Promotion

My manager told me that he nominated me for promotion.

Gradually promotion and pay raise is becoming not exciting topic, maybe it’s because my salary level is relatively high in Japan.
1M yen per year is not a big deal any more.

Funny thing is my mgr asked me to fill the slide deck for proposal of my promotion.
I assume it’s not usual, but anyway it’s for my promotion, so I’m happy to support to complete the proposal.

Promotion will need endorsements from mgr/Director from same or other department.
I could give heads-up to some mgr/directors in Japan since I have experience to talk with them in person, and having some close relationship.
But it’s a bit tough for me to give same kind of heads-up to same in India/other countries.

My Australian college sympathized with me. Maybe it’s related to cultural stuff.

Tax

From this month, additional deduction from monthly salary started as Long-term care insurance deduction.
The amount of deduction depends on the income, but for me it’s over 11k yen.
Given the progressive taxation level I have, I need to earn over 20k yen as salary to offset that deficit.
It’s not small.

In addition to that, my company decided to stop commuting allowance from next month and will start allowance for hybrid work.
But in short, this means about 7k yen decrease from monthly salary.

It’s not easy for me to get pay raise as my salary level is almost limit considering the pay level for salary man.
Hence I’m very sorry for having this kind of decrease/deduction impacting me.

Anyway I need to feed my family.

Long Call

Today I had 1on1 with my boss’s boss’s boss.
It should have been 30min call with small talk and exchange on my tasks and missions.
But it resulted in 70min call.
I was exhausted since I’m not a native English speaker and had some tense feelings on talking with upper management, but it’s valuable experience to be honest.

As an icebreaker, I talked about my visit to the beach with a family friend this Sunday.
Then I mentioned about my sunburn, and that opened the door for the lengthy discussion about the health.
He is health freak actually, and I understood it to some extent.

Anyway we spent 50min to discuss
– benefit of exposing to sun light
– About UV cream and medical creams. And it’s absorption to the body
– fatty liver and how liver prioritize it’s process on various intakes
– impact of alcohol and fermented food on our body

We could have conversation and discussion as team colleagues, and it’s greatly better than not having any discussion or conversation.
Hope I can build mutual better understanding with him.

Better Call Saul and sea

Finished to watch all the season of Better Call Saul.
it’s very long drama from Breaking Bad, but finally it’s concluded.

I could enjoy watching entire episodes.
In addition to that, it’s good learning of English.

Hope I can find TV Drama which allow me to watch maybe over 130 episodes without getting bored.
I’m also watching Walking Dead, but still I’m watching season 6.

Most of the beaches have been open since last week.
Tomorrow we are going to Moriya beach with a family friend.
It’s a bit of a hectic weekend, but I hope my daughters, who have already started their summer holidays, can enjoy it.

Point

I use Rakuten for hometown tax donation program.
When I do that at good timing like Okaimono Marathon, I could get Rakuten points a lot.

I usually don’t want anything to buy.
But sometimes I could get interested in buying some gadgets like Condenser Microphones.
I’m not rich person, so I will hesitate to use my money to buy stuffs I want.
This is based more on my personal characteristic.

But if I have some point of credit card or shopping site, it’s more easy for me to consume just for my own desire.

I have 18k points in Rakuten, but I can’t come up the usage of the point.
Need to keep considering.

Memorial Service

I visited and spent this weekend in Nagano.
It was a memorial service to mark the first anniversary of my grandmother-in-law dying.
Even in Nagano, it was hot weekend.

Actually we drove to Nagano at late night in Friday to avoid traffic jam.
But still there’s a lot of cars, maybe because it was long weekend. (Monday is holiday).

We just came back my home now.
We could avoid severe road congestion by leaving at 9 am.

BBS

There’s turmoil and panic around 5ch BBS recently.
Jane is the app to view and create a post for the BBS but suddenly it stopped support for 5ch BBS.
And now Jane only support talk.jp.

So users who want to use those app and who want to use original 5ch BBS is get divided forcibly.
It’s a bit tricky to explain even in Japanese.

It’s a shame since there was good information sharing on the BBS but now it’s not possible to continue.
There was a history of the internet in Japan and 2ch/5ch BBS definitely played some role, though all the famous BBS/SNS/whatever popular tool played certain role for sure.

alcohol

I went to bed with my younger daughter on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Largely because having 2 can of beer on Sat/Sun, and went to Yakitori restaurant.
I felt asleep during putting my daughter to sleep due to the effect of alcohol.

When I was young alcohol didn’t make me sleepy, but now it does.
That is the difference with getting older.

I could spend a lot of time for having sleep. Not sure if it’s good.
At least, I didn’t have nightmare.

unchanged

I read the comic Skip and Loafer.
The atmosphere and the story line are great and nostalgic.
Definitely memorable and I’m touched.

As I wrote in the previous blog, the documentary about Mishima was also impressive.
I’ll never forget the feeling of watching it

But nothing in my daily life has changed clearly.
The same kind of days go on.
But then again, something might have changed but I just couldn’t be aware of.

There are a lot of things, including books, movies, TV dramas, games, comics which I forget to experience.
Those might have influenced me too, though I couldn’t notice my change.

Mishima

I’ve watched documentary films of Mishima Yukio and his discussion session with about 1000 members of student movement at the university of Tokyo.
His attitude and himself looks very attractive and likable, and he was always sincere and respectful for the students.

To be honest, some of the expression in the discussion is a bit tricky and tough to understand clearly, but interesting to be think of.

The documentary is recommendable.