It’s that time of the year once more. I am battling jetlag, and doing my slightly-less-than-best to go to bed early and not drink lots of cold drinks.
It’s been a rough week. I lost my grandfather last week, a day after I landed in Japan, but it is what it is.
I dont have much to write at the moment, but I will say that although a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, a journey of eight thousand miles needs to start with an out-of-office email.
What follows is what my colleagues will see whenever they try to email me.
Good (morning, afternoon, evening, day, luck, heavens, -ness gracious) (please select the most applicable),
I have ventured into the great blue yonder (or the great grey yonder, if it’s cloudy), and will therefore not be online until the the 19th of January 2026. I will not have access to my email, or my phone, or my better judgement. For any emergencies, please reach out to Abisha Moyo. Anything non-emergent, please reach out to me, and then sit back and relax, knowing that you’ve done your best, and that no more can be done.
If you are at all interested in the ramblings of a troubled mind, please read on; if not, thank you for making it this far, and I wish you all the best in every endeavour. May the sun shine bright upon you, may the wind be at your back, may you never experience that irritating thing when the pull-ring on the can of tomatoes breaks, and then you have to struggle to get it open.
My very best regards,
Cam.
I will be flying to Japan (not alone, but on an aeroplane. My arms aren’t that strong), and enjoying a nice long holiday.
Japan is a country to the east of China, and is therefore called, in Japanese, 日本, which means, “The sun’s origin”. While there, I will be able to test how much my Japanese has improved since the last visit, by seeing which words I embarrassingly mess up. Two years ago, I mistakenly referred to a dish of “cold noodles” (付け麵) as as dish of handsome men (イケ面).
A fun fact about aeroplanes, is that they are not kept aloft by helium balloons, which I find weird, because everyone keeps telling me that inflation is very high right now.
Some people find aircraft to be very interesting, but I find them quite plane.
Well, we’ve come to place where we must part ways. Farewell, but not goodbye. Have a lovely holiday (when you get to it) and a lovely life in general, where at all possible, I will not lie and say I will miss you, but take comfort in the fact that I took the time to type this, and know that I care deeply for you, (insert name here).
My actual best regards (your reward for reading this far is an upgrade in the quality of regards),
Cam.