and static compared to other cultures like American and European which have lots of intervention and integration in hundreds of years, the Japanese culture at present is something deliberately and artificially forced by its government a few hundreds years ago. so I would say it is the 'official' culture when talking about homogeneousness and stuff, but the real culture, I mean the people's culture, is more diverse and colorful, still. I don't know if I have any reasonable explanation to the fact your buddies in the office are so less motivated and stuff, but looking at the history and the movements going on in some parts of Japan by some highly motivated people, I feel my attitude to take Japan as a single unity and criticize it is falling too short. I need more consideration here really, not just for japans people's sake but also for our own sake. I really want to be proud of my background when I introduce it to people, not wishing otherwise. there are some cool people in Japan, and the thing is simply we just haven't met them yet and need to look for them.
Well put. I want to make clear that what I was saying, was that I am frustrated, and often hear (from Japanese and non-Japanese alike) that it is because the people are Japanese and that is simply how Japanese people are, implying that Americans aren't. When I am frustrated and looking for an answer I come close to buying in to that, but I know that it is not true. For one thing, if Americans where so much better, why are there so many management books about how to change this in your employees? I think that it is a human trait, and I would be just as frustrated in an American company.
Why would people (including myself and even Japanese people) be so quick to blame it on Japaneseness then? Despite any pride that Japanese people naturally feel about being Japanese, and about their "us" group, there seems to be an overhanging inferiority complex in many areas regarding Europeans and Americans. I don't think people go around consciously thinking that they are inferior, but it is implied in so many aspects of popular media and culture. It makes sense that the idea of blaming an undesirable trait on their Japaneseness, and then comparing that to the "ideal" American who is made out to be the "average" American would be a major reason. The same thing happens in America to of course when Americans look at their own culture, just maybe not to the same extent, since our culture generally tells us that we are the greatest, and so we believe it.
A major reason that I would blame it on Japaneseness is simply because it is so darn easy to blame it on the "thems". Anything bad I see in Japan right down to rude waiters I can very easily blame on the fact that they are Japanese.. because I am not. This of course despite the fact that we have rude waiters in America too. (although, service in America is muuuuuccchhh better from my viewpoint, but that is because I like "friendly" service where the waiter or shopkeeper makes a personal connection, as opposed to "prompt & impersonal" service which is valued in Japan... in fact, I think the American style of chatting a waiter chatting with the customer would freak a lot of Japanese people out so much that it is actually a bad method.)
