Japanese Surgeon's Daily Life

End of the Year

　　It's a long time since I've written. I had several items for the topics of my blog, but I have been busy these past couple of weeks. When the climate changes rapidly, no matter whether it gets hotter or colder, aged or weak people easily fall ill and they often go into serious condition. Additionally, I was invited to the year-end parties. These parties are, what you call, seasonal events in Japan. Various groups of people get together and have parties in December. As for me, I attended a total of nine parties this month with people from my office, my bicycle friends, motorcycle friends, my neighbourhood, alumni of my high school, university, , , . These were some of the reasons for my recent blog-writing laziness.
　　Anyway, New Year's Day is coming around the corner. I'm considering my New Year's Resolutions now. I'll declare them in my blog at the beginning of the new year, setting myself to fight against the wall. My secret of success is to talk about what I'd like to do to block my escape route. My initial declaration will force me to achieve the goal.
　　Today is the last day of the year 2011. All my daughters came home and are chatting in the living room. I'll join them and enjoy German wine over watching TV. I wish all of you a Happy New Year! 

japan

　　I sometimes "read" my dictionaries for fun and often find something new that I have never even thought of. Today's topic, "japan," is also one of them. The initial letter of the topic, j, is small and you'll know that I'm not going to write about Japan. To tell the truth, I didn't know the word "japan" until recent times.
　　This is a name for tableware on which a kind of lacquer called "urushi" is applied. Some researchers have discovered that this kind of tableware was used at least 3000 years ago in Japan. Since 17th century, it began to be exported. Because the tableware was beautiful, it might be called japan after the name of the nation of production. This engaged my interest. I looked for another example and found that ceramic wares are also called china. It must be from the name of the nation, China, which has produced lots of pottery.
　　Frankfurter from Frankfurt, champagne from Champagne province, Hamburger steak from Hamburg, bourbon from Bourbon in Kentucky, interesting! To my surprise, "japan" has the role of a verb.
　　 Additionally, I found several Japanese words from other countries. Pumpkins are called Kabocha in Japan. It is said that the Portuguese brought them in as a product of Cambodia. Kabocha was apparently named from Cambodia.
　　Dictionaries make my imaginary skills higher and it's fun.

One Morning

　　Taking a break in reading and looking up, sometimes with a canned coffee in my hand, the calm scenery of the Seto Inland Sea attracted me through the window of the train while commuting. It's only within 5 minutes' walk between the station and my office, but I make it a rule to wander around for about 30 minutes to partly discover the village, but mainly for exercise. For this purpose, I usually wear casual clothes, not business suits. Additionally, to make both arms free, I make use of a backpack whose color is red. I always carry it while skiing and the color of red is for visibility in snow. In a small fishery village, however, it's an unnecessarily appealing color. Most people might notice a peculiar stranger often walking around the village.
　　Anyway, it was a little windy with clouds, but comfortable today. I headed for the coast in a wide circle. A commuter ship was moored in the port. This tiny village had ever been prosperous as one of the key ports in Ehime prefecture up to 20 years ago, since the beginning of the Meiji period. Some houses are preserved as historical heritage houses. I'll show you their pictures taken on another day.

(Vocabulary)
in a wide circle  大きく遠回りをして
moor〈船〉をつなぐ, 停泊させる

 

An Early Bird

　　Now, I feel like I have become another person. I get up at 5:30 every morning. It's 2 hours earlier than before. Naturally I go to bed by 11 o'clock. This change of my rhythm of everyday life is unbelievable for the reason that I wrote in the previous entry. My condition is very good now.
　　I finish breakfast sometime after 6:00 a.m. and flick through the headlines of newspapers over a cup of coffee. The amount of breakfast has doubled compared with a month ago. Then my wife takes me to the station by car. The scenery around the station looks  new to me though I'm really familiar with the station. I've never dropped in at the station at that early hour on a weekday. Lots of people in their business suits or students are coming and going. In this season it's still dark but comfortable in the fresh air of the early morning.
　　I get on the train after 7 o'clock and spend an hour in the train. Receiving an internet radio which is aired from Springfield, Oregon with a Taiwanese-made phone and a noise-cancelling headphone which is assembled in Singapore, I read books while commuting. The place that my train runs is a tiny coastal rural line of Japan. I'll show you on a map and you can imagine the beautiful scenery.

http://kumo.typepad.jp/wadachi/commute.html

A Month

　　A month has passed since I moved to my new office and started commuting by train, which is 40 km away from home. I've never worked at a distance of more than 15 minutes from my home. From this point of view, this transfer is epoch-making in my life.
　　When I was asked by the owner to serve in this hospital for the first time, I thought it would be unlikely. I didn't want to waste time commuting. I'm a night bird and get more work done at night than in the morning. In other words I thought I could never become an early bird. That's why I continued to refuse the offer for 10 years.
　　However, a surgeon quit and left the hospital this fall after six months' advance notice. Consequently, the hospital was on the verge of closure, because hospitals are regulated to maintain the minimum number of doctors by medical law. If it couldn't keep the designated number of doctors, the hospital wouldn't be permitted to run in the same style. It would be forced to reduce the considerable number of inpatients. This situation made me decide to work in this hospital.
　　For this reason, I had to get up extremely early for me. What became of the night owl? I'll write about it.

(Vocabulary)
closure  [C,U] 閉店, 廃業, 廃校, (建物・工場などの) 閉鎖