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.