Renewing my visa
After being told it was too late to apply for permanent residency a few months ago, I recently tried to apply for a renewal of my spouse visa. Typical of me, I didn’t take half the documentation I needed so was sent home with instructions to gather the rest. Surprisingly, this time I was told to submit both my spouse and permanent residency applications together so I’m filling out all the forms, including a “please let me stay” letter to the Ministry of Justice and a hand-drawn map to my house (real maps aren’t acceptable!).
Upcoming nose operation
Breathing through my nose has become increasingly difficult over the last couple of years and finally the doctor recommended an operation instead of sending me away with more ineffective medicine. Such operations run in my family, so it doesn’t come as a surprise. No details yet, but I’m having an X-ray this week and will find out more then.
New project, Hotaru CMS
I was a huge contributor to Social Web CMS, the platform that runs JapanSoc.com, but have decided to build my own system instead of constantly modifying something I’ve never been altogether happy with. My new project is Hotaru CMS, which means “Firefly” Content Management System. It’s still early, but I expect it will quickly catch up with the likes of Pligg and offer a far more flexible plugin and theme system (more akin to WordPress). I’m currently looking for people interested in helping out, so let me know if that’s you.
Rikuto to start nursery school
Ricky starts nursery school next week. For four days a week, he’ll join about seven other children in the nursery school at my wife’s hospital. It’s set up especially for hospital employees and the staff there seem very nice indeed. The children are from 1 to 3 years old (Ricky just turned 2) and they look like a lovely bunch of friends for our son. Incidentally, they are having a dads-only event in late August. Should be interesting!
My broken toe
Remember my broken big toe? Well it’s been a whole year since I broke it and I have a new nail replacing the old one. That means the old nail is yellow and kind of hanging off and it looks really gross.
Wrap-up
That wraps up this edition of Ramsay Ramblings, the first post on this lovely new WordPress theme I’m using called Cleanr. Big text for my bad eyes!
If you like, you can find me on Twitter at @nick_ramsay. I'd love to hear from you!
Love this Cleanr theme. I’m going to grab it and stick it on one of my blogs.
Btw, how’s Rikuto’s language skills? Does he speak both Japanese and English? Does he favor one language over the other? Any interesting stories there?
Yeah, erm… he’s still not actually saying anything. There have been moments when he’s uttered the odd word, but nope, he’s not really big on talking yet. As for listening, his Japanese is definitely stronger, but he does seem to understand me a fair bit, too. Perhaps even more than his mum!
I hope your nose doesn’t cause too many problems in the future. Breathing is kind of important. Are you still able to smell things like food, or has that faded?
It’s interesting that you need to draw a map to your home. Is this some kind of test to see how well someone has integrated themselves into the culture? “Left at the big dog, and you’ll see a yellow house 50m on your right” kind of stuff? The Mrs. and I will try to go down the permanent residence route next year, and I’m curious about what kind of things I might need to do, or be able to do.
Hope you’re feeling better soon. Try not to break any more toes 😕
I’m exaggerating the nose problem a bit. It’s really just one side of the nose, so I can still smell okay.
Not sure the reason for the map, but Mami thinks I might get away with a printout from Google. I’ll have a better look at the forms and see if there’s any fine print.
This is a very basic theme!
Anyway, I never got the draw the map thingie! I first got a three year spouse visa, then when I asked three months before the expiry date they said to apply for permanent residence first, then if that fails, back to the spouse.
For my first spouse visa I got a few questions on how we met, etc, but I never had to send in a photo, draw a map, or have them come round for a home visit, etc. Perhaps that’s a benefit of being a full-time employee of just about the largest company in Kansai?
Ahh, this is my third time for the spouse visa and that’s quite straightforward. It’s the permanent residency application that needs the map and some family photos. Maybe you lucked out because of your job, or maybe your company did half the application for you!
At least if you have nose problems you won’t be able to smell the old toenail 🙂
The toenail is off! Will blog about it soon. I have pictures! 😈
Ugh! Nick. I am not sure we need photos of the nail. It is good to see all your news in print as I can’t always remember what you have told me. I am glad Ricky enjoyed his first day at school.