It's a working port...

 ...and occasional distraction (27/365, 27 Jan 2022)

We have entered the 'busy' 'time is running out' end of marking season. Doesn't matter how many years, how many semesters, how many assignments one has marked...there is never enough time and what time there is, runs out quickly. Like...now.

So the thought of a mid-afternoon walk, as tempting as it might be, is time I should be marking. It is logic I suppose, but not as we know it. Luckily, there is a window in the office and the view, as I have previously posted, well, is distraction enough. 

And I am grateful that the view is a port (OK, I would prefer the ocean, the movement of waves, the surf but I digress). There is usually a lot going on, and some days it can be quite quiet. Covid does seem to have had an effect on movements I have to say. 

I've had this view for nearly six years now. There is always something. 

Today with the Canon EOS M5, 18-150mm lens just as the sun was beginning its descent on another day.

A post about photography…

 …if it is a photo about photos… (26/365, 26 Jan 2022)

We are in the midst of marking (as well as final classes, another ten days or so). But, and maybe it is all the 'electronic' marking we do these days, but for a little while I've been thinking about reviving the art of fountain penning. Now the opportunity to write doesn't come along that much anymore but somehow having nice pens is something I've always appreciated. 

Parker pens have long been a favourite (this is not a sponsored post) and one day as I was thinking about this, a Parker pen post popped up (actually accidental alliteration!) on my Insta account which got me into a search. 

Today on there way to work, I called into a pen shop and yes, succumbed. One was the special anniversary edition, 51. A subtle fine, point. The other, I thought initially was a sharp pencil but turns out to be a new style of pen, an evolution from fountain via ballpoint to something that is quite different, quite lovely to write with. 

My eventual goal is to get back into sketching actually (to revisit my sometimes traumatic, mostly enjoyable high school art classes) and my preferred style turned out to be pen and watercolour, or pen and coloured pencil. (I have the pencils in readiness. I can keep dreaming. I'm imagining a long active retirement.) I expect these new pens will come into their own then. In the meantime, I can address envelopes or sign with flair...

Classic fountain pen on the left, new IM pen on the right

And given the pen shop flows into the bookshop in the particular corner of Tokyo, of course I had to walk past, with interest. And good thing I did. There was an interesting book, photos of Tokyo in the early-to-mid 1980s and now. It caught my eye because my first stint in Tokyo took in 1984-5 and 1988-9. I've often thought that one day (in that active retirement mode) I'll review those old pics, taken on film on my first camera, a Canon AE-1 Program, (yes, I've always been Canon; no this is not a sponsored post) and maybe compare and contrast or compile a 'ye olde Tokio' blog. Much to do. The other book, coincidentally, is a book on the theory of photography by Minato Chihiro. I'm a photography nerd but also a book nerd and I get a lot out of reading books about photos and how we might interpret them (think Sontag, Barthes et al). It adds a lot to my own approach to the images I might take, or not. Even if it means occasionally taking photos of books about photos...something circular there. Like reviving writing, with fountain pens.

Today's pics simply on the iPhone 12 mini. Now, back to work. Writing. With a 'pen'.

Things I might miss...

... when getting home becomes a possibility... (25/365, 25 Jan 2022)

It is approaching two years since I've been back to Australia, almost two years of not flying after getting back about three times a year. The big return was supposed to happen last March, the end of the five-year-plan. We all know what has happened in the meantime...

Even now, I don't have a definite date to return. Staying on and extending my visa last year meant committing to the university for a further, well eight years. They were kind enough to extend that long. That's nice, but also awkward. We'll have to see what develops...the extended story is probably a post for the other blog. 

It has been a bit of a limbo period. International travel has been off limits but so too has domestic travel, trips for my research. But I am now getting that feeling of 'I might miss out on doing...' things. All the things I've taken for granted, I might just miss them when I return home. 

That kind of guided tonight's little excursion. I've recorded pics around the workplace but not much around the home place, apart from those walks to the shop through the park to buy the paper of course. 

Tonight I thought, what about the train station? I travel through there almost every day. What if I forget what it looks like?

Waiting

Just occasionally...

...two trains, the express and the 'stopping all stations'...

...arrive at the same time

OK, highly unlikely I'll forget. In my mind, when I close my eyes, I still see every metre of the 200km daily round trip I did along the Bruce Highway to travel to work and back. And that was for thirteen years.

Trainwatching, actually train watching, is quite a thing in Japan. Groups of enthusiasts take pics and post in incredible detail the trains they've seen. I'll never be quite that detailed, but I'll always appreciate the train system in Japan. It has served me well. 

Today's pic taken late, in a light shower which the weather bureau forecasts might turn into snow...tomorrow's pics? Cam was the Canon EOS M5 18-150mm lens. Yes, I planned to take something around campus but here we are. 

Barking up another tree...

 ...I suspect the neighbours think I'm barking mad... (24/365, 24 Jan 2022)

Some Mondays start out with a small group discussion across time zones as we continue our Arendt reading from Saturday morning. Some Monday mornings start with a uni exec meeting which continue to be held online, giving the option to go to the office or stay at home. Some Mondays too, are a continuation of things left unfinished over the weekend. 

Today was the small group meeting (option a) and staying on to finish the weekend's article (option c). It has been difficult to get back into writing habits, part of the reason to get back into this daily posting, but also because my life has been consumed by administration over the last few years. That is coming to an end and so hopefully, my writing load will increase. It is, after all, one of the reasons one becomes an academic. I don't have a lot of confidence in it. My writing that is. But that might be a subject to a post on the other blog. 

All of that is a long way to say, I didn't really get out today. Except for a short walk down to the shop, and yes, you know the rest, 'to buy the paper'. That involves walking through the park and while the park trees were subject of a post just recently, today, instead of looking up, the focus was on the bark. I love (and miss) the bark of Australian eucalypts, but Japanese trees have their attractions, particularly the moss.

As I've noted previously, the original idea of the project 365 founder was to find joy or beauty in something each day, something we might otherwise overlook. I guess today was one of those days.

Tomorrow is another day, at the office. Let's see what the day brings. 

Today's pics from the iPhone 12 mini.

Reasons to be indoors...

 ...several, really (23/365, 23 Jan 2022)

The writing noted in yesterday's post continues today. We are almost there. Almost. Deadline is tomorrow so there is still some time to trim the edges, smooth the bumps. It is also a day to show that as much as I would like to, I can't always go out on a day trip to somewhere, even if the semester is drawing to a close. Yes, there is always marking and grading (I won't be sad to give up that part of the work), but writing demands like this can force your hand. 

And to be honest, it was rather overcast and cloudy (talk of snow a possibility a bit later this evening) and with Covid numbers increasing in Tokyo (just under 10,000 today), it helps to be a little cautious. 

Or, so I told myself as I sat down at the desk this morning. 

And that is all well and good, except when you are doing a 'photo-a-day' project like this one. With return to Australia a possibility this year, I do hope to get out to places I haven't been yet. But not today. So what does the project look like on a work at home day? Well, it looks like this...

Looking at the results of the 2021 election

The papers pile up

Pause

Women as leaders 

I know what you are thinking but despite appearances
these are macadamia nuts and strawberries, really

Research materials, manuscript drafts, healthy snacks to keep going, and occasional pauses to smell the er, flowers. (I think they are almost done.)

Sometimes, the days are very ordinary, and yet...we should always find something to note, even the snacks. 

Today's cam was the hardworking iPhone 12 mini.

Now, back to the writing, 15 hours to deadline. 

Ink paintings...

 ...against a blue sky (22/365, 22 Jan 2022)

Saturday mornings tend to start rather, er, early for me. For several years now I have participated in a virtual reading group based in New York. Their '1:00pm Friday' is 3:00am Saturday my time (2:00am in summer), and how the rest of Saturday turns out can often depend on several things...how busy was the rest of the week, for example. Where possible, I like to take it a little easy on Saturdays.

This morning also involved a semi-regular spot on Australian radio, a chat with the ABC's Rod Quinn, at about 3:15am during the Australia summer and about 4:15am most of the rest of the year. I enjoy the spot and appreciate the opportunity to chat about current events in Japan, sometimes as they might affect Australia, and other times for newsworthiness alone. This morning was a case of winging parts of the chat, a large earthquake rumbled through Kyushu around 1:00am and just as I was going to air, I was watching and conveying the content of a press conference going live here in Tokyo at the same time.

At around sunrise (which I gather is about the coldest time the day) temps dropped down to about minus 4 degrees in these parts. Any wonder that by about 7:00am, I felt like I had run a full day. 

I am currently finishing off an article or two due next week (and no, this post is not a procrastination device, really, it is not), so if I needed a reason (or two) to stay home, well 3-4000 words will do that to you.

My outing today was always going to be limited to the neighbourhood. Against a brilliant sunny and blue sky day that defies (and continues to defy) the single digit temperatures. About lunchtime, I had to pop out to get the paper at the shop via a walk through the local park (as regular readers of my social media posts will know), especially because I saw online earlier that the paper I usually buy has an article that is relevant to one of the articles I'm writing...(this is a good bit of fortune really, ever since I was a student submitting assignments at uni, really interesting and relevant articles turned up two or three days after submission...always!)

Anyway, a walk out side under sunny blue skies gives me another chance to have a photographical 'play' just like yesterday's clouds. Back home, in winter, a few trees will lose their leaves, but here, it seems just about every tree loses just about every leaf. It is fascinating to look up and see the patterns against the sky.

There's always one leaf remaining

Side-by-side

I think this is what my ink-blown drawing would end up looking like

And, photography being photography, there are lots of 'rules', like writing and occasionally ,
like writing, when you know the rules, well, it is kind of fun to 'break the rules' too (to paraphrase (poorly)  Picasso's famous 'Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist').
Some of my most interesting pics have been 'mistakes'; this one, just for interest, was taken directly into the sun, usually a no-no, completely lost the 'blue' of the sky. It is not one of my best, nor one of my most interesting but, example made.

Why do I like these patterns? I took art classes right through high school, have always enjoyed it although I ended up with photography because I can neither paint nor draw--so said my teachers, in that constructively critical way they can. Often, I'll try and take a picture of something I imagine I might like to be able to draw. (Photos of insects and birds will be another post one day about my failed considerations to become a biologist--it had a bit to do with insisting on taking art all the way to senior high school...) 

So back to today's pics, the bare branches of trees, in winter, they're not yet dead Fred, they are on the verge of blooming in a few weeks and indeed one day soon, these branches will be back here filled with the pink blossoms of the famous sakura, cherry blossoms. But the bare branches remind me of those art classes where, armed with a blank canvas (well, paper in those days, it was a state school), and bottle (or two) of ink, and a straw, we were encouraged to blow the ink over the paper to create a kind of ink drawing. It was, as I recall, fun. 'Exhale, DO NOT inhale' was the rule.

In years since, I've discovered the ink-drawing genre here in Japan and also significant in China and Korea. Kind of interesting connections. In recent weeks, I've been looking at a few fountain pens and other ink-based pens with a view to going back to some ink and watercolour pictures. We'll have to see how that turns out. In the meantime, I can just marvel at patterns in the lens.

Today's stroll accompanied by the Canon EOS M5, 18-150mm, which I remembered to bring home from the office.

Thanks as always, for coming this far.  😊 

Floating on a cloud...

 ...well, not quite (21/365, 21 Jan 2022)

The teaching year is drawing to a close (witness yesterday's post) though not the working year. Marking and grading to come, graduations and the rest. From today, we had to switch back to online classes, a bit annoying because we have just a couple of weeks left but important to do I suppose with the jump in case numbers. just a whisker under 10,000 here in Tokyo today. So the numbers are definitely going up. In class today, and their last class next Friday, I had to give them the news today...the students are naturally disappointed, so close to the end. A different class next Tuesday, their last class for the year too. 

Final presentations, today and next week, and whether it is a sign of the times, the switch to online for all the students went surprisingly smoothly. 

I had a few admin things to do today, and just as I was thinking about heading out for a short walk* (*brisk, actually because today's temperatures have stayed in single numbers, heading for minuses this evening) before getting into an article I have to finish up, I noticed the clouds from my office. 

Now, we still had mostly blue skies here in Tokyo, but around the rest of the country it was snowing. Just as you get to read the clouds at home for incoming storms, I guess there are people who can read there clouds for potential snow. Maybe not these ones today but I do become enchanted with the way they traverse the sky, across my window, providing just enough distraction...

No snow in these ones, as it turned out, but I reckon it can't be far away.

Today's cam, the Canon EOS M5, 18-150mm lens, from the tenth floor.