December 30th (Tuesday)
Every year, I help out at my family's shrine in Kagawa Prefecture during the New Year's holiday. At the end of the year, we cut pine branches to make decorations and twist sacred ropes. The work usually starts around 8 a.m., but the day before, I stayed up all night playing (legal) online poker with my friends, and was woken up around 10 a.m. by a phone call from my father.
When I arrived late, I saw a stranger in his 30s cutting bamboo with my father. It was my first time meeting him, but it seemed he had been coming to help out quite often recently. As we were driving to lunch, I learned that he was from Myanmar and working as a technical intern at a nearby woodworking shop.
He said he plans to apply for an extension even after the two-year period of technical intern training is over. There is a strong image of technical intern trainees being overworked for low wages and resenting Japan, but there are probably quite a few who are reasonably satisfied if they find a good workplace.
Wednesday, December 31st
From morning until night, I cleaned the shrine and bought offerings. At night, I drove around by myself to three shrines in neighboring towns, where I performed New Year's Eve ceremonies as a Shinto priest in front of elderly people representing each area.
The moment the ceremony ends, an atmosphere arises, like when a Buddhist monk at a memorial service starts telling a nice story, but since I don't have anything in particular to say, I just say, "Happy New Year," and quickly leave.
January 1st (Thursday)
My father, a helper priest, and I went to the shrine to purify people who came to pray for protection from evil spirits and for the new year. We finished around 5pm and went home.
I was vaguely thinking about setting goals for the new year and starting to write a diary on Note, but since I didn't sleep much the night before, I ended up sleeping like crazy until morning without doing anything.
January 2nd (Friday)
I continued with the purification ceremony at the shrine. Not many people came. I wanted to do things properly this year, so I activated the computer app "SelfControl," which blocks access to specified sites. This means that I can't use my computer for social media or YouTube for a month.
However, I ended up watching All That Manzai on "TVer" until late at night. I regretted it and added "TVer" to my list of banned sites. It was a really cold day.
Saturday, January 3rd
A classmate was supposed to pick me up around 4:30pm and we were going out for drinks, but just before the time was up, a visitor arrived requesting an exorcism. It reminded me of the frustration I felt when I was working part-time at Pizza-La and the phone rang with an order just before closing time.
However, neither the worshippers nor the customers at Pizza-La were at fault. It was our fault for not informing them that the restaurant had closed. We tried to remain calm and let our friends know that we would be late. We drank until midnight with three high school classmates.
January 4th (Sunday)
My father, who is a Shinto priest, loses things quite frequently. He loses important things like keys and cell phones, which causes problems for him at work. It may be that his forgetfulness has worsened as he gets older, but even if that wasn't the case, he has been losing things frequently for a long time.
I think my father has some kind of trait that would be diagnosed in this day and age. I've realized that I've inherited a lot of his traits. If it can be improved with medication or something, that would be better. This year, I thought I'd go to a hospital that does that.
Monday, January 5th
Since it was the first day back to work, more than 10 companies came for purification. I felt uneasy watching my father speak his strong opinions in front of the presidents and employees of each company. I used the free time during the purification ceremony to finish reading "The World's Easiest Way to Win at Poker" (by Yokosawa Sekai).
That said, I want to avoid spending too much time on poker this year. That night, I considered driving to the health spa in the next town, but in the end, it was too much trouble. I listened to music I hadn't heard before while looking at an online article about the best albums of 2025. My life tends to be more organized when I'm actively listening to music.
January 6th (Tuesday)
My work finished before noon, so I went to a famous udon restaurant called "Nagata in Kono Kaori" that I'd never been to before. It was closed for a temporary holiday. On the way home, I stopped by Geo on a whim and found a few manga I'd been curious about, so I made a card and rented about 10 books, which I then took to a health spa to read. It was my several time reading "HUNTER×HUNTER," but every time I read it, I get so engrossed that I lose track of the story around volume 15.
I want to use the time I used to spend browsing the internet to read books or manga.
