Accomplished

I left the house again today. I was a bit surprised actually. I made a list of things I needed to do for this week and the most surprising thing about it was that I got it all done today. I have been getting to bed really late recently and waking up equally late. I would say my average bed time is around 4-5am. I think I get up around noon to 3pm. That’s definitely not good for when school starts. I just find myself reading more and being awake and more productive at night. I don’t know why, but I’ve always been that way.

When I got up, I thought that I needed to get some laundry done today, but decided to push that off till tomorrow since it wasn’t that important. What I really needed to do was get some dry clean done, since I was planning to do that the week after school finished. That didn’t happen, so I needed to get it done soon before I run out of time. Then I thought, since I’m going to be out, I should get the other things done too. I needed to get some school supplies, since school will be starting soon, and I want to be ahead of the curve instead of behind it. So I got a lot of the materials I needed for when school starts up again. I still need to get my planning done though, but that will come in due time. I also did a lot of grocery shopping and even bought some clothes today. I was a bit surprised that I spent so much money in the past two days. But I guess that it was necessary and I probably couldn’t have avoided it either way.

The next things on my list of things to do are plan my classes, look for some contractors in La Mesa, and study some Japanese. I have been studying a lot of Japanese music and trying to translate and understand the meanings. It’s not easy to do, especially at my level. I enjoy it though, and I think it is good practice. There was a lot more that I wanted to write, but I can’t seem to remember what I wanted to say. I didn’t watch too much TV today. Yeah, there are still lots of things I have to do before my vacation is over. It has been weird because I have been itchy all over recently. I have some rubbing cream for that, but it doesn’t work so well. I don’t know what it is, but it surly is annoying.

There is a commercial on TV about a car called Zest. I know that would be a bar of soap in the states, but here it’s for a car. And in the commercial, there is a news broadcast that says a second Tokyo Tower has been erected. In the commercial, because it’s a car commercial, they decide to jump in the car and go check it out. Well it turns out, IT’S TRUE!!! Read article below, provided by the Japan Times - http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060326a1.html

New Tokyo Tower to be built in Sumida

Transmitter would be tallest in world

NHK and five commercial TV broadcasters in the Tokyo area have decided to build a new radio and TV transmitter dubbed New Tokyo Tower, in Sumida Ward by 2010, sources familiar with the project said Saturday.

The tower is to be about 600 meters high, or nearly twice as tall as 333-meter Tokyo Tower in Minato Ward and higher than the world's tallest tower, the 553-meter CN Tower in Toronto. It will be built on a former railway shunting yard along the Tobu-Isesaki Line's Narihirabashi and Oshiage stations, they said.

Tobu Railway Co., owner of the site, has expressed willingness to shoulder part of the estimated 50 billion yen construction cost.

NHK and the five broadcasters are expected to put up several hundred million yen each for the project.

The broadcasters will officially announce the site by the end of this month, the sources said, adding the railway operator will soon set up a task force for the project and call for investment from other entities.

The broadcasters are using Tokyo Tower as a transmitter for both analog and digital terrestrial broadcasting. But Japan plans to switch broadcasting waves completely from analog to digital, which will offer high-quality audio visual transmission and two-way communications by July 2011.

A new service for cellphone-based terrestrial digital broadcasting named "wan-segu" (one-segment) broadcasting is also being launched in April with the hope of offering clearer images with less disruption while in motion.

In view of such changes, and to make use the features of digital broadcasting, the broadcasters drew up plans for a second tower that would be tall enough to transmit digital wavelengths over high-rise buildings.

Several local governments and businesses were competing to have the tower built in their areas.

They included the municipal government of Hachioji, which wanted to build the tower at a site in Tama New Town, and the city of Saitama, which wanted the tower to be part of its Saitama New Urban Center project.

In March 2005, the broadcasters tentatively concluded that an area in Sumida and Taito wards would be the most suitable.

But they spent time examining the Saitama plan, which would offer advantages in case a disaster hits Tokyo.

The Sumida Ward site was picked in the end because the location is close and convenient to the broadcasters' headquarters and because support from local businesses was seen as favorable.

The Japan Times: Sunday, March 26, 2006

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Song of the moment: Utada Hikaru’s cover to Yousui Inoue – Shou nen ji dai