It’s Silver Week.  A wonderful week that occurs every six or so years when 2 national holidays turn into 3.  Japanese law stipulates that if there is only one non-holiday in between two public holidays, that day should become an additional holiday, known as a Kokumin no kyūjitsu (Citizens’ Holiday).  Today is “Respect for the Aged Day” and  “Autumnal Equinox Day” is on Wednesday.

Major holidays are not a good time to travel in Japan so we have opted for staying at home.  We had friends over for a lazy weekend of playing games, eating junk food, and watching movies.  (I wasn’t expecting to like Zoolander, but it was O.K.)  We may venture out tomorrow to see a new apartment building but I won’t be surprised if we sleep late and forget all about that.  Marty is crazy about Splatoon, so much so that I’ve started to see squid creatures in my sleep, and if he plays to 4am again we may not get much done at all.  That’s not a problem though as I’m happy to be still for a few days.

It’s just a pity that the next one doesn’t take place until 2020!

I don’t get to attend all the Perl conferences I would like to go to.   I was sad to miss YAPC::EU in Granada, and I’m going to miss the Pittsburgh Perl Workshop, that is taking place in October.  I am actively involved in the Perl community, but not as a programmer.  Conferences are the perfect time for me to meet people and hold meetings.  I love the hallway track as the energy generated by the people attending the conference helps to motivate me.   The community aspect is more important to me than the technical content, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear any of the talks.    I’m still not sure what I think about live streaming during these conferences, as I know it’s very expensive, but I am glad when the talk recordings are posted after the event.

I’m watching talks from YAPC::EU.  I’m starting with the keynotes as I enjoy talks with a broader theme and would absolutely have attended these if I had been at the conference.  I’ve already listened to Sawyer’s State of the [Art] Velociraptor‎ and today I’m listening to Ovid’s Turning Point.

I will also miss the London Perl Workshop.  That one is slightly more annoying as I will be flying through London about a week after the conference – so it will be a near miss.  I’m going to try to attend YAPC::EU next year as I would like to meet the members of Cluj.pm.  I love their cute little vampire logo and the combination of getting to meet the European Perl community and reading Dracula in Transylvania appeals greatly.

 

Earlier this year I agreed to take part in a musical theatre class.  I don’t find it easy to meet people in Tokyo and I thought that this would be a fun way of doing that.  I’m not sure that the class is fulfilling those goals but it’s certainly a challenge. It’s been a while since I did any stage work.  It would have been easier to have started in the chorus but I’m working on the role of Mrs. Lovett from Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.  She is quirky and sings fast paced songs that are very wordy.  The songs aren’t beautiful.  I have very few good melodies to sing, but they are witty.

I was a little concerned about her accent as she is from the East End of London.  But my American musical director doesn’t mind me using my own accent as he can’t easily differentiate between British and Irish accents.  (I know, I sound nothing like a Londoner).  Sweeney has the advantage in that he is from the East End.  I can sing in the accent, but I’m not comfortable speaking in it.  So my songs will have a flavour of the accent, as if someone from Belfast moved to London and picked up some of the glottal stops and vowel sounds from the people around them and maybe lost the letter “h”.

I have spent most of this afternoon practising for tomorrow’s rehearsal.  I’ve been singing to myself and an imaginary Sweeney while I pick imaginary insects off imaginary pies.  I’ve been using a real rolling pin as I actually want to hear the syncopation it provides when I’m singing, though I’m sure that neighbours aren’t keen on me blattering it off the table.  I’m concerned about the lines I have to speak as I don’t know if I can remember them.  I know I used to be able to learn a whole play but it seems harder now.  It’s probably not really though as it’s much easier to look back and remember performances than it is to remember the hours I put into learning the work in the first place.

I will go and practice!

I had a house guest recently, who was trying to find cilantro, and they asked me to identify some of the leafy green things in the store.  There were quite a few that I couldn’t identify so I took pictures of their names to translate them at home.  A translation hasn’t helped me much as I didn’t recognize their English names either.  I can buy  Malabar Spinach (つるむらさき), Jew’s Mallow (モロヘイヤ),  Angelica Keiskei (明日葉), and Japanese Honeywort (三つ葉).  My next task it to work out how to cook them.

I’ve always wanted to learn to crochet. I’ve tried a couple of times in the past but quickly got confused and frustrated. I had a friend staying in August and she patiently explained the basics to me.  I found it hard to get coordinated but with my friend’s help, instruction books, and youtube videos, I have managed to learn a number of stitches.

Today I finished my first hat.  I’m impressed by how fast crocheting is, as I started the hat yesterday evening.  I’m also surprised at how well it looks.  At lot of my early knitting attempts were rather ugly but this hat is actually wearable and it would be hard to look at it and know that it was hand made.  I only have a tiny picture as I couldn’t quite work out how to take a picture of something I was wearing on my head.

One of my favourite things about knitting and crochet is that you can do them while watching a movie or a T.V. show. I did need to concentrate on the pattern for part of time so Marty decided he would play Splatoon, which is a bizarre ink shooting game.  He claimed he was learning new skills too and that he would be prepared for the zombie squid apocalypse should it ever arrive. I think my new skills are better since I’m fairly surely that winter will actually arrive.

The weather is awful.  The whole city is blanketed in grey and it looks like it will continue to rain through the night.  Since I’m locked inside to avoid being washed away I decided to sort out a few things on my computer.  That turned out to be a tedious waste of time that involved spending far too long reading error messages in Japanese.  Japanese error messages can be more than 2 lines long and turn out to be just be a list of apologies for something going wrong.  It would have been good if they could have explained what the “something” was so that maybe I could fix it.  I’m also waiting on a parcel that has been delayed because of the typhoon.  Normally parcels can be left downstairs but this one contains food that needs to be refrigerated.  I certainly don’t blame the company for being late in this weather but I’m still a big grump.

I’m going to try to improve my mood by eating multi-coloured tomatoes.  I’ve never seen so many different types of tomatoes in the store before and I’m intrigued. I love tomato so I’m hoping this experience will turn me back into a normal human.  That might be wishful thinking.

One of the lovely things about YAPC::Asia being held in Tokyo is that it brings international speakers to the city.  And then I get to play tourist in my home country.

I remember the first time I went to Nikko in 1998.  We were looking forward to seeing the famous bridge but we couldn’t find it.  It was being restored at the time, so was completely covered up.  Thankfully this time it was on display.

I spent 76 days of this summer travelling.  I realise that 80 would have been a better number but I was very glad to get home.  I find it strange how quickly I get back into my home routine and how distant my trip becomes even when I’ve only been back a couple of weeks.  Thankfully there are a few things that still stand out.

I went to Legoland in Windsor with family.  My great-nephews loved everything about the park and the hotel.  Getting them out of the reception area of the hotel with its pit of Lego proved to be difficult.  They kept thinking that the hotel reception was Legoland and couldn’t comprehend that there were so much more to see than a Lego pit.

I do like animals and I got to see quite a few during the summer.  I got to feed sheep in Windsor, and they have the softest muzzles.  Mind you, I didn’t enjoy feeding sheep as much as Marty did, it’s a wonder we ever got him to leave.

I also went to look for a mythical creature.  But although we didn’t actually find Nessy I did have an amazing time in the Highlands of Scotland and I really want to go back.

I was in America three times during the summer.  The area surrounding Salt Lake City was much more beautiful than I was expecting.  Actually the trip reminded me just how vast and varied America is as I also got to spend time exploring Pennsylvania.

Like every trip I ended up eating too much food as I don’t really get the opportunity to cook while travelling.  I ate the most amazing lobster at Marc Forgione in Manhattan.  Food featured heavily in my trip to New York as I discovered how easy it was to book restaurants using Open Table.  Now that I’m back home I’ll have to eat less.

I have no plans at the minute to travel again this year but I have a feeling that will change.

 

 

 

Last week I attended YAPC::Asia in Tokyo.  I’m always impressed by how much work the organisers put in to make sure that the conference runs smoothly.  I have been to 10 YAPCs in Tokyo and every year they get bigger.  Back in 2006 there were around 320 people attending and this year there was 2130!  That’s amazing growth and a headache for conference organisers unless you successfully scale every aspect of the conference.  Just thinking about the wifi requirements alone makes me shudder.  There is no doubt that Maki-san and his team should be proud of everything they have achieved.  It was a great conference.

The venue is so important to holding a good conference.  Last year I felt that the venue for YAPC::Asia was too small but this year it was perfect.  It was large enough to be comfortable, but not so large that you felt disconnected from the other attendees.  The main room was beautiful.  It held around 1000 people, but since it seems that only about half the conference at most will attend a plenary session it was a good size. Given how many attendees there were I didn’t get to see everyone I know.  This is always a problem when a conference is large and if I had not been jet lagged I probably would have been more proactive at trying to meet up with people.

I have attended many conference and I dislike how organisers who are intimately involved with the conference forget that the rest of us have not spent months contemplating the venue and the rooms.  I have joked that for some conferences it’s a quest to find the clues to work out where the entrance to the venue will be and how to find the talks.  Thankfully at YAPC::Asia this is never a problem.  There are always beautiful signs, printed material, and even a video showing how to get to the venue from the train station.  It was wonderful that I could feel confident about getting to the venue.  I really don’t want to keep the keynote speaker who is staying with me late for the opening because I can’t find out where to go.

YAPC::Asia is the only conference I attend that it not in English.  There were a number of foreigners speakers who spoke in  English.  At earlier conferences I did notice that the English talks were not overly well attended but now they are simultaneously translated into Japanese, which really helps.  It would be amazing if the Japanese talks could be translated into English but it’s not cost effective to do that given the number of non-native Japanese speakers in attendance.  My Japanese is not good enough for me to easily enjoy a technical talk given in Japanese so I mostly went to hear people speak in English.

I enjoyed Rik’s talk and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the current release of Perl 5.

While the conference has its roots in Perl – YAPC stands for Yet Another Perl Conference – there is no doubt that the content of this conference has been expanding for years now making the “P” more polyglot than Perl.  I did hear a number of Perl talks but I heard an equal number of container talks.  I enjoy hearing talks from speakers I don’t know and on new subjects, but I do like more Perl in my YAPC.

I could write more but Maki-san has already written a great post on the conference.  I’m sad that this will be the last one, but I’m hopeful that something new will spring up in its place.

 

I am still travelling.  I’ve been away from home since the start of June and I won’t be home for a while yet.  Today, I’m singing at my cousin’s wedding.  I’m a little nervous about that.  At the start of the trip I attended my niece’s wedding, and my trip will end with a friend’s wedding.  Weddings are wonderfully happy occasions, and once the singing is over I’m sure I’ll have a great time today.