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| Japan and Cherry Blossoms - not cliché |
Born 1981 in a sleepy and leafy suburb of Tokyo, where my home was surrounded by lush green rice paddies. For the first 11 years of my life, I enjoyed a traditional oriental upbringing consisting mainly of advanced mathematics, martial arts training, and developing the ability to laugh at anything and everything, while eating mainly raw fish and rice with pickled vegetables.
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| Not the New Zealand flag but perhaps a better alternative? |
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| Princess Di - glam in 1981 |
Unfortunately, however, the motive behind this turned out to be far more sinister than I ever imagined. Our family was struggling financially at the time and, what I thought was a vacation, turned out to be a ploy for my abandonment in foreign shores. Months earlier, my mother encouraged my father to take out a large life insurance policy against my mortality - after two weeks of returning back to Japan (carrying a stuffed toy dressed in my clothing), my father submitted a missing child's report.
In the meantime, I fund myself adopted by a local Presbyterian Church, which enrolled me to their affiliated Private School. I was to remain there for 7 years. As I grew to reach the age of 18, I enjoyed the social aspect of academia such as drinking very little alcohol and finding myself terribly drunk and bunking off class to do, well, very little. Incredibly, my parents took me back home to Japan every Christmas for the summer vacation, which begs the question on the degree of accuracy of my memory recall on the events of my early life (NB. in case of confusion, Southern Hemisphere summers are in the winter months of Northern Hemisphere's; vice versa)
Having never found academia stimulating, I graduated from school with average grades - thanks mainly to the exceptional grades I got in the Japanese language exams. If I remember correctly, it was 97% or thereabouts. I won't bore people with the details of my other grades.
With a heavy heart, I left New Zealand in 1999 for new pastures of England. Why? Because I felt that I could reinvent myself as a better version of me if I moved where nobody knew me. Specifically, I thought my Kiwi accent could get me laid all the time. Obviously, this didn't come to fruition despite many attempts.
What I did do was to enrol at the University of East Anglia to study law to realise my dream to become a lawyer; like in the John Grisham novels.
I was focussed on achieving academic excellence. By this, what I mean is that I drank about 3 times a week and attended many lectures with hangovers.
However, I passed the exams and successfully qualified as a solicitor few years later having done some more studying in Manchester and a two years training in Basingstoke.
After battling to enjoy this respectable profession for a few years. I said "Sod this for a joke" and quit on a whim.
Much of what is written here is true and other bits are not at all true. As for my name? May be real. May be not.
