Since I was already going into Omiya I told her that I would go to the travel agency (which happened to
be in the department store I needed to go to anyway) and pick up my new travel info. So after an endless stream of appolgies from the agent I was finally given
my new flight details, and to make up for all the trouble I recieved this wonderful can of coffee . What an inspiring gift to give to somebody for almost completely
screwing up their travel plans. I still haven't opened this can. Perhaps I'll save it as a momento...Moving on to the actual vactation now. Once I had my new flight info all I had to do was wait around until my departure day, which wasn't too hard since it was only another two days. I always make sure to book my flights for the afternoon or evening so that I don't have to worry about taking the first train in the morning. I was flying Continental this time, but it was a code share with Northwest, which left me with a rather uneasy feeling since 3 of the 4 times I've been on a NW flight there has been something wrong with my seat. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the new Continnental planes are on par with the JAL planes that I have flown on and enjoyed. Each seat in Economy has it's own video screen so that you aren't stuck watching one thing. There are also games to play, so I spent a good deal of time playing chess. 13 hours later I had arrived at Newark Airport, my original flight flew into JFK which is what I would have preferred, and I was less than thrilled to be back in NJ. I thought I had escaped after graduating from Rutgers, but like Michael Corleone it pulled me back in (okay, I apologize for that, but I've been watching the Sopranos too much again). The wait at immigration was long but not all too painful, and the person checking me through didn't have a bad attitude. In fact, she was perhaps the most pleasant immigration official I have yet to meet. The wait for my lugage was long, as usual. What I would like to know is, that no matter when I check in at the airport, why are my bags always some of the last to come out of the plane? Anyway, after collecting my bag I thought that I would be done with the hassle, but before I could get out to the waiting area, the last customs check had to happen. Let me recount the conversation I had with the moron that questioned me.
Customs Guy: "What's wrong with you?" In a very accusing voice.
Me: "Nothing, I'm just tired." Not surprisingly in a dead tired voice.
Customs Guy: "What are you here for?" In the same accusing voice.
Me: "Vacation."
Customs Guy: "Where do you live?" Same voice again, in fact his toned never changed.
Me: "Japan." This is when he looks at me like I have 2 heads or something.
Customs Guy: "What the hell do you do there?" Word for word, I swear.
Me: "I work there." By this time I was getting really annoyed with him.
Customs Guy: "What's your job?" Looking at me as if a third head had just popped out of my chest.
Me: "I teach English." He then stares at me for about 20 seconds and motions me past with a huff.
I wonder if he was just looking for somebody to be annoying to, because it would be really hard to be that impolite all the time. It may have been the lack of a good rest on the plane, but I doubt that seriously. So after that annoyance I was down the home stretch. It took me a while to figure out that there were two lines, one of people waiting to catch their connecting flight and the other for people that wanted to get the hell out of there. It didn't help that people were meandering about the ramp and the lines weren't very distinguishable. That, and the fact that the airport isn't signed very well. So, I met up with my parents and we headed off back to CT. The second I stepped outside the cold air hit. It was about 30 (just around 0 for you metric people) that evening, and because I was coming from an area where the average winter temp is in the mid 50s (10 to 12 C) it was a nice pleasant shock. There was still a bit of snow on the ground too. The drive home wasn't so pleasant though. We were trying to get home from NJ at rush hour, and under an ill adivised (and sleep deprived) suggestion by yours truly, we took the NJ Turnpike to the George Washington Bridge. I'd never had any trouble with the GWB when I had driven back from Rutgers, but I guess things have changed a little in these last two and a half years.
We eventually got home, and not all too late which was nice. Dotty greeted me by jumping up and hitting me in the delicates, but like many dogs she is quite adept at that, so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised. The best thing about my winter break is that I did next to nothing for 2 and a half weeks. There isn't really anything to write about other than seeing Return of the King the day after I got back. Christmas day was as odd as usual with Santa bringing some wonderful costumes this year. I was a viking by the way. I guess I'll post some of the pictures in the future just so I have them there. I also got to drive a Subaru Impreza WRX which my uncle is leasing for my cousin. The quick spin I took in that car has only cemented my plans to get one of my own once I'm back stateside. So fun...
So, as you can tell I'm back in Japan and school is back in session. The wheels are spinning, but I'm finding it extremely difficult to get back into the swing of things this time around. We had the first snow of the season, at least the first I know of, this morning so that helped to pick my spirits up a bit. However I feel that it won't last.
Shirachu 2nd years "show and tell"
Hello everone.
I'll tell you about "mggicaldetectiveLoki"
This comic written by Sakura Kinosita.
Maincharacter is loki.
It is god.
god come by He.
And case happen by He.
case mean is ziken.
Do you think this comic is serious?
I don't think so.
Because, He doesn't look like god.
For example, He buy pumpkin, He go at Onsen.
I thnk he look like human.
Bat I like Loki the best of this comic's character.
That's all
Thank you.
Hello everyone.
I would like to tell you about a book I love.
It's on the chair good story book.
This book was made is cellphone a short story.
It was written by Yoshi.
Look this is book this year spring move.
Look heroine is high school student.
It is there come out heroin death cruel story.
this writher author is others book.
that book name is "Dear Friends."
Look this is story is friendsin for book.
the other pleasant, happy and cry books come out.
I recommend this book to you.
This is book to reud everyone.
That all
Thank you very much for listening.
From now on. I introduce about My favorite books.
This time introduce books is wrote by Miuki MiYabe
This book's titol is Tremble rock to age novel
This story is about reasoning novel Edo age
Heroine is Hatu she is general town girl
But She have inspiration ability.
That ability used strange even unbind
Herrow every one well ‚»‚ê‚Å‚Í
They died, but they revived. to man
The man is merchant ed at ghost
relation event is happen in circumference
it was connection event of fifty years ago.
Hatu is dragged event
Can She solution the event?
This is very nervous story.
That of thank you.
This is what I have to read day in and day out. There are times when I don't mind correcting the papers, as long as they are in small amounts. However, when I have to correct 120 of these things you can see why I would start to go insane after the first 50 or so. Grading papers is probably the thing I like least about "teaching." The full compositions get very tiring to read and interpret, but there were also a few classics that came from otherwise good writing. Here is just a sample of some of the better ones I found.
-Jelly Burakkaima which dealt with "Armageddan."
-Spykids is child though grown-up than strong.
-For example, sky fly shoe and so on.
-This is the talk of fighting with the pirates cursed when very said easily
-My bover book "Doraemon"
-This Happy Birthday and Heart Voice J.H.S. bofall
-By the way, they love at each other.
So, if you look at these lines carefully you can see some of the major stumbling blocks that kids come across when they are trying to write in English. Yes, I know, the whole R/L thing is a horrible stereotype, but it does happen. It happens more often than I'd like to admit. I personally think that Jelly Burakkaima is a much better name than Jerry Bruckheimer, but no matter how many times I do listening drills or what-not there are kids that just can't hear the difference. It's a shame really, especially if they are talking about rice. "I love lice," is a very frequently heard phrase in schools around this country. Another common mistake you'll come across is the use of prepositions. "They love at each other," and other derivatives of the kind are all too common, and I think it stems from the fact that too many kids try and translate directly from the Japanese, which almost never works. I think I need to find myself that "Tremble age to rock novel" that my student wrote about.
We went to Kamakura first, and I couldn't help but think that it reminded me of Sag Harbor. The atmosphere there was completely different from the rest of Japan. I wonder if most harbor towns have that same feeling because it was almost like going to a place that seemed as familiar as home. There were some really great places to visit there too. We stopped by Kamakura's most famous tourist trap, the Great Buddha, but since it was a Monday there were not too many people there. The lack of people made things quite peaceful, but the coolest bit of the temple area was the little garden in back. There were a whole bunch of squirrels and pigeons begging for food. Now, seeing squirrels may not seem like a big deal to people back in CT, but they are rarely seen in most areas of Japan. It was cool to see them jumping up on people that were sitting still on a flat rock there. Since it was a perfect day for walking, that's what we did. We walked down the road to another of Kamakura's famous temples, Hasedera, and I started to get the feeling that I like Kamakura better than Kyoto. Living in Saitama really makes areas with hills seem exotic. I know it sounds stupid, but if you lived in Saitama you would probably think the same thing. After Hasedera, we wandered to a temple next door. It would have been much nicer if the flowers there were in bloom, but we were probably a few weeks early for that. We then hopped on a local train back up to the main area of town. We then wandered up Komachi-cho which is a street lined with shops. Of all the streets like that I've been to in Japan, this one was the calmest, so I obviously enjoyed it the most.
We meandered up to our next destination, Kamakura's Hachiman-gu. I think that Hachiman-gu is another of the major tourist traps in Kamakura, but it was still more pleasant than just about any area of Tokyo. There wasn't anything to really set it apart from all the other temples and shrines I've been to except for the archery range. If it was the season for horseback archery I'm sure the shrine would have been much more interesting. The last place we would have time to visit was Kamakura's oldest shrine, Sugimoto-jinja. It is a very tiny place, but at the same time I thought it was very cool. It was first built in the 700's, and the current building is supposed to date to the 1100's, at least I think that's what the guide book said...
Two days later we headed up to Nikko. It was another perfect day, so it made walking through the shrine area very easy. Toshogu Shrine is the place where Tokugawa Ieyasu (the first Shogun of the Edo period) is buried. The buildings here weren't like any of the other places I had been to. They were much more elaborate that anything in Kyoto or Kamakura, but I guess that makes sense seeing that the people buried there were pretty important. Toshogu Shrine is also the place where the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" monkeys come from. Unfortunately, the picture I took of them didn't come out and the gates closed before I had a chance to get a closer shot.
The best area of the complex wasn't Toshogu Shrine itself, but the temple where Ieyasu's grandson, Iemitsu, is buried. It's called the Taiyuin, and I think it was more worthwhile than all the other places in Nikko. It takes all the golden highlights of the main Toshogu Shrine and shrinks it down to a much smaller, more appealing scale. I really enjoyed the areas of Nikko that I went to, but I'm hard pressed to think that it would be worth seeing again. I could go back to Kamakura endlessly only for the atmosphere, but Nikko just didn't have the same feel. Maybe it's a nice place in the winter for skiing, and it would almost definitely be cooler in the summer than where I am now, but it just lacked that atmosphere that would make me want to return.
Well, that pretty much wraps up the time when my parents were here, but I haven't gotten to the near accident. I went to kendo on Friday night, as per usual, and
had a rather good night of training. We were going to do the usual Friday night tradition of getting pizza and watching a movie, so after kendo I dropped off all my
stuff in it's usual spot. We went over to Taoe's for pizza and such (congratulations to Ricky and Taoe on their engagement) but when I got back to my apartment
there was a rather odd smell lingering in the air. My apartment didn't smell like that before I left and to my surprise, I saw that my electric hearter was on...and
burning a hole in my kendo bag!!! I turned off the heater as fast as I could and unplugged it for good measure. Then I turned on my lights to see my apartment
absolutely filled with smoke. I couldn't help but think how lucky I was that a fire didn't start. I've taken a picture of the bag to remind me never to leave the
electric heater on while I'm not at home. So I've had the windows open all day and night to get rid of the smell, and I lit a candle to help get rid of any residual
odor that the burnt pleather left behind. Now I have to get a new kendo bag before Friday. That should be an interesting adventure...
I had to wake up much earlier than I would have liked on Sunday, but I had to catch a bus at 9 a.m. that was heading down to the hotel. Daisuke had arranged for me to ride along with the people he works with, which was quite nice since his company is located on the border of Shiraoka and Hasuda. I only had a 5 minute bike ride to get to the meeting point, but I still had to wake up much earlier than what I'm accustomed to on a Sunday. We arrived at the hotel about 2 hours before the ceremony so there was a lot of time to kill. I ended up drinking coffee and chatting with one of the managers of the company. We ended up discussing which language was the most difficult to learn. I think I may have surprised him when I said that Japanese was fairly simple to learn for me. He tried to bring up the point that writing Japanese is very difficult and the kanji is exceptionally hard. I told him that Japanese uses about one tenth the amount of kanji as Chinese, and that people who speak English as their native tongue still have trouble spelling words correctly, myself included. He kept trying to insist that Japanese was the most difficult, but that is just one of those institutionalized myths that so many Japanese people truly believe, and no amount of arguing will convince them otherwise. It was good practice for my conversational Japanese though.
Moving on to the ceremony. How can I descirbe the actual ceremony? I guess it was along the lines of what a Las Vegas quicky wedding would be like. It was set up in a little white chapel in the "wedding" section of the hotel. Theirs was not the only ceremony going on that day because I saw at least 4 separate couples wandering around the halls there. The whole chapel was white in a very typically tacky Disney way, and the rings were brought in inside the pumpkin horse carriage a la Cinderella. The "minister" was one of the most poindexter like people ever, and he spoke Japanese with one of the most atrocious North American accents ever. You could tell that he wasn't a real minister the second he walked in. The thing that amused me the most, aside from the "minister's" horrible accent, were the "wedding helpers." These were people that stood off to the side of the chapel like ushers and would start rounds of applause. It was quite surreal. Add on to that the fact that they were singing Disney songs throughout the ceremony, and you get a very strange experience that really makes your head swim. I was doing my best not to break out laughing while a good majority of the women there were bawling their eyes out. I guess I was the only person there that saw the absurdity in it all. Well, I guess that comes from being raised in a Christian household where the father is a real minister and from having been to some real Christian wedding ceremonies. Unfortunately, most of the pictures I took didn't come out very well, but I do have one decent picture of the couple walking down the aisle.
After the ceremony finished, everybody was escorted outside the hotel to an area surrounding a little gazebo. Many pictures were taken of Daisuke and Miki holding up their Disney marriage certificate. Then the real Disney moment started happening. Out came Mickey and Minnie dressed in their Sunday best. They did the typical Disney schtick of hopping around like fleas, waving and posing for the cameras. Basically what you expect from any college student dressed in a mouse costume. Although, I have a feeling the kids in Japan get paid more for their suffering than their American counterparts. I have a decent picture of of Daisuke, Miki, Daisuke's father, and Miki's mother, but it is devalued with the inclusion of some guy holding up his cellphone to snap a shot of the family. How typically Japanese...
Once the pictures were finished, it was time for the bouquet toss. I guess that single women all over the world can be the same because there was a near stampede to capture the prize. One of Miki's friends nearly fell down trying to catch the bouquet and came up very pouty when she didn't get it. Luckily there was no garter toss, so I was spared having to line up with the single men. Knowing my luck, it would have homed in on me like what happened with my brother "oh so many years ago." Next was the reception, but before that they had all the guests line up on the stairway leading back into the hotel. We were all given some flower petals with random pieces of paper thrown in. And because it was Disney, the paper was shaped like Mickey. I can't say I was surprised. So, we showered the happy couple as they were ushered up the stairs to another spot for yet more pictures.
The rest of the sheep were herded into the reception hall and we waited again for Daisuke and Miki to make their entrace. What followed was reminiscent of my brother's wedding reception at a hall in Brooklyn. They had lasers and lights flashing everywhere, and yes, even a high quality camera recording the whole thing. It looked like the shoulder cameras that you see news people carrying around. The light mounted on it was super bright as well. Anyway, the reception quickly deteriorated from anything resembling a reception and quickly turned into what could only be described as a press conference! It started out innocently enough with a little background story on them both, but it then jumped into the question and answer session which looked like it belonged more on T.V. than at a wedding. After their interrogation was concluded, they moved on to the guest speakers which included the grandfather of the bride, and the President of Arai Racing Helmets. I was actually seated at the same table as him, and it was rather odd being the only person under 40 at that table, when there were a bunch of younger people sitting right behind me. When the speeches had finished, the lights dimmed once again and they made the annoucement of some special visitors. I knew what it was going to be even before the door opened, and just as I thought, out poured Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofie, Chip & Dale, Pluto, Comit Cupid and Donner and Blitzen...oh, sorry. As you can expect, there was a lot of picture taking, Japanese women in their 20s screaming out like 8 year olds to the characters, the video camera capturing it all on celluloid, and all the while Disney music is playing in the background. I must say that I did a good job of putting on a fake smile and pretending that all the hullabaloo wasn't bothering the piss out of me. After the cake had been cut, all the Disney characters left, and the bride and groom stepped out for a costume change.
The lights went dark again, then I noticed that smoke was seeping through the bottom of the door. I barely had enough time to compose myself (to stop from laughing) for the inevitable grand entrance. The door swung open and in poured and endless stream of smoke and out of the cloud appeared none other than the bride and groom dressed as Beauty and the Beast. Yes, Beauty and the Beast... They were carrying a bottle around with them that, when the contents were poured into a glass on each table, produced a chemical reaction not unlike the kind you see in a glow stick . I thought that was perhaps the coolest part of the evening. That's how absurd I thought this whole day had been. Perhaps I should have had more to drink...
Just when I thought that the reception would be coming to a close (boy was I wrong), the karaoke sessions began. I may have mentioned this before, but I absolutely loathe karaoke. Luckily, the karaoke only went on for about 20 minutes, but the singing wasn't quite finished. Up came two guests who started belting out "A Whole New World," at the top of their lungs. Ironically, their English pronunciation was far better than the pseudo-minister's Japanese. The singing finally came to an end, but now the real torture began. The camera that had been milling about the entire time started focusing on individual tables. Now it was the newly weds turn to talk about their friends and have them interviewed by the MC. As luck would have it, and not in the good sense, the camera eventually made it's way around to me. I hate having my picture taken, so you can imagine just how uncomfortable it was for me to be caught on film speaking in Japanese after having comsumed quite a bit of alcohol. The MC asked me where I had met Daisuke and such, and me being the smartass that I can be, told them that he 'nampa'ed me. Which basically equates to using a pick-up line. That got a good amount of laughs luckily and they moved on to the next person. Good riddance.
After people had been sufficiently humiliated, Daisuke and Miki moved over to the door along with their parents. Miki's mother and Daisuke's father made some nice little speeches then it was time for Daisuke to say the closing thanks and farewells. It was a nice speech in which he mentioned how he wished his mother could have been there, and that when she passed away it was quite hard on his family. He pushed through the speech like a real trooper and a majority of the people we left in tears. It was rather odd to end such a supposedly happy day on a down note like that, but the overall feel of the day was pretty light. So, there you have it. My first and probably only experience with a non-traditional Japanese wedding.
Well, I suppose I'll start with some good news. Back in April I had my kendo grading, and I passed both 1 and 2 kyu so I am now the proud owner of a kendo "passbook" of sorts that says I'm officially ranked according to the kendo bigwigs in Japan. Whether or not this means anything back in the U.S. is yet to be known, but I feel like I have accomplished one of the things I set out to do when I arrived here 3 years ago. May rolled around, and that is when I nearly lost it. I won't go into details as I said earlier, but let's just say it wasn't a pleasant month. June couldn't have come sooner and even though I was moving to my least favorite school I had learned that the new principal had been the principal at a JHS for Japanese nationals in Greenwich. Mr. Yoshida turned out to be a great person to talk to and it really started to get me thinking of going home. When the little hamsters in my head got on their running wheels, I really started to get anxious about what going home actually entailed and what the hell I was going to do to send everything back. I may not have acquired as much as some people do while they are in Japan, but the volume of things I had actually gotten hold of kind of took me by surprise. To date I have sent 6 boxes home weighing a total of 60 kilos (132 pounds for you metric impaired). Granted, a third of that is the books that I've collected over 3 years, but I still have a few boxes left to send.
Anyway, back to June. June is typically the rainy season in Japan, and it is perhaps my second least favorite season here, closely following summer. I typically get drenched riding my bike to school everyday, but this year the rain was relatively non-existent. I guess that is a good thing, but it has a rather horrible consequence. Instead of having temperatures in the mid 80's for June and July, we've been running a streak of days that have easily passed 95. Couple that with humidity hovering around 75 to 85% and you have hell on earth. I've never been more thankful for AC in my life than I have been this summer.
Kendo also come to and end with my last 2 days of practice last weekend. It will be a bit depressing to stop practicing here since I'm not sure what the quality of the teachers is like back in CT. The teachers in Shiraoka have really been great in helping me to learn "proper" kendo. I was actually able to try out the stuff I learned a few weeks ago when I took part in the town tournament. There were only 4 adults signed up to fight, so we ended up having a round-robin style match. I guess it was a good thing that all the people there were from the kendo club so there wasn't any major sense of nervousness on my part until the first match was about to begin. I wasn't expecting to win any match since all the other guys fighting had been practicing kendo about 10 times longer than I have. I lost my first match, as I had anticipated, but the nervousness completely vanished after that. My second match was against a teacher that I regularly spar with and I actually managed to stop him from scoring on me. I, of course, didn't score any points myself, so we ended up in a draw. My last match was immediately after the one I had just drawn, so I had no time to relax. I was practically dead, but the adrenaline kicked in and I had a short burst of energy that let me score my first "Ippon" in kendo. I think I was more shocked than the guy I was fighting to have actually scored, but I thought that it would be in my best interest to try and block for the rest of the fight so I could keep my first win ever. With a score of 1 win, 1 loss, and 1 draw I managed to finish 3rd out the 4 people in the adult group. I would have liked to have had more people to fight to make it more interesting, but I'm happy that I got my first win.
The day of the tournament was probably the last cool day that we would have and the days have increasingly gotten worse. By the following kendo practice on Friday, not only was it close to 95, but the bruise I got on my arm from the tournament had started to turn a wonderful yellowish color. The floor in the dojo was hot to the touch, so needless to say, it has been a rather disgusting last few weeks at kendo. On a pleasant note, Mr. Inoue gave me a tenegue (bandana of sorts) along with a little kendo key holder as mementos of my time there. One of the kendo moms also gave me a tsubatome (a rubber thing to keep the hand guard in place) with the message "you can do it" written on the package. I nice little gesture.
During the first three weeks of July I was at Minami JHS for the purpose of "teaching" the kids, but I don't think I had more than 10 classes the whole three weeks. The teachers room was also beastly hot because the air doesn't move through the room too well, plus the vice principal was too stingy to turn on the AC even though temps in the staff room were near 100 on a few days. I decided that I wouldn't spend my time there is I wasn't needed, so I ended up taking Thursdays and Fridays off. It was a great way to give me time to pack up a lot of things, but only just last night I realized exactly how much stuff I still had yet to pack. After filling one box with my kendo gear I thought I would have, at most, one more box to pack up. Instead I packed up two more and I still have quite a bit more to pack up. I really shouldn't have waited this long to get everything organized. Aside from packing up things, all the departing AETs have been treated to farewell ceremonies at all the schools. The ceremonies ranged from the very well thought out one of Seiga JHS to the last minute one of Minami JHS. It was quite nice of the schools to do that, but I can't help but think of how absurd it is to be treating us like that. After all, there are kids that don't even remember what my name is...
Along with the school farewells we also had the farewell enkai from the BoE. If you've read my older journals you'll know that I'm not the biggest fan of these kind of shin-digs, but we didn't exactly have a choice in whether to go or not. There was much food and much drink. Jeff, Taoe, and I all got yukatas and a bouquet of flowers as a departing gift to go along with a traditional New Years "paddle" that we got at a meeting with some of the English teachers from the town. I would have much rather preferred a miniature samurai helmet that my predecessor got, but the BoE didn't bother to take that into consideration now did they. To wrap up the farewells all three of us departing AETs met the mayor of Shiraoka. It was as uncomfortable as you could imagine, but the bit that really bugged me was the fact that my supervisor told me I would be translating for the other AETs if need be. Great, thanks for foisting your job off on me. On the bright side, we each got 10,000 yen for our troubles. I guess that whole day wasn't a waste, but we were told to be at the BoE by 4:15 to meet the mayor. Of course, with this being Japan, the mayor was about 45 minutes late so we all had to wait around and twiddle our thumbs. So much for the myth of meetings in Japan always being punctual. Thankfully all the officials goodbyes have been taken care of and all that is left is to pack everything up, cancel my cell phone, and say goodbye to the friends I haven't had a chance to say goodbye to yet.
I was treated to a rather nice surprise when Toshi and his parents invited me out to a farewell dinner of Shabu-shabu. It's basically the same concept as fondue (not the cheese or chocolate variety mind you), but with meat that is much more fatty and thus tastier, according to Japanese standards. I have to admit, that while I don't like fatty meat, it was a rather delicious meal. I had a rather nice time at dinner, most likely because it wasn't an enkai and Toshi's parents are quite fun to chat with, and it was perhaps one of the top five meals I've eaten since coming here.
So with one week left to go, I'm getting rather anxious about getting everyting ready for the newbie that will be taking over my apartment. I have yet to give the place a good cleaning, but I'm waiting for most of my stuff to be out of the way for that to happen. I've also started thinking about what these last few years have really been to me, but I think that I'll wait until I've been back home for a while before I write any kind of permanent reflections of my experience. So until that day comes I'll leave it at that. No fortune cookie words of wisdom, no deep insights, no nasty slights, nothing. Now go away.