Life: Still Precarious

Once again, I haven't able to bring myself to write anything here for a long time partly because I've been trying to complete another blog of mine, which I started in 2008, and I think its end is overdue and near while I still was getting materials that should be added to it. A bigger reason is mental fatigue.

Another reason is my reading which takes up a substantial amount of time: reverse-chronologically (any word to express this?) roughly in the order below:

A Personal History (Katherine Graham, reread)

A Reporter's Life (Walter Cronkite, reread)

Once Upon a Distant War (William Prochnau)

The Powers That Be (David Halberstam)

Kissinger (Alistair Horne, reread)

Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (Michael Maclear)

The Final Days (Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, reread)

All the President Men (Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, reread)

When I'm not reading (not very often) or working (almost always), I spend my time watching old Fujiyama Kanbi VDVs with beer. They certainly remind me of the kind of language I grew up with. Old-fashioned and authentic. Then though the words they use are all "correct," there're a few actors whose obviously Kyushu accent is noticeable. Some of them are veterans of the Shochiku Shinkigeki theater, and almost all of them are dead or not seen these days. A young actor who play small roles in these VDVs is now leading the theater. And beer... I can no longer afford to have even beer every night. Many years ago, it was shochu, gin, vodka. Then, switch to wine. At least a cheap bottle of it every night. Even two bottles sometimes. Now beer every other day or once in three days, though when I drink I do a lot, even more than 10 small cans.

The biggest reason of not having put anything here for a while is the deterioration of my mental state compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic, which is devastating to my business and destroyed what little I'd had of social life. My company's profuse bleeding hasn't stopped and I don't think it will at least as far as restrictions of cross-border movement are with us. No light at the end of this pandemic tunnel.

 

Good news is I received this year's first job two days ago (18th) and immediately started working on it without waiting its official confirmation, which came yesterday afternoon. It's a contract document, rather complicated as is likely because of legalese. I worked overnight to reach the last page while helped by translation work done for a similar document, which I had a look as reference. This translation work apparently has been done by somebody who is familiar with the way lawyers write if it is really translation. Though I've translated numerous legal documents, I strongly think that's not the way anybody should write. And I'm not interested at all in learning more about how they are supposed to look like. Late afternoon today, I sent my work to the client.