Renewing my visa
After being told it was too late to apply for permanent residency a few months ago, I recently tried to apply for a renewal of my spouse visa. Typical of me, I didn’t take half the documentation I needed so was sent home with instructions to gather the rest. Surprisingly, this time I was told to submit both my spouse and permanent residency applications together so I’m filling out all the forms, including a “please let me stay” letter to the Ministry of Justice and a hand-drawn map to my house (real maps aren’t acceptable!).
Upcoming nose operation
Breathing through my nose has become increasingly difficult over the last couple of years and finally the doctor recommended an operation instead of sending me away with more ineffective medicine. Such operations run in my family, so it doesn’t come as a surprise. No details yet, but I’m having an X-ray this week and will find out more then.
New project, Hotaru CMS
I was a huge contributor to Social Web CMS, the platform that runs JapanSoc.com, but have decided to build my own system instead of constantly modifying something I’ve never been altogether happy with. My new project is Hotaru CMS, which means “Firefly” Content Management System. It’s still early, but I expect it will quickly catch up with the likes of Pligg and offer a far more flexible plugin and theme system (more akin to Wordpress). I’m currently looking for people interested in helping out, so let me know if that’s you.
Rikuto to start nursery school
Ricky starts nursery school next week. For four days a week, he’ll join about seven other children in the nursery school at my wife’s hospital. It’s set up especially for hospital employees and the staff there seem very nice indeed. The children are from 1 to 3 years old (Ricky just turned 2) and they look like a lovely bunch of friends for our son. Incidentally, they are having a dads-only event in late August. Should be interesting!
My broken toe
Remember my broken big toe? Well it’s been a whole year since I broke it and I have a new nail replacing the old one. That means the old nail is yellow and kind of hanging off and it looks really gross.
Wrap-up
That wraps up this edition of Ramsay Ramblings, the first post on this lovely new Wordpress theme I’m using called Cleanr. Big text for my bad eyes!
Today, my mother-in-law came by for a visit, but before she did, she stopped off to buy some groceries. Now, in some parts of the country, perhaps at selected supermarkets, they are charging 5 yen for every shopping bag you use. Apparently, by encouraging people to bring their own reusable bags, supermarkets can reduce the “billions of plastic bags [that] are choking our planet” (
This line is my wife’s favorite English expression, which she learned from my mum when we went to the UK on our honeymoon. Mami is very good to me, and even though I’m very lazy when it comes to helping around the house, she doesn’t give me a hard time about it. If she does feel I’m taking advantage of her, she only has to say those words “I’m not your maid!” She doesn’t mention them very often, but when she does I quickly get my act together. That doesn’t stop her from making me a cup of coffee every morning, and bringing me a cup of hot chocolate when I’m blogging each night.