Visa and Certificate of Eligibility.

Last night I received my Certificate of Eligibility from the immigration office. In order to pick up my new Working Visa, I need to present it to a Japanese embassy or consulate somewhere outside of the country. My current visa expires on the 7th, so I need to be out of the country by then. I have purchased a ticket to Seoul, South Korea, so...heck yeah. I am globetrottin'.

Well, I thought Christmas Eve was bad...

My Christmas was so horrible that it was actually almost comical. If it hadn't been so horrible, that is.

I woke up at precisely 7:05, having gone to bed a little late and a little drunk on Christmas Eve. 7:05 is an important time because it is the exact minute that the last train that I can catch to make it to work on time leaves Ichikawa station, which is no less than a 20 minute walk from my house. So, I started Christmas with the knowledge that I would be 20 minutes late for my first class. Lovely.

On the train to work, I noticed that I was nauseous. REALLY nauseous. Now, this in itself wasn't that weird, because I had, after all, been drinking the night before, but I really didn't think that I'd had THAT much to drink. Something was amiss. I quickly noticed that I was also having fairly terrible stomach cramps. Joy.

While teaching my classes, my nose started running like a gasket had blown somewhere in the back of my head. Awesome. I kept excusing myself to go blow my nose outside of the classroom...it's considered rude to blow your nose in front of people. I don't really care when I'm on my own time, but I want to be respectful when I'm teaching, at least. So, I was increasingly feeling god-awful. In my last class, my student kept asking if I was OK and I kept insisting that I was cool. Until, that is, the horrible stomach cramps cranked it up a notch. My face was apparently registering quite a bit of pain because my student finally insisted that we should continue later. I grudgingly said OK, and we stopped. It was a good thing that we stopped, because 5 minutes later I was in the bathroom vomiting with the force of a pretty large firehose.

This story is a little too big for one post, so I'll just continue in a day or two. Wheeee....

Xmas.

It's 12:40am on Christmas morning and I just opened my only Christmas present, which my parents sent about a month ago. I worked until 7:30 tonight and I have to get up to go to work at 6:00am.

To say that it's hard to be here right now would be a massive and almost stupidly obvious understatement.

Tonight on the train home, I looked so angry and put out such a terrible vibe that no one touched me on the train. You have to understand...private space does not occur on the trains. It just doesn't. People push and jostle and ignore the most basic normal conventions of the usual space bubble. Crowding is incredibly normal. Yet, my level of "do-not-fuck-with-me" vibe was so huge that no one encroached on my space in the slightest in an incredibly crowded train. I realized that I must look fearfully terrible when I looked across the train and saw people crammed into one another at every other door...except mine.

So, I got home. I drank a couple of chu-hi's on the way. They are basically vodka drinks in a can. I found my roommates in a state at least as sorry as mine. They wanted to watch "A Christmas Story," which I had downloaded a couple of days ago. We did.

I attempted to cheer them up, and, in the process, reminded myself of what I am doing here and why such a small thing as a shitty Christmas will not ever...ever...stop me. I told them the story of my ex-girlfriend's father, who died slowly of ALS, and how every day that I could get out of bed and walk was a very good day, indeed. I reminded them that we didn't come here because we thought it would be easy...we came here because we had shit to do. I reminded them, and myself, of the menial jobs that we might be doing in our home countries, and that here we are very well compensated for skills that would be worth little to nothing in our home countries. I told them that they were a couple of the baddest motherfuckers that they knew, and I cheered them up, and I didn't even delve into my darkest, most horrible periods of my life to do it. A bad day here is not so bad.

It seemed to cheer them up. It cheered me up, too. I am doing all right in the world.

Tokyo Jedi.

Awright. I have spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks cobbling together a bunch of footage that I took of myself mostly while walking to work. So, this footage was entirely taken with my crappy camera and then edited together and layered with various effects. The basic story behind the movie is that my mom wanted me to take a lot of pictures of Tokyo...I thought the easiest way to do that would be to take 30 frames of movie per second. That's a lot of pictures, Mom. All of these locations are very close to my house or work and I see most of them almost every day.

Anyway. I like the idea of creative Christmas presents, and I thought I'd give my friends and family this small gift instead of tangible stuff. It kind of fits in well with some of my ideas about intellectual property, as well. I hope you like it. It's not great, but I did the best I could with the tools that I have.

Enjoy:


A Tokyo Jedi from Ryan on Vimeo.

Weekend:

Soooo. On Friday night, I went to my friend Rebecca's house. She was having a party. When I first got there, all was quiet for about 3 minutes, until the first huge trainload of party-goers arrived. It basically went from totally dead to totally hopping in about 35 seconds. The apartment was fricking sweet, and I was reminded again on the way there that not all of Tokyo is filled with kilometer after kilometer of horrible architecture.

This is funny.

I was perusing the LSAC (they administer the LSAT pre-lawyerin' tests) website, and I came across this gem: Factors such as the campus atmosphere, the school’s devotion to teaching and learning, and the applicant’s enthusiasm for the school also are very important. Remember that the law school is going to be your home for three years. Adjusting to law school and the general attitudes of a professional school is difficult enough without the additional hardship of culture shock.

Hilarious. You want culture shock? Try moving from Portland, OR to the biggest city in the world where you are functionally illiterate and barely functional linguistically...not too worried about law school culture shock.

Weekend update.

Last weekend was interesting. On Saturday night, I went out with some friends to one of the local watering holes. It's one of the Irish-Pub-In-A-Box bars that have become so popular, apparently all around the world. Lots of dark wood and dim lighting, and it had flat screen TVs for the soccer fans, of which there were many. These things are literally shipped abroad, from Ireland, as kits that will be put together by guys from

It was a relief to be in a western-style bar, frankly, because I've become a little worn out by the izakayas, or Japanese-style bars. Sometimes I just want a fucking beer, and not an endless stream of food that I didn't order and usually can't identify. Don't get me wrong, it's (usually) delicious, but it also involves an unfamiliar cultural and linguistic ritual that can be a little stressful, under the best of times, let alone with the addition of lots of alcohol. Although, speaking Japanese can be a little easier with the application of a little booze, strangely enough. Maybe the relaxation has something to do with it. Anyway.

I went with a married couple and one of their friends. It was fun. I'll probably head back there sometime in the near future.

On Sunday night, I went to an izakaya with some of the Wayo girls, and we gorged on spectacular Japanese food and chased it down with a little beer and sake (considerably less than the night before). It was also fun.

I've been working on a secret project that will be unveiled in the near future, but it has distracted me from my mission to teach myself Python, a coding language. Usually, I find myself getting bored by these sorts of things and loose interest after a while, but I think that it would be pretty useful to be able to write code in at least one language, especially if I end up in intellectual property. On that note: I verified that I can take my LSATs in Tokyo, which is a big, big relief. Aside from the expense of traveling to the U.S. to take the exam, the stress of the trip and terrible jet lag would be a shitty, shitty way to set myself up to take a pretty big-ass test that will have a serious impact on my life. So, yeah. Big things are a-coming.

Acupunture.

Yesterday I had a fairly epic session of acupuncture. My acupuncturist told me at one point that he had 20 needles in my back. Four of them were attached to a battery pack that sent frequent pulses of electricity into the muscle tissue, which causes it to contract...a bizarre, although not unpleasant sensation, to say the least.

I found a used-tech store that has everything from computer parts to musical instruments for cheap, so my nerd needs will be covered for the foreseeable future. One of my co-workers says that she knows several people who can get me set up in the clubs, so the DJ thing is starting to look like a real possibility. I am excited, but I want to take that slowly until I really get my feet under me.

Finally, I am working on a secret project that I will unveil, if all goes well, in the coming weeks. So far, it is looking good, but I have yet to see if Phase 2 of the project is workable. Stay tuned.

Strange.

My school is on a small street that looks a lot like an alley, but is, in fact, a street. Last night I walked back to work from dinner and I noticed the ringing of the bells, chiming off the time. I've heard them before in the States. In fact, I've heard the bells for almost as far back as I can remember. Every college in the United States rings them through the campus PA system every hour throughout the day. The first time that I recall hearing them is in my home town in Iowa, at the small private college where my father taught technical theater, but it occurs to me that I had probably heard them before that, even, at the University of Iowa.

I walked through the streets of Tokyo, in the rain, and I closed my eyes and listened to the pealing bells, ringing off the time, and the shrieks of tiny children at play, and, for just a few seconds, I could have been in any town where I've ever lived in my life. Then, I heard the squeals of the children punctuated by their still-forming Japanese and the spell was broken. I am not in Kansas, Toto.

Last night I had a dream that left me terribly sad and empty on waking, but I know from prior experience that these dreams are one of the final stages of grieving and loss that will eventually allow me to move on with my life, so I must embrace them and the sadness and then, hopefully very soon, I will return to a more healthy state of mind.

Friday afternoon.

Tonight I have a Thanksgiving party to attend. It's a bit older crowd than the last one, so I'll probably be the youngest in attendance, but that's fine with me. More turkey! More stuffing! My weight has actually dropped below 200 for maybe the first time since I last lived in Iowa, so I think that I can afford to have an extra slice of turkey or two. I walk for about an hour a day and have subtracted a huge amount of calories (cheese and beer) from my diet, so the weight loss isn't surprising, but it is a little annoying because I will need to buy new pants soon if it keeps up. I probably need them now, or at least a new belt. Maybe I can punch a hole in this one.

Anway. I shall report on the Thanksgiving action later.

About the grad school thing.

I am reading a fantastic book called Cryptonomicon. It's a brilliantly written book that includes many of my favorite things...math, computers, graphs, technology, history, and a horse-sized tongue-in-cheek. It is swell.

While reading the book, I have been thinking quite a lot about what my future looks like and where all of this, my trip to Japan, will lead me. It's a little early, I realize, but the reality is that 18 months isn't all that long and it would be preferable if I did not waste all of my time here fighting depression with outrageously priced booze in Tokyo's bars (that's mostly a joke, Mom...settle down).

Before I came, I thought that journalism sounded pretty appealing. On reflection, it sounds like a road to quick bankruptcy and enduring bitterness. No thanks. Medical school was also a possibility, but the reality is that 4 more years of school and another 3 of residency, and the accompanying 30 hour shifts, would suck shit. So, that leaves my original option, which is law.

I've been apprehensive about law because it involves working in a field that is largely regarded as soulless. I like my soul...I'd like to keep it. The alternative to soullessness, however, is poverty. After 5 years of sub-poverty income, thanks to college, I am well aware that I do not enjoy poverty, although I was wealthy enough to have tremendous luxury in comparison to my 3rd world brothers and sisters. Thank you, Mr. Credit Card. Thank you.

I've often talked about intellectual property law, recently, but I haven't really spent a whole lot of time thinking about what that means. I know, superficially, what the fuck IP law covers, but I haven't tried to define it for myself in a way that is really fascinating or even particularly interesting.

The book has changed that. The "Crypto" in Cryptonomicon refers to cryptography, the art and science of encoding information in ways so mathematically robust that it would take the most powerful computers known to man longer than the lifespan of the universe to decode them by brute force. Just think about that for a second...OK, good. Now, when you log into your bank account, you do so using a form of encryption that protects your private data from brute force attacks by vicious little Chinese hackers who will thoroughly enjoy bankrupting you for their own pleasure. It's there and you don't even notice. On the other hand, sending email is like sending a letter without an envelope and is possibly even less secure. Every email should be encrypted, and I, for the life of me, do not understand why they are not. Anyway, I digress.

So, I started thinking about the transmission of information and how, exactly, it falls under the umbrella of intellectual property and the many reasons why businesses and individuals would want to keep information secured with encryption or even more robust forms of protection.

Simply put, the entire idea of intellectual property is based around the concept of knowledge as power. Controlling information is power. Dissemination of certain, select information could potentially ruin the largest corporations in the world or turn a single average individual into a billionaire.

Intellectual property is the idea that information can be controlled and contained and manipulated by individuals and governments and corporations to their own advantage. I find this idea fascinating, both practically and philosophically, and my work in this field will likely touch on nearly all of my intellectual interests sooner or later. Math, science, technology, music, movies...it's ALL somebody's intellectual property. for example, the room that you are sitting in right now...look around. Virtually everything you see in your surroundings very likely either is, or was, the product of someone else's intellectual property. Paint on the wall? IP. Computer? IP. Varnish on the floor? IP. Your chair? IP.

I also look forward to exploring whether or not is even possible to own an idea, and if there is any merit to such ownership if, for example, the aforementioned Chinese hacker can break into your home or company computer, steal your valuable data, and shoot it, in a matter of milliseconds, all over the world. The idea of something so easily stolen and replicated stretches the idea of property to a length that, I suspect, may break it entirely in many instances. Information in the Age of Information wants to propagate itself freely.

So, here's the deal. I will go to school. I will get a JD in IP, which will allow me to pass the bar. I will probably get a PhD, if I still feel like it at the time when such decisions are required to be made. It would smooth my transition into academia, if I decide that I want to teach, it would be cool to have those letters behind my name, and it would probably tack an extra 50 to 100 grand onto my annual salary while I'm doing the fucking corporate work.

The fucking corporate work will likely be irritating, but the good news is that most of it should involve corporations trying to rob each other blind. Why would I care of X-Corp is trying to steal from Y-Corp or vice versa? Not so much with the getting upset about that. Additionally, my time in Japan and my ability to easily (or not so easily, as it were) get around Asia is going to look really, really good on my resume, along with the theoretical PhD and eventual recommendations, so I don't see why I shouldn't stand to make insane amounts of money at the end of the process. Once I have my loans paid off and maybe some extra cash stashed in the stock market and some bank accounts, then I can get on to the non-profit work and maybe teaching, if all goes well.

Thanksgiving at last.

I didn't post much last week because nothing had really changed all that much and I had been feeling pretty down about missing my first family Thanksgiving in...hmmm...forever, maybe. I don't really like spending all of my time on this blog bitching, so I'd rather not write if things aren't going all that well.

So, last night was a break from the recent trend. I was invited by a co-worker to a Thanksgiving party near my work, so, despite the hour-long train ride, I made the trek over to the party. It was a good idea.

There were several of my co-workers in attendance, as well as a number of friendly Japanese women. It was nice to have a large dose of female energy, because I live in a Casa de Vatos (House of Dudes). I didn't really click with any of them in a romantic sense, but one of my married co-workers is officially on a mission to set me up with one of her friends, so we'll just see how that all goes.

In other good news, my social calendar is finally starting to fill up after a couple of long, lonely months. Next weekend, I am busy Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, and I might even be able to work in a Thursday night, if I play my cards right. Saturday night will include a keg of homebrew and I'm almost desperate for a decent fucking beer, so that is an exciting development, indeed. Additionally, I get paid on Saturday...also very, very exciting.

the park and the record store.

I was killing my usual 17 hours in between classes today at work when I decided that it would probably be a good idea to get the hell out of this cramped little employee area that I spend the vast majority of my life in these days.

So, I looked up some parks in Kawasaki and headed out. I really should have done this a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't even occur to me that there might be public green spaces in Tokyo outside of Yoyogi Park. Well, live and learn.

The park was cool. Really cool. The endless miles of gray brick and concrete in this city will, I think, eventually grind down this Iowa/Oregon boy's spirit if I don't make a point of seeking out some form of nature on a very regular basis.

Unfortunately, while Japanese corporate spaces are very tidy, public spaces are often not. Small parks and public spaces are apparently often the site of significant garbage dumping and littering, thanks at least in part to the many homeless congregating in them. The homeless, while fairly rare here (at least compared to Portland), are still lurking about. Unlike the US, though, the Japanese seem perfectly content to leave them alone to do their thing, which often involves building shanties along the rivers and lying about drunkenly in public parks. On the plus side, I have yet to be approached by a single pushy homeless 20 year old asking me to subsidize his lazy drunkenness, drug abuse, and home piercings..

So, anyway...the park had garbage in it. They don't all, but this one did. I'll take it, garbage and all, much like a starving man snapping into an ancient, dirty Twinkie with gusto.

Tomorrow, maybe some pictures. In the meantime, enjoy Google Street View of my work:

I walk up this staircase to work every day.

Saturday night.

I'm fighting a cold, but I had a few drinks with the roommates tonight, anyway. I'm the oldest one in the house, right now, which is a strange feeling after being the young one so for long, in another life. I guess I'm all that young any more, although I don't have any illusions that I'm old yet. As soon as I try to argue that I'm old, I'll have someone with 20 years on me tell me that I'm a baby...it never fails. Sooooo annoying. Regardless, it was fun to hang out with them. We had a good time.

Tomorrow I'm hanging out with some of the Wayo girls and bringing my roommates Karl and Andrew along. It should be a good time. We're going drinking, so I hope that the cold settles down a bit. Time will tell, I guess.

Next week: I have Monday off, and then I'd like some acupuncture, and then maybe I will have Friday off. Friday for me is Thursday in the States, so it will be kind of like having Thanksgiving off. Friday night we are having a Thanksgiving party, so I'll celebrate as best I can...it should be fun. I'll be missing home a lot, of course, but I think I'll save that for a later post.

Goodnight, world.

Open for business again.

Awright, so I decided that my reasons for wanting to keep this blog private were less important than making sure that my friends and family have unrestricted access to it. So...enjoy the no-password freedom.

I'm killing time at work and just finished off some delicious and shockingly cheap sushi. Still fighting the split-shift exhaustion, but I'm in strangely good spirits today. I'm looking forward to moving closer to work, but I can handle this for the time being...commuting for 3+ hours a day sucks, but it will all be worth it if I can bike commute in a month or two. I'm going to call a local acupuncturist right now and see if I can set up an appointment for tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Update!

Last week was pretty exhausting and so I took the weekend to recover and try to relax for a bit. I've been getting up at 6am and getting home at 11pm, so the time off was nice. Really nice.

I haven't been writing much because there really isn't much to report. Now that I'm working, things are becoming more routine and less interesting. When I start making money that I don't have to hoard for food and commuting expenses, then I think things will get a little more exciting again.

I'm going to make an appointment for acupuncture today for my leg. I went in for an MRI and they wanted me to pay for it on the spot...I told them about 8 times that I didn't have the cash and had to speak to 3 different people before they finally got it through their heads. I was speaking in Japanese, too, for god's sake. Sometimes people assume that foreigners are functionally retarded.

So, anyway. I ended up taking off and got a call back saying that they could do it for 20,000 yen, but that's still too much. I'd rather spend the money on 2 or 3 sessions of acupuncture, at this point, than waste my time and money on an expensive diagnosis before I even start my first treatment. So, screw it. Acupuncture, here I come.

Yeah. So. Things are going all right...could be better, but could be worse. I can live with that.

I am blessed.

My friend Karen just sent me the most amazing and epically thoughtful care package that I've ever received...or heard of. I'm overcome. Her recent emotional presence and loving friendship has been an amazing balm for my soul through some of the darkest and most tumultuous of times.

Thank you, Karen. Thank you, thank you, and thank you again...

Quick one.

I'm going to make this quick because I am dead tired.

Today, I got up at 6:10 and left the house at slightly after 6:30. I rode the train into Kawasaki and got to work at exactly 8:00. I missed my first train by about 20 seconds, thanks to some jerks blocking the sidewalk while ineptly parking a work vehicle. However, I did make it to work...on time.

Once there, I had not one, but two no-shows in a row. So, I could have actually slept and gotten to work at a reasonable 10 or 10:30. But no. 8am...for nothing...it was. At least I get paid.

So, I then had a few actual classes spaced out through the day, but just enough to keep me really, really bored. I've been wanting to study calculus, but I've been really way too tired to either focus on it or motivate myself, so that has not been going down. It'll happen eventually, though, I just need to establish a solid routine.

Then, I went to Hamakawasaki to teach a class at the Toshiba plant there. They produce high voltage electrical equipment. I taught my first group class, and it was only a semi-disaster. I'm used to sink or swim situations and tend to thrive in them, but this is an almost entirely new level of irresponsible preparation from a boss. I'm just glad that I'm charming, or I'd have been fucked.

As it was, I pulled it off OK, although I did have to run to the copy machine a total of 3 times. In the middle of class. Fortunately, it was a 2 hour class, and, like I said, I'm charming. So, it was fine. Never let them see you sweat and the world will be your oyster.

On the way out of the plant, I chatted with the boss. The big boss, the corporate guy who runs the joint. It's interesting that he had some interesting characteristics that strongly reminded me of some of the high-ranking corporate types that I knew back home. The longer that I'm here, the more I'm reminded that people are fundamentally the same everywhere, regardless of cultural differences, which is a very good lesson to learn. We had a nice conversation (he's been to Portland), and I was reminded yet again that success in life is often measured by who you know and not by what you know or how good you are at knowing it. It's comforting that I am good at knowing stuff and forming bonds with people, including high-ranking Japanese businessmen.

There was a student tonight...a couple, actually, who seemed interested in a little more than a traditional teacher-student relationship. One of them asked me what I was doing after work. She isn't technically *my* student (there are two teachers), so I may entertain the idea of some dating. I would say that normally the teacher-student power dynamic would overrule such a thing, but in this case I am the one who is technically at a disadvantage since this is her country, I don't speak the language all that well, and she could probably get me deported.

So, yeah. We'll see.

On Barack Obama and a vastly improved Union.

I've waited to write about Barack Obama because I wanted to let my feelings on the subject settle in, and I wanted to make sure that I could write something that meant something, that I could remember, something beyond the pure, intense elation that I felt on that Wednesday afternoon, here in Tokyo, when the United States of America elected a black man for President.

Barack Obama is more than his skin color. He is more than a racial stereotype or a broken barrier or a shattered glass ceiling. Simply put, the man is the most gifted politician that I have ever seen, and I say that having spent my entire adult life compulsively following politics.

First and foremost, President-elect Obama is an intellectual. His academic credentials are not only top-notch, they are the best of the the best. Simply put, Barack Obama is brilliant. I do not make that assertion out of a sense of idolatry or hero-worship...it's a fact. He has run the most disciplined political campaign that I've seen in my life, and it's not an accident. He did it because he, himself, is deeply disciplined and deeply analytical. He attended Ivy League institutions on scholarships. He was the president of the Harvard Law Review, one of the most distinguished legal journals in the country. Like Bill Clinton before him, if you should meet Barack Obama, you will know, for a fact, that you are standing with the smartest person in the room, or at least in the top 1 or 2 percent. THAT is who you want running your country, not someone you'd like to have a beer with (although I would), not somebody who could tell a dirty joke at a barbecue (although I'm sure he knows a few), but you WANT the guy who can sit down with other people, people who would normally also be considered the smartest persons in the room, and have him sift through their possibly conflicting opinions and decisively arrive at the best possible conclusion. Barack Obama is that person.

I don't expect to agree with every conclusion that he comes to. On the contrary, I expect to regularly disagree with him and the conclusions that he and his administration arrive at. However, I know that when President Obama and I disagree, it won't be because he hasn't considered my opinion or because he arrogantly refuses to consider the possibility that he might be wrong or the ramifications of his actions or inactions. This will not be another Bush administration.

Finally, this would be a very incomplete post if I did not describe my feelings about race in this election.

I cried on Wednesday night when I watched Obama's victory speech in Illinois. I was overcome by the knowledge that my country, the United States, had finally, after so many years, lived up to its previously unfulfilled credo, that all men, and women, are created equal in our intellectual potential and our human capacity to do good things on this planet, and by the fact that white and black and Latino and asian Americans had decided, together, that skin color was less important than ideas and talent and dedication. The inequalities inflicted on the black community over the course of the last 400 years by slavery and by Jim Crow and by subtle and not-so-subtle institutional and interpersonal racism have not been lifted. They remain, and will forever remain, a great stain on American history, one of our greatest sins. Racism will remain a horrible and virulently evil reality in communities all across our country. However, from this day forth, for the very first time, every black child in the United States of America will know that their potential is not limited by the color of their skin, but only by their imagination and capacity for self-improvement. That they could, if they work very hard and are very lucky, become the most powerful man or woman in the world. That is so incredibly beautiful, and I am so proud of my country for the first time in a very long time.

I love America. I love what it can stand for. At its best, it is so very, very good. At its worst, as we have learned over the last 8 years, it can be so very evil. And I have watched and read about evils committed by my country, on television and newspaper and internet, and have despaired for the loss of our great potential to fear and xenophobia and hate of other, different cultures. We reached a turning point in American history, a point where the America of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln became America as envisioned by authoritarian oppressors by the names of Dick Cheny, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, David Addington, John Yoo, Paul Wolfowitz, and George Bush, Jr., who saw no problem with suspending habeas corpus, or with torturing potentially innocent suspects, or with illegally waging war against the innocent and the guilty alike, or with listening in on the private conversations of Americans. They are vile and disgusting human beings for what they have done to my country. There is no room for an intellectual debate with those who would be willing to torture other human beings in exchange for the illusion of security. There is no room for ANYTHING but the strongest possible condemnation. It is my fervent wish to see these men and women (Monica Goodling, I'm looking your way), and more, rot in prison for the crimes that they have committed against my country in the name of power, politics, and security. I will never forgive them for what they've done to the United States. It will take years to undo the damage that they have done, if it can be entirely undone.

Barack Obama's election is a repudiation of the fear-mongering and authoritarianism that these men stand for, and it is the greatest single step in healing our nation's racial divide since the Emancipation Proclamation. A new day has dawned in America, and my only regret is that I couldn't dance in the streets, in joy, with my countrymen.

The leg thing.

I went into the doctor today, which was an interesting ordeal, given my level of Japanese proficiency and the staff and doctor's level of English proficiency. Fortunately, we made it through.

I apparently have a pinched sciatic nerve, which I suspected might be the case, but wasn't entirely sure. It's making my left leg burn and ache and it makes my left toes feel tingly and a little numb. It is usually caused by a slight herniation of the connective tissue between spinal discs.

The good news is that the condition is usually resolved without surgery. The bad news is that he thinks my knees are in the early stages of osteoarthritis, but I think I could have told him that myself. I also think that my left knee probably has some torn cartilage or something else going on...he thought that the symptoms were arthritic, but I'm skeptical of that. It feels like something else is going on.

So, anyway, nothing particularly earth shattering. I'm scheduled for an MRI next week, and I'm going to be practicing yoga fairly religiously from now on in an attempt to get this straightened out on my own. It feels better just to have a diagnosis, but I'm going to follow through with the MRI and his treatment suggestions. I'm on a vitamin b12 supplement and an anti-inflammatory. We'll see what happens.

So, about the blogging.

Things have kind of settled into a routine, which makes it hard for me to write...it helps to have some sort of impetus in my life to inspire the blogging, and I've been lacking that a bit over the last week. Yesterday was a big day, though, and I want to chronicle my thoughts on the subject. First black American president? Kind of a big deal.

Anyway, I'll collect my thoughts on the subject and get them down on here. Tomorrow I am headed to the doctor to have my leg looked at...I'll post an update on that, as well.

Disappointment.

So, this weekend, my roommate, Andrew, planned a party and invited a bunch of people. Now, as we all know, in any given party situation, it is of dire importance to have a relatively even gender balance. However, on Saturday night, I came home from my work Halloween party, and noticed about 10 pairs of men's shoes and 3 pairs of women's shoes. "Oh, shit," I thought to myself. "I fucking knew it. It's a sausage party." And it was. Oh god, how it was.

I had been looking forward to the party, but I knew that Andrew was undoubtedly exaggerating when he said that there would be at least 10 girls coming to his little get together...3 girls is effectively a party disaster of monumental proportions. Do you know what happens when you throw 4 or 5 girls into a party with 15+ guys, and then soak said party down with hard alcohol? Hmmmm? Well, I'll tell you.

It sucks with the ferocity of a thousand daisy-chained Hoovers. It bites like a swimming pool filled with piranhas. It stinks like the rotting, maggot-infested carcasses of a landfill's worth of dead skunks.

Men are under the terrible influence of a vicious drug called testosterone. Even among the best of us, testosterone leads to occasional senseless aggression and occasional hostility. Pour in a bunch of alcohol, and drop a not spectacular collective IQ by another 20 or 30 points, and you have your basic party clusterfuck.

Back to the party...of the 4 females who came, 2 of them left around 11, and that left 2 for the rest of the evening. I think you can see where this is going. The party thinned out, but they were still outnumbered about 4 or 5 to 1. So lame.

I ended up out of the porch alone with both of them separately at various points in the evening and they seemed interested, but I wasn't particularly interested in giving chase, as I have done plenty of that in the last few months. I am pretty much fed up with it. Guys who don't really give a shit, strangely enough, tend to be catnip for the ladies, however, and I kept ending up alone with them out of the porch. Fine then. One of them was hungry, so I walked her down to the nearest convenience store and asked her if she'd like to join me on the bank of the Edogawa for some privacy. She said yes. Fine.

So, on the way to the river, which involved walking back by the apartment, we were intercepted by Andrew, who said that Joe, my other roommate, who had invited the girl, was having a total hissyfit because I had disappeared with her. Apparently Joe is under the impression that women are not sentient beings capable of making their own decisions, but pliable little love toys who exist solely to service him sexually. He had taken to sticking knives in the ceiling to illustrate his rage. Fucking douchebag.

Whatever. I didn't know this girl, didn't have any particular connection to her, and the party was already pretty much a tidal wave of bullshit, as far as I was concerned. I could have escalated the situation in various ways, but the reality is that the easiest course of action was to just go upstairs and placate the douchebag, who I think I will hereafter refer to as "The Douchebag."

Clearly, however, The Douchebag's butt is still chapped by the fact that "his" girl liked me, because he's been a passive aggressive prick for the last 2 days. God, how I hate this high school bullshit. He's leaving on the 10th, and I am really looking forward to it.

Anyway. Once I start getting paid, I won't have to look forward to lame-ass excuses for parties to enhance my social life.

I'm including this sunset pic because it is cool and I like to use beauty to conquer negativity. Here's the beauty, from my porch:

Click to make it bigger.

Fall does come to Japan, sooner or later.

It's 2:30 in the morning, and I'm about to head to bed after a long week with little sleep. Getting up early has never been my strong spot, and I'm finding that my Tokyo internal clock is no different than anywhere else. I'd harbored hopes, initially following the jet lag, that I might be able to reset my schedule, but...alas. I am a night owl born and bred.

I started work this week and everything went very well. I made it in on time every day, despite the best efforts of Tokyo's train system to thwart me, and my boss is apparently impressed with my rapport with the students. He offered me visa sponsorship and a full time position, which is officially a Huge Deal in the big scheme of me making it work here. I had another interview scheduled for next week with another company, but they want me to work for a week, in "training," without the benefit of pay...I'm confident that I could have gotten the job, but I'm not so cool with working...*ahem*...I mean training...without pay. Mmmmm...no.

I've been thinking a lot about Iowa over the last day or tow, and how my life over the last year has become strangely intertwined with events that occurred there, past and present. It's strange to think of it fondly after so many years of repudiation and disdain. It feels a lot more adult, on a certain level, to feel this strange and deep connection with it, instead of railing against a place that can't feel or appreciate my angst. In some ways, I can visualize Iowa more vividly than Portland, which is really odd. Maybe I'm just too fresh out of P-town, or view it more as home, or something. I don't know.

I'm listening to a Fugees tune...super mellow, beautiful. I'm tired...going to bed now. Goodnight, blog.

All right, then. All is well in the universe.

I'll make this short and sweet, since I'm writing this from work.

Today my boss offered me a contract and visa sponsorship. That means that, barring any unforeseen disasters, I've made it in Japan. The taste of success is always sweet.

More later.

The gig.

As promised, here is my update on the job situation.

I started yesterday at 8am, and everything went as expected, for the most part. I saw 3 clients in a row, guided by my co-worker, John, who recruited me after a night of drinking on my first night in Tokyo. Don't ever say that partying with jet-lag in Tokyo never did anyone any good, because I am living proof that you are a liar.

So, yes. I owe John a beer.

My work with the clients largely consists of just talking to them and occasionally, gently, correcting their English. It's not hard work or particularly challenging. I have a largely intuitive grasp of English, but it's a very solid grasp and I can explain the whys and hows, in the cases where there are any...because, as we all know, English is a fucked up language, grammatically speaking. There are also workbook exercises that we can go through, if the student wishes to, but I think they are more interested in stimulating conversation than anything. Most of them are referred to the school by Toshiba, which has a manufacturing plant very nearby. So, I talk to managers, engineers, programmers, etc. It's actually interesting because I get to talk about technology, one of my great loves, as well as business and economics. It seems like a good place for a nerd to be, and I'm making a fairly ridiculous wage for how little actual work is involved. I need more hours to make that wage count for anything, but anything is better than nothing, at this point.

After work today, I tried and failed to cash a check at a local bank...apparently I need an account, much like the United States. Oddly enough, though, it's a cashier's check, which should just be like...you know...cash. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow at the post office, which apparently doubles as a banking institution in Japan. Don't ask. The bad part about banking is that I feel like a moron every time I go inside because my Japanese sucks. I can often say what I need to with decent accuracy, but my listening comprehension is terrible. Practice, I guess.

After the failed attempt at banking, I came home and watched some TV shows that I had downloaded to my laptop, and then I headed down to the river, which is just a few steps from my house, and watched the most amazing sunset. So beautiful. I've included some pictures, for you, my beloved readers. I think fall is almost here, although it is so slow, so very slow, to come to Tokyo. The trees near my house, on the banks of Edogawa, the Edo River, are starting to take on a slightly golden cast, and I hope to see reds and golds and bright yellows very soon.

Goodnight.

first day.

My first day at work was really, really long. I left the house 16 hours ago and I just got home, so I'm a little exhausted. Tomorrow is a short day, but it starts in 8 hours, so I'm going to take a shower and hit the sack now. Complete update tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

So, I've been editing internet pages for a company out of the Bay Area, and I pretty much despise it with every fiber in my being. I'm being paid jack shit to fix up the worst English you've ever seen. I haven't been paid this little since I did factory work in Decorah. So, yeah. Think I'll be quitting tomorrow.

I start work Tuesday and I'm really excited to get out into the world and out of this apartment. I'm also going to make a doctor's appointment sometime soon, and set up all the financing in advance through my insurance company and the hospital. It would suck to get hit with a huge bill...I'd rather not do that.

Karen sent me a long email yesterday reflecting on our time together, and I feel, somehow, that I missed the boat on something really good with her. It seems like my timing sucks all the time right now, at this point in my life, and I don't know what to do about that. I've been living in the past and the future so much, lately, that I haven't taken much time to take stock of the present. I guess maybe the grass is always greener wherever you aren't, but it's really easy to play the what-if game. After the way things have gone down with Maria, though, I don't think it's a bad idea to take some time off and take stock of my place in the world and my emotional development. It's so odd to me, though, that someone who I met only a handful of weeks ago would provide me with so much support and love, and that someone who called herself my best friend could offer so little. Life is filled with these weird little surprises, I guess. Some really good, others...not so much.

I got a job!!!

This post is for my Mom, who has apparently decided that I must be lying dead in a Tokyo gutter if I'm not glued to my computer for 18 hrs a day. Which has been, largely, the case.

Anyway, today started out like any other day this week...that is to say, crappy. It was pouring...pouring...rain. We're not talking light Oregon rain, we're talking soak-your-ass-to-the-bone-in-a-matter-of-minutes rain. I was going to walk to the train station, wearing my suit and carrying my bag with my dress shoes neatly tucked inside, but opted to take the bus, instead, due to the heavy rain.

Bad, bad idea. Traffic here in Ichikawa, and maybe everywhere in Tokyo, travels at a crawl. A slow, slow crawl. Naturally, the rain stopped the second that I got on the bus, and, also naturally, I hadn't eaten breakfast and was furious as a result. Not good.

On one of the 500 train transfers required to get anywhere here, I lost my umbrella. And by my umbrella, I mean either the house's or one of my housemate's. Fuck. I also got turned around in the station and had to ask twice for directions. Inconvenient, to say the least.

Long story short, I met my contact, went in for the interview, and all was well and good. I'm hired. I start Tuesday. Hell yes. First good news this week, and it's really good news.

Two interviews.

So, the good news is that I have scheduled my first real interview for Friday at 11:45, and another interview on November 5. The first position is for a part-time job, with potential for full-time, and the second is regarding full-time employment with one of Japan's biggest English teaching companies, Berlitz. They have a pretty good reputation, although there are some things about them that I am leery of, not least of which is their policy of requiring six days of un-fucking-paid training. Eh, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

I was going to say that there is also bad news involved, but the reality is that I should be really happy right now, and focusing on the positive, instead of embracing the negative cycle that I've been..."enjoying"...for the last few days. The fact that it took me two days of job hunting, and three applications to get my first interview should be an indication that everything is going to be all right. I'm concerned about the timeframe between now and my first paycheck, but I will deal with that as it comes. I have money for rent for two months, and will just enforce very strict financial discipline between now and then. It's going to be tight, but it's not un-doable. I can also pick up some part-time work, in the meantime, that will at least give me a small income stream, and I also have a couple of other applications out there that may yet produce results quickly. I'm also considering a transition to South Korea, probably temporarily, to work until I can find a job in Japan. If they offer me a position soon enough, it would be hard not to take it and there seems to be a very high level of demand for English teachers in South Korea.

Here's the big problem, and it's stressing me out. A visa application in Japan requires four to five weeks for approval. I basically need to start working nearly full-time almost immediately. On the plus side, though, there seem to be some opportunities for me to make money online doing some various odd jobs...editing and tutoring, for two. it is not really an issue of survival, but fun. Tokyo is not that expensive to live in, although it's not cheap, but travel and entertainment are expensive. So, the less income I have, the more I sit around in my apartment going slowly, but surely, stir crazy.

I'm attaching a picture of the view from my window on the fifth story. The window has a ledge that is quite solid, and I've been sitting at it at night with my feet dangling five stories in the air and letting the cool night breeze washing over me. My first day here, Wednesday, I bought a pack of cigarettes that I finished off tonight. I've been giving them away whenever possible and only having one or two a day, but it is still a relief to have them gone. They are super cheap here...about 300 yen per pack, which about three dollars in US. I won't be buying them again, but it was a nice distraction while it lasted, and it's always nice to have a reminder now and then of why I'm not a smoker.



I talked to Ali and Tom and my sister and Nathan today, and it was really nice to hear so many friendly voices back home. This is still all very unfamiliar, and it's going to take a while before I feel at home here. I'm handling the culture shock pretty well, I think, but it's never easy all the time for any foreigner in a new place.

Quickie.

Things are slowing down a bit, now, since I'm looking for work and trying not to spend money. Today I mostly hung out around the house, although I did take a quick trip down to the local market to buy some real food. I've been eating a lot of noodles and pre-packaged crap, so it was time to go pick up some vegetables and juice and a staple or two. Groceries here actually aren't that expensive and seafood is insanely cheap, so I'll probably be frequently augmenting my protein supply with it, as well as bribing local stray kitties who think that they are impervious to my charms.

I've been feeling a bit of the malaise over the last couple of days. It was largely due, today, to the fact that my knee has been fucked up and I've been trying to rest it and ice it and compress it and elevate it. It's a pain in the ass, as you'd suspect, but the procedure does seem to be helping. If I can't get it substantially under control in the next few days, though, it'll be time to see a doctor. I did buy travel insurance before I left, so it's not a huge deal, although I don't really want to pay the deductible, either.

I've been getting in touch with some anger over my ex's refusal to offer me any kind of support during this difficult transitional period, but, on the other hand, it's not like it's a big change from her behavior over the last 2 months. I don't know how she went from so warm to so cold...it makes me question my judgment in the whole matter. Maybe she was never all that warm to begin with. Right now it feels like future friendship with her is fairly out of the question, but I suppose that could all change. I shouldn't have to beg my friends to be my friends when I need them...that I know for a fucking fact.

On the other hand, anger is probably exactly what I needed to just cut strings once and for all and really move on with my life, so maybe it's all for the best. Besides, I've been getting a lot of support from my old friends and from new and unexpected quarters, so that has really helped to keep me going and stay focused on the future. More on that later.

Anyway, I guess this wasn't all that quick. I can write for days, these days, when I let open the floodgates. Tomorrow I'll try to provide a description of the area and my apartment for you all.

Working...not quite yet, no.

Today went pretty well, aside from the horrible hangover. I got a lot done...completely polished up my resume and finished a cover letter and sent out an application to one of the bigger language schools in Japan. They responded almost immediately, requesting a resume and sending a questionnaire. The questionnaire, of course, was 37 pages long, so I spent a lot of time finishing that off, but, by this time tomorrow, I should have a good six or seven applications completed and out in the world.

I also managed to talk to my parents and my friend Karen. Sweet.

I have to edit a bunch of the most retarded webpages you've ever seen your life, so I should get to that. Maybe I'll throw in another post later, if I have the motivation.

This blog is now set to private, so if you are reading it, congratulations...you are cool.

Privacy.

This blog is for me and mine, and I'm setting it to private in the next day or two. Invites will be sent out to the email addresses of my friends and loved ones at the exact instant that it goes private. I have no preconditions for who may see this blog, so please feel free to send me an email if I forget or neglect to include you in the initial list of invitees. If you want to be part of my life, you are invited.

You will need a Google (ie. Gmail address) account to view the blog on an indefinite basis...I'll be happy to set one up for those who need help. I'll leave this post up for a day or two until I set the blog to private, so feel free to leave me questions or comments, either here or at my email address.

I am a very lucky man. My support network here and at home is very deep and very wide. You know who you are, and you have my deepest gratitude and love. I am open and warm and loving, and you are my reward. Thank you so much for your kind words and thoughts. I want you to have this window into my mind and my experiences. I want to share them with you without restraint.

It is cool and rainy here tonight. Fall comes late to Tokyo, but, if I close my eyes, it sounds and feels like home.

The sorrow.

I wrote this earlier today...fuck it, I'm publishing it. It's my life, it's my blog, and I have the right to be selfish. I've paid for that right a thousand times with my own tears, and no one...no one...has the right to complain until they've tried walking a single step in my shoes over the past month and a half.

Furthermore, this is very likely to be my last blog post for a while. Following this last moment of catharsis, I don't think that I want to share my life with the world any more, outside of my close circle of family and friends. The world is cruel, sometimes. I'm going to write for myself and myself alone. Those who want to be a part of my life are invited to share it with me. I'm deleting my facebook profile as well, to isolate myself from the party pictures and the flip status updates and the new friends and the place where she left our love behind. It's too painful, and I can see too much through friends of friends and through my self-destructively over-competent nerd skills.

Over the last year, I slowly allowed myself to fall in love with a young woman who came to Portland from the east coast, and who shall remain nameless. She planned to go to graduate school away from Portland and I planned to come here, to Japan, so we knew that our relationship, if it progressed, was, at best, going to be difficult and, at worst, doomed. In the early stages, it was an ever present shadow, but we enjoyed each other's company and so things moved forward, regardless. I fell in love with her first, and told her so, gently. The feeling had been building for weeks, and I couldn't keep it inside any more. Love must be shared. I waited patiently over the course of more weeks for her to reciprocate. I didn't push the issue, or jealously demand her love. Eventually, one beautiful morning in her room, she told me that she loved me too.

This is hard. This is really, really hard. Gotta keep going...I need to get this out of my head.

And so we loved each other, and it was very good. I gave her my heart. I cooked for her, I cleaned for her, I picked her up from work when I could, and I was there for her whenever and wherever she needed help. I was content. I recall one rainy evening when I picked her up on the side of the road. She had called me, on her cell phone, for help. Her bike had a flat tire. I came and got her, and I felt such great joy that I could be with her and that I could be there for her...just one small memory out of the many times that I offered her my love and encouragement and support.

I was in school throughout the course of our relationship, taking a heavy classload, but my time with her was precious and so I sacrificed as much as I could to be with her and still accomplish my goals. I did. I did both. I graduated with excellent grades, with honors, and yet I still enjoyed my life as much as possible, together with her and with my friend, B., and my cat, Ashes.

And eventually I graduated. Our time together, now becoming short, grew sadder and sadder, but it was still mostly happy and good. We loved each other and, as the time of her departure grew nearer, we gradually made greater and more extravagant claims of love. We did not want our time in Portland to end. But, after a wonderful, terrible, bittersweet week of living together, in my apartment, come to an end it did.

It was excruciating. I cried and cried, much like I am now, but there was nothing to be done. I called her every day, and we spoke on the phone at length. We talked about our plans for the future after my trip, living and loving together in San Diego, where she was going to grad school. I was looking for work in Japan, and expected to find something directly, but the jobs that I'd applied for never materialized. For the first time in my life, since I'd started school, and giving a shit, it was difficult to achieve my goal. It felt like failure, although I know that, thanks to my own perfectionism, I was being unduly hard on myself.

I told her, one hot day in August, that I wanted to just come to her college town to be with her, instead of moving to Japan. That was the beginning of the end. On the phone, she went icicle cold and berated me for my decision. Rather than joyful, she was clearly upset and very nearly on the verge of outright anger. The fact that she was right didn't lessen the sting of rejection.

It wasn't the first time that she had reacted in that way. In April, my roommate told me that he needed to move out, and her roommate told us that it would be OK if I moved in. I told her that we would need to discuss it carefully before we made any decisions, trying to take things slow, but, again, she went as cold as the Arctic tundra, and told me that she needed some time and space. I barely heard from her for about 4 days, before the thaw came and we were together again.

It should have been clear, then, that she had some very serious commitment issues regarding our relationship, and I should have broken it off right then, long before we got to the point, later that summer, where we were mutually declaring the depths of our great love from 2800 miles away.

I am a fool.

So, her sister stepped in and calmed the situation down before it melted down into the inevitable explosion. After all, we still loved each other. I could just go to Japan, as planned, and we would just see what would happen. No need for any dramatic action.

Rather than look for work in Japan from the United States, I decided to just take off. I had money, and I slowly stashed away the important things and got rid of the things that had tied me down for years in the States. I eventually left my dear Ashes with my parents, at the cost of such great pain that it is better if I don't think about it. The plan was to look for work here and we'd just see what would happen.

As she left with her parents for graduate school, I immediately noticed another great chilling, more coldness. Where before we had talked for an hour a day, every day...now, on the eve of September...nothing. No calls from her, barely returned text messages. I still don't know exactly what happened. She never really told me. Our ability to effectively communicate somehow died on that trip, and I have to learn to accept that I'll never understand what happened.

I broke up with her on the night before she arrived at graduate school and while I was moving out of my apartment, a horrific undertaking even without the onus of a breakup. I shouldn't have had to do it, but she wasn't strong enough to hurt me. I think maybe she hoped that things would just peter out over the course of time, but I don't really know. I probably never will. Maybe I jumped the gun and if I had just let it ride, things would have worked out much differently. Again...I'll never know.

We talked, we expressed our need to remain friends and to remain in contact. She told me that she wanted to be in my life, to be part of it. She told me this repeatedly over the weeks, but again...I felt the coldness, the detachment. Two weeks went by without contact, after what I felt was a particularly thoughtless conversation, and then she called out of the blue, and we talked, and we reaffirmed our love and our desire to be friends. Again. And I felt better. Again.

When I left for Japan, she was the last person I talked to in Portland. We declared our love, and our desire to be friends. Yadda yadda yadda...so meaningless, now. I had sent her a package with a note expressing myself. Same song and dance. My love for her. My desire to be friends, to stay in contact. I wrote it on a piece of paper that she had sent to me with her birthday present, a t-shirt that she'd bought for me, and a souvenir pen. Considering the number of hours and the amount of thought that I'd put into her present a few months earlier, I suppose I should have been insulted. I wasn't. The note was what really mattered...it's sitting next to me, but I will be putting it away shortly. Maybe I'll just destroy it. It contains, again, more declarations of love and friendship and desire to stay in touch. God, it's all so fucking hollow now.

After I'd been here for about a week, I sent her an email asking her for an update and explaining that I really needed to know how she was doing and what she was doing. I'd been feeling isolated here and I really needed to hear from her. I needed to know that she cared. She took over 2 days to take 5 fucking minutes to bother to respond to my really heartfelt plea, and her response broke my heart...again.

She told me that it was really over and that she needed time to put herself back together and that she wanted limited communication between us. She ended the note with "Best," and then signed her name, as if I were a business acquaintance or an old college buddy.

I have to respect her wishes, even though my only desire in this world is to hold her and to whisper in her ear one more time. I have chased and chased and chased and given and given and given. I've offered her my soul on a platter...I can't chase her or give her any more.

It's over now. It's over and I need to move on. My unanswered questions will remain unanswered, and our friendship will become a friendship in name only, not in either words or actions. As of this moment, I fully expect that we will become just another pair of estranged ex-lovers, and that is the very saddest part of this story.

It's her, though. It's her choice. I've done nothing to deliberately hurt her...I've done nothing wrong. She wants me out of her life, at least in any meaningful sort of way. How can I argue? Why should I try to convince her otherwise? I can't. I won't. Not any more. It is useless.

I will stop giving myself to people in this way. In the future, I will wait. I will set my standards higher, and I will choose as carefully as possible, and I will bail out of any relationship at the very earliest sign of any great flaw or misdeed or emotional detachment. Those 3 fatal words, "I love you," have been my downfall for too, too long. My soul is shredded and scarred every time I go through this, and this is the worst yet...I can't do it any more. I had dreams of children and marriage and a love that would last me the rest of my days with this woman. And now I have nothing. The taste is bitter, so bitter.

My self-declared and mutually affirmed Great Love has died. It is taking more than a little of me with it. I will not be a fool any more, but the wisdom I now possess has a very nasty cost.

Goodbye, my love. I hope you have what you need. Tomorrow is another day for both of us. We face it without each other. Goodbye.

Today was lame. So lame.

So, I woke up and finished off my resume and cover letter, shaved, ironed my suit, ate a quick breakfast, snapped a couple of photos for recruiters with my snazzy shave and necktie, and drank my MacGuyver-brewed coffee. No problem, although I need a new french press the very second that I have disposable income, because my non-french pressed coffee is fucking weak-sauce.

Then, I ran out the door at about 11 to: 1) change some dollars to yen, and 2) get on to my interview. Sadly, I was wearing the nice leather shoes that I bought with my suit. 15 minutes of walking later, of course, I had my first blister. Shocking. Luckily, I'd anticipated such a happening, and brought tennis shoes to change into. No problem.

So THEN, I went into the bank and tried to get some dollars changed to yen. Holy language barrier, Batman. Keep in mind that my interview is at 1:30, and it is now 11:30. I need an hour, and some padding in case I get lost, to get to my interview. After about 20 minutes of wrangling and waiting, I get to the person I need to see, who hands me a sheet of paper that requires my name, address, and phone number. Of course, being thoroughly prepared, I had 1 out of the 3...the least important one. Fuck.

So, defeated by the stupid bank bureaucracy, I ran back home to grab the necessary info. On the way, I realized that there was no way that I'd make it back to the bank in time, since they close at 3 o'clock. That's right. 3:00 pm. They all do, here. So, I go home and get new directions to the interview, which was conveniently located all the way across Tokyo, from the station nearest to my house. Getting there involved a few minor snafus, but nothing too out of hand. I made it on time. Barely on time. No problem.

At the interview, they seem really impressed, but they don't really have any positions open for me right now. Fine. THEN, while talking to the recruiter, it's revealed that, in fact, there are 7 positions open in Nagoya, Japan's 3rd largest city. THEN, the recruiter tells me that it's probably a good idea to work for Japan's language schools for a while, because the private schools will probably want teaching experience (never mind my 4 years of tutoring experience. OK, fine. I just wasted 3 hours getting there and interviewing, but maybe something will come up. Maaaayyyyybe somebody will be really desperate. In the next two weeks. Yeah. I'm going to email these (expletive deleted) on Monday, at the latest, and inform them that they have a 3 week window to find me a job, during which I will very likely either be signing a 1 year contract with a language school, or headed home to Portland, where I will undoubtedly be too poor and far too furious to return in April, their prime recruiting time. I might leave out the furious part.

So, then. The trip home. Holy god. Wrong train after wrong train. Back and forth to the same platform...2 times. Getting off to verify my route, and then getting right back on the next train...after, of course, a 10-15 minute wait. Remember that part where I had no yen, thanks to Mr. Uptight Japanese Banking System? Yeah, so I'm also starving and dying of thirst. Let me just say that when I got home...I pretty much hated the world.

Got home, changed outta the suit, and headed out the door in search of 7-11, apparently the only financial institution in this banking hell that can be bothered to operate an international ATM. 5 kilometers later...note that I forgot to eat and/or drink before I left...I find the 7-11 and get my cash, a hot Japanese entree, a small bottle of iced coffee, and a small bottle of whiskey.

Had I not acquired all of those things, my sanity would be currently in serious jeopardy. As it is, I am pretty all right. I slammed my coffee and ate my humble dinner on the bank of the Edogawa (Edo river...some might call it the Edogawa River, but that would translate to the Edo River River), and took a couple of nice, big nips off the bottle before walking back. It was a fairly pleasant way to end a long, horrible day. I walked the 5k back and ran into a nice Wayo student, not one of mine, feeding a few of the many stray cats that live along the Edogawa. We chatted for a few minutes, in broken English and broken Japanese, and that was nice, too, after a long day of feeling pretty isolated here in non-gigantic-white-guy land.

Sooooo. Anyhoo. That was my day, and this post is officially a small autobiography. Go me.

One last thing: an old lady on one of the train platforms walked by me, in my suit and my sunglasses and tennis shoes, and exclaimed, "okii da yo!" which means "he's big!" in Japanese. It made me smile. Japanese old people are awesome.

Rough spot.

Today was my first whole day in my new apartment and, rather than elated, I've felt a pretty potent general malaise. I'm feeling the pressure, now, to get a job rather acutely, and I'm having some doubts about the living situation. It's not, precisely, that the inmates are unfriendly, but there is a general lack of camaraderie that is a bit surprising given the fact that we are all members of the extreme minorities. On Tuesday, for example, I trekked all the way across Tokyo, through incredibly densely populated areas, and did not see, to my knowledge, a single non-Japanese person. That kind of monoculture is unheard of in cities like New York or LA, but it is common in the wards of Tokyo. You would think that we minorities would bond a little harder, under the circumstances. There's also a lot of institutionalized racism here that I'll probably discuss in a later post. Most Japanese, of course, are at least polite and even friendly, but I would be unable to rent an apartment, in the most common example of institutional racism.

So, tomorrow I go to my interview at 1:30 and I am lacking both cash and shaving cream...might have to rough it with plain old soap, although I hate to do that. I need to convert dollars to yen tomorrow, either way, but I wish I had done that before I ran out. On the other hand, I can't spend yen if I don't have them in hand and that's not a bad thing, either.

So, yeah. Anyway. Kind of a down day, but that is to be expected on occasion. The only thing to do is pick myself back up and get back to it.

*edit* OK, one of my roommates is pretty damn friendly. The others, maybe not so much, but I'll give it some time before making any full judjments...

Quick one.

I'm looking for work today, which really isn't that exciting, so I'll just include some quick shots of my room. Most of my stuff is put away, now. Minimalism is nice...click on the photos for a larger shot.

In the new apartment.

Well, I'm here in the new place. It's actually a lot nicer than I was expecting, although I'd hesitate to call it glamorous by any stretch of the imagination. There are 6 rooms and 2 shared bathrooms, common area, and kitchen. The rent is about 620 a month at the current exchange rate, which is a lot more than I was thinking...nothing to do about it now, though, except to get working as soon as possible.

This is what is known as a gaijin house, which means that it is occupied by foreigners on both a long-term and short-term basis until they find other housing or move out of Japan. It's cheaper than a hostel, by a lot, but is effectively much the same thing, except without the constant supervision of staff members. So, cleanliness is a bit less than the ideal, but it's not a shithole either. At the moment, I'm pretty happy with it and I look forward to meeting my roommates.

As I was leaving today, after paying the rent and deposit, I saw this stunning cloud formation from my porch. I'm not really into the whole omen thing, but I'll take any good news that I can get.



Final note: the internet connection here is fast. Unholy fast. Burn your face off fast. I've never-seen-anything-fucking-like-it fast. I'm going to be filling up a hard drive or two, and my loyal followers can finally look forward to me shutting the hell up about my stupid weak-sauce internet connections...

Dreams and waking.

If you've been following this blog, then you know I've been having severe jet lag since I got here, but today I made it to 7:00...a new record. I spent last night at Rebecca and Yasunori's place, and it is nice and dark in the room that they put me up in. So, I woke up at 5:30, per usual, but managed to make it back sleep fairly easily.

Of course, getting to sleep through that difficult window from 5:30 to 7 just means that I get to enjoy more of the weird, vivid dreams that were haunting me in Portland. I use the word "enjoy" loosely, but "weird" and "vivid" may be understatements. I could describe them, but, frankly, they're a little too personal for a public blog of this nature.

Today I get into my new digs...probably post an update on them later.

The Stench of Fear

People have asked me the same question for months: Aren't you afraid? And the answer has been, almost universally, no. I'm not afraid of this trip. I'm not afraid of being here, finding work, making friends, or being lodged in a country where I have a limited command of the language and culture. My fears here are the same, in fact, as they are at home, if and when I choose to allow myself to dwell on them. I fear failure, in a general sense. I fear my own weaknesses. I fear that I won't be healthy mentally.

Those fears, however, are offset by my knowledge that I am strong, that I rarely fail, and that my willingness to feel and my willingness to acknowledge my feelings to myself and others is healthy. My biggest fear and saddest failure has already occurred and that situation is and was largely out of my control, so I've already experienced one of the worst things, relatively speaking, of course, that could have happened to me, whether I'm here or anywhere else.

So, the answer is no. I'm not afraid. I refuse to be. Life should be embraced, never denied for the sake of fear. Fear is a choice, and I choose another path. This is as good of a place to rebuild my life and myself as anywhere, and probably better in many ways than most. And, in 2 years...grad school.

In more practical news, I'm leaving my current couchsurfing host for my friend Rebecca's apartment today. Tomorrow I move into my new place, although the exact time is still yet to be determined. I'm going to stash my luggage in a train station locker so that I can move around a little more freely. I'm really excited to get my own space and some privacy and begin actually settling into my new life here. This place will not be home for a while (or maybe ever, for that matter), but it'll be one step closer tomorrow. I am glad. The search for work also begins in earnest in the morning on Thursday, sooner if I can find an internet connection that doesn't drive me utterly insane.

Final thought: all of this blogging has me seriously considering what it would look like to write a book. I've always been intrigued by the idea of writing, but this period in my life has me motivated in a way that I've never been before. I have to restrain myself from writing more for this blog, because I want it to be a convenient way for my friends and family to catch up on me...but I could easily write way, way more than I am right now. Hmm.

Some frustration.

I simply cannot...cannot...find a decent fucking free wireless internet connection in this town. I had no idea that the largest city in one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world would stingily dole out wi-fi like it is composed of goddamn golden sky nuggets. Frustrating...very frustrating. I know that the whole city is covered with 3G, but I have neither an adapter nor a service provider nor the money to acquire either. So, looks like I'm just going to be angry about internet connectivity for at least a few more days.

While I'm bitching, I should also point out that coffee here is outrageously expensive. While I have had some really good coffee for $5 for a tiny cup, a lot of it is undeniably crappy. Also, the two guys I've been staying with aren't coffee drinkers, so I can't even make the delicious Stumptown that Briana sent with me. Today, I've simply broken down and spent stupid amounts of money on coffee. I won't be able to do it much in the future, but I've allotted for a certain amount of splurging for my first week here. I am, after all, on something of a vacation. I'm not here to be a fucking monk, and I think anyone who knows me knows that being a monk is a virtual impossibility for me under any circumstance. Self denial? Not my strong point. Not so much. Life is too short.

Good beer is also something of a commodity, although I did find some decent stuff in a store on my first night. So, it's not impossible to find, just not that widely available. Rather than drink crappy beer, however, there's a super light, relatively cheap alcoholic beverage similar to American malt beverages, but lighter, not sweet, and without the shit-tastic aftertaste.

I've been thinking about Maria a lot today. It was easy, the first few days, to just enjoy myself and let go of everything, but, ultimately, you can't change who you fundamentally are just because you're in a new place. It doesn't work that way, although it can be tempting to try to reinvent yourself and I will probably allow a certain amount of that reinvention to occur. Some of it will simply occur by necessity...the fact of the matter is that the Japanese are very, very culturally different from the people in the environment that I am used to, and my normal behavior verges on the bizarre for native Japanese. While very friendly with friends and family, the typical Japanese person simply does not randomly engage strangers in public (at least not outside of a bar or other socially permissible venue). That's not to say that they won't freely offer help or that they are completely unapproachable, but it is a much more withdrawn and isolated culture than that of, for example, Portland. You simply don't walk around saying hi to strangers or smiling at people you don't know, although I have found some rare exceptions. Pets seem to offer an instant exception to the norm, because they are under no obligation to obey the cultural preferences of their owners, who seem happy enough to accept the deviations. Children can offer small windows of opportunity, although their parents usually apologize profusely for behavior that I find only adorable, not rude in the least. Any perceived committed rudeness will generally result in profuse apologies, which is really often the only contact that I'll have with strangers.

In any case, I expect that my public persona will become colder for the duration of my stay, and that's fine. I don't expect to emerge from this situation unchanged, and that would kind of negate the whole point of this trip, to a certain degree, if I did. I'm not particularly worried about being isolated, because I'll be living about a 5 minute walk from Wayo and I have both old and new friends here already. Working should also greatly increase my pool of contacts and friends and there's always the internet if I'm feeling really desperate for human contact. I do badly want to get a solid internet connection as soon as possible so I can just make some phone calls back home. I would like to actually talk to my peoples.

I guess that brings us full circle. Time to stop, then.

Ichikawa

So, I spent the day in Ichikawa, which is where I'll be living for the next month. I took my current couchsurfing host, Josh, with me as well. It took about an hour to get to Ichikawa from Tsurumi, which is where Josh's house is located. Once in Ichikawa, we met up with a bunch of the girls from Wayo, who I know from my various summer programs at PSU's International Program. Rebecca, the assistant director of Wayo's International Program, hosted a party at her very nice apartment, where I'll be staying on Tuesday night. I move into my new place on Wednesday, and it's about a 5 minute drive from Rebecca's apartment, so that should work out very well. The party was fun. Rebecca and Akemi bought a ton of food, which the girls cooked for me and Josh...once again, everything was delicious. The Japanese apparently never eat bad food.

Regarding work, it looks like I should be able to cobble together an income through a variety of methods that will not make me particularly rich, but will provide steady wages even if I don't nail down a full time job right away. I have already lined up a gig editing web pages to make them look and sound American, and Rebecca suggested a number of interesting possibilities in addition to that. I had resigned myself to teaching English, which I would probably enjoy in the right situation, but things are looking not quite so cut and dried. I'm most interested in getting a gig DJing on the radio, right at the moment, and apparently Rebecca has a contact or two up her sleeve who could possibly make that happen. Rebecca has a vast number of contacts, so she is going to be an invaluable resource no matter where I end up working. The only problem with putting together lots of small lines of income is that I will eventually need sponsorship from a company for a working visa, and I would need a full time job for that.

I'm off to Chinatown in Yokohama today and we'll just see how all that goes. Being here has been a very welcome distraction from the sadness, but it's still easy for me to kick it up if I think about things too long. Time.

Jet lag sucks.

It's almost 5am and I've been wide awake for an hour. I passed out early last night, around 11, but it is apparently impossible for me to get more than 5 hours of sleep in Japan. Frustrating.

I'm near Yokohama, which is a southwestern district in Tokyo. It's much quieter here than in Shibuya and there are no foreigners at all. Aside from my new host, Josh, I've only seen one other white guy in the one day that I've been here. I think I prefer the bustle of Shibuya, but it's probably good to slow things down a little.

Last night we went out for beers and dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Everything I've had to eat here has been ridiculously awesome, with the exception of a sandwich that I bought yesterday in the train station...it was kinda crappy. Anyway, we spent way too much money, which is officially going to have to stop pretty much immediately...ramen and cheap beer, here I come.

Today I'm going to my welcome-to-Tokyo party in Chiba with all of the girls I worked with last summer and probably a few from the previous years as well. I'm really excited to see everyone, although I am really tired of being tired. Maybe tonight I can kick my internal clock over once and for all. I'm thinking it's doubtful, though.

All right, I'm going to lay back down and probably not sleep at all. Lameness.

I'm going to freak out if I don't find a stable internet connection soon. This shit is ridiculous. I dragged this stupid laptop 5000 miles...I'd like to be able to use it, for the love of god.

Awright, so, last night Doug and I met up with Doug's friend, Steve. Friday nights in Tokyo are, as you would expect, totally insane. The train stations are jammed and the public squares around them are equally busy. We met Steve in Shibuya again, which is an up-scale neighborhood with a lot of young, fashionable people, and then proceeded to have dinner at a Korean grill. It was delicious. I had my first cow tongue...tastes like beef. Shocking. The fun part of the Korean grilling experience is that you actually grill your own food. They bring you a crucible with a super hot fire inside, and you go ahead and grill your meats and veggies. If you know me, you know that I do love the grilling, and I have to say that I'm a fan of Korean food. Look for yakiniku if you come to Japan.

After dinner, we wound our way through the back alleys of Shibuya, perused some of its seedier shops, and then headed for a standing bar that is popular with gaijin (foreigners) and natives alike. We stayed for an hour or so and had a few beers before departing back to the station and heading south to another district whose name I currently cannot remember. Once there, we saw a band fronted by a chunky, vaguely Elvis-like Japanese guy sing rock and roll covers. The band was good, but the beers were 9 fucking dollars each. Out. Rageous. On the other hand, it was nice to have a few Bass Ales, a good British beer that my departed friend Scottie used to adore, and Steve and Doug did a lot of the buying. In fact, Doug and Steve did all of the buying, so that was cool.

It's good to be making new friends here...seems like I have a knack for it, which is constantly surprising to my socially awkward inner 14-year-old. On that note, I collected no fewer than 3 new contacts yesterday alone, and 2 of them are potential job contacts...that's without even trying, so I'm feeling pretty good about the job thing at the moment. Doug seems to think that it should be not only easy, but that I should be selective and make sure that I find a job with the biggest bang for the buck...that's starting to look like good advice.

So, anyway. My first full day in Tokyo was officially a blast and I have a big pile of pictures. Hell yeah.

http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=1302096253#/album.php?aid=7705&id=1302096253

Day 1 on the ground.

Today I rolled around Tokyo by myself. I spent most of my day in Shibuya and Harajuku, both of which are relatively close to my couchsurfing host's house. Doug, my host, has a very nice apartment in Shibuya near the Komazawa Daigaku Station. He's an interesting guy...PhD in chemical engineering, but is currently working from his home as a counselor/life coach. As a couchsurfing host, he's pretty much been awesome, carefully giving me instructions and making sure that I don't get lost. The thing is, of course, that no amount of instruction can prepare you for running around in a city of this size when you are functionally illiterate and have only a basic command of the language. Luckily for me, the Japanese locals have been super accommodating and helpful, which I was told would be the case.

This morning, for example, I was attempting to take the subway to Shibuya Station, a major traffic hub. A very nice young Japanese couple with an utterly adorable toddler noticed that I was clearly having some trouble, and asked me if I need help. I gratefully agreed to accept the assistance, and they showed me which train to ride and where to get off. Later, I failed to figure out how to calculate my own fares, but the old brain kicked in while I was pondering the problem over coffee (of course), and I then easily made my way over to the Meiji jingu (shrine) where the Emporer Meiji was deified after his death in the late 19th century. It was really cool, and I'm feeling now that I can successfully navigate the subways on my own without getting totally lost.

While I was having coffee, I priced french presses, which Starbucks had for 5500 yen...almost exactly $55 at the current conversion rate. I think I'll be waiting until I have an income flow, but I'm pretty sure that I can get it cheaper elsewhere. The dollar is tanking, which sucks, but that will be fine when I start collecting paychecks in yen. Some inflation in the states would actually help out a lot with my student loan debt, so...go inflation.

Doug and I are headed back out to Shibuya for dinner and drinks. Should be a fun night.

Once again, since I am internet-free, I will post this at the next available opportunity.

The Journey, Part 2.

So, as predicted, the sleeping didn't really happen. I'm currently riding on an express bus across Tokyo. As before, I do not have an active internet connection, but I will post this at the earliest available opportunity.

I was met at the airport by Yukari and Mariko, friends from this summer's program. They live close to the Narita airport, which is convenient, and they seem to like me all right, so everything is working out well. It was really nice to see some very friendly faces. I didn't have any problems at all with customs and immigration, so that was a bit of unnecessary worrying. All in all, though, I've done remarkably little unnecessary worrying about this trip, so I think I'm probably due for at least a little. In any case, I'm good here for 90 days with no hassles. Now, for a job...

So far Tokyo doesn't look that different than any other big city*, although we are riding in the left side of the lane. Also, I've seen the airport and a small stretch of highway, so I think I'll withhold judgment for a minute. As the plane flew over Japan, I did notice that the countryside looks really different than the United States. American farms have carefully parceled out chunks of individuality. The farm has a big, square plot with a farmhouse, a barn, and a few outbuildings, a remnant of colonial and 19th century surveying practices. Go homesteaders! Japanese farmland, by contrast, is sliced into smaller parcels that are bordered by houses, water, and trees. From the air, it's actually quite beautiful. The plots and housing developments seem to follow the natural shape of the land, instead of imposing a grand new order upon it.

*Tokyo looks way the hell different than other cities. That statement was premature.

I'll put up another update in a day or two, my internet access is limited and expensive, so far.

The Journey

I'm writing this entry from 36000 feet above the Pacific Ocean and will post it to my blog upon landing.

For reasons that I don't entirely understand, we've been traveling north and west, skirting North American landmass for most of the way. It's possible that we are simply following the curvature of the earth in the most direct line to Tokyo, but that seems really unlikely. I'm thinking that we may be following the path of the least head wind to conserve fuel. Just a theory.

Alaska was amazingly desolate. I've never flown over an area that had so little evidence of human activity. No visible roads, towns, or crops of any kind...just mountains and wetlands and snow. Really beautiful. Too bad their governor sucks so very deeply.

We are approaching the International Date Line and the outside air temperature is about 60 below zero Celsius. We're 4.5 hours into the Tokyo flight, and there are about 5.5 to go. I've been trying to sleep, but napping in the upright position is a skill that I've never acquired.

I'm a little concerned about getting through customs. I had a DUI when I was 19, and I listed it on the customs form. I'm not about to start lying about my life in official documentation, but I've heard of travelers getting hassled for such things before. I also don't have a return ticket, which could also potentially pose a problem. I guess we'll see how much they want to press me on it.

Awright, I'm slapping on the headphones and going to try this sleep thing again. We'll see...

Here we go, people.

It's 8:09. In a few minutes, I'm headed off to the Portland International Airport to board my flight to Seattle. From there, I'll have about an hour and a half layover, and then it's off to Narita International Airport, Japan's second largest airport. Once I arrive in Japan, I'm being greeted by a couple of friends from my job over the summer.

I'm reminded of the day that my love left me, almost exactly 4 months ago, to begin her great transformational adventure. Mine starts today, and, in a way, ends today as well. Just getting myself to this point has been one of the hardest things I've ever done.

Anyway...my alarm just went off, which means that it's time to brush my teeth and get my ass to the airport.

OK, crunch time.

I'm making final preparations and saying final goodbyes. It's almost time. I'm wondering if I should be afraid yet? I've felt a couple of twinges of the fear, but I'm mostly feeling this in a very zen sort of way.

Maybe on the plane...