twenty two

8035 days. Or twenty-two years. That's how long I've been living for.

Today was just another ordinary day.

0001 got out of the shower and blow-dried my hair

0040 went to bed

0740 woke up

0815 breakfast (toasts with houmous; Tetley tea)

0850 watched Friends on Channel 4

0945 laundry

1200 POLI30101 tutorial

1300 Lunch by myself at the Refectory (roast lamb, veg and mashed potatoes; vanilla cupcake; Quavers)

1400 EALC30000 class (oral and listening with Shaw sensei)

1600 skyped with parents

1630 watched a little bit of Friends on E4 whilst talking on the phone with Shachi, who turned out to be the only person to call me on my birthday

1700 POLI30101 lecture

1800 Dinner at the veggie cafe with Wen-chean

1900 Chorus rehearsal

2030 Got bored of Haydn's The Creation so Wen-chean and I sneaked out of rehearsal during the break and went home; watched Friends then The Big Bang Theory on TV; blew the candles on the strawberry cake Wen-chean made for me, ate the cake and some popcorn whilst watching TV.

2130 Watched She's All That (Afifah's DVD) - the last time I watched it was probably 10 years ago?

Last year I spent my birthday with people I barely knew. Had cheap, disgusting sushi off a conveyor belt and walked through the rain in the typhoon.

This year I got 60 messages on my Facebook wall, some from people I love, and some from people I haven't spoken to or seen for years. I don't even know what their "Happy Birthday" messages mean. Is it just 13 letters in the space of 14 digits that conventionally represents a greeting used on the anniversary of someone's birth?

Usually I'm a fan of Facebook, because it allows me to get in touch with people who live half way across the world, and it's fun to upload and tag people in photos etc etc. But sometimes, things get complicated because, let say for example, there are photos or messages that I only want a certain group of people to read. And then some people make a fuss about not able to see someone else's profile etc. And today I dislike Facebook more than ever. I guess it's pretty handy when you want to send a message to someone you're friends with, but not that close that you could write a personal e-mail or text message or give a phone call. But when your parents, sibling, the closest friends...the most important people of your life chose to send their regards and sentiments via a web portal, just because it's handy and convenient, life doesn't get more miserable than that eh?

I'm not upset that today's been uneventful; I never wanted to celebrate anyway. A birthday doesn't signify much, does it? Right now all it means to me is that 22 years ago I was born on this day. Other than that actual day (7th October 1988), what do the other birthdays signify? I'm just disappointed at myself. This is perhaps karma. Cold and detached as I could sometimes be, this is probably what was coming for me. 22 years on and I still have plenty to learn about building and maintaining relationships.

Don't get it wrong, I am truly grateful for my friends. I love and am grateful for my flatmates. I feel at ease when I'm with the girls, even if it's just watching TV, going to the gym or cooking dinners. Last night I managed to have a short skype conversation with Morgan after I got off work; and today I received a few very lovely text messages (thank you Seb - I look forward to see in Oxford!). One of them was from a guy I've only met a couple of weeks ago.

And oh yes the birthday presents: a set of cute plastic pencil cases from Rachel, a lovely pink Strawberry cake by Wen-chean, and a small two-tier cupcake stand and a cookbook from Afifah...

And 60 e-mails from Facebook titled "xxx has written on your wall..."

Is this my quarter-life crisis?

Les Miserables

So the Les Mis 25th Anniversary Concert was amazing, as everyone had been expecting. The concert itself was phenomenal.

My favourites of the afternoon were Lea Salonga's Fantine (of course), Alfie Boe's Valjean and Norm Lewis's Javert. Matt Lucas (of Little Britain) played a wonderful Thernadier; his comedian nature came in right on spot.

Every actor was singing and acting superbly...well everyone except for Nick Jonas. I must say he was a better suited Marius than Michael Ball, in terms of appearance and character. But when it came down to the singing, well... I didn't know who Nick Jonas was before the concert, and I have never heard of his songs, but when he was singing on the stage his voice was almost non-existent compared to the other actors, who all had substantial training and experience in theatre. I felt bad for Jonas, 'cause it was obvious that he was putting in his best efforts, and his acting was pretty good too.

As much as I've enjoyed the concert, I must admit that I still prefer the 10th Anniversary "Dream Cast" concert. One thing the 10th anniversary didn't match this 25th anniversary concert was that a few of the numbers were cut from the programme 15 years ago. The programme at this year's concert is longer (although I was not happy that Gavroche's "Little People" was cut to only one verse, they had an amazing boy singing Gavroche!). But in terms of the singing and vocal qualities, the "Dream Cast" of 1995 is still the best.

However, this concert's encore was mind-blowing. Cameron McKintosh, Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil had invited the 1985 Original Cast (Colm Wilkinson, Michael Ball, Patti LuPone, Alun Armstrong, Frances Ruffelle etc.) onto the stage and perform with the concert cast as a finale. Colm Wilkinson and Alfie Boe were joined by Simon Bowman (who originated the role of Chris in Miss Saigon in 1989, alongside Lea Salonga) and John Owen-Jones who were playing Valjean at the Queen's Theatre and the Barbican respectively. The four Valjeans performed a quartet of "Bring Him Home". It was definitely the highlight was the concert. When Colm Wilkinson opened his mouth and began singing "God on high...", those three notes were pure gold.

And then Michael Ball and Frances Ruffelle (and the original Cosette) came to the front and sang the "A Heart Full of Love" trio. There at that point, when Michael Ball began to sing, I genuinely felt sorry for Nick Jonas. There was a huge contrast between his voice and the one of Michael Ball. Oh yes Lucy and I managed to catch a glimpse of Ball at the stage door after the concert.

At the stage door, the most unexpected happened. Lea Salonga walked out and immediately I shouted her name. Even now I don't know where I found that courage to do so, I'm usually pretty timid about things like these. Then I asked "Hi, can you sign this for me please?" and handed her a programme of the original production of Miss Saigon from 1989, which I had bought from eBay for less than a fiver. She looked at her biography and photo from '89 and said "Oh God". It was so surreal. I met my favourite musical theatre actress and she autographed my vintage programme. Lucy and I were jumping up and down, screaming with joy afterwards.

Afterwards I went back to Euston to meet Andrew. We had dinner in Russell Square. It was so strange, to see him in London and not in Osaka. It was absolutely delightful though - but then it did make me miss the life I had in Japan, and the friends that I had made there.

Time flies

Wow it's already been over a month since I left Japan and returned to Britain. Not that nothing has happened since I came back, it's just that I can't really write about the same stuff as I used to write about when I was in Japan. From time to time I would have periods of depression because I miss my friends too much. It's especially bad when the photos I ordered arrived in the post, and I pinned each photo onto the noticeboard in my room, and all those memories come rushing into my mind and explode in tears.

There's been a lot of frustration regarding university, which I shall discuss further later this week. Before classes started it was about looking for a part-time job. I got rejection from Harvey Nichols, Boots, and the Manchester Museum. Still haven't heard anything from H&M or Selfridges. But anyway I now have a regular part-time job (in addition the occasional student ambassador stuff I do at the University). When I was looking for jobs I thought of place where I can practice Japanese, so I wrote to Samsi (a Japanese restaurant in Manchester owned by two Britons) and asked if they had any vacancies in their basement shop (I didn't want to do waitressing - I didn't have a good time at the Midland 2 years ago, except for the occasional celebrity sightings such as David Cameron and Martine McCutcheon). And the owner replied and soon offered me a part-time position after a very brief interview.

A couple of weeks ago I did an evening of training, shadowing the other staff, learned how to use the cashier etc. Today was my first formal, 10-hour shift. God it was exhausting! At times it's really quiet, 'cause the shop is in the basement and only patrons of the restaurant and people who know the place would come in to buy Japanese snacks and cooking ingredients. But today, apart from using the cashier, credit/debit card machine, replenishing the shelves, I also cleaned out a fridge (some idiot had turned the power off over the weekend so the fridge was filled with mouldy food and stank real bad), cleaned a sink (again stank like hell), took out rubbish, washed up a few dishes and mopped the floor. I'm pretty sure those things were not in the job description. But then there wasn't really a job description, or a contract or anything in print. I won't even get paid by bank transfer. They pay in cash apparently. The advantage is that I won't have to pay tax/NI contributions on it, the disadvantage being there's no legal protection. One of the perks of the job (in addition to the 20% off staff discount) was the free meal. It's nothing fancy but today I had grilled salmon bento, which would normally cost around £5.

The salmon, the Japanese food and snacks (Pretz, Pocky and the Koala chocolate etc.) in which I'm surrounded - all remind me of the wonderful year I had in Japan. It's very, very hard not to think about it.

I'll now work 29 hours per week at the shop; 6.5 hours of lectures/tutorials at the University; and the rest of the time I'll be spending it doing homework, reading for tutorials and dissertations, chorus rehearsals, applying to postgraduate courses and graduate jobs, going to the gym, in the shower, cooking, and sleeping. There's really no time to relax or procrastinate. I really need to get back into my don't-waste-time mode I was once in while in 6th Form; I was insanely productive at one point, having 25 hours of classes per week (no "study/free periods"!), applying to universities, planning travels to Mongolia and Japan, participating in two orchestras, Jazz Band, chamber choir, organising events for boarders and captaining the badminton team. How did I manage that? I really can't remember...in the second half of Year 13, the procrastination cells started to dominate my mind, which was unfortunate as it was the most crucial point of my secondary education. That really can't happen at any point this year.

I shall update later this week about my day trip to London for the Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert, which was phenomenal, and it was followed by a wonderful dinner with Andrew :)