K: So lately I’ve been thinking about our hobbies, and I think that’s because we recorded the episode of how we make our money, and so for me it’s like how we make our money and how we spend our money.

C: That’s what I thought when you said how we make our money. (K laughs) How we spend our money. We don’t spend a lot of money on hobbies.

K: No, I don’t think either, but you know it feels kind of decadent. Like, our main hobby feels super, super decadent to me. And, our main hobby is puzzle-building. And the reason it feels decadent to me is because we have like seven framed puzzles mounted and stacked against our wall.

C: I think maybe the frames were decadent.

K: Yeah, the frames were.

C: Because we don’t have enough wall space to put up all of the puzzles we’ve done, so we’ve dismantling them after we’ve finished them and giving them away.

K: Yeah, so, and it’s been challenging to give them away.

C: It has been.

K: I thought people would be snapping up, because they’re gently used, they’ve only been put together once and we’re verifying that all the pieces are there and they’re like really nice, high-end puzzles.

C: Well, it’s interesting to me how much of a luxury people think being able to put together a puzzle is.

K: Well in Japan it is a luxury because for us our entire dining room table is dedicated to puzzle building.

C: You mean our entire puzzle table sometimes is used for eating.

K: (laughing) This is true. Okay, I’m gonna come clean. I don’t eat at the table. I eat in bed.

C: What?

K: Yeah, I’m just gonna own that. Because it’s where I like to eat. I like to eat in bed. Especially in the winter time because my electric blanket is there, and it keeps me so warm and even though our apartment has really great insulation, I really do miss central heating and cooling.

C: Yes. But we haven’t cooked in bed. (K laughs) Because we have the little portable electric grill. We could just, you know, bring it out here and

K: That would be so dangerous! That would be so dangerous! But I have done food prep in bed. On that I’ve been like “Babe, can you bring me the cutting board and ingredients,” and I have chopped food in bed.

C: Bring me a knife and some fruit!

K: (laughs) Yes.

C: Is this fun or terrifying? I don’t know yet.

K: But eating and cooking in bed is not my hobby. It’s not a hobby of ours.

C: Okay.

K: So back on track, so puzzle-building was something that we tried to do in the United States.

C: Yes.

K: But, your brother sent us a puzzle that had no edges?

C: No, it had edges. What it had was, all of the pieces were hexagonal. All of the pieces were exactly the same shape.

K: Yeah, and I wasn’t into that at all.

C: Yeah, and I think it was like a picture of a bowl full of kiwi. So all of the pieces were the same shape, and all of them had the same thing in the picture.

K: Just about. And so that was not fun at all.

C: No. We don’t do challenge puzzles like that. We don’t do monochromatic puzzles. We like colorful pictures. We like to have an easy time of it.

K: Yeah, because I think our hardest puzzle to date was the Disney puzzle with the glitter. And that was a mini 10,000 piece.

C: 1,000

K: Mini 1,000 piece. Was it only 1,000 pieces?

C: It was only 1,000. We haven’t done any bigger than 1,000. I’ve been trying to get you to bump to the 2,000.

K: (laughing) They take up too much space.

C: They do. With a 1,000 we can dedicate half the table to sorted pieces and half the table to the assembled puzzle. But with 2,000 we’d have to be more careful. We’d need trays or something.

K: Yeah, and I’m not into that. I’m not into that. So, that puzzle was so difficult because it was micro and the pieces were so tiny and the first time we did it I had to shake it off. I was like “Nope, I can’t do it.” And then, I think because I didn’t understand how to sort it.

C: Right.

K: And so the sorting that we did on it, it wasn’t sorted properly. And the second time when we sorted it by scene and did like a really premium sort, it was so much easier to do.

C: Yeah, so those puzzles are by Tenyo and they advertise themselves as the world’s smallest jigsaw puzzles. So 1,000 pieces is the size of an A3 piece of paper or two A4, if you don’t know how big A3 is.

K: Yeah, so that one was really really hard and it took us two tries to do it, and that was because of me. You were willing to sit through it. So I find most of the mini puzzles have been really challenging. Like the Winnie the Pooh with the clouds.

C: Right.

K: And, uh, the grass scene. Because I did the grass scene in like the first day we had the puzzle after we sorted it. And then it took us like two or three days to do the clouds. And the sky pieces. That was really, really challenging.

C: Well, I think the smaller the puzzles, the bigger the difference can be between two pieces before you notice it.

K: Yeah, I think so.

C: And the Tenyo cut is really good because they don’t chop off the edges, but with some of the other puzzle companies that we’ve used, the edge gets kind of pressed down by the die so that the pieces don’t always match up. Sometimes there’s a valley between the pieces as part of the coloration so on our website we have some reviews of puzzles and things and talk about these different issues. We like puzzling.

K: TheMusicksInJapan.com, our website, check it out.

C: So what do you like about puzzling?

K: So for me what I enjoy most about puzzling is that it lowers my blood pressure. (C laughs) Like, legit.

C: No, I know it’s legit.

K: It lowers my blood pressure. It lowers my heart rate. And, for me, it’s a meditation. And I really struggle with silent just-sit-on-the-cushion-and-meditate type of meditating, and so I find that active meditation is much healthier for me and is easier for me. I can’t… just, my monkey mind is all over the place and I’m always thinking and racing. Sitting down to do a sort, I really am just thinking about “What color is this piece? What shade of green is this? What shade of brown is that?” and putting it in the correct spot. And then in putting it together I really am just focused on putting that piece of the puzzle. And I find that I usually have a song that I think in my head while I’m doing it, so it really just shuts my brain down.

C: Yeah, we have basically three things on the table most times we’re doing puzzles. We have the puzzle.

K: Yes.

C: We have the control for the air conditioner and heater.

K: (laughing) Yes.

C: And we have the sphygmomanometer.

K: Yes.

C: So when you say “lower your blood pressure”, you mean you’ve taken your blood pressure, started puzzling, taken your blood pressure to see.

K: Yes. And so one of the reasons that I do that is because I’m always looking for things that are anti-stress. And if something can lower my blood pressure and heart rate, I feel like I can check that off as actually an anti-stress activity.

C: Well, and too I think that your blood pressure and your heart rate are both early indicators of problems with either your porphyria or lupus.

K: Yes.

C: Like you’re having a flare and so we can adjust appropriately. So I think they’re like the first signs that are not painful.

K: Yes. And so I find that when we puzzle, because like this past week I have been too busy to get the sort out on our puzzle, to get the sort done, and I have found that my stress and my mood hasn’t been as good as it is when we puzzle. And so I think also it’s time sitting across from you.

C: Yeah. Because our sessions can be from five minutes. Sometimes we’ll just sit down and it’ll be like “Okay, we’re gonna do two pieces”.

K: Yeah.

C: Or we’re going to sort ten pieces. And sometimes we’ll sit the entire day and just chit-chat while we puzzle. Or put on some music and listen to it together or

K: Yeah. And so it’s helpful that our music tastes are very similar.

C: Yes.

K: And so for me I just really like the time with you and it really makes me feel like when we’re doing it together like we’re the only two people in the world.

C: We are. (K laughs) When we’re doing it together.

K: Yeah. And it feels just… I feel so connected to you. And when we finish the puzzle, I feel so self-satisfied. I feel like I really did something.

C: Well I think for me when I finish a puzzle it feels very luxurious. Like, we must have a luxury life to be able to sit down and do a puzzle.

K: Yeah, I feel that way too. So it really has, since we started doing puzzles, it’s really made me feel life we’ve upgraded our lives. Like it’s this huge upgrade. We’re like these totally chill luxuriating people that just do puzzles because we’re fancy.

C: Right. And we can be super fancy. Usually we’re not. Usually we’re like, $15, that’s a great price for a puzzle. But sometimes we’re super fancy. We’re like “Is this one worth $45?”

K: Yeah, but we have to really think about it. And so puzzling is one of our hobbies. I think it’s our main hobby. And

C: I think it’s our main joint hobby.

K: Yeah, it’s our main joint hobby. And I feel like we usually have two or three puzzles on deck, like, that we can choose from.

C: Yes.

K: And then when we get down to the last of that, because I think we buy it in three or four

C: Yeah, we usually buy in batches of four.

K: Yeah, and then we pick between those and do them. And go through them. And I think when we start the sort of the last puzzle in that grouping we sit down and order more.

C: Yes, we do.

K: Yeah, do we do about one puzzle a week.

C: Yeah, on average.

K: There are some puzzles that have taken a little bit longer, but right now we’re working through our backlog of puzzles, putting them onto the website. If you want to see all of the puzzles we’ve done, most of them are on Instagram, we don’t really post to Instagram.

C: About half of them are on Instagram.

K: Yeah. So, we’re themusicksinjapan on Instagram, even though we’re not active on Instagram anymore.

C: Yeah. (K laughs) Because that is much less fun as a hobby than puzzling.

K: Yeah, it was. And so we’re going to talk about social media on a different day. But I do feel like a major hobby of yours is Twitter.

C: Yes. Twitter is a major hobby of mine. So I use Twitter to keep in touch with other writers I’ve met at conferences and things and to just kind of yammer at the public in general. To make bad puns.

K: And good ones.

C: And good ones. I do comment on grammar issues, when people ask. So I don’t correct other people’s grammar, but if they say something like “This sentence is passive.” I’m like, “Actually, what it is, is it’s a sentence with a copula.”

K: Yeah. And so, for me, having lupus and porphyria, like right now I’m having a rather severe lupus flare, and what that means is that every single joint in my body hurts. And so that’s every vertebrae in my back, every joint in my hands and feet, my shoulders and knees, like every single joint is inflamed and swollen, and so even getting dressed hurts.

C: Yep.

K: Having hobbies that are stationary, for me, allows me to get up and go over to the table and sit in a comfy chair and wrap myself up in my electric blanket and do a couple of pieces on a puzzle until sitting isn’t comfortable anymore, and getting that up and down, where I’m not just stuck in bed is really really nice for me. So I don’t know how puzzling interacts with your disabilities. I haven’t asked you. How does it interact with your disabilities? Because I know you’ve got arthritis, which is one you don’t really talk about a lot.

C: Yeah, I mean, that one probably affects me the most day-to-day, just because it’s constant, so … the epilepsy is always a concern, but I have ankylosing spondylitis, which is not technically arthritis because it’s not inflammatory, so you can… NSAIDs doesn’t work. But, for me that mostly means I have to keep my back really straight, so I need to be either sitting up straight or lying down flat. So puzzling can be challenging sometimes if I’m having to bend over a lot, a lot of tension in my spine is painful. But usually once we’ve got it sorted, then just looking over the pieces and placing things is a lot easier, so I think that’s why you end up doing a lot of the sorts when we do them.

K: Yeah. Because I think the time at the table gets to be too much. And the sorting isn’t fun for you,  you don’t really enjoy it.

C: No. And I enjoy doing the solid sections, like if there’s a blue sky, you know that means I’m going to tackle the sky.

K: Yeah, it’s a tradeoff. I don’t feel up under because I’m doing… because I’m the one who’s mostly responsible for the sort.

C: Well, that’s a relief. (K laughs)

K: It’s not that deep! And you do help.

C: It’s a hobby, folks.

K: Yeah.

C: We do it how we like it.

K: And so I find doing puzzles to be really rewarding emotionally and spiritually and cognitively and just on every level. It just completely works for me.

C: Yeah, it does for me, too. And we talked about it a little over a decade ago, about doing it but we had, you know, our son was a teenager or pre-teen at the time and had friends over all the time and if anybody comes near the table, I’m like “Nope! Nope! They stole a piece!”

K: (laughing) No bueno! No bueno! Abort! Abort!

C: Yeah.

K: Please back away from the table!

C: There’s going to be a piece missing.

K: Yeah.

C: You know what would be interesting would be to have a program for like the iPad or whatever that would count the number of pieces on the table. You just take a picture, it tells you how many puzzle pieces are there. I would use that so often. I would be like “Are they still all there?” Snap a photo. Still a thousand? Still a thousand?

K: Yeah, so all you app enthusiasts, you know, if you make the puzzle app…

C: Well, there is a market for that. I don’t pay any money for most apps, and I don’t buy in-app purchases, but there is a market for it. I would be like “this is a pretty good app” if you have this particular thing.

K: Yes. And so that was the one thing on Instagram that I honestly enjoyed was getting to know other puzzlers. And so that part was fun. So aside from puzzling, another big hobby for me, and this is a big ticket hobby because of the way I like to do it is travel.

C: Yes.

K: I love to travel. But, and don’t send hate for this. Like really, it’s not that serious, okay, this is me and my life choices, not judging you and yours, please don’t judge me and mine, but if I fly, I only fly business. So I have flown first class, business class, economy plus, and economy.

C: Not all on the same trip.

K: And for me the reason that I don’t fly economy is because of the lupus. Because as soon as I get on a plane, I am in a lupus flare. And I am in a porphyria attack because I have so many reactions to perfumes, detergents, and cramped spaces. So the tightness of it, the stress of it, like everything about is… like flying is a checklist for what will trigger a lupus or porphyria attack. And I’m usually in extended sunlight because every place thinks that having

C: the windows open

K: Yeah

C: let’s the sun shine directly on you without the benefit of the atmosphere.

K: Yes. And so, for me, I am exposed to a lot of porphyrogenics and a lot of things my lupus reacts to. So after being all of that, being completely inflamed, sitting inside one of the coach seats I run a higher risk of blood clots and deep vein thrombosis. That’s like, “Okay, flying coach/economy is dangerous for my health.” So then doing coach plus doesn’t get me away from all of that.

C: Right.

K: Flying business does, because usually business is the least occupied, at least on our last trip to Spain, we had a complete row to ourselves. There was actually nobody else in our section of the plane. It was just the two of us. Because everybody is either in first or coach. And first class, that’s just more than I need. I just need to be able to lay down and be prone for a portion of the flight. And now most business class flights do have that complete lie-down bed. So what that means is that we don’t travel often outside of Japan. Maybe once a year. And so for the entire year I’m saving up for that business-class flight.

C: Well, we’re talking international business here, because domestic business is not always the same. Sometimes domestic business is just a slightly bigger seat. Like, when we went to Spain, which was for a conference, not for fun

K: Yeah

C: When we flew from Madrid to Amsterdam, on FinnAir, I think…

K: It was a coach seat.

C: It was a coach seat with a little curtain behind it. We don’t care about curtains.

K: Yeah, no no. So, for me that completely wasn’t worth it. But if there is a wider seat and more legroom, it is worth it for me. Because my joints, my knees especially, get blown out so easily, and so I look at, okay… we could save the money on the flight, but then we need to add days that we’re there, so I can have days for recovery, and it impacts my recovery time on the other side, returning. So we did a cost analysis looking at hotel room and all of that and it works out to be the same. Like, we could take a five-day trip and travel business, or we can fly coach, but then we have to take a ten-day trip, and I have to have three days upon return before I have to go back to work, just so I can get my joints lubricating properly and work through and get all of my medication on board.

C: Yes, so you miss a lot of work, in addition to the additional cost of the hotel.

K: Yeah.

C: But we also travel domestically, too. Because domestically is a lot easier.

K: Yes, but then, traveling on trains, I do travel green-sha, which is first class, which makes it more expensive on the Shinkansen.

C: A little bit. So the difference between regular fare and green-sha on the Shinkansen is $40. So I know for some of our listeners that’s a lot of money, but for us that’s not a lot of money.

K: I think $40, $40 is a significant amount of money to me.

C: It is to me, too, but we plan our trips, so we try to take at least one a year. That’s our goal is “Can we take one trip per year?”

K: Yes.

C: And we don’t buy a lot of clothes, we don’t eat out a lot—we almost never eat out—so there’s a lot of things that we don’t do that just, you know, we spend it on travel instead.

K: Yeah. And so for me it really is about planning and prioritizing. And so the not eating out saves us skads and skads of money. And when we compare our food bill, what we spend on food a month, compared to our son, who is one person, spends on food a month, we spend a considerable amount less than he does.

C: Yes.

K: He spends a lot of money on food because he likes to eat out 2 or 3 times a week. And the price of… when he goes to eat out two or three times a week, sometimes in those choices that’s a week’s worth of groceries for us in the amount of money that he’s spending eating out. So the fact that we don’t saves us money. And I also think the fact that we don’t own a care saves us money, because we’re not paying gas or any of that.

C: Yeah yeah

K: And my office is a ten-minute bike ride away from the house. So there are a lot of other choices that we’re making. We might own a car later on. I don’t know, that’s up in the air. We’re still thinking about that. I’m thinking about that. But for me it’s about the intersection of travel and disability.

C: Yes.

K: And, so when we’re thinking about travel, we have to be careful when people are talking about their travel… for me, to not judge, because everybody is moving through the world the best way that they can. And so I never harsh anybody’s mellow for their travel choices because I don’t live their life and I don’t know why those choices are there. So for someone who has social anxiety, traveling coach, having all of those people pressed against them may trigger an anxiety attack and anxiety feels like dying, it’s hell on earth to be in an anxiety attack. So for me, I would tell them, yeah, totally the green-sha is worth it. Because in Japan there’s reserved and non-reserved and then green-sha, those are the three classes. And so even with a reserved ticket sometimes you might be stick next to somebody who has a child on their lap and that might be too much for someone to tolerate. And so for me personally, that is too much to tolerate when I travel. In addition to like the leg space. I like to have a certain guarantee that things will be a certain way.

C: Yeah. Well, and I know for me because I’m fat and have joint problems the larger seat is helpful in coming back less pained.

K: I think you’re luxurious, baby.

C: Thank you, yes.

K: I love all of what you’re rocking.

C: Yes, I’m a deep leather couch.

K: (laughing) I didn’t call you a deep leather couch.

C: I know you wouldn’t because you’re kind.

K: Well, no, I’m not into deep leather couches.

C: Oh, okay. Okay, I see what you’re saying.

K: You’re like a full day at the spa with all of the treatments.

C: But I used to go to Tokyo once a month.

K: (laughs) Moving on?

C: Moving on. Not for hobby, for work, and part of the agreement with the company was that they would pay for green-sha because it would allow me to arrive at work able to work, rather than needing to recover, so. I think for us, that kind of travel, we’re not trying to be pampered we’re trying to arrive in relatively… good condition.

K: Yep. So, I like to take two trips a year. I like to take one trip in the summer and then one trip over the holiday season or in the spring. I don’t know, just some other random time, and usually I do a short trip and a longer trip. And a short trip can be like two or three days or even a day trip. And a longer trip can be anywhere from a week to two weeks. And that keeps me mentally healthy, happy, and whole. And I also, because of my PTSD, I have a high need to be somewhere other than where I am sometimes. And so mentally knowing that I’m not trapped is super super important for me. And the hobby of traveling lets me know okay, I can leave where I’m at. I’m not stuck here, and so being able to keep my wheels on my cart requires that I leave and come back. And so in the leaving, I get to see someplace else and think about whether or not I’d rather be there than here, and in the coming home I’m always so happy to be home after a trip. I really love being home after a trip. So I think that managing my mental health as well as my physical health, travel plays a big part in that for me.

C: I think so. And then we have kind of ordinary hobbies, too. I think travel is a usual hobby for a certain…

K: For some people who like to travel.

C: For some people who like to travel. I think puzzling is a hobby obviously for a lot of people. There are many companies that just sell puzzles.

K: Yep.

C: And then, one of your hobbies is TV.

K: Yep, love television. I love TV. I love YouTube.

C: Yep.

K: Love love love YouTube. I watch YouTube every single day. Every single day.

C: So and I kind of don’t get it. (K laughs) And no amount of explanation is going to make me get it because with my epilepsy I have to be sure things are safe before I watch them, so I like the TV shows that we watch together, which we usually have one or two shows that we’re watching together at any particular time.

K: Yes.

C: And so, I might watch two hours of television a week if we’ve got two shows at that time.

K: Yeah, and I think I probably average about 3 hours of television a day. And so, for me, I’m not ashamed of that. I love that I enjoy TV. And I don’t understand the stigma associated with TV or watching YouTube videos. And I watch like a whole myriad. Like, I watch everything from drama channels to documentaries to short films. And I don’t think that any one of those are more or less. They’re all value added to my life, because they’re entertaining. This is not what I’m doing for education. This is not what I’m doing for work. Although some people watch YouTube for work, and hey, crack on, but like the stigma and the snobbiness about it, like “I don’t watch TV” as a point of pride. Why are you proud of that, like? (C laughs) I don’t get it. Why is that giving anyone pride. Like, “I don’t own a television.” Well, I don’t own a television either. I own a computer that I watch television on.

C: Well, and when we met, I didn’t own a TV. And I told you, “I don’t own a TV.” And you told me, “Is that something you’re proud of?” Like no, I just don’t watch TV. It’s something I don’t do, but I have a computer. And I write books. So why isn’t your hobby reading books?

K: So right now, the reason my hobby isn’t reading books is because I’m earning my PhD.

C: Oh, that’s right, you are reading books. (K laughs)

K: No, I’m not reading books. I’m reading articles. Tons and tons of articles. And I’m not just reading articles, I am Reading articles. I read them and then re-read them. So, most of the articles that I have—I have over 75 articles in my literature review section, that I am trying to prune down. Prune down and see if they’re really necessary. I have read over 100 articles for my dissertation. So I’ve pruned it down from over 100 to 75 and I need to prune it down further to make sure those are the primo, and then I have to go through and weed out everything that doesn’t make it in the 5-year cap. It’s like a whole thing, man.

C: And then you’ve gotta expand again (K laughs) … I’m familiar with the process.

K: Yes, as someone who has earned his PhD.

C: Yes. But what I meant… it was more a joke. I don’t think that reading is any more “noble” a hobby than, let’s say, watching TV.

K: Because I have read some trash novels. I love reading trashy novels. Love love love reading trashing novels. And, for me, I love pop-bubblegum novels, I like YA novels, I like science fiction. I like a whole genre. The one genre that I don’t get into too much is fantasy because it has just too many made-up words.

C: You read a lot of fantasy that you don’t realize is fantasy. You don’t like high fantasy.

K: Yes. That’s true. And right now, because you’re a writer and our son Rasta is a writer, I’m reading those books. (laughs)

C: I don’t write high fantasy.

K: No, they’re not high fantasy. I’m saying those are the books that I’m reading.

C: Oh, yes, yes, exactly.

K: So I’m reading them over, and over, and over again, so all of my time for reading books I’m reading what my men are writing.

C: Your favorite books in the whole world.

K: Yes, and they are the best books. Everyone should read them.

C: So as far as my hobbies, I do read, so I-

K: Yeah, you read a lot.

C: I read a lot, but I also play video games. So I’m limited in what I play by which games have effects that are troublesome for me. I really appreciate the game publishers who make that information obvious, and really have harsh words for the game publishers who aim to suppress that information.

K: Yeah. Uncool, man.

C: Very uncool. And I also only do single player games, because I don’t know when I might disappear from my game. So I don’t like games where a moment of inattention can cost you hours of work, because if I have a seizure while I’m playing a video game, it’s not usually a big deal because, again, I don’t typically have tonic-clonic, or grand mal or generalized seizures, whatever you want to call the really dramatic, big dramatic seizures, but I might not be responsive to whatever’s happening in my video game for a minute or two. If that caused me to lose hours of work, that’s enormously frustrating. If it just means I’ve got to try a level again or I’ve got to do whatever again, that’s not a big deal to me, so I’m just whatever about that. And I think those are my two main hobbies.

K: I also like to play video games, but I’ve only found one video game that I really like, well, there were two, but here’s the thing. So I like Pokemon and I like the game Castlevania. The Castlevania was fun if you could play it and I could tell you what to do.

C: Yeah, I don’t remember which one it was. It was on Xbox. It was Castlevania, maybe Symphony of the Night. It was the one where you had to collect different materials, and build the different weapons and the pumpkins and things. It was back in 2000 or so. But yeah, you-

K: Yeah, and they had the battle tower and all of that, so you could level up the pumpkins and …

C: Yeah, you liked to tell me what to do in the video game while I played.

K: Yeah. So I feel that my video game play is limited by the fact that you do not enjoy being bossed around while you play. Go figure. You don’t want to be told what to do in your gameplay. Completely not fun. So, for me, if you would be willing to work the controls, I would play a lot more video games.

C: Yeah.

K: Yeah, I would. Because your dexterity and knowledge, and you can pick up the, I want to call it a joystick, but it’s not a joystick. Controller, there you go. You can pick up that controller for any game and get in there and do it, and be successful.

C: Yeah.

K: I can’t.

C: That’s through careful selection of games, it’s not actually because I’m good at them.

K: And so, for me, with Pokemon, right now I’m still finishing up the Omega versions and X and Y, because I do get a little bit obsessed with trying to catch them all.

C: Well, it’s right in the slogan, you’ve got to catch them all.

K: It is. And so-

C: And we’ve been playing Pokemon since Red and Blue.

K: Yeah. And so I have to be … So the very first.

C: Yeah, Red and Blue.

K: Yeah. So, for me, I have to admit that not being able to get a Celebi kind of like …

C: Mm, yeah, those premium ones that you’ve got to be in an event or something.

K: Yeah, because if you don’t get right on the game … So then I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do Sun and Moon, so that I can be right there at the beginning and make it to all the events,” but on the very first day of the event, they were gone in all of Japan.

C: Yeah.

K: So I’m like, “Dude, I can’t do that.” And I’m not going to hack the game. I’m not that level of player.

C: Well, because then is not something you’ve done.

K: Yeah. But, for me, it’s like no, it’s not hack the game and get them all, it’s catch them all, and so if you’re not going to make everything catchable, then that’s not cool. You should not have Pokemon available in any particular game that cannot be caught in that game.

C: Okay, you hear us Namco? Get right.

K: Yeah, they do need to get right, thank you. High five on that. Way to get my back. I feel seen, heard and validated, thank you.

C: I will write them a letter.

K: Thank you. So with X and Y, I’m still playing that because I haven’t caught the legendaries yet, and to catch the legendaries you have to see them out in the wild 10 or 15 times and then go some place specific, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen out in the wild, so that’s like a whole conundrum now.

C: Well, so, and to be clear, it’s not that X and Y are new or that Sun and Moon are new, they’ve been out for years.

K: But I haven’t caught the legendary, that’s what I’m saying.

C: Right, right. And I tend to pick video games the same way. I tend to not pick up a new video game. If something just comes out, I tend to wait a year. Like I bought Monster Hunter World, which I really like, more than a year after it was released.

K: Yeah, and so, for me, I have the … So I don’t have Sun and Moon one, I have like … I forget what it’s called. Omega Sun and Moon? I don’t know, the second version of Sun and Moon, and I have the games, I got them right after they came out, because I was on a Pokemon game playing spree, but then I was like, “Okay, I still have a couple of things left to do in X and Y and in Omega Ruby, those two.” So because of the Battle Maison in X and Y, it’s so easy now to level up Pokemon that I’m still just leveling them all up, because I also have this obsession of having everything level 50 or higher, all of my Pokemon, and that’s like, man, that’s an investment in time.

C: You’re what we in the video game world call a completionist.

K: Yes, I am a completionist. So I haven’t done the elite four yet, so I’m not in the Hall of Fame in the Omega, the Omega and Alpha. So I’m working through it and I’m enjoying, but I think I’ve taken, I don’t know, a six month hiatus. It’s been six months since I’ve played a game.

C: Yeah, I think so. I think it may be a little bit less than that, I don’t know. I know that when-

K: Because I didn’t play them when we went to Spain.

C: Okay, yeah. Because, usually, if we’re on a long plane ride you’ll play video games to distract yourself.

K: Though lately I haven’t been.

C: Yeah.

K: Because I’ve been able to sleep. Glorious sleep. Because whether or not I sleep on a plane, that’s like a whole thing, and the past couple of flights I’ve been able to sleep, which has taken away from the video game playing time because I’m sleeping instead.

C: I don’t think we’ll ever do an episode on jealousy, but if we ever do, the whole episode is going to be Kisstopher’s jealousy of my ability to fall asleep anywhere.

K: Yes. Yes. Yes. I am so envious. I wish I could sleep like you. You’re such a good sleeper. Because, for me, I like to sleep in four hour blocks, and, for me, it’s tough, because sometimes I wish I could sleep in an eight hour block, and it’s difficult to go to sleep. For me, going to sleep is a two to three hour process of winding down and making so the stars align kind of thing, but, for you, it’s like, “I’m going to go to sleep now,” and you roll over and you’re snoring. I’m like, “What the what? That’s just insane. That’s so awesome.”

C: Yeah. I think I have, basically, three sleep modes. I have, “I think I’m going to fall asleep in the next 15 minutes”, that’s my slow mode. I have, “I’m going to sleep now,” which is usually one or two minutes. And there is, “If I don’t go to sleep, I’m going to die,” which, as soon as that’s said, I’m asleep.

K: Yes. And so, for me, I find that if I think I’m never going to sleep again, then I’m usually asleep in the next five or ten minutes.

C: Yeah.

K: And then-

C: Every time you say that, “I’m never going to sleep again,” I think to myself, but I don’t say it, because it would be insensitive if the moment’s happening, “Guilty feet have got to rhythm.”

K: Oh, my gosh. That’s song lyrics. No, that was a good song. I say that’s song lyrics, because you just do something cheesy, so that’s awesome. Love, love, love, love the song.

C: Yes.

K: Yeah. Careless Whispers, right?

C: Yes.

K: Yeah. So my main hobbies are puzzling, travel, TV watching, YouTube, video games, and I don’t consider my PhD a hobby, I consider it a life quest.

C: It takes up way too much time on stress to be a hobby.

K: Yes, absolutely.

C: And we absolutely know what you’re going to do with it once you’ve got it, and we’ve got a whole plan for it.

K: Yeah.

C: I think anybody looking at a PhD as a hobby, unless you’re-

K: Have a very different life than I do.

C: Yes. Unless you’re incredibly wealthy, it is a terrible, terrible hobby.

K: It’s so expensive.

C: it’s very expensive. It depends. Mine was not that expensive. So we’re not going to say how much yours is because I think we still don’t know, but mine-

K: Yeah, I’m not finished yet.

C: Mine was $7000, because I went to public school here in Japan and it’s not that expensive. But in terms of time, and energy, and stress, it was very expensive.

K: Well, and you did yours in two years and you didn’t have to do any coursework, so the PhD system in Japan-

C: Yeah, I had a Master’s when I entered, which is required to enter it, and then the schools that I was at, you basically wrote your thesis then you were done. Now, if I had been in, say, the school of biology at the same university, it would have been different. The school of biology there requires you to have a published paper, and so one of the things I did as an editor was advise people on how long things would take to get published. I knew one student when I was there who was in biology and their paper got accepted to Nature, and they were like, “Yes, I can graduate now,” and then Nature said, “It’s going to be published in three years,” and they asked their school and their school was like, “No, it doesn’t count until it’s published.”

K: And some of the different schools like to get a PhD in psychology here in Japan, there is coursework. And so, for example, even though I had my Master’s, I still had to do two years of coursework.

C: Right. And I did coursework, I just wasn’t required to. So I did coursework whenever there was an area of weakness that I needed to shore up for my dissertation.

K: Yeah, being able to sit down and take a course because you’re interested in learning the Japanese of that discipline is very different than being forced to take courses before you can even start your dissertation process.

C: Yes, it is. The admission process was very different too. I had to interview, I had to go through my proposals for my PhD before I could be admitted as a student, so the process is very different between Japan and other places.

K: Yeah. So I don’t feel like my PhD is a hobby, but I do feel like my PhD impacts the hobbies that I do.

C: Definitely.

K: So specifically, not playing video games, I find that it’s the cross between my hobbies and my lupus, because all of my joints are inflamed right now, the only time that I can something that requires the manipulation of my hands or the use of my hands right now specifically is I save all of that for work and my PhD. So even puzzling right now would be challenging for my hands because I have so much pain these days. When this flare goes away, I might have some more energy for my hands, but I guard it rather jealously, and I find that, specifically, video games are a lot of repetitive movements and the same movements, specifically my thumbs and my wrists hurt quite a bit after playing video games, and then if I have to then go write a five page paper or then go write a section of my dissertation, that just going to blow my hands out completely, so I really can’t do video games right now. Even scrolling to look through list of things I find has been hurting my joints recently.

K: Yeah, so the lupus and the porphyria really do kind of dictate my hobbies to me. I don’t know if your disability sort of dictates your hobbies to you.

C: I think the biggest way that dictates it is that there are games I would play and enjoy if I could be sure that I wouldn’t have seizures during them or that I wouldn’t have seizures after them. I used to play EVE Online and enjoy that, but that’s a game where a moments inattention can cost you a month of work, and I just found that too frustrating. I was like, “I’m trying to play this to have fun, and this is not fun,” so I stopped.

K: And I find for me with television specifically, I get really frustrated that all of a sudden there’ll be just like a beating strobe in random shows that there’s no reason for them to ever have a strobe. Like, with science fiction, I get it, there’s probably going to be a strobe, but I was watching this show about real estate the other day, and all of a sudden there was just this random strobe and flashing through different times in the series, and I was like, “Okay, well that’s not cool.” So I’m always really happy that the way it’s set up is that I can just turn my screen, so that you’re not hit with that strobe, and I’m really cognizant to always be sure to turn my screen if it starts strobing. I immediately feel kind of disappointed in the show writers. It’s like, “Ohhh, why did you have to make that choice?”

C: Then if it’s something like Dr. Who, where we know that’s almost certain to be some kind of strobe or flashing or something, I can put on my glasses, but they make me color blind, so it complicates things.

K: Yeah. And then I find sometimes with Dr. Who, you’ll just kind of rest them on your forehead and flick them down if it happens, and so some shows that you just love, you do take that risk. I think, for you, you have to really love it to put yourself at risk.

C: Yeah, I do.

K: I just feel like there should be something better than a strobe, you know? Like a better way to do the storytelling.

C: And the British shows are usually better because there’s a law in the UK about it.

K: Mmhm.

C: But I’m much more sensitive than that law, so, I mean, I think it’s difficult to overstate how sensitive I am. I think the other day I was walking up a set of stairs, and because of my ankylosing spondylitis, I use a cane and I’m careful going upstairs, so if I watched my feet then the non-skid strips at the ends of the stairs formed a striped pattern that if I walk too fast would trigger a seizure.

K: Yes, you are extremely sensitive.

C: So, yeah, it can be a problem.

K: And you absolutely cannot drive.

C: No.

K: And in Japan, you seriously can’t, because there are random vehicles that are moving signs that strobe, and I’m like, “How is this a good idea for anyone?” Because what if somebody that doesn’t have a diagnosis until they’re subject to that vehicle specifically may never have a seizure? And the strobing, it was so intense it was disturbing for me, and I don’t have the sensitivity and I actually really enjoy strobe.

C: I think it’s really rare. I mean, even among people with epilepsy, photosensitivity is something like 1%. So I think the Pokemon shock that happened back in the early 90s, late 80s, there were 300 kids across the entire country that had seizures from it, and then they changed that, so that that wouldn’t be displayed anymore. But it’s really rare that people are consistently photosensitive. It does not make me feel special.

K: Well, for me, I feel like they should still do it, they should still take care of it. It bothers me that you’re put at risk. It bothers me that you suffer.

C: Thank you.

K: So they should just, you know, not cool, man. Don’t strobe. It’s not that hard.

C: Get a hobby of not strobing.

K: So, yeah, those are our hobbies, what are yours? Drop us a line and let us know. Check out our website and leave a comment there, or …

C: And I know that people can register on our website, because I think today I got notices of about 100 Russian spammers doing so. So, please, if you’re a real person, feel free to register and comment on a post.

K: We look forward to talking to you next time. Bye.

C: Bye bye.