Yesterday.

I have 10 minutes to write a thoughtful, cogent post before my next class.  I'm also a bit hungover and have had less than the ideal amount of sleep.  Ahhh, a challenge.

Yesterday was the first day that I can remember in recent history when I felt happy.  I'm referring to actual happiness over the course of an extended period of time, as opposed to just a moment or two of fleeting joy smack dab in the center of an ocean of low-level depression.  Yesterday the weather finally...FINALLY...really broke, and we had a legitimately cool day and glorious, glorious rain.  The rain was too heavy in the morning, but a perfect Oregonian drizzle for the rest of the day. 

I went to my friend's art show opening.  I had a quick dinner with my roommates.  I DJed.  I came home to my roommates having a few late night drinks, in which I also partook.

As I was speed-walking in the cool rain to the bar in Koenji where I've recently been DJing, it felt like a million pounds had lifted off of my shoulders.  Seriously...fuck Tokyo summers. 

New room and a haircut.

I moved downstairs from my old room. It was pretty much awful on every conceivable level, but the new one is actually about 75% of the way to moderate niceness. 25 years ago, it was probably awesome. It's Japanese style, which means that there's a lot of wood and frames and paper and stuff. The paper, naturally, has a few holes in it. Technically, it's a tatami (woven straw mats) room, but the mats were long ago covered up with some moderately horrible wood-esque flooring. It doesn't look terrible, but the tatami would be a lot better if they weren't, undoubtedly, hideously stained. The floor has this generally mushy feeling, which is characteristic of tatami, but floors all over the house have kind of a similar feeling to them. This place won't last another 10 years, which is kind of a shame because there are very few houses left in Tokyo that are this old.

Other stuff: I'm organizing my stuff in a bid to throw out a god-awful plastic drawer thing where I was keeping everything. Jun hated it and I have developed a strong aversion to it, myself. I picked up 2 or 3 small plastic bins and have been going through it. I'm surprised to find that it all fits into a pretty small amount of space. Apparently organization really *is* important. See, I'm learning new things. My room is a bit of a disaster right now, but progress is being made. Might have it all put away tonight, I dunno.

More stuff: I've been DJing pretty regularly. I think I'm on track to DJ every weekend this month, actually. It's keeping me busy searching out new and improved music for the people. I've also been out to the clubs. After 13 years DJing, I'm a pretty big fan of dancing, if the music is up to par.

One more item of stuff: I talked to my friend Karen last night, and it was good to hear her friendly voice. She's going to send a care package, which is officially awesome. I'm grateful.

Last: I got a haircut today. I'm a little surprised that I made it this long, especially in this christ-awful heat, but it's pretty fucking short at the moment. I don't doubt that I'll grow it out a bit again in the not-terribly-distant future, but it's nice to have a low maintenance head again.

Ready to go back to school...

The weather in Tokyo during August is nightmarishly horrible. Intense heat and intense humidity. Showering is basically pointless due to the fact that you'll be soaking wet again within a matter of minutes. Airconditioning helps, but sometimes has trouble defeating the heat. I've awakened sweating even with the AC on full blast. Once I get heated up, nothing cools me down quickly, as evidenced by the gallons of sweat following my walk/workout today, even after the shower.

Tomorrow is my last day of vacation. I'm going to spend it at the beach with some friends. I don't have much money left for this month, and it's expensive to get there, but I have to find enjoyment where I can right at the moment. I need it.

My new track is coming along well, but it is largely a process of trial and error; listening a lot to new changes and tweaks before deciding whether or not I want to keep them or tweak further. I wouldn't call it frustrating, really, but it's definitely extremely time consuming. I wish there was a way to speed it up, but maybe that just comes with more practice.

The story.

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Jun and I broke up last weekend. We had very, very different styles of communication, especially during times of anger or high stress, and we just couldn't make it work any more. It was a great ride...I don't have any hard feelings or regrets, but it was time. All good things come to an end, sooner or later, and bad ones too, for that matter. Our relationship had a fair amount of both, but, in the end, the good just couldn't compete with the bad any more.

I'm on vacation...I'll be keeping myself busy and distracted with my music. I have a track that's coming along. If anyone wants to call, I'd love to hear from you.

New place.

I've moved into my new place and I'm feeling...well, depressed at the moment.

About the house: it's old. I'm told that it's over 80 year old, which makes it a rare survivor of the Tokyo firebombings in WW2. I tend to like old things, so that part is fine, but the bad part is that it will probably fall down (by itself) inside the next 10 years. My room is small, and not particularly clean or nice in any noticable ways. I decided that I probably just shouldn't do anything today, but tomorrow I'm going to give a good vacuuming and cleaning, which should marginally improve the situation.

I'll post another update tomorrow. Gonna watch a movie...

Cloudy day.

The rainy season is officially in full swing in Tokyo. Warm and super muggy will quickly turn to hot and super muggy until fall comes in September. Fortunately, I have a big chunk of time off during the summer, and this is good because, of my 3 schools, only 1 is air conditioned in the classrooms. When it's hot out, I wake up sweating and continue to sweat until I get home and flip on the AC. It's not that great, but you get used to it.

Other news...not much, right now. I started working on a new song...it's coming along, but I'm having some trouble getting the introduction right where I want it. It'll all work out in the end.

Swimming.

So, I went back to the pool yesterday after a long respite. I'd had a nasty cold on and off for about a month or so, but it appears that I've kicked it...so, back to the pool. I'm sore today, but I'll survive. It's always interesting to go to the pool because I'm invariable the only white guy there and the other swimmers are always pretty curious about me. A couple of tattoos and piercings undoubtedly attract attention, in addition to the fact that I'm a) not Japanese and b) have body hair. I'm used to people staring a bit, but the intensity level definitely gets cranked up in situations where there aren't many clothes involved. It doesn't really bother me.

I've been creatively stagnating a bit, so it might be time for another music project. I'm planning on slowing down some Robert Johnson tracks, but that's actually pretty mindless in creative terms, so I'm thinking it might be about time for another original track. We'll see what happens.

Facebook.

I deleted my facebook account a couple of days ago. The privacy settings had become ridiculously convoluted, and the simple fact is that I no longer trust them with my personal information. I shouldn't have to constantly update my privacy settings in order to make sure that a website isn't spreading my information all over the web. Facebook's CEO has basically said that he doesn't think that their users' privacy is important, and, I'm sorry, that's just not acceptable.

Other stuff: Today I taught the first graders today at one of my schools for the first time. It was funny...they were excited, and probably a little scared, I think. One little girl was right on the verge of crying when it was her turn to introduce herself to me...she couldn't talk in front of the class, and I could tell she was about to lose it, so I smiled and gently sent her back to her seat. The Japanese teacher comforted her a little, but she still shed a couple of tears. Nothing too major, but I didn't want her to be traumatized by her first English class, so I came back to that class for lunch. I was glad to see that she was fine, and she came up to me and talked to me a couple of times, sans tears, and she helped out when a couple of the kids decided to give me a spontaneous back rub. I'll take it. They love touching me, for some reason.

I'm still working on the story of Jun's grandma's funeral, and it's turning out to be a bit more epic than intended. I'll try to wrap it up in the not-too-distant future.

Busy times.

Well, a lot has been going on lately, but I haven't been posting to this blog much and I'm going to take some time over the next few days to rectify that.

First of all, I'm on spring break and it is friggin' sweet. I have 3 weeks off (2 of which have now passed). Nice.

So, I guess I should probably start the catching up with the end of the school year. In Japan, the school year ends in March, so I had to say goodbye to my students. Here's how that went:

As you may or may not know, I was teaching at both a junior high school and an elementary school. For reasons not entirely clear to me, I finished at the elementary school a week before the junior high, which threw my schedule into a bit of disarray. No big deal.

Saying goodbye to the elementary students was not that easy, however. I'd grown pretty attached to them over the year, especially some of the little ones, a few of whom had become totally enamored with me over the course of the year. I'll *never* forget one morning when a little boy took my hand and escorted me across the entire playground, smiling delightedly the whole time.

On my last day, I had my last class with some of the second graders. At the beginning of class, I told them, in Japanese, that it was my last day. Except for an occasional word here or there, I don't usually speak Japanese in class, but my last days at the school I made a some exceptions to that rule. So, I told them that it was my last day and then we conducted the class per usual.

A popular game with the second graders is something called "Fruit Basket." It's a form of musical chairs that is played in an inward-facing circle instead of back to back. We played the game, per usual, at the end of class, and finally the last bell rang. I scrambled of the students out of their seats for one last round of the game, and they eventually got themselves seated in their chairs again (small children aren't known, necessarily, for their rapid decision-making skills). After they'd gotten situated, I sat down, myself, in the middle of the circle, smiled, and started waving to my students.

It's a little difficult to accurately describe the moment when you realize that you could be crushed to death by a mob of screaming 2nd graders. They seem so cute and innocent, but then when they are piling on top you like a pack of crazed howler monkeys, well...it's not quite so fun then, now is it?

I make light, but it was actually extremely touching. Some of the students were crying. One kid took a hit to the mouth in all the excitement and ended up with a bloody lip. A couple of the students gave me several dozen origami cranes that they'd folded themselves. One girl gave me a handwritten note (in Japanese, of course) thanking me for teaching her and for being kind to the students.

I walked out of that school at a little after 4 o'clock on a Friday afternoon. As I made the long walk, for the last time, across the playground, kids from all over the playground yelled my name and waved goodbye to me. I felt a lot of love from them on that last day, and it's not something I'll ever forget.

Creative energy.

So, I haven't been updating this thing much, largely due to the fact that I am channeling most of my creative energy into a couple of music projects. 

First:  I DJed a couple of weeks ago at a bar in Omotesando.  There weren't a ton of people there, due to the fact that I arranged it a few short days before I actually played didn't have much promotion time.  However, I was trying out some new gear live for the first time, and that's not necessarily the time to be working in front of a lot of people.  In any case, the new stuff worked nicely and I'd call the evening a modest success, technically speaking. 

I recorded the set, and here are the results: 
Part 1:  http://www.mediafire.com/?jn11mtm5qym
Part 2:  http://www.mediafire.com/?gq5n3gywoye

Second:  I am working on an original composition.  Right now it's in the early construction stages...I have a beat.  I have a hook.  I have some harmonization.  I'm working on the bass line.  The next step is to arrange the components and add layers.  I've done remixes, but this is actually *not* my first original composition. 

HERE is my first original composition:  http://www.mediafire.com/file/jrotwmzdquz/New Hope (instrumental).mp3.  I started working on this track when I first got to Tokyo, literally on one of my first few nights in town, when I was couchsurfing and really had no idea what the fuck I'd be doing in a week or two weeks' time.  I haven't really shared this track much, previously, because it feels strangely personal and because I didn't really like it much when I finished it.  Time has brought a little perspective, though, and it is what it is. 

While I'm at it, here is a remix that I made shortly after I composed that last track there:  http://www.mediafire.com/?kdjmbmyza2n.  This track was a lot of fun, although I confess that I'm not entirely satisfied with the final mix.  On a large speaker system, it is definitely lacking punch, for some reason.  I've been meaning to remix the remix, but I haven't gotten around to it.

So, there you have it.  Busy times. 

Busy, busy, busy.

I've been working a lot with my new DJ software and hardware, and my work is starting to bear fruit.  The problem is that a music collection as massive as mine requires and enormous amount of preparation time, in total, to prepare it for full use with the software.  I can just load a track and play it, but there are a lot more options available if I do the prep work ahead of time.  Sometimes it's really painless...others, not so much.

In other news, I've also been working on a short story.  I wrote it both as a stand alone story, and as a potential opening chapter to a larger work.  My 1st draft is done, in any case, and maybe now I can think about writing a follow up short story (or chapter 2, if you prefer).

BUSY!

Too long!

I've been super busy working on a bunch of new music stuff recently, so I haven't been spending much time bloggin'. So, let's recap:

The holidays are over now. I started work last week after a nice, long vacation. There wasn't a whole lot of relaxing going on during vacation, but it was long.

Christmas was in Korea and New Year's was spent at Jun's parents' house. Both were fun and interesting, although Korea was a bit difficult, at times. I missed my family during the Xmas season (duhh). Jun's parents' place was a good time. Her brother and sister-in-law came over with their two kids, ages 6 and 8, and there was much tickling. We also ate and drank a lot of great food and sake, respectively.

On New Year's Day, we visited a shrine and then walked around a bit. More good times were had.

So, last week I only had one day of class and this week I'll be having 4 days...it's a short week. Yay.

There's the recap. Current projects include: putting together a DJ night here in Tokyo, practicing said DJing, and working on some remixing. I've been fairly tightly focused on the music, and I'd like to keep it that way for a while.

Done! More soon!