Weekly Praise Thread – 07 April 2023

It’s that time of the week again. Please boast and share about the good things that have happened to you this past week!

29 comments
  1. Got offer letter from another company. But with exact current salary. Been working in current company for about 4-5 years. But no promotion, raise once, no bonus. I feel that others are getting bonus paid and raise more than once .
    Also new company have bonus system, foreigners , use of eng language skill, offshore projects and all)

    I am confused on what should I do.
    Its not that I am getting abused or harassment. Its about my pay. We are expecting a baby this year September. Worried If i switch now, will i be eligible for 420,000 yen child benefits? Or any other demerits… :/

  2. Tho it’s raining here today, we had 4-5 days of excellent cherry blossom conditions.

  3. School began yesterday for the child in the household. Having grown up with a visceral loathing of school, I was gratified to hear an unsolicited ‘楽しみ’ from the kid the night before school began.

  4. Got the final, official, 本審査 approval for our home loan. Wasn’t particularly worried about the results and still lots of paperwork left to do, but its nice to have the actual paperwork in hand.

  5. So the crappy apartment building behind our house was demolished a few months back, and a new less crappy one has just been put up in its place, lots of annoying noise etc. but on the plus side we got a free thin hand-towel as compensation for the 迷惑. But that’s normal for Japan. What wasn’t normal is that we discovered that the builders had overstepped our property line by about 2cm, which doesn’t sound like a lot but I did the maths and that’s somewhere in the region 10万 yen’s worth of Tokyo land, and there’s the principle of the thing. The 2cm was the gap between our garden wall/fence and their wall/fence which was torn down, and is clearly marked by the 境界線 arrows; we suspect incompetence on the part of the subcontractors. Anyway there has been a 5-way ongoing dialog this week between us, the construction company, their subcontractors, the 不動産 management company and the owners involving much apologetic exchange of 名刺 over the remaining fence, the upshot of which is that they are rolling back their construction to the actual property line (there’s some concreting etc. which needs to be cut back and gravel removed) and will add a clear dividing line, and also re-instate higher fencing on their side, which it appears they weren’t intending to do which would leave our (quite low) fence as the only divider and potential source of トラブル. So an annoying situation, but with a reasonably fast and amicable resolution.

  6. Finally another annual regular raise, and my hard work getting some recognition from the managers. Starting to get involved in more projects and get the talk about future possible transition. I was already feeling like being neglected for a year now and actively looking for a new job. Now I don’t know what to do if I ever get a job offer from another company.

  7. Went to Nikko on the weekend (the last one) and had plenty of fun there visiting historic shrines and climbing Mt. Nyoho. The latter was a bit of a misguided activity as I had my friend from Kyushu with me who’d never experienced snow thicker than a few centimeters. The snow near the peak was probably a few meters of thickness at some points. As we were about to reach the peak he slid a few meters down the snowy mountainside and was quite traumatized after. My bad.

    I get this Friday off as I work for an European company so I’m going for a weekend trip to Shizuoka and Nagoya. Hopefully that will help me recover some strength for a fulfilling next week.

  8. Got to participate in hanami at a local park and really enjoyed myself. Some of my work friends got their early to put out the tarp so we had a wonderful spot by the Sakura. From the food trucks to the wine festival it was just a beautiful time. People all around us were friendly sharing food and drinks. Just a lovely atmosphere all around. Made good friends with an older japanese man after a few drinks and he was hugging and hanging on me haha. But at the end of it we hugged, he patted my shoulder, and said please stay in japan. Just a lovely bit of acceptance on top of it all.

  9. Wife gave me my bday present yesterday. 2 weeks late but can’t compain. A couple of tshirts with pictures of the kids on them. Super corny but I love them!

  10. Metal scaffolding is being put up around the house next to mine, just outside the bedroom window. I’m looking forward to 3 months minimum of noise and paint fumes!

  11. I have a friend that connects me to these wonderful people that I always enjoy going out with. They usually only invite me when our common friend wants me there so when that friend had to move out to a very far prefecture from us, I expected that I might not be able to see this fun group anymore. But I just received a message from one of them yesterday, inviting me out this weekend. As someone who has been staying home every weekend and kind of missing this fun group, I was very happy to hear from them. Can’t wait to see them again!

  12. Temperature checks gone, facility schedules back to normal, campus events as usual. Other than everyone still wearing masks, it feels like a regular April on campus again. For the first time in 2 years I feel like I’m going to college again

  13. Had my first sanshin lesson yesterday. Really fun instrument! Now I need a sanshin of my own. And a place to keep it. And approval from my wife. And – ideally – patient, slightly deaf neighbors that are never home…

  14. First week of elementary school. 90% of the first year kids and teachers were not wearing a mask, which was really great to see. There are plenty of studies showing how masks impair emotional reading abilities in children. The kids who spent 3 years masked up are probably fucked up developmentally, maybe even long term. Super happy our kids missed that bullshit.

  15. Went to Kyoto for a few days and forgot how ungodly crowded it can get, so I went hiking for a day and just kind of lucked into a great day hike on a beautiful April day through small villages and beautiful nature. Really cleared up the “too crowded” feeling.

  16. Just went to a 7-11 and something felt off, and then I realized they’d taken down the plastic screens.

  17. I successfully got approval from immigration to do my side gig of consulting. It was probably the only time I’ve ever had a smooth experience. I went in with the 1 piece of paperwork required and a copy of the contract. Then I came in after I got my postcard, and then got the little stamp in my passport to work with them. It took two full days at the immigration office but their online queue system is nice, I just got lunch and remote worked a nearby cafe until I went from like 40 in line to 5.

  18. Nice friendly conversation with a neighbour today. Everything planned for family visit and wedding. Life is good.

  19. I’m ordering a custom made watch for my wife and the communication with the watch store is increadible smooth. I only vaguely remembered that they offered custom design watches and didn’t mentioned it on their home page but from my mail in japanese (I rarly write mails in japanese) they immedialty understood what I wanted. Additionally to the normal explanation, they also provided an very good english translation since I mentioned I’m not native.

  20. Nothing in particular happened, but less than 1 hour total overtime this week and today is Friday so woo! Let’s eat something nice for dinner.

  21. The new Wolfman at USJ giving it all he’s got to get some new lines in the script for the first time in 20 years. You go Wolfie!

  22. I made good food decisions today. Went to a place with HUGE portions for lunch with a friend, and I remember to bring an empty lunch box so I can bring the leftovers home. So I avoided overeating, avoided food waste, AND secured a nice dinner. Then I ate the leftovers with kimchi and moyashi for extra fiber intake, and it was delicious. Also: I ate a snack – a singular stick of chocolate and a few pieces of fried tempe. Totally normal amount. Usually, I’d binge my snacks and eat the whole bag of chocolate. As someone who struggle with eating consistently and healthily this is a small win.

  23. Arrived at Tokyo Immigration at around 8:30am for renewal and left around 10:30am. The 8:30 line seems a lot shorter compared to 2020~2021 days. For the first time, wasn’t asked to send any “lacking” documents later on via mail. Hoping to get another three-year (or five-year plz) visa.

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