Oranges

Nadia's pregnancy book ( a comic take on the subject by Kaz Cooke) says that the uterus in Week 10 is about the size of an orange. I find it hard to get my head around the idea of a cricket-ball- sized object squeezed into my lower abdomen or adjacent precincts, but then again, I'm just a man. I think I'll find it even harder once the object swells to the size of rock-melon, but as Nadia reminds me, it is she that is the subject of this unique invasion, not me. It doesn't stop me thinking about it, though.

Speaking of cricket (were you? - ed), the Ashes series has warmed up considerably since England won the second test. Given that Australia seems to win at every sport (except alas, soccer) I'm really hoping the Poms can carry off the series. In any event, the Australian team are a little too arrogant for my liking and a dose of losing can only do some good in the long run. And the game needs some other champions once and a while.

OBN

A couple of days ago our Prime Minister received the Order of the Brown Nose (surely, public service award - ed.) from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars. Nothwithstanding our PM's outstanding achievements in the cause of American foreign policy, the fact that previous winners include Dick Cheney should be sufficient warning to future nominees. I'm not sure which Woodrow Wilson is alluded to in the organisation's title, but it surely could not be the same Woodrow Wilson who was an American President and, er, a Democrat. This Wilson of the same name was a fervent internationalist and a leading proponent of the League of Nations.

The current US President, George Bush sent his congratulations via video.

"John Howard is a great personal friend of mine and a supporter of the American Way er, sorry, the freedom of all peoples, and I ask him to report to my office at 9.30 tomorrow morning for further instructions, um, I mean, a cup of tea." (Video goes hazy, then blank)

Nice to know we have powerful friends.........

Pontiff Orstralis

The news that the Pope has announced Australia as the next venue for the World Catholic Youth Conference has sent the nation into a spin. The number crunchers aside, the more significant news was the Pontiff's remark that Australia was amongst those countries that are most desperately spiritually impoverished.

Its true that, to outsiders, Australians might court the image of being a nation of irreverent, sports-loving hedonists, but the truth may be quite different. The brash call-a-spade-spade Aussie seems to have a hidden world of potential spiritualities. Its just that we rarely like to talk about them. I was surprised by the candour of the many responses on a talk back radio program this evening to the question, 'Do you have an object that has special daily spiritual meaning for you?' It made we wonder about the assumptions I've made about my countrymen.

Its certainly true that established churches are emptier than ever; not a desirable outcome in my estimation. The moral relativism that has often ensued has been chaotic at best. Nor am I enamoured of the fashion for New Age therapies with their 'Me' obsessions. It's just that I think people here think more about God, and about matters relating to the meaning of life than they are prepared to admit or given credit for.

Loose Ends

After seven years together and a baby on the way, Nadia and I have finally decided to get married. Actually, we've been engaged since August of last year. Nadia returned to Japan from summer holidays and proposed to me at our favourite temple(see photo above). She had secretly bought a ring in Scotland. Well, was I surprised!! Apparently I couldn't speak for minutes on end........

So I've just made a booking for us to see a marriage celebrant. We won't be having the Big Wedding, for lots of reasons really. Why spend all that money? We hope to find a beautiful crop of rock bordering the national park for the ceremony, then have a party/reception back at Elaine's house. Elaine is Nadia's mum. I will hire a swish marquee for the back yard and we'll have a lot of fun and we will definitely not stand upon ceremony.

Anniversaries

VP day. I'm, thinking back 60 years to the sheer relief that the war was over. Newsreels of civilians massing in the streets, men dancing, unmitigated joy. I seems so much like a different age, almost a different planet. My mother was still in the UK, a teenage girl who had survived the Luftwaffe. The notorious bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The British Empire was finished. The American and Soviet domination had begun. It was a time of absolute change, of complete breaks.

Today I visited the blog of a Chinese university student. He had taken great pains to translate parts of his original Chinese blog into English, and pretty good English at that. He was a fairly typical kind of guy, enjoyed his studies, social life and looked forward to the future. One of his entries caught my attention, a demonstration against Japan by fellow students. The grievances were unspecified, but the protest looked big, aggressive and nationalistic. He described it as 'our lovely party' and I wondered whether something may have been muddied in translation.

Japan does have a lot to atone for with regard to the first half of the 20th Century. It pursued aggressive colonial policies from an early stage, invading and subduing Korea, then Manchuria, then South-East Asia during WW2. Most armies are violent and leave a trail of misery, but the Japanese Imperial Army seemed especially cruel and malevolent. It seems unlikely that Japan has ever asked why its army behaved so brutishly.

However, Japanese leaders, Prime Ministers and Emporers have repeatedly apologised for the damage and chaos caused during its colonial past. The apology was repeated today by the Japanese Prime Minister. But its clear that, unlike Germany, Japan has yet to find a way to sufficiently demonstrate its contrition to its former adversaries. Visits to war shrines by prominent leaders and ambigious history textbooks haven't helped the matter.

Having lived in Japan for two years and with the hope of returning soon, I have never found anything other kindness and fairness in my relationship with Japanese people. So its distressing for me, and probably many other foreigners who live there, that Japan seems to have been unable to deal properly and openly with its past. Perhaps this anniversary will start a debate, perhaps not.

Edyoocayshun

The debate over the best way of teaching reading continues in Australia. Educators elsewhere will be familiar with the 'whole language vs phonetics debate', which, for reasons best known to academics, have been acrimonious at times. Both systems seem to have their strengths and weakness and, as best I can work out, a skillful mix of the two has proven to be effective. Senior educational bureaucrats seem, however, to have had a Damascan moment. Apparently, phonetics is back on the agenda, probably for no better reason than the need to seem to be doing something new.

That's a pretty fundamental way of thinking in this country. If it isn't some concoction lifted from overseas, then its just a facelift for something that already exists and that already has a perfectly happy name, for heaven's sakes. Just like the tortured English that passes for Business English...but I dont want to get started on that!

Allied with this kind of thinking is the debate over English syllabi in my home state of NSW. About five years ago, a new syllabus introduced into high schools a far more ambitious project in learning and understanding English than before. Unfortunately, it imported most of the jargon associated with tertiary post-modern communication studies. So for author/playwright/poet/writer, read 'composer' and for reader, read 'responder'. That's just the tip of it.

Don't get me wrong. I had a lot of fun with post-modern studies at uni the second time around, but then, I had already completed a first degree in the traditional way. I had a grounding( a dangerous and delusional word as it implies that something is solid) already, so I could afford to learn the academic buzzwords and play the game. Its was interesting and challenging but in the end, I knew it was like a play and I was was giving a performance. And for a micro-second, even I, imagined that analysing the text that was, say, toilet graffiti, was as valid as analysing the text that is, say, King Lear. I know I'm exaggerating, but I'm sure you get my drift....

Cooking

It's not that I haven't been happy about my partner's pregnancy. I admit I've only alluded to it rather obliquely thus far. The reason is simple. The first trimester is the time in which things can go wrong - most commonly wrong, that is. I guess I'm holding back on unadulterated enthusiasm until around week 13. I'm cautious also because we almost certainly had a miscarriage in February.

But its Week 8 now and everything is going fine. Of course, Nadia feels queasy quite often and has lots of strange physical sensations. She is always tired. I try to be good at helping, though I am all the while aware of the fact that I am a bloke and blokes just don't get it. Apparently.

But I did have a minor triumph of sorts tonight. She ate three slices of home-made pizza and didn't feel sick!

Tomorrow its falls to me to book the marquee for our wedding and have a chat to a celebrant("I've got a wee poem that runs to 500 lines or so that I'd like you to include...").
More on that later.........

Lion Heart

Japan is going to the polls on September 11, in a classic act of Koizumism. I became a bit of a fan of the Japanese PM four years ago, in spite of the fact that he heads the LDP, a conservative party. I can only say that, despite my own centre-left instincts, something about the man, his ideas and his manner, grabbed me..

In the last four years he has struggled to drag a party beholden to special interests and business-as-usual (even when the means of conducting it have been discredited), into the modern era. By Japanese standards, he has been unorthodox and controversial. But the centrepiece of his reform agenda, the privatisation of the Japanese post office and allied services, was finally defeated in the parliament a week or so ago. Hence Koizumi's crash-through-or-crash poll.

I haven't always agreed with his agenda. I think the visits to Yasakuni were needlessly provocative, even if the principle was sound enough. I think he cozied up too close to Washington (though still mildly by comparison with the sycophants in the Australian Government) and should have pushed more firmly for an opening of Japan's highly-protected agricultural sector.

But this will be an election worth watching. Oh, I wish I was in Japan right now!

Eddi Reader

Last night a group of us went to see Eddi Reader at our intimate local venue, The Clarendon. Eddi has one of the best voices I've heard and she is passionately present during every song. She is a pretty eclectic artist and mixed ballads like 'Dolphins' with poems(set to music) by Robbie Burns. Her three piece band included long-time collaborator, Boo Hewerdine, whose slightly harder edge pieces provided contrast to the folkier elements of Eddi's repetoire. A great night!

As we emerged from The Clarendon, it was snowing! Yes, its winter, but its been warmer than average so the cold snap has come as a shock. But how beautiful to see cars covered in white and how sweet of my friends to make snow balls and hurl them at me!

I hinted before that we worked sometimes in Japan as English teachers. Of course, lots of people do that.

Here's a photo of Nadia and me last year in Kyoto. We were about to attend a special tea ceremony, and we took a stroll through the adjacent gardens. Sakura were in full bloom.

We both love Kyoto. Our best Japanese friend, Miwa, works at a nearby ryokan, or guesthouse. I guess that's what she was doing when this photo was taken.

And Again

I suppose I'm lucky to have time on my hands to go swimming or just hang out whenever I like. It hasn't always been so. I spent almost twenty years teaching in high schools and teaching was my life. Entirely. I think its great to have consuming passions but perhaps a little unhealthy to become obsessed by your work. I loved teaching but its good to have a life back. I'm not totally out of the loop - I still teach sometimes, though not in my own country.

Today I had one of those occassional computer meltdowns that seem much worse than they really are. Dozens of pages sprung open (no idea why) and, upon gaining control of the situation again, I found the hard drive had become, well, comatose. Didn't want to shut down. Didn't want to respond to any commands. All was well within 30 minutes or so, but the question is, what happened? I couldnt find any browser hijackers, dialers or related nepharios objects. Maybe I'll just put it down to quantum physics. Other people seem to.

I was saddened to hear about the untimely death of Robin Cook, former UK Foreign Minister. It's rare to find political leaders who put principle before their own careers, but Mr Cook was just such a man. For those who don't know, he resigned from the Cabinet in 2003 in protest at his Government's decision to join the Coaltion of the Willing in the Iraq conflict. By which I mean, he dissected and refuted the shabby logic that was presented as the raison d'etre for war. That he had been largely proven right was no comfort to him. That his colleagues at the top failed to heed any lessons only shows him up all the more as a giant amongst pigmies.

Time Out

Swimming is pretty close to my favourite physical activity, and since I have relatively close access to a 50 metre outdoor heated pool, and because the winter weather is so balmy, well, thats how I spent part of my morning. If I could put into words my feelings about the blue of the sky and the way the water seems to carress with every stroke....but that's just impossible.

Nadia went with her mum today to help out at work. Something to do with answering the phones and making coffee for everyone. She left feeling a little queasy and came back feeling much the same. Poor thing! Will it be eight more months of the same? I hope not for her sake. I try to be a good house-husband but nothing can really compensate for what's going on inside her body.

I rang our old boss Stephanie in Japan yesterday and told her the good news. We bought Stephanie's little conversation school (long story!) in Japan last year and needed to let her know we would be returning to Japan later than expected - thanks to that impending little bundle of joy. We were also worried about certain rules we had read about whereby children born out of wedlock encountered 'difficulties', particularly at a local level. Should we rush off to the registry office straight away? Would anyone in Japan do the maths? She seemed to think that there wouldn't be any problems so long as the knot was tried before birth. Hmm we'll see....

The Times

Its been a very interesting week or two.

Firstly, I found out my partner, Nadia, was pregnant. On my way back from the shops, I found her wandering up to the doctor. She produced a sheet of paper with Japanese script and a strange little strip of paper sticky-taped to the centre. I began reading the hiragana (slowly), then I had a flashback concerning the paper strip. January...Japan...pregnancy test.... began scrolling across my inner eye, just long enough for me to grasp the key elements.

I think I was in shock for a while; Nadia administering warms fluids to me as I sat in uncharacteristic silence.

Later, we walked up to the doctor together.

We have planned to have a baby for some months now, so it really should not have come as any kind of shock. But the funny thing is, it does, and there's nothing that can prepare you for that news. But its good news and Im very happy.

Let's Try Again

I wrote out a rather lengthy opening blog this morning, then saved it as a draft. Alas, the draft has gone into the ether, perhaps never to return.

I started by reflecting on the 60th aniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, digressing to a journey I made there three years ago. That got me thinking somewhat about war in general and the Iraq imbroglio in particular. Musing about missing WMD's and mendacious politicians just got me worked up, so I jumped tack again and wondered aloud whether Francis Fukuyama had repented of his view that 'history had ended'. Not likely, I suspect.

So I've saved you the trouble of wading through this glutinous mess by way of short summary, which I trust will be published........