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You're Not Going to Believe This Monday July 5

The blog's been off for two years. Even during the last four years, I was barely posting, barely writing, and barely producing anything of interest on this space.

Between 2006 and early 2010, I worked for a company. Full time. I gave a lot of my time, a lot of my energy, and I met some fantastic people (some of which are now my business partners, and my girlfriend). So, I can't complain: I did well.

But, life in a salaryman's job doesn't really help one get around to writing. Oh, sure, I wasn't really committed to writing anyway, but I can also say that the lifestyle in Tokyo doesn't really support it, either. There's ALWAYS something to do, and blogging requires commitment. When you get free time, that's when you're Doing Something Else You Should Have Already Done.

Also, from May 2009 to present, I was setting up a company while working full time, and with a girlfriend. Priorities, priorities. I had no weekends, which is primarily when I wrote. Also, from May 2008 forward, I managed a team, which was a lot harder than just working by myself. Enough excuses.

Here's a brief update; I've decided not to kill this blog for now.

1. I started my own mobile development company with 2 former coworkers. It is called Long Weekend LLC, and I implore you to go over to that site and find out why. I blog regularly over there, because in the new future, or at least the future of our company, there is no work, and there is no play - there is only life. So I keep it all over there. A blog about lifestyle design.
2. I briefly left Japan and visited Australia, next I'll be visiting Europe, Japan again, the US, Japan again, and who knows. If you want to find me, e-mail me. It's always been the best way, and my e-mail address has not changed for seven years. Or use the aforementioned company website.
3. One day, I'm going to repost the archives from 2002-2005, which were some of my most prolific, and excuse me, funniest writings. I took them down because I got a Real Job, and I thought some of it wasn't appropriate. I was right. But at the same time, I'm now designing a lifestyle where that doesn't matter any more.

Japanese Television Sunday July 6

I just can't understand Japanese television. Sure, the little bits that make it on to YouTube about folding a t-shirt in 3 seconds end up crossing over and convincing everyone that television here is wacky, entertaining, and different; there definitely are some redeeming aspects. Human tetris was also entertaining, I can't take that away from them.

However, as a discerning consumer, I fail to see the overall value proposition on Japanese television. This morning, Adam and I were sharing breakfast and coffee, and the programming consisted of the following scene:

(1) Old Japanese male show host (required for any Japanese show),
(2) Cutesy but not hot female co-host (required, usually half-Japanese or holds an otherwise interesting trait),
(3) Gallery of attractive, young Japanese women whose role is to overreact to any item discussed on the show,
(4) The particular "main event" for a given show.

(1) and (2) will introduce (4), who will thereby interact with (3) about the topic that (4) is knowledgeable about. Today's theme, and no, I am not lying, was that (4) was holding an electric guitar and playing, at the request of (3), various commercial jingles that he had penned for a marginally-well-known bean sprout producer in Japan. Apparently, he had written over 100 jingles, all of which were rejected by the president of the bean sprout company, but they were nevertheless assumedly entertaining, so he was playing them for (3).

I'll put this one out there so I don't need to repeat myself: bean sprouts. What? I mean, seriously, what the...?

Second, Japan really needs to outgrow this idea that company presidents control everything. This comes from a deeply-rooted cultural instinct that normal people like you and me cannot start our own company, we cannot be successful, and that only company presidents and directors are allowed to lead the special, privledged lives that they lead. I am not sure if this is a by-product of WWII or even the class system of the pre-Meiji era, but it's definitely very evident in modern culture.

The whole thing is a sham, I am sure that the marketing department of the bean sprout company is paying the television channel for this sham they are calling programming, and that the whole thing is ridiculous product placement (which is the key to any television show in Japan).

Maybe it is possible, though, that the president of this company himself personally insisted on approving every jingle to be used in a commercial. It would fall in line with the news we've heard recently about the ex-president of Nova, the shady English school, who was arrested. There were reports that he was in such tight control of the company that even wastebasket purchase orders had to be personally signed off by him.

Why, you ask, would I choose to live in such a city?

You are not worthy of this cab ride Saturday April 19

One of the best things about my company is that approximately once every six months, most people in the company who have been there for any length of time (there is a qualification, yes) convene and talk about management-assigned topics. Essentially, the senior management says, "we have identified these points as things that need to be explored in our future, now talk amongst yourselves," thereby allowing most people in the company to have a say in the future direction. That's cool.

Even better, this meeting usually takes place on a Friday, whereafter we usually have a great dinner and drinks. Last night was no exception. I found myself in a karaoke room at 1:30am with a few brave souls, slightly tipsy, rocking out to my colleague's excellent rendition of "Me and Bobby McGee". No, really, she's a professional singer. I'm not being sarcastic. It is really good.

As anyone who has been in Japan longer for one Saturday night should know, 1:30am is well past the time the trains stop running, so anyone who stays out that late must be in for an all-nighter until 5:00am, or must take a taxi home. In the middle of the night, from Ginza, where our office is, it's about 3,500 yen to get home. That's about, at the current rate, $35. Split down the middle with a colleague, it's not so bad.

So, 3 of us were standing in a slight drizzle at 1:40am, searching for a cab. There are plenty of cabs in Ginza.

Finding one that will pick you up may be another issue.

We were on a back street, and there was a cab slowly approaching us. I attempted to flag it down; I could see the driver's face. He was focused straight ahead, hands slightly tense on the wheel, to the extent that it was unnatural and clear that he was avoiding us. The light at the intersection turned red, so he stopped. I walked towards the vehicle and looked at him again. Still nothing. I then got in front of the cab itself, and flailed my arms with a smile on my face. By this point, I had given up on getting in this cab, but I just wanted to make my point.

He rolled down the window and spoke.

"What are you doing? Get out from in front of the cab... it's dangerous!"

"We'd like a ride. Your cab indicates that you're accepting passengers," I shot back.

"I'm going home--" he said.

All cabs in Japan have an LED in the front window that indicates their current status, and it is very easy to see the difference between "out of service" and "empty".

"Your sign says 'empty', if you're going home, why doesn't it say 'out of service'?" I asked.

"I'm going to Chiba, I'm going home," he said, assuming that we did not live near Chiba, so we would have to accept his answer.

During this whole time, I continued to stand in front of his cab. He cocked the wheels and attempted to inch past me, but I moved, and my knees were on his bumper. This aggrevated him further, but like my father, don't mess with me when I am right. As a licensed cab operator in the city of Tokyo, you have an obligation to pick up anyone who wants a ride. Period.

Back to the Chiba excuse, it turns out that one of the 3 of us does in fact live in Chiba.

"She's going to Chiba," I said, pointing to the Japanese co-worker who was with us. I figured he would take her, as she is Japanese. I was wrong?

"I'm going home! Get out of the way!"

I couldn't let this clear discrimination stand.

"What? You don't like foreigners?! Is that it? If you're out of service, put that on your sign. This woman is going to Chiba, and you're going to take her there."

By this point he had inched the wheels to the extent where if I didn't re-position myself, he could "get away". I'd already decided I wouldn't want to reward this jackass with my money anyhow, so I moved back and he went off on his way.

We caught the next cab. He was a nice guy, and I made sure to tell him the full story. He sounded sympathetic, and I truly believe he was. He tried to explain it away: "you probably live in the city, and he wants someone who lives far away so he can get a higher fare," he offered with empathy.

Like many other things in Japan, there are rules that everyone follows, with little exception. At the same time, there are rules that no one follows, with little exception.

I decided yet again after last night that as long as I can possibly avoid it, I will never ride in another taxi in Japan again. Sadly, this isn't the first time I've promised that to myself.

Broke into the Old Apartment Monday January 28

As you know, the blog has been offline for awhile. We apologize for the inconvenience. Hereon begins the story, the excuse, or the events of the last two months.

Simon told me over six months ago that someday, he would propose to his then-girlfriend, and at that point, I'd probably need to move from my cozy 6-mat room to bigger and greener pastures. I had just moved in fall of 2006, so needless to say, I wasn't particularly exciting about having to repeat it. I had already discovered it to be time-consuming, fruitless, and aggravating process as a foreigner.

To make matters more complicated, Simon had spent a long time finding our apartment. The rent market in the area I was living is a sizable 10-15% higher than what we were paying, and there are a minimal number of layouts like the 3-bedroom plus combined living/dining layout we had. I was later told by a real estate agent that the "rate of return per square meter is higher when landlords divide up a unit into smaller studios". Thus, in an expense neighborhood such as mine (which I had never known it to be), 3-bedroom apartments are rare.

Thus, to begin the search meant looking at housing websites for months, finding nothing. An occasional phone call to a real estate agent either found (a) the place already gone, (b) the place did not rent to foreigners, and/or (c) they wanted 4-6 months' of rent up-front. And more than half of that never comes back to you in the form of a "deposit". Faced with the idea of paying so much rent up-front, I decided it was best if I get roommates to help cover the costs immediately.

December 2007. I am soon to go back to the States for a trip, and Simon has pretty much told me that he'd like to have his girlfriend move in by the time I get back. Slightly desperate, I posted an article on a "roomshare" group on Mixi, or Japanese MySpace, looking for suckers who'd want to live with me. To my surprise, I received a mail from a Korean guy who was, appropriately, looking for a place to live at the same time I was. He is 30, pretty straight-up, and seemed like the kind of guy that I could live with.

We met on a Saturday morning in mid-December, and we searched for apartments all day long. This is one of the most annoying tasks I can think of. As if seeing many, many places with some annoying real estate agent wasn't enough, I also had to consider the feelings of a person I barely knew in finding an appropriate place. Yet, somehow, by the end of that day, we had found The Perfect Place. 3-bedroom, cheap, in a beautiful, quiet area in one of the nicest areas of Tokyo. 10 minutes from Shinjuku, 15 minutes from Shibuya. Yeah.

So, I forked over a month of rent, signed all the paperwork (save the contract), and went back to the States for a holiday. During the break, I coordinated with the real estate agent as to when I could move in. That's when the trouble began to start.

I was scheduled to return to Japan on January 4th, and despite making a down payment on December 21st (the room was empty, mind you), the real estate agent was telling me I couldn't move in until at least the 7th. That would be 3 days of no-place-to-live. He made it very clear that around the New Year, it was hard to assemble the staffs necessary to clean and put the place in order (a seemingly-required process for moving in Tokyo, as all of the real estate agents have contracts with these vendors with built-in kick-backs. If you are wondering who pays for the cleaning, take a guess).

So, when I came back to Japan, sure enough, I was sleeping on the couch. I had told Simon I would move out, so I found my room no longer. All of my stuff was in boxes in the living room, and I was sleeping on a small fold-out bed in what was now "Sayaka's (Simon's fiance) office". The 7th became the 8th, and there it was -- the day before I was supposed to go pick up the keys and sign the final contracts.

The phone rings, which is never a positive sign. Seriously. Whenever the phone rings, something's going to happen.

It's the real estate agent.

"I just got a call from the landlord, he said that he wants to see me at the place; I am not sure what it is about but I am going now. When I find out, I'll give you a call; I am sure everything is fine," For those of you that don't work in sales, "I'm sure everything is fine" means "I have no idea what is happening right now but I am just praying that this sorts out cause I need that bonus, hey, pass me the joint".

The next morning, i.e., the day I am supposed to pick up the key, I called the real estate agent to ask what the meeting was about.

"Oh, I think everything's fine. There's just one thing that needs to be sorted out, and I am meeting the landlord today at 4pm to discuss. I'm also meeting the rental company at 1pm." (Yes, the rental company and the agent are different companies, which means you pay even more in commission and fees!) I asked if there was any problem with my situation. "Oh, no, it's not a problem for you at all; it is just something we need to sort out before you move in," he said. Fine enough. I went back to work.

To cut to the chase, I got another call at 6pm. I had intended to pick up the key after work. The van with all of my stuff was loaded.

Apparently, the landlord of this place owns 3 other apartments, and has refinanced each multiple times. He is about to go bankrupt. The debtors are going to repossess his properties in an effort to collect on their debts. This means that in a few months' time, he may not own the apartment any longer. As a non-owner, he can't very well rent it to me.

Now, the real estate agent works on commission, so he had been promising me the moon to keep me warm, as he needed to buy time to run around between the rental company and the landlord to see if there wasn't some way that he could make it work. For example, if I were to move in immediately, it may give the landlord the burst of capital he needed to pay off some creditors, for example.

Legally, if I did move in, I would have 6 months' to find a new place, should I be asked to move by a new owner. With all of my stuff in the van ready to go, and not having a place to live, I told the real estate agent "fine", but he told me that as an agent, they collect a fee, and he cannot very well collect a fee on a property that may be repossessed in 2-3 months. It's against their principles, he said. So, it's against principle to do something (rather, to allow something, as he had already done the work) to help me out in the short term, but it's fine to neglect your job, not check up on the landlord until the day I am supposed to move in? What a work ethic. That's a fine time to be taking the high moral ground.

I knew from the beginning this guy wasn't that smart. Lesson learned to go with your gut feeling. I should have kept looking. Lucky for him that he introduced me the perfect place (which, it was now clear why the rent was cheap: the owner was doing anything and everything to get someone inside).

So, there I was. No place to live, no prospects, and a full work schedule. That was January.

Free Speech Saturday September 22

I just saw this video on YouTube about a student being subdued by police officers at the University of Florida with a taser. There have been a flurry of comments in both directions, but I saw many that suggested that his freedom of speech was restricted, and that this is yet another indication of how America isn't really "free".

As a former venue employee and facility manager, I have experienced this many times before: controversial speaker, daring student, question and answer session. Student takes the microphone, goes on a tangent about His Issue, lectures the audience before asking a question, and then asks a incendiary, loaded question.

The speaker, however popular or unpopular, is up on stage to be heard, seen, and understood. They're not there to have tomatoes thrown at them: this is part of the social contract of asking someone to come speak. While there may be difficult questions that may come up in due course, the manner and nature of such questions should fit the paradigm in which they are being asked.

This student clearly had not only an agenda, but likely never expected to get his questions answered. I am sure he would have liked to have them answered, but should have been able to assume that his mic would be turned off, questions deflected, or otherwise. He was conducting a stunt such that you and I could talk about it. He succeeds in that regard.

However, we regularly hear "freedom of speech" bantered about as if we have a right to run our mouths off wherever and however we like. I believe this to be a gross misinterpretation. Let me say it in clearer words: you are not special. The world does not care about you. Okay. There we have that.

If I walk into a cafe, order a sandwich, and then climb up on the table and tell everyone who votes Republican where they can shove it, I'd be a pretty dumb fool to wave the "freedom of speech" flag when the manager asks me to leave.

This lecture was a public event, but was held in a private forum by a private group. Sure, if only prescreened questions were allowed to be asked, or if the speaker him or herself had to restrain their expression for fear of punishment, then I would believe there is an issue at hand regarding the First Amendment. However, what we have here, is a common affiliction in the US: just another asshole who has a point to raise and thinks he is right with little regard for public order or common courtesy.

Damn.

Another one?

Japanese Disneyland Wednesday September 12

I met a British gentleman yesterday who has been in Japan for approximately 17 years. For my job, I often meet these so-called "lifers" who, for one reason or another, have committed to living (and dying) in Japan.

The first time he went to Osaka, he hated it, he said. The second time, he also hated it. Then, the third time, he got married. Add seventeen years. I had to laugh a little at that; I am well-familiar with the slightly self-deprecating attitude taken by many Westerns who have, adopting Japanese culture even in English, chosen to live in this society. It's never as bad as they make it sound, but it's not necessarily good, either.

This gentleman said one of the best things I think I've ever heard to describe Japan, though, so I thought I would share it. He felt that Japan is like Disneyland: everything is clean, sparkly, interesting to look at. Behind the scenes somewhere, it's actually much dirtier, but there's no reason to show that. Moreover, and here was the best part -- when Japanese people go abroad for vacation, it's almost as if they are entering "a different land" in Disneyland. It's as if the United States was Country Town USA, and then you suddenly walked into the Arabian Nights land.

Japanese people never really "leave the theme park" when they are overseas. They're just in a different "land".

Of course, this is excepting those who live overseas for a long time: long enough, and you'll probably start to see Japan Disneyland as it is: a themepark in the middle of the rest of the world where other things are happening. Once you have that perspective, you're less likely to want to stay here: it starts to feel small and confining.

That's exactly where Yuiko is. She told me the other day she finds it "hard to breathe" in Japan. It's her home country; her family lives here. What would cause her to say such a thing?

Anyway, I don't have a concrete point here. I just wanted to get this down on the blog before I forgot about it.

Maybe I haven't really changed that much Wednesday August 29

While I believe that humans change based on their experiences, I often believe there is this core portion of someone's personality that really never changes, or at least, not all that much. I have four great parents, two of which happened to be directly involved in my birth. Those two share some characteristics that, as I have grown up, have become endearing:

• My Dad: I Don't Care What Your Policy Is As I Am The Customer, Damn It
• My Mom: Take Care Of Your Own Stuff Because The Fairy Isn't Going To Clean Up For You

But I digress. It would be simplifying the human experience to boil down my personality to the net sum of my parents' personality traits.

My parents, however, have both been known to be persistent in their opinions at times. I have received this quality without any disintegration in quality, it seems. I am stubborn. If I am wrong, I will give up -- that's fine. However, the problems of how we define what is right and what is wrong, well, that goes back to my Dad's ability to get Customer Service Representatives to give him whatever it is that he feels is necessary.

It could be generational, but one notable difference between my parents and I is the active interest that I take in making environmentalism an everyday part of my life. I don't say that my parents don't care about the environment -- that is a false conclusion -- but I do imagine that I think about it more than they do.

Recently, outside of our building at work, there have been delivery drivers sitting inside their vans, windows shut, ignition on, sleeping, and it's really been bothering me. There are taxi drivers and individuals doing this as well, but I can't very well tell an individual how to go about living their life. They paid for the gasoline, so I imagine that they will exhaust that gasoline into the atmosphere however they so please. That is, if I am not mistaken, part of owning a car: doing things your way. It's the personal individual freedom that it unlocks.

Delivery drivers, on the other hand, frustrate me. They are wasting their company's money, unnecessarily, and more importantly, raising the temperature of my Earth unnecessarily. Also, in the short term, the heat generated by their cars is contributing to the heat island effect that is Tokyo. When it is ninety-two degrees and I am wearing a full suit in the 2:00pm sunshine, it is an understatement to say that I am unhappy about these individuals' decision to unnecessarily heat up the neighborhood.

So, rather than be Japanese, which I find to be largely passive-agressive, I have decided to start taking a more active approach to these people.

I take a sheet of paper (which I have used the other side of, I am not wasting paper) from my bag and write the following in Japanese: "(We) ask for your cooperation to not idle your vehicle (here)." It's very Japanese, but it gets the point across. Then, I put it under the windshield wiper of the vehicle, such that the driver will need to exit the vehicle to remove it. Making the driver exit the vehicle is key, as they must understand What Ninety Two Degrees Feels Like.

I did this twice yesterday. Today I didn't see anyone there, but I could have missed them.

Simon recommended the Beverly Hills Cop trick: stick a banana in the tailpipe as to stall the vehicle. If the problem continues to escalate, I may be forced to such measures.

The old man at the public bath Monday August 20

When I lived in Yokohama, there was a public bath down the street that I'd often frequent. In the middle of summer, a quick soak would be so refreshing. In the middle of the winter, ten minutes in the sauna would keep me warm for hours. For 400 yen (USD$3.50), it was a deal. Sure, we use the word "public bath" in English, but this is more-or-less a spa with a sauna, shower area, hot-tub, and lounge area.

At the front of any public bath in Japan, there's someone to collect your money, and if you need it, sell you the odd shampoo bottle or mini-towel. I got to know both people that ran the front -- I saw them every two weeks or so for eight months.

Towards the end of my tenure in Yokohama, the old man started to talk to me more. Really, he wasn't that old: glasses, a warm smile, large streaks of gray appearing in his otherwise black hair, he was maybe only fifty-five or sixty. One night, I went right before close, and I was one of the last people there. As such, on my way out, we struck up a conversation. He wanted to know the normal things: where I was from, why I speak Japanese, so on so forth. I am good at that conversation.

Then, he did something that a lot of Japanese people do: talk negatively about Japan. I shouldn't say "negatively", as that makes him sound like a bitter, senile man. He is far from it. Gentle is the best word that comes to mind. Maybe I should say that he spoke lamentingly of a Japan that was, that is no longer.

I've lived long enough to know there's danger in believing people's recollections of the past: people shape their memories how they want them to be, and as their values change (particularly with age), so do their attitudes about the way things were. They may naturally begin to forget the otherwise-conflicting experiences that no longer match their value system. I don't believe this to be a cognitive process.

That point aside, this man's recollections of the Japan that used to be were clear: people had spirit (Japanese: 精神). They had a will for life that no longer exists in young people today. Young people today, he suggested, have grown up spoiled in a society that emphasizes material possession and, more than anything, money.

His conjecture is that this individualistic, money-hungry generation is ruining his Japan. This is why he spoke so somberly, I imagine. I'm not sure what I was supposed to do on the other end of this conversation.

The old man's final plea to me was along these lines: "Mark, you've come here to learn this language, to learn this culture, and to expand yourself and lead a fuller life as a result of a greater understanding of the human condition; please do not let what you see in front of you today block your vision of what Japanese culture should be or where it came from. There is more than you can see," he suggested.

I really respected this, as this man with whom I barely spoke other than to exchange currency for towels had suddenly an insight that was simply well-thought, well-put, and so pertinent to my situation. It could have been chance, or it could be my romanticization of the circumstances, but he had a great point.

The Japanese populace emerged from WWII cast as a test-case (democracy), a victim (of pre-war and wartime fascism), and a failure (of an ideology). I'll leave the scholars to debate whether or not it is fair to allow the Japanese to consider themselves, too, as victims, considering someone had to do all of the raping and pillaging (literally, not just as an expression), I've included "failure" to cover myself on the point. Certainly, you are better than the rest of the Asian races, Japan... as long as you have enough oil and forced-labor Taiwanese and Koreans.

But I digress -- war is hell, and I'm not here for a rehash.

I'm here to say that given these circumstances: failure, ruin, victimization, and poverty, it makes wonderful sense that Japan was set up in the way that it was post-war. Industrial education system. Focus on manufacturing. The rise of the salaryman. Fair wages for everyone. No one minds that you make the same as the guy next door, because everyone's in it together, and if we just work harder, we'll make some money, make the country rich again, be great, and be respected on a world stage. And that's exactly what happened.

Now cue the loss of the collective spirit. There's no need anymore: Japan is a rich country. Today's children grew up with The Things Their Parents Never Had. Why join in a collective spirit with the next door neighbor? We don't know him. We don't need to know him.

In the absence of a consumerism-driven society, people are left to their social networks and their status (yes, I do mean class status) as a means of driving identity (as identity was based on the group). Consumerism leads to patterned consumption: everyone has the same x or y. Identity driven from ownership. This is just the Keeping Up With The Joneses, and this is not Japan-specific.

The next step is product diversification: my x has more y's than yours. Soon enough, people begin to diversify their identities not by what they do for a living (and I do mean outside of work as well), and they start diversifying their identities by what they buy and what they own. A production-based economy moves to a consumption-based one.

The old man at the public bath tells me that Japanese youth have traded their souls for money and things. It hurts him. They no longer produce their own identities; they mix-and-match them from preselected templates. I need to go visit that old man sometime soon. I want to tell him that I still try my best to derive my identity from who I am, not what I own. I think he'd like that.

My camera: an unchanging classic? Saturday August 18

Around six years ago, Todd introduced me to a web page of one of The Coolest People You Will Probably Never Meet. His name is Pete, and he is funnier, smarter, better-looking, has more Game, and, generally, is cooler than Mark or Todd would ever be. At least, that was Todd and I's consensus at the time.

One of Pete's brilliances was his eye for picture composition. He sang the praises, though, not of his talented eye, but of his trusty Canon PowerShot, one of the sleekest digital cameras on the market in 2001.

So, when Todd and I got our first digital cameras, we did what any right-minded person would do: we emulated the success we had seen on Pete's blog. We both owned Canon PowerShots. I had two versions, as I was lucky enough to get the Best Buy warranty plan, so when one little plastic tab broke on my camera, thereby ceasing its operation, I just got a new one, and I traded up models. Never mind the fact that the camera was fixable, and operable with well-applied Scotch Tape.

My PowerShot SD110 lasted for years: it lived in my bag with my keys, my wallet, and many other items that had blemished its surface, but the optics have been good enough, and I like to think it's taken some damn good pictures over the years.

Recently, though, I've just felt that it's not quite up to snuff. 3.2 megapixel seems like nothing when I hear about today's cameras at 8.2 or more. Many of the models in Japan have a function that auto-corrects "blur" from your hand when you don't hold still and take a picture without a flash (this happens to me pretty often).

What did it for me, though, was the trip to the Great Wall of China.

I don't think many people know, but I will be flying to China in two weeks for a trip to a tourist-secluded portion of The Biggest Stone Fence Which Is Not Visible From Space. I don't know when the next time I'll have such an opportunity is, so I decided it might be just about time to get a new camera.

Today, I went to the Shinjuku Yodobashi Camera and bought myself the Canon IXY, which is really just the same thing as the PowerShot, but in Japanese marketing, this is what it's called.

What I was surprised about, though, is that while the megapixel difference is quite large, if you scale down the resolution of my new camera to the highest resolution of the old camera and take the exact same picture, they are essentially the same quality. This was a little disappointing, having just spent 30,000 yen (=USD $250) on the device. Did I just buy a bigger LCD screen, a new case, and the same old optics?

That said, the Canon PowerShot is an unchanging classic. Just ask Pete.

The Japanese obsession with packaging Thursday August 16

Why are the Japanese people so obsessed with packaging?

I'd like to believe that there is a simple answer to this question; much like the answer as to why there is excess infrastructure due to the Japanese construction industry: a government subsidy creates unnecessary things on purpose as a measure to maintain budgets and to infuse cash into the less-educated levels of society to keep the wa stable and everyone "equal". I could understand a simple answer like that.

Walk into any of the five main coffee chains in Tokyo competing for market share: Starbucks, Doutor, Tully's Coffee, Cafe Veloce, and Excelsior Cafe, and order an iced coffee (the implication is "to-go"). You get much more than an iced coffee: a plastic cup with lid, straw, napkin, nasty fake creamer, gum syrup sugar, and a stirrer, all placed neatly into a small paper bag. I'm sure if you look at the training manuals for these places, though, that's not just it: you have to fold and roll down the top of the bag three times over again, creating a nice little "tote" for the customer to carry.

Then there's the corner-fold.

It would be shameful, embarassing, and probably just flat out rude if you were to give a customer what they ordered -- an iced coffee -- without faithfully discharging one's filial duties to uphold the "corner-fold tradition". What an insult to the customer to receive a non-corner-folded paper bag that they will summarily throw away upon arrival to their office in approximately 90 seconds!

For those of you not in Japan, what you do here is seal this beautifully wrapped... iced coffee. Use your left hand to secure the portion (the "lip") that you've just folded down from the top three times, and then take your right hand and create a triangle by folding in the top right corner downward and to the left.

Only then, my friends, only then may you pass the iced coffee to the customer.

This is all just too much for me at 8:13am on a Tuesday. Just give me my damn coffee. I said coffee! Now! (You know how it can be.)

Accordingly, one of my favorite things to do when I encounter The Silly Things Japanese People Do Without Thinking About Them is to purposefully cause an interrupt in the system so that I can test their error exception handling procedures.

While I usually go to Cafe Veloce, as it has the cheapest iced coffee (by a margin of 50%, that's how bad this iced coffee is), I at first decided to adopt the Starbucks-asshole-order method:

"Iced coffee, medium, black, no cream, no sugar, no stirrer, no bag, no straw, no napkin please."

However, I could rarely get all that out before one of the four people behind the counter had attempted to give me something extraneous just to put themselves at ease. I was pretty sure I was going to get plastic forks or something just so they could feel like they gave me something. The straw was always the difficult part. You could always see the confused expressions written on their faces:

"How does he drink iced coffee without a straw?"

They wouldn't cut it out with the straw, even when I'd hand it back to them. Eventually, after about two weeks, everyone at the store learned my order, and everything started to run smoothly. Life was good, except for the occasional new employee who had to unlearn what they had learned when handling my morning order.

Call me an anarchist, but that's one of the problems with status quo: it can get boring. Let's have some fun.

About three weeks ago, I brought a travel mug that I had brought back from the States with me in my bag (while travel mugs are sold in Japan, they are not the everyday item that they are in the States). As I ordered my black, no napkin, no bag, and no stirrer iced coffee, I reached into my bag for the goods. Pandemonium ensued.

"We don't know if that is a large or a medium size," I was told.

"Charge me the large size! I don't care! I just don't want any packaging! Please! No more! I can't take it anymore!"

A sea full of dumbfounded faces.

One brave gentleman decided to get smart: he poured a regular large iced coffee into a to-go plastic cup, and then proceeded to pour these contents into my travel mug, and to everyone's great relief and surprise, it was a Large! "Thank God! We are saved from the wrath of the hairy, mug-wielding foreigner!" Never mind that we had to throw out a perfectly good cup to win this battle, which makes the entire point of me bringing my own mug a moot one.

And this is just coffee. You should see the candies.

Scope Saturday June 30

For awhile, I've found it difficult to produce a post. I think this stems slightly from being busy at work; not wanting to deal with the question looming in my mind: does this blog suffer because I only write about things that can appeal to a general audience, not a Japan-specific audience? Living in a Japanese paradigm, do I suffer from a forced writer's block -- or rather, "the blog as an emotional outlet and thought pad" fails to work when most of your emotions and thoughts are, in some way, directly connected to an environment that not everyone knows or understands?

I have always been writing for myself, though. My goal is to preserve pieces of myself and my life throughout time so that later, I can reflect and understand that changes in myself, and the forces that has brought, and will bring those changes. Entertaining readers has always been second, but I've always felt that if wasn't writing something of value to someone, then there was no reason to make it public: I'd be better off with a private diary.

However, in writing a diary, you can literally say whatever you want -- on a blog, I may be judged by the outside world, and thus I must constantly think about reinforcing my arguments, referencing, and not being hateful, spiteful, or otherwise adopting a generally negative tone. In a diary, if I had a typical bad day, I may be inclined to do so, taking solace in said diary which would never argue with me and always convince me I am right.

Speaking in public is opening yourself to criticism and comment, and I believe that, like the FOSS movement, my thoughts are best expressed not in their first incarnation, but after they have been qualified and critiqued by a third party. Whether or not that third party is actually commenting is irrelevant -- what is is that I am writing while expecting and welcoming opinion.

In plain language, it keeps me on my toes.

Recently I've been struggling with many Japan issues, and I haven't felt quite comfortable expressing them here -- in an English language format, for one -- and I've often felt my blog readers were, by and large, not in Japan. Site statistics support this argument.

Nonetheless, as an experiment, and to reduce my reluctance to post, I've decided to alter the scope of this blog. I will continue to write about international and personal issues - these are Japan-independent -- but I will also choose to write about Japan topics (in English). This marks the beginning of that initiative.

Summer is here: it's wedding season Monday May 21

Next weekend, my college colleague and study abroad travel partner Richard is going to get married to his mid-long term girlfriend-turned-fiance, Hiromi. While they met at the University of Illinois, Hiromi's parents live in Kyoto, and thus they'll be holding the ceremony there.

In three weeks, my first cousin will be marrying in Pennslyvania, and I'll be venturing out to New York and back to Tokyo in one weekend. All I need to do is add Milan to that list (maybe I'll return via there?) and I'll feel like a total fashion diva. Or should it be Paris? Please advise.

In September, my friend Charlotte will be marrying. The verdict is undecided as to whether or not I can go. Someone, please, start humming the anthem of the summer: Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust".

But in all this wedding madness, it could be worse. I could have received an e-mail from Richard this morning, five days before the big affair, asking me to write a speech about him and his soon-to-be-wife to be presented in front of family and friends I've never met. I could have also been asked to write said speech in Japanese.

Oh wait, I was. Right.

Maybe I should write two speeches: one in English, one in Japanese. I'll deliver the English one at Richard & Hiromi's wedding, and no one will get it, and then the Japanese one in Pennslyvania next month. Both will probably sound cooler, and I'll run the least risk of offending anyone.

A post on Iraq: I just can't help it Wednesday April 25

I try to keep this blog very apolitical and uninfluenced.

Part of my daily reading is Google News; it keeps me up to date on what is going on in the world and what is going on in the Western media. I don't see it to be comprehensive, but if I were to start this post by going on about the number of untold news stories out there that deserve telling, we wouldn't really ever get to a point.

Anyway, the reason I like Google News is that it filters many sites, floating the most popular stories up to the top. This way, rather than actually see world events, I can keep track of the American public consciousness of world events. I am not going to claim liberal media bias or media bias at all -- rather, watching the daily news only teaches us of specific events, leaving the analysis of the trends to "the analysts", as we are too busy going to work every week day, driving our cars, going to the bars on the weekends, and eating late-night Mexican food to really take any sort of social responsibility about world events. I'm equally guilty of this, so I'm not chastizing anyone here.

I read one article tonight that compared Iraq with Vietnam, which is not a new story; we have all heard this comparison before. The original administration that entered the affair failed to grasp the potential consequences and scope, and the operation slowly expanded (we call this "scope creep" in the project management domain, and it is a very important factor to keep in check), eventually spiraling out of control.

This article commented that entering Iraq was akin to "punching a hole into a hornet's nest", as much like Vietnam, we are not seen as liberators, but rather forces that get in the way, aimlessly trying to help one side in a power struggle. One key difference, though, is that the enemy last time was a political idea -- communism -- and now it is Islamic extremism. Well, I'm glad to see that America has gotten less xenophobic.

Something about that expression with the hornet's nest got me. "Man, this is really what happens when you let a small number of self-interested unicultural men and women rule the most powerful military on Earth," The result? I don't think that I need to explain that.

I'm not mad. My father is plenty mad, and I fully expect him to leave a comment about how angry he is. I understand his anger -- Iraq has cost the United States over 3,000 lives, and we cannot even count how many Iraqi civilians have died. Certainly, the argument that they would have died under Saddam Hussein's rule would also apply here, but without hard facts from either side, it becomes an inarguable, moot point, and thus I will only discuss the American lives for the time being. Couple the deaths with the tax expense to the American people, which my father is one of, and I can understand his anger. No one wants to pay to have their own country's citizens killed for an unworthy cause.

But me? I'm not angry. I cannot be angry about things that have happened in the past. My own father has told me that life is ten percent of what happens to me, and ninety percent of how I react to it. If I am angry, I lose my ability to be rational (as I did when I visited the DMV last week), and when I lose my ability to be rational, I am no different than the self-interested individuals who created the mess in the first place. I don't want to be like them.

Karl Rove was pretty upset when Sheryl Crow touched him on the arm. Have you seen Sheryl Crow recently? I wouldn't be upset if I got any sort of attention from a woman looking like her. Using one square of toliet paper, though, is absolutely ridiculous. A much better idea, if she wants to be economical in the bathroom, is to use greywater for toliet water, or to turn off the showerhead while soaping/shampooing.

Just think for a second how many hundreds of gallons every second would be saved in your local municipality if half of the people did that while taking showers in the morning. In this way, let's not be angry. Let's get to work on the problems at hand.

As for Karl Rove's poor attitude, is it just a sign of a sourness resulting from failed policies and a more-or-less ruined political career? Possibly.

Not such a good week in the news Wednesday April 18

I keep up with "world affairs" by looking at Google's summary of news headlines. This tends to be US-centric, as one might expect, but I must say, the world has seen its fair of bad news in the past week or so. Lots of violence in Iraq as the country falls further into the depths of what may easily become a civil war, and now 32+1 people dead in Virginia, all but two of which were just trying to get an education.

I really don't get it. Really, I don't. Crazy people, people who have snapped, I get that. Humans are, by nature, fallible.

What I don't understand is a country that allows the clearly-fallible human, specifically weak regarding matters of the heart, to possess guns that will so-clearly take the lives of innocent bystanders.

This isn't the first time such a thing has happened, and it certainly won't be the last. Wake up, America. The 2nd Amendment is 200 years old. Accept the changing times. No one really needs handguns for hunting.

My thoughts are with the families of those who have lost their loved ones.

Monday: Lost in Translation Monday April 16

Today was a Monday. American English speakers already know what I mean. Unfortunately, Japanese does not seem to have the same translation.

I'm not going to run through the laundry list of things that happened today as a measure of garnering sympathy, but rather as a way to express just how ridiculous today was, and how much I enjoyed it, for what it was worth. Life is only 10% what happens to me; the remaining 90% is how I react. Cheers to Mr. Swindoll for coigning that one.

I really don't even want to recount what happened this morning, because it's just going to make me very angry again. Long story short, I was at the DMV. That should be enough. I was remarking in a raised tone in Japanese to a helpless woman and her very incompetent manager about their inability to interpret the Illinois Rules of the Road that were clearly written, in English, in a little book right in front of them. How is it my fault you can't understand English, yet this is the foreign licenses counter? Is this a joke?

Having wasted two hours at the DMV when I was supposed to be at work, no farther along in getting my license, I went to a nice Chinese lunch with my placed candidate, myself, and the cockroach from the kitchen that decided to be dead and in my food dish. Awesome. Protein!

Did I mention it was rainy and cold all day long?

Or that I forgot 100% to meet a candidate that I had scheduled time with?

My one client meeting went rather successfully; I did the whole thing in Japanese with little issue, but at one point had some trouble expressing myself. I wanted to say, "Forgive me, I'm having a bit of a Monday," but no one likes a complainer -- especially in sales -- and moreover, I was staring at a sea of dumbfounded faces. My test audience had no idea what it meant to say that it was a Monday. How Japanese.

Yup, it was one of those days you were best off coming straight home and going to bed. While I'm not in bed, at least we don't have cockroaches, DMV incompetents, or rain in my bedroom.

Fuel on the fire: Climate Change Sunday April 8

I've seen a lot of articles recently on global warming and climate change. There are a lot of people in different camps here: the "it's all a bunch of bull, we'll be fine" camp, the "the world is ending and I never even got to do fill-in-the-blank", and the pragmatic, but somewhere in-between, "if the climate changes we can expect these phenomena to occur, how shall we react?".

I think I'd place myself firmly in the third.

If the ancient Greeks taught us anything, it should be that hubris is a no-no. We do not own this Earth, and the ecosystems that run it are, despite what you may initially consider, more powerful, uncontrollable, and destructive than any weapon human can conceive. With such a threat -- living or not -- at hand, I would like to just flat-out write off the "everything will be fine" approach. Normally, I would justify such a write-off, but I think I can safely end this point by posing the rhetorical question: "when was the last time everything worked out perfectly when you just said, 'oh, don't worry about that, I'm sure it's just nothing, and it will go away if we ignore it for a little while longer'?"

I'm not also a fan of the "oh my god the world is ending yesterday" approach. Nothing is ever as good, or as bad, as it seems. Thus, I think the best, and most enlightened approach, is the third: we must accept that the climate may change, anticipate those changes, and be ready to respond to them (as a human race) if we are to continue to survive as a species with the best possible outcome for all parties involved (namely, living human beings).

I'd like to extend this group to "living beings", but you and I both know that if it comes down to it, the world is going to choose homo sapiens over canipus lupis if it has to. What animal would not look out for number one?

The best way to tackle any problem is to define the endpoints, and start working in both directions as soon as possible to find the middle ground. Endpoint one: where are we right now? How many tons of greenhouse gases is each country generating currently? Given our current forestation and ecosystem, how many tons of greenhouse gases should the environment be able to sustain with zero change due to such emission?

Define an equation based on those two. How much more forestation do we need? How much energy is spent in making forests, and is that counter-productive? If so, how much do we need to cut emissions? Sure, there are a lot of difficult-to-answer, heavy questions here. I know for a fact there are a lot of smart people in the world. If we've come this far, we can definitely salvage this situation.

Endpoints 2a, 2b, 2c: after 10, 20, and 30 years respectively, incorporating growth anticipation, how much more efficient does human existence have to become in order to maintain sustainability? Once everyone knows where things are going, it becomes very easy to get there -- this is what governments and world order exist for in the first place.

The key is getting people in these key positions to make these issues a priority.

This is the age-old politics problem: abortion stances, healthcare costs, and fuel prices on the election trail make for better material to get votes. The real issues are the ones that exceed the average consumer, thus making the average consumer a very poor source of decision-making authority (i.e. voting) on who should be in power to make decisions.

I do think that democracy is the best political system the world has experienced yet, but those societies have a tendency to be reactionary as opposed to preventative -- a path that cannot succeed when tackling an enemy that has an ultimately stronger position than you. The only path you can take is avoiding the conflict all together.

The power of each of us turning off a light is one thing -- it may make a small difference.

What the world needs is a reevaluation of its major energy systems. Coal power plants must be replaced immediately unless they can become as carbon-free as the cleanest power source available -- solar or wind. Certainly, carbon is generated in the production of the materials for these, so I do not insist that they are carbon-free, but infinitely better than coal plants.

Also, transportation. For goodness' sake, sell your car and buy a hybrid. Seriously. Now. It is good for the economy, too. Be patriotic.

One of the best people I have ever known, Keith Schasko, sold his car after the first Gulf War and committed himself to riding his bicycle to work every day -- even in the cold, Illinois winter. He had a motorcycle for long trips. Anyone who knew Keith well enough would probably list him in the top five most respectable people they've ever known. I certainly do.

So, what are you doing to put pressure on the Powers That Be to keep us out of the red and in the green?

Tokyo: Redefining bizarre murder cases since 1869 Thursday March 29

Japanese news doesn't regularly make it to the global headlines, and since I only read the "Wall Street Journal" of Japan (it's not the WSJ, by the way; I use that phrase as a matter of comparison), I don't really catch the latest pop-gossip or odd murder/death/kills that happen in the area.

For example, when I was away in the States on holiday last December, a woman cracked a wine bottle over her 4am-returning drunk husband's head and killed him. This was literally down the street from my apartment; a 5-7 minute walk. What may have been an accident (she claimed it was not premediated) became increasingly difficult to claim manslaughter when she (a) went shopping at the local hardware store for saws and peat moss, (b) dismembered her husband's body parts, and (c) spread them around the West Tokyo area.

Quite gruesome, actually, when I write it all out. But how else was a tiny woman going to dispose of her husband's heavy body undetected? It makes sense, in the way that it doesn't make sense. There's a word in Japanese for these kinds of murders, because every defendant seems to believe they can somehow get away with it if they just put all the parts in small enough sizes and throw them away in discreet areas (side note: most of these murders are women killing their husbands).

I looked on Google News tonight to see what was going on in the world; apparently we've had another incident: a British English teacher was found on the balcony of one of her student's apartments, totally naked, buried in sand inside of a bathtub with only her hand exposed. The manhunt is of course active for the 28-year-old gentleman who lived in that apartment. The article had a picture of her as well: quite a nice looking woman.

Don't let anyone fool you into thinking Tokyo is safe. I've seen at least five times on TV since I've gotten here where a man or woman sets fire to their own house with their family still in it.

And the Toei Asakusa subway line was stopped this morning because of a jumper. So don't tell me Japan is safe and normal. It's just as f-ed up as anywhere else in the world, and I can tell you why: it's full of human beings.

Transit without thinking: Suica and Pasmo Wednesday March 21

What a poor performance this website has shown recently. I've actually scribbled out a few posts in the past few weeks, but scrapped them for lacking content. No excuses.

Today's post regards possibly the best thing to come to Tokyo since I've gotten here.

On Sunday March 18th, private and city railways, the bus companies, and the JR railway corporations cooperated on the launch of the long-awaited Pasmo, an integrated system for riding buses, subways, trains, and monorails without ever taking a card out of your wallet. JR has had Suica for quite some time now, but because JR has to be difficult, it never worked on any of the subways (which is what I ride most frequently). Newer mobile phones contain circuitry to support RFID, the underlying technology for both Suica and Pasmo, and thus consumers can now purchase mobile phones that act as bus/train passes as well as electronic debit/wallet solutions.

You touch your card (or wallet, whatever) to the sensor for a second, it calculates everything for you.

It is now time to shortsell on the company that manufactures the magnetic tape that has been used for Japanese train tickets until now.

In a large metropolis, public transportation is a way of life, part of the culture, and an absolutely essential for the area itself. Certainly, things got interesting in New York City during the transit strike, but I don't recommend this as a general state of being for a large metropolis. I don't ever think such a strike could happen in Japan, anyhow.

Michael has often said that the logical solution to population issues is to have mega-dense, large population centers, and then turn the rest of the world into a natural wildlife reserve. I often think this is why he is yet again in Japan.

But true, when you think about the fact that I commute exactly 32 minutes to work every day door to door with an error of margin plus/minus one minute, I pay approximately $65 for this luxury monthly, and that I am contributing likely less than one-hundredth the energy consumption of a fossil fuel-based vehicle, one must wonder why it is that the United States is having such a difficulty getting away from cars.

Now, I don't even have to fiddle for change to get on the subway, either, I slap my wallet down on the pad and the gates open. I even have two cards in my wallet, one for work and one for personal. At the end of every month, any ticket terminal will print out a list of where I went, how much it cost, and the day -- everything I need to do my expense accounting. Life just got better. And there's no wasted ticket paper as there was before.

Sure, Japan still isn't a great country when you think about waste: it is the land of double, and sometimes triple, packaging. But at least they've figured out public transit.

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test Saturday December 9

My room was huge, and had four proctors. There was so much downtime in between sections of the test. Since I was up front, I entertained myself with the proctors. I imagined it like it was Pac-Man, as there were four of them, and they all had distinct personalities.

First, there was Hangover. I noticed him first. His face was red, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was ripe and ready to go for this Sunday morning test. As any good Japanese boy should, though, he held it in, and he gradually came around during the day. Someone got up early after the first section was done and left the room; he chased them down like a hawk. Either that, or he was running to the bathroom himself. Good work, Hangover.

Next was the Good Samaritan. She was nice, and she was clearly in charge of the operation. She counted all of the tests at the end to make sure no one had stolen any, and that they had recollected the proper number. She held up all the yellow/red cards during the explanation, and even added a nice plead right before the Listening section: "If your cell phone goes off during the Listening portion, you will fail the test, so please check once more that you have turned your phone's power off," in an earnest voice like she was almost worried she was going to have to give a red card, and really, really didn't want to.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, was Bootcamp. I have no way of knowing, but my guess is that Bootcamp spent all of Saturday training for Sunday (relay races, eating carrots to improve his eyesight, etc.).
He was up at 4:30am Sunday morning to get ready. He hates Koreans and Chinese people. He signed up to proctor the test to convince himself he doesn't hate Chinese and Korean people, and actually wants to help them. The truth of the matter is that he couldn't sleep Saturday night. He kept fantasizing nailing someone with a red card. I could see it on his face. This mug was taking the whole thing way too seriously.

Which made our final proctor, Eyecandy, a nice sight. She was distributing tests on my end of the room, and she was given the otherwise role of "stand here and do nothing; there is no work for you, but we were told we have to have four proctors, so just be here and look pretty". She did an excellent job of this, and right in front of me.

And, like Pac-Man, they all had their own tendencies: the Samaritan hung out up front; you could ignore her safely, Bootcamp was the tough guy, Eyecandy was almost out to help you cheat, and Hangover was easy enough but probably could give you a run if you weren't careful. Of course, none of this mattered, as I wasn't cheating. However, there was so much damn downtime between everything, and I was in the second row, that I had nothing better to do than imagine who all of these people really were. In fact, I played up on Bootcamp's seriousness and asked a question just to kill time before the exam.

Someone had requested to turn the air conditioning off despite the fact that the room was sizzling hot. I wore layers, so I just took a few off. Eyecandy was close by, so I raised my hand. She scurried over. "The best room temperature is more of a personal preference; if I get cold during the test, is it already to put my button-up shirt back on?" I asked, screwing around, but with a serious delivery.

She has no clue whether or not this is acceptable. She is only Eyecandy, after all. Bootcamp and the Good Samaritan were running the show, so she scurried back to them and asked, and the returned to me. "If that is the case, just make sure to raise your hand before you do so so we know you're not cheating," she answered while Bootcamp stared me down.

Way to go, Bootcamp.

At lunchtime the line at the 7-11 was literally out the door; I, too, had neglected to bring a lunch, but in an open pavilion at the University, Setagaya-ku was sponsoring a "Let's Not Forget Disabled People" event, which featured little stalls of, you guessed it, oden and yakisoba. There were a lot of wheelchairs there, so I overpaid for my oden. It only felt right to donate to a good cause, and to help raise awareness. It was damn good oden. For some reason, everyone else was waiting in a line out the door at the 7-11. I blame educational conditioning.

I returned before the reading/grammar section of the test to find everyone last-minute studying all of the grammar. The moment the tests were open, simultaneously everyone flipped past the reading and went straight for the grammar that they had spent lunch flipping over one last time. Overall, there was a feeling in the air; maybe Bootcamp set the tone, but I just couldn't help but think, "Aren't you all trying just a little too hard here? This is an aptitude test; either you know it or you don't?" But I see their point. Put it in right before the test, it's the first thing that comes out. Forget about long-term memory, much less learning anything. Everyone was so serious. Meanwhile, I kept my headphones on, rocking out, right up until each test started.

Ah well. This is ikkyu. What else do you want, right? A real measure of communication ability? Maybe I'll take JETRO next time.

直前対策 Sunday December 3

Today is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT); my roommate and I will both be taking the highest level (Level 1). Of course, the test itself is only 3 hours, but the organizers have found ways to insert breaks, lunches, and so on, and drag the whole thing out to almost a full day. It's morning now, and I'll be back at 4pm.

The roommate and I have both been taking past years' tests, and we've passed, so we're not too worried about it. Of course, there are always flukes and upsets, but it's not so much a matter of pass/fail as it is a matter of "will we beat out our coworkers and friends?" A healthy competition is always nice.

I won't know the results until next year, but it really doesn't matter. Even if I pass, it doesn't mean anything. I can write it on my resume and so on. True to the Japanese educational system, as long as you study what is on the test, you don't have to work too hard. As such, I don't think it really measures one's true ability to perform everyday life in Japan.

I can wait to be old Thursday November 30

Today I was not particularly a great day. It wasn't a bad day, but I have been stuck in a little bit of a rut this week at work; I feel that I am being stretched in nineteen orthogonal directions. This isn't that bad - I am used to dealing with a lot of information from all over the place -- but simply there are only so many hours in the day, and the lack of pure concentration time is affecting my ability to be proactive, as opposed to simply reactive. In my position, that is not desirable.

It's not my intention to talk about work, though. I spend approximately 11 hours a day thinking about work as it were; if I begin to make my blog about work-related affairs, I'll just become a moron whose life is their job, and I'd begin to lose touch with the values, ideas, and dreams that propel me to work in the first place.

I actually jotted down some notes during lunchtime yesterday about this phenomenon: so many people simply spend so much time working that they don't have time to enjoy anything else. Call me anti-establishment, but if you (even partially) remove yourself from the consumption cycle (work > paycheck > spending > no money > more work), it actually becomes quite easy to enjoy, well, everything. Like old people.

In my less-than-perfect mood, I boarded the Ginza line to go home. A seat opened up at Shinbashi, and I took it. At Toranomon, an old man got on. The bench I was sitting on was the priority seating, which is clearly marked and reserved for the elderly, expecting mothers, physically disabled, and so on. Well, for the group-think someone-else-will-do-it mentality prevailed, and no one made any effort to give this easily 80-year-old-plus man a seat. At the next stop (admittedly, I could have stood earlier, but the train does curve a lot), I got up and gave him my seat.

I don't expect a medal; these are the rules. It's written on the window of the train car. I don't care if I've had the worse day of my life; it's far easier for me to stand than an 80-year-old man. I currently enjoy my youth. I try to never take it for granted.

We both rode the train for four more stops to its terminal at Shibuya. I was buried in my headphones, and had more-or-less forgotten about the incident. Everyone began to get out when the doors opened, and I turned to leave, waiting on the passengers in front of me to get out first.

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. I turned back to the seat to see the man, now standing. He smiled, and in a very gentle voice said "thank you". I was a little embarassed, and said "you're welcome" before scurrying off. But I couldn't stop smiling.

It just felt really good to make that man smile. At 80 years old, I looked at him and saw my whole life in front of me. Hopefully, someday, I will be his age. And hopefully, at that age, someone will be kind to me, and I will thank them, and for that moment, we will yet again have faith in our fellow man: these are the moments that keep me going. For as much as we want to believe we are in our own worlds, our work, our families, our cars, and our lifestyles, we are but a large population of self-deceiving and deceived beings who have convinced ourselves that this thing or that thing is really more important than him or her.

Sure, if you can't eat, you may not agree -- but as my man Franklin said, you have to have some moderation.

Thanksgiving morning Thursday November 23

Last year, I was going to do something for Thanksgiving. There was talk of trying to find a turkey somewhere in Tokyo, or even just settling with making mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. Somewhere between getting sick for most of November last year, school, and the darkening afternoons, I just put it off until the day had already passed, and then it naturally became another good idea conceived, but never executed.

This year, what is traditionally Thanksgiving in the United States (namely, the third Thursday of November) happens to fall on an otherwise Japanese holiday, so I am enjoying the day off today. Of course, tomorrow will be work again, so there's no Black Friday or related affair here. After moving, I have a much larger, and more well-equipped kitchen now, but there is still no oven to speak of.

Turkey is, as far as I can tell, out of my sights again this year. I looked online at a couple of restaurants and hotels that cater to homely types like myself: a good dinner runs at least $40 a head. Considering I'd be escorting a certain lady along, I'm searching to discover whether or not a half-hearted attempt at feeling like I am home is worth $100.

I'd much rather be making deviled eggs, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes here. But that doesn't seem very likely either, so we'll see.

Everyone together in the same boat: all alone Monday November 6

On days that I don't eat lunch as part of my job (i.e., with a candidate, discussing a job or an interview), I try as much as possible to bring a lunch to work with me. We're not allowed to eat lunch at our desk, and there's no microwave (for a reason), so that leaves me to things that can be eaten at room temperature.

Half-cooked egg with spinach and rice, cooked salmon and rice, pasta and spaghetti sauce leftovers, and so on. These are the normal things that dominate. They are easy to make, taste good, and I don't get sick of them.

Last week, though, I found some really nice looking tomatoes at the supermarket in Kanagawa. I don't usually buy tomatoes in Japan; they're expensive, and man, they're just tomatoes. Someday I'll go off on my tangent about Japanese fruits and their absurdity. So I had to buy these tomatoes, which were sitting conveniently next to nice heads of lettuce, also cheap.

Now, when you see lettuce and tomato together, I know you think the same thing I do: where is the bacon?

Today, I test-drove a new lunch idea: the saran-wrapped BLT sandwich. And it was everything I thought it would be: filling, healthy (kind of), and tasty. I liked it so much that I packed another one for tomorrow, and I plan on repeating this process until I run out of tomatoes, lettuce, or bacon. I may consider a cheese, lettuce, and bacon sandwich, as the tomatoes are running low.

I ate my new sandwich idea outside the building across the street; the weather was permitting and cool. A sandwich takes me about five minutes to devour, so this left me with about fifty minutes to kill. Coincidentally, I just received my registration card for the Japanese language proficiency test. I know that I need to study. So I went to the coffeeshop down the road to hit the books.

There are four coffeeshop chains near my work: (1) Renoir, which according to my girlfriend is no more than a yakuza front, (2) Starbucks, which charged me for the water I requested to accompany the scone that I legitimately bought last week, (3) Doutor, which offers the least portion for the most price, and (4) Cafe Veloce, and Italian-themed cafe that has the smoke to prove its authenticity.

I never go to Renoir. Yakuza front or not, the chairs are made for Japanese people. Tiny ones.

I have considered going back to Starbucks to complain to the manager about getting charged (130 yen, so $1) for water last week. Then I realized that would mean stepping foot in there ever again, and reconsidered.

I go to Doutor with coworkers because they like it, but I really think that the portions are small and it's expensive. I'm also cheap.

Cafe Veloce has the world's worst coffee. It is so over-roasted and steeped so dark that it's quite bitter. They go for that whole "Italian" thing, but fail at actually making good coffee. However, it's cheap, and more importantly, you can take a cup of it back to work, add half (literally half) a mug of hot water and have two normal cups of coffee. For the cheapest price in town. That's a deal. And face it, we all know it's not about the coffee. It's about the caffeine. It used to be about the coffee, but no one makes a good macchiato here.

So, I needed a table inside Veloce to study. But it was lunchtime, so every table was occupied, and myself and Random Salary Man were waiting for a table to open up. I was looking around for myself, but there was also a store employee searching out, wiping off, and indicating empty tables to the waiting customers.

Out of about 35 tables, most of them were filled by one person, despite the presence of two seats.

I turned to the employee who was showing people seats. She gave me this "I know you're still waiting after five minutes and I'm sorry so please just be patient and we will have a seat for you soon" look, expecting my displeasure at the wait. Instead I said this to her:

"After I get a seat, if there's someone waiting, I don't mind. Just bring them over and they can sit with me."

She acknowledged what I said, but I knew that no one was going to take me up on that. Tomorrow, I'm going to go in and break the rules. I think I'm just going to approach people until I find someone who doesn't mind me sitting across from them at the same table. It's not a sit-down-and-order type of place, so I should be able to get away with this.

Hopefully, someone will see me, and it will help drive home a point: why is it in a metropolis of thirty plus million people everyone would rather be living in their own separate worlds, shut away from the "noise" around them, as opposed to logically yielding a seat no one is using to someone who needs it. Everyone probably thinks that it'd be OK -- everyone's just too afraid to reach out and just talk to people.

It's one of the things that makes me sad about Tokyo. I see everyone all together, being alone.

Suicide, escape, or just an accident? Tuesday October 24

Yesterday, I had a brilliant day out with Yuiko. We took her golden retriever, Puffy (hey, I didn't name her!), to the park. We had some food, chilled out, and Yuiko helped me study for the upcoming Japanese proficiency test. It was a nice afternoon, but alas it started to drizzle. All three of us headed home as fast as we could; Puffy jogged next to the bicycle which I was pedalling. Yuiko rode on the cargo rack -- which she claims can usually get you a US$150 fine if you get caught by the police. I think she thinks too much about that kind of stuff. Sure, the police can legally give you that fine, but who does? They'd just say "stop it", at the very worst.

I mean, that's like a cop actually handing out a fine for jaywalking. Like that's ever happened.

After getting to Yuiko's place and putting Puffy back inside, Yuiko drove us to Chiba to visit Kara, who is now working at Ito-Yokado, the supermarket. In true "Japanese company" form, Kara has to work at the actual supermarket for two months before she can begin her real job in the head office of this company. Her real job is going to be regarding imports/exports, but for some reason she has to learn how to work at the service counter of the store, validating parking ticket receipts first.

This is Japan. I have a friend of a friend who works for JR, the national railway company. In the future he wants to be an accountant in the company or something, but to get to that point, you have to work your way up. He had to start as a ticket-checker. Now, his job is to drive the bullet train between Osaka and Tokyo, which I think is cool enough. He actually said it's not as cool as it sounds. The whole thing is computerized, so you just more-or-less just ensure smooth operation.

Yes, I know someone who drives the bullet train. You can stop being jealous now.

Anyway. After the supermarket, whereat Yuiko and I bought sushi to take home for dinner, we returned back and I met Yuiko's mom for the first time. I'm usually pretty good with parents, so smooth sailing there. I brought out the Japanese study book again and asked some questions that Yuiko wasn't able to answer (grammar no one uses except people over 30, but for some reason, I have to know it).

All of the pictures from all of this are posted.

I wanted to leave at 8:00pm so I could get home by 9:15pm, and go to bed. I wake up at 6:00am on Monday morning, so sleep is very important Sunday night. I had such a good time chatting, though, that I lost track of time. It got to be 8:45pm, and so Yuiko drove me to Kanamachi (her station) to go back to Yoyogi-koen (my station, forty minutes away, but on the same train line).

When we got to the station, though, she stopped short of the drop-off area and noted to me:

"Look at the train up there. It's not all the way down the platform, and it's not moving,"

"Huh,"

"And the lights in it are out," she added.

It was at this point that the ambulance and fire truck in front of the station became obvious to us.

"Did the train break down, I wonder?"

"Weird. I'll go check it out," I said, getting out of the van.

When I approached the station, though, I found that is was not that the train had broken down. It had stopped because there was an accident. Returning to the car, I reported this to Yuiko, and told her it seemed like they were going to start up again soon, so I was just going to wait. I went back to the ticket gate, and right as I was doing so, many of the firemen were coming down the escalator.

A sign indicating the delayOne of them had a large tarp, and he was holding it up in a way as if to block the large group of people waiting for the trains to start back up. It occurred to me at this point was he was doing: blocking the view of the other firemen, who were clearly carrying a stretcher to the ambulance. They didn't do a very good job of covering up, but as soon as I knew what they were doing, I looked away. The last thing I needed was a bad image in my head.

Someone had gotten hit by the train.

There was nothing left to do but go home, and the trains were about to start running again, so I bought my ticket and rode the escalator up to the platform. I sent Yuiko an e-mail to let her know that I had made it, and that I'd get home not too delayed.

The top of the escalator came out on the platform right in front of where the train was still stopped, lights out. Workmen were doing various things to make sure they could start the train again safely. "Like a bad accident", part of me wanted to look at the front of the train, and at the tracks. But I didn't; I turned towards the other direction and walked to the second car back, waiting.

After about five minutes, the conductor and the official-looking people finished talking, the conductor got on, the train lit up, and then he blew the horn. It was deep, and slow. The train then lurched forward suddenly, and proceeded slowly about 50 meters to its normal stopping place on the platform.

The doors slid open, and the 100 or so of us that had been waiting got on. 100 people in a train of 12 cars doesn't really take up much space, and everyone sat, about ten to a car. No one really said anything. The train departed, amidst the conductor's repeated annoucements on the PA telling us they were so sorry to make us wait.

I just knew that that person had died, and I must say that riding in the train that had killed the person was a very, very strange feeling. Amplified by the silence of the passengers, no one doing anything. Amplified by the noise of the tracks, and the normal noise of the engine that we usually all tune out without a thought.

After one station, they announced that the train would cease operation at the next station, and we'd all have to move across the platform to another train. Which I was absolutely fine with.

When I finally made it home at 10:45p, it was pouring rain, and I didn't have an umbrella. I hailed a cab.

Waking up this morning, I checked was I was already sure of: a 67-year-old man had fallen in front of the train at 8:39pm last night, and he was run over and killed. I sent a link for the story to Yuiko. I told her it was a good thing I didn't end up leaving her place on time. Death is all around us, that may be for sure. But if I had been twenty minutes earlier, I would have witnessed it. I am grateful that I did not. I don't need that image to haunt me.

Suicide, accident, escape. Who knows. Suicide is common, mostly due to people who have money problems. Due to Japanese law though, if you owe a lot of money and kill yourself, that doesn't save your family. Hopefully that man died alone, if that was it.

My thoughts are with the people who may have been on the platform next to him. I could have been one of them, and I know I don't need the emotional stress of witnessing such an event.

Thinking before you speak always helps Saturday October 7

Last night, my friend Takashi invited me to a goukon, an interesting Japanese invention where a male friend and a female friend assemble equal numbers of people, and then you get everyone together. It is, in short, a mixer.

Despite having a girlfriend, Takashi requested that I participate to give the evening an "international" flair; one of the girls there was Taiwanese (i.e., non-native Japanese), and I guess that was part of the the gig. It's just a fun way to meet people, and despite the even numbers of men and women, there's no particular reason that one cannot participate despite being involved. Plus, I cleared it ahead of time, so.

The venue was the famed, yet underground, bar in Naka-meguro Emily at IUC used to talk about. This self-proclaimed "ping-pong lounge" is really an apartment, but it appears as if they gutted the walls between rooms, added lighting, and turned it into a gigantic living room (with a ping pong table in the center). To top it all off, since the front looks like an apartment, you have to ring a chime to get in, and they more-or-less "verify" your identity. I am still not sure whether this place is licensed or not, so maybe I shouldn't even be writing about it.

Nonetheless, we had some great food, and I learned some new words.

And then I had a little too much red wine. Now, I'm not saying I got really drunk. That's not it at all. But when I drink red wine, I start to talk. More than I already do. The Taiwanese girl made the mistake of asking me about my thoughts on something, or rather, maybe she didn't, but I wanted to say something, and I found myself making a five minute monologue on why I think the existence of "nation states" in the modern world works against peace.

I don't think the idea is ridiculous at all; I would love to discuss the point, actually, with anyone who wants to take me up on it. The issue was that I was speaking in Japanese, and I was speaking at an event where everyone was having fun, talking about light subjects, and being quite relaxed. I was out of my element.

Sure, I wasn't worked up in a bad way; it's not like I was angry at anything. But after five minutes, I realized there was no good way to resolve my monologue. I, myself, didn't know exactly what I wanted to say. I was just talking. The two other people at the time were kind enough to listen, but it then bothered me for the rest of the night that I had spoken so outwardly without having a resolved point.

Thinking before you speak always helps, especially in a foreign language.

A real weekend Sunday September 24

I had my first real, true, absolute weekend. You see, since the beginning of August, I have spent every weekend looking for apartments, looking at apartments, visiting realtors, deciding apartments, packing things, moving things, moving things, moving things, moving even more things, and then cleaning the old joint that I haven't taken a full weekend to just do, well, whatever.

So long, in fact, that I think I had forgotten how to take a whole day to myself, doing either nothing, or only doing the things I wanted to do on the spur of the moment. My work is anything but routine, but my hours are. This is what it means to work at an office. When I was doing freelance work, I made my own hours. True, there were times that I'd do nothing and enjoy a sunny afternoon. There were also times where I'd work overnight to finish a key functionality.

I view routine as killer because it makes time seem to go fast. We have but short lives on this planet, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let anything make my already-short life feel even shorter.

However, at the same time, there are some things that I want to achieve very much, and I am confronted with the reality that routine practice is the only thing that will allow these things to come to fruition. Let us take "sit-ups" as an example. Or "kanji". Two things I wish I did more of. I will shoot the first commenter to suggest that I study kanji while doing sit-ups.

Anyway, I didn't really get anything done this weekend. Sure, I did the essentials: laundry, dried out my futon, made a killer Saturday-morning breakfast. But that's not the point.

The point is that for two months, "moving" was my project. I couldn't rest because there was always something to do for the big "move". Now that the move is out of the way, I spent a weekend with time to myself. I went to Denny's (which is good in Japan).

At Denny's, I pulled out my notebook, and I began to write the things that I want to do. I'd like to keep in better touch with my friends; this is something I've been poor at since starting my job. I want to write on this blog more; another thing I've let fall to the side at times. I want to pass the first-level Japanese language test this December. In an ideal world, I'd have washboard abs.

I had a little deal with Yuiko last month: she was cracking jokes at the expense of my midsection, and we made a little bet. I told her that if I put my mind to it, I could have washboard abs (the ever-famous six-pack) in a month. She said, "well, why don't you, then?" She had me.

Well, a month came and went, and I just didn't put the effort in. I tried a little bit, but the aforementioned move "took all of my time". It'd be a lie to say that it took "all" of my time. What I should say is that it took all of my idle processing capability. I couldn't focus on anything as long as that loomed on the horizon.

But there's always something on the horizon. Now it's the Japanese language proficiency test. Maybe next it will actually be the abs. Who knows. The point I'm making here is that I am a project person, but at the very same time, I am not a project person. I am very good at focusing on one thing and doing that thing, but multitasking is harder for me. It's something I need to learn to get better at.

I am not alone though; I talked with the girlfriend on the phone tonight about this very topic. Her thoughts?

"Women are just naturally better at multitasking," she said. "Whereas men are better at just focusing on one thing."

For those of you who have ever opened Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars, allow me to just borrow the metaphor that men are Mr. Fix-Its and women are the Home Improvement Committee. What a surprise that she owns a copy. Damn memes.

Living in Shibuya Wednesday September 6

I now live in Shibuya. I am still paying rent on my Yokohama apartment until the week after next, but that's just the way it goes. It's actually nice to have an overlap that allows me to gracefully move my things between the locations. Coming from a college town, where most leases end days before new ones start, this is quite an upgrade. Damn college landlords.

The other nice point about Shibuya is that it gives a frame of reference to everyone I know outside of Japan about my neighborhood. Point-of-view shots of the big hill leading to my apartment in Yokohama don't make it into major motion pictures. The Shibuya intersection shots do (Lost in Translation, for one; I'd call on my friend Drew to help me with other references that I may be missing).

Moreover, there are models living in the apartment beneath me. I'm not kidding. There are at least two of them, but we think there may be three. According to my one roommate, the flat is rented out by an agency, and they rotate the models every now and then just to keep those of us in the room above appeased. I'm sure it's all for our benefit.

Don't even get me started about how great it is to leave 40 minutes before work and still get there on time. That sounds like a bit of time, but coming down from 1:15 minutes is quite, quite nice. More pictures and whatnot to follow later this week.

Yukata, my kata. Monday August 21

Yukatas are all the rage this year.

This past weekend, I went to a festival in Azabu-juban. Azabu-juban is close to Roppongi, but more residential, and thus is a prime location for foreigners who live in Japan to reside (as many work near Roppongi). Not surprisingly, despite being a Japanese festival, they had given it an international flair, with food stalls from all over the world. Props to Brazil for being delicious. Mexico, you need to take a cue from American Mexican food and give me more for my money. I still feel cheated. $4 bucks for a taco? C'mon.

One of my coworkers bought a new yukata two weeks ago, and at the time she suggested that I, too, buy one. For those too lazy to click on the link and find out what a yukata is, it's a kimono-like outfit worn in the summertime. Rather than silk, it is made of cotton. We looked at the store near our office, and sure enough, they had cheap men's yukata there (for about 9,000 yen, including the obi [the belt thingy]).

Now gimme some sugar.

Yeah. That's what I thought.

So, here I am, at this festival, donning my yukata, and rocking out. We went to a pub after that, and had a grand ol' time, but on the train on the way home, I was alone, and I was definitely being looked at by everyone. And I loved every second of it. They might have been thinking, "What is that damn foreigner doing wearing a yukata, and it's not even like he's with anyone," but I prefer to think that their stares were more along the lines of: "Isn't that Tom Cruise? That has to be Tom," and "It looks like I missed one heck of a party..." etc.

A certain female had suggested that we go out in our yukatas together, so if I get some pictures of that, I'll make sure to put them up on this site.

Koizumi takes a lesson from Reagan, Bush Tuesday August 15

Sixty-one years ago today, a recorded message of the voice of the Emperor of Japan was broadcast all across the country. The war was over; Japan could no longer sacrifice its population and meager resources for the sake of a lost war. Despite that, there was even a faction within the fascist military leaders at the time to steal the recording, as not to end the war. That's how crazy things were getting. Of course, all that history goes more into the intricate details of the end of the war. The point is that it ended, but only after over two million Japanese soldiers' lost their lives. Let's avoid the civilian death discussion for now.

The idea at the time was that if you died in the Imperial Army, you were honorable (as you were dying for the Emperor), and your soul would forever be enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo. Mind you that Yasukuni was selected for this purpose in the 19th century, and this isn't an "ages-old" practice as much as an idea developed to boost morale in the post-Tokugawa army. But I digress. I recall reading one document indicating that Japanese kamikaze pilots would say to each other that they would "meet again at Yasukuni", but I lack the proper citation to state that as a scholarly point.

So, now, here we are, sixty-one years later, and we've got two million plus souls hanging out in this shrine. They get lonely. They need someone to come by and tell them that they died for a reason, and that their sacrifice is remembered.

Enter the political mess.

The current Prime Minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi, loves to visit this shrine yearly, donate about two-hundred and fifty bucks, and cause a media fanfare. No one argues, of course, that he has the personal right to do so. The point is whether he makes an "official" visit as the Prime Minister of Japan, or whether he visits as an individual.

You see, among these two-million-odd war dead are post-humously convicted class-A war criminals. History may be written by the winners, but in terms of documents alone, it's quite obvious that Japan broke many, many of the "rules of engagement" in the Pacific War. Of course, I'd be failing the truth to neglect to mention the hundreds of thousands of civilians that were burned to death in the air raids by Allied forces in 1944 and 1945, but this post isn't about the West at all, actually.

It's about China and Korea, both colonized by Japan during (and before) WWII, saying "why are you honoring a shrine that houses the souls of war criminals that allowed (and committed) such atrocities as the Rape of Nanking?" How can the current Prime Minister of Japan, in today's world, think of such a thing? It's an insult to the civilians people who died at the hands of Japanese cruelty. Some of it will really make you sick, seriously. I recommend this book. I don't think Japanese people were any more "cruel" than any other human that walks the Earth, I just think that the circumstances were excellent for brainwashing and fascism. It worked in Germany, too, unfortunately.

So, (South) Korea and China think this shrine-visit hootenanny is an insult. And I see where they are coming from. That doesn't necessarily mean I take a stand either way; I think it's not an issue that can be reasoned out easily. There are many more, much smarter people thinking about this than I am. I'm simply putting my thoughts on it in English.

However, let's look at Koizumi again. The guy has clearly stated he's not going to be Prime Minister much longer. In fact, he probably won't be Prime Minister next year on August 15th, when the memorial comes up.

So, taking a cue from his actor son, former actor-turned-President Ronald Reagan, he made a bold move today. On the day of defeat, he visited Yasukuni Shrine acting as the Prime Minister of Japan. There were protests, there were supporters rallying. It's a point that bothers Japan internally quite a bit, actually. He still adamantly, at press conferences, in front of the Diet (Japan's bicameral legislature), or wherever, sticks to his story, and almost sounds like Bush on Iraq or Reagan on the Communists and Star Wars.

In this way, I can see why Koizumi and now-President Bush get along they way they do. Who cares if what you do is very, very unpopular with half of your voting population? You do what you feel is right, because that's what any self-respecting person should do. You have to have principles, you can't let your voting electorate lead you (tongue currently pressed against cheek), can you?

I'm more of a realist. I don't have any emotional stake in any of it, so it's very easy for me to be realistic and say that none of it really matters. The dead people are dead, have been for sixty years, and pretty soon, most of the people who were alive at the time will also be dead. The only stakes left involve pride, anger, and resentment -- three things which I don't believe help anything. I'm not saying we should forget everything that happened -- actually, I disagree. I think everyone should learn about these historical events -- I am saying that people are people, and the point is that the world was in those circumstances at that time, and it is not now. We live in a different world, so there is no need to carry on that legacy of the past. Rather, let's look forward. Let's stop the people who are dying needlessly right now.

Way to take a few weeks on responding in Lebanon. You know I love you, UN, but you really need to pull it together and stop letting the Americans run you.

When someone calls you Saturday July 22

Foremost, this post succeeds the one before it (regarding calling people at home), so it might not make sense otherwise.

Friday at work, I was minding my own business, sitting at my desk, and my phone rang.

"Hello, this is Mark, how may I help you?" I began in English.

"Hello, I am the friend of the woman that someone at this number called yesterday," the caller said, in Japanese.

At first, I had no idea what she was talking about. Wrong number? Okay, so if I called yesterday, why didn't that woman call me back directly?

"I'm sorry, who is this again?"

"I am a friend of the wife of Tanaka*, the woman who you called yesterday. Tanaka's wife can't speak Japanese nor English, so she had me call you to find out what you called asking for Tanaka for."

Not this again.

"I called to touch base with Tanaka since it had been awhile since anyone from my company had contacted him, but when I didn't successfully reach his mobile, I attempted to call his home number that we have on file," I explained, thinking this call would soon be over.

"Do you know where he is?" she shot back.

"Uhm? No, that's actually why I was calling. I'd like to talk to him."

"We're looking for him too," she ventured. "Do you have his e-mail address?"

"Yes, and I've sent him e-mail as well, but have yet to receive a response."

"Which e-mail address are you using, the Yahoo! one?"

"Actually, no, I don't have that one."

"Yes, I think that one is quite old, that's the one we have. Can you tell me the one you have?" she insists, bordering between pushy and desperate.

"I would like to give it to you, on a personal level, but please understand that for privacy reasons I cannot discuss private information with anyone other than the individual. What I can tell you is that we have not spoken to him for awhile either -- this is why I called his wife yesterday -- and you probably have a better idea of where he is than I do," I say, trying to close the deal and get off of the phone.

However, the conversation continued. She would not let me off the phone, trying to get more detail about his whereabouts, and also asking me what she should tell his wife I was calling about, because apparently it was upsetting to her to have me call randomly asking for her husband (since she didn't understand fully what I was saying, not speaking Japanese or English).

I finally got off the phone after twelve minutes, and everyone on the desk looks at me.

"Were you just talking to Tanaka?"

"No, I was talking to his wife's friend who speaks Japanese. Why?"

"You were on the phone for like, ten minutes! We were thinking, 'why else would he be talking for so long if he wasn't talking to the actual guy?'"

"Oh, let me tell you," I start, and retell the story.

Funny enough, one of the guys on my team knows that guy from a couple of years ago, and knows of his wife. Apparently, she's a slavedriver. No wonder he ran off with no trace.

When you call someone Thursday July 20

For my job, I often touch base with people who we have previously worked with in the past. Unfortunately, sometimes "the past" means over a year and a half ago, and people change their mobile numbers, e-mail addresses, and so on without telling us. It's not like they are trying to shirk us; it's simply that who remembers to notify every person they've ever given their phone number to to let them know it has changed? Right.

When I call someone's home, of course, I'm not just bound to speak to the person I'm trying to reach, I might also talk to their wife, their husband, parent, child, what have you. In a lot of cases, a spouse may simply tell me, "oh, he/she is not home from work yet," in which case, I indicate that I'd like to reach them on their mobile, and demonstrate that I know the old number in an effort to build rapport so they provide me with the new one.

Today, however, when I made such calls, I got quite different responses than what I was expecting.

"May I speak with so-and-so-san?"

"He hasn't come home."

"Oh, I see. Well, I have his mobile number, but it says it's out of service. Do you happen to know his new number? His old one that I have is 070..."

"I don't have the new one either. Like I said, he hasn't come home," she said, sounding crushed at remembering the reality.

"Oh........Ah, thank you, excuse me."

*click*

And this happened twice, in sequence, with a slightly different dialogue. Apparently Thursday is deadbeat Dad day in Japan.

My coworker, who is Japanese, reacted to me reacting to this. "It's normal, you know, guys around 34-40 or so just not coming home. I did that too, actually...(three second pause) of course, that's also the reason I'm divorced."

Right. Moral of the story? When you call someone, never forget that you can't see what they are in the middle of. This is actually why I don't like the phone outside of work, despite its beautiful immediacy.

Assertion of purpose Sunday May 28

Some people at work seemed to take interest in the fact that I maintain a blog. Certainly, I am aware of the many cases of people who have gotten into troubles at their workplace for writing about it online, and I don't intend to do anything like that. Moreover, I went back through my archives once again and tried to see if there was anything even remotely questionable. Luckily, I didn't find anything.

Over the past four years, this blog has gone through many, many changes; many of those accompanied changes in me. Blogs aren't just cool anymore just because they exist, unfortunately. They have to have worthwhile content, something I've struggled with. When this was a totally personal blog, it was easy to make relevant content: it was all self-centered, and people close to me read it to keep tabs on me (in a good way).

Now that I've successfully distanced this blog from that past, it needs better content to stand on its own. Everything I read suggests that by offering well-written, concise content on a specific topic that I'm knowledgable about, I will draw readers. I'm not sure if that's entirely true, but as time goes on, I see that the best way for me to offer value to the Internet at-large is to do just that: offer something that no one else can.

As such, from here on I'm likely to write more perspectives on topical issues in Japan, and less about myself personally here. I am making an effort to increase the recipe catalog as well. I think that that will be more interesting to the general public and those who know me personally. However, I will not let this blog lose its personal edge entirely. That is, in effect, what makes it mine, what makes me keep it going, and why I write.

Anyway.

I'm currently finishing school in these next two weeks, but have started working part-time in the afternoons. Life is a little crazy; getting home at 7:30pm and trying to cook dinner, make lunch for the next day, shower, and do homework all before midnight, but somehow I've managed not to die after week one, so I think I can handle one more.

I've been getting some messages recently regarding my postings on 43 things about living in Japan, so I may also start up another section complete with information I learn about living in Japan that would be helpful to other foreigners. Seems to be some strong interest in that, which is a whole other topic I'll have to cover some other time. Why is Japan so cool in the States? Why is the States so cool in Japan? I refuse to simply accept the "complete opposite" theory stating both cultures are 180 degrees apart from each other, thus interesting.

The Only Constant is Change Sunday May 14

I don't remember where I first heard that expression, or when I first truly took it to heart, rather than laughing it off as a clever contradiction in terms. In college, there were times where I smiled, knowing a circumstance was not going to persist, but cognizant of my enjoyment in that instant.

When I left home, Dad was in the process of moving houses. Mom was thinking about it.

The house I grew up in belongs to someone else now. Chance passed on in the New Year. Mom just called this morning to let me know that Otto's been very sick.

Despite all of the changes that have accompanied my life in the past few years, the physical presence of my "home" in Roscoe has remained. Chance and Otto have remained, and those symbols together have been a key fabric in granting continuity to otherwise ever-changing circumstances. I don't know what's going to happen with Otto, but the point remains the same either way: in just ten months all but one of those symbols have disappeared from my life, and I hold their memories alone.

I guess the "training wheels" have fallen off, but I'm still riding.

Someone saw a picture of me the other day from last year and said I looked a lot younger. I suggested that it was just that I weighed more, so I had a rounder face. To an extent, that was probably just an excuse. I probably have aged a little. It's amazing how the body does that amid your circumstances.

I have just settled in my program here, but what the director said to us on the first day was that ten months would feel very, very short by the end. He was absolutely right, and at that moment, I knew it. I've enjoyed just about every bit of it. I think I've finally starting to learn to really live in the moment; planning for the future, remembering the past, but keeping track of the fact that the only true world is the one that's existing right now.

I can't decide if that's one of life's most beautiful designs, or one of its most bitter realities. Nate has a great quote on that about accepting things gracefully. I just added it to my 43 things.

Thrown in Jail Monday May 1

It is a fact that our school does not have much money. What we do seem to have, though, are connections. The staff has recently hooked us up with great seats to concerts, plays, and cultural events. It's almost an extension of my days of seeing free shows at Foellinger.

Last Thursday, more than half of the students received tickets to go see the "Muscle Theatre" in Yokohama. The theater itself is in Minato Mirai, and thus within walking distance from the Center, so many of us were familiar with it. The show changes annually, but the theme is centered on human strength and endurance. These performers don't just dance, they work: flips, jumps, human pyramids, you name it. Personally, the excellent sound system also helped win me over. So, this year, the theme is "Dogs". Everyone was dressed up in these great dog outfits, and the storyline loosely depicted a stray dog trying to pass all of these challenges so he could become human.

About halfway though the event, eight or nine guys come out in "human" outfits. "That's odd," we thought, "everyone up until then had tails and ears and all that?" They were dressed as construction workers, and they came out with a big set piece that had metal sheets suspended from wires, making a huge, but spartan, vertical xylophone. Then, the guys laid down, and in order, did sit-ups, each time purposefully clanking their helmets into the metal sheets to hammer out the tune. It was wild.

Out of nowhere, one of the guys got up and ran offstage, saying he "had to go to the bathroom". Now, we all had seen in the program beforehand that "audience participation" was part of the show, but no one had anticipated this: the "lead" constructor worker starts looking out into the crowd to fill the absence; they can't finish their song unless someone plays that note. He walks towards the steps down to the audience of about 1,000 people.

The students from my school were in various places in the theater. Jon, Ken, and a few others were in the front row, but on the opposite side of the stage from this guy. Joanna, Val, Teja, and myself were in the seventh row on the side of the stage where this guy was. Val's a big, tall guy. He does martial arts. He's a badass. I swore they spotted him ahead of time and were making a beeline for him.

But it was I who was sitting on the aisle.

"You," he pointed.

And then there's a spotlight on me. People are clapping and cheering. I'm supposed to get up onstage and help these guys finish this song. I hear Jon, Ken, and the first-row crowd screaming out cheering for me. I get up there, put on the helmet, and get in position to do the sit-ups. And then this thought: "Mark, you're onstage with eight muscular, beefy dudes who can do probably eighty sit-ups a minute. You haven't done any sit-ups in probably over a year. This could be a potentially very embarassing moment for you."

The guy who had "gone to the bathroom" had played his part out before, and I had been paying attention from my seat (it was a real simple melody), so I actually knew when to clank the metal. The "song" began again, and I sat up and knocked my helmet against the metal when I thought I should. When I did, they all immediately stop, look at me, and start saying no, no, no. The audience loves it.

"Oh, I get it," I realize. I'm being set up here. They're screwing with me. All right, so if doing the melody right is wrong, I just won't do anything next time. So they start up the melody again, and when I know it's my "turn", I don't do anything. Same reaction: no, no, no, and a roar from the audience. But unlike all good stories, though, there's no rule of three here. I only got two chances. So, they ushered me to my feet after I "failed" the second time, and I was led to stage right, where for the first forty-five minutes of the show, a huge curtain had been covering a set piece.

The curtain dropped, and the stage lights revealed a huge jail cell with a single chair in the center of it; a uniformed guard stood at the back. The door slammed behind me, and here I am, looking out into the bright lights, having no idea what I'm doing in jail, or what I'm supposed to be doing onstage in the first place. I know I hit that melody right. The show continued. At one point, the guard handed me a piece of ribbon on a stick, as I was supposed to wave it around though the bars (which faced the audience) to mimic the motion of the dancers onstage (who were far more graceful).

The hero of the show came onstage after about four or five minutes. Since he's a dog, he can't speak, and the "dialogue" was displayed via projector on screens on the sides of the stage. The only problem was that, well, from my unique jailcell vantage point, I couldn't see what they were saying. Thus, I had no idea that the hero was saving me from prison, or that I was supposed to only "reluctantly" give him the ribbon that was supposedly one part of allowing him to become human.

After I gave it to him, I was handed a complimentary bath towel, thanked, and ushered offstage back to my seat to watch the rest of the show. Unfortunately, photography was prohibited, so there's no evidence of any of this.

After the show, all the students were beaming about how great it was that one of us got picked to go up there. We felt special. Then someone suggested, "wait, we were probably picked because we're foreigners, and thus have an appeal of our own in that environment," which was then immediately connected to the fact that we had gotten the tickets for free (with good seats) through the good offices of the school.

Do you see where I'm going with this? I was set up.

Jigga what? Tuesday April 11

Last week, I finally got my hands on a much-needed book for my final research project (see previous post). Yesterday, I spent a few hours drinking coffee and studying at Denny's (which, if I haven't mentioned before, rule in Japan. Tasty food, clean, and free refills).

My plan was to accumulate the relevant sources from the bibliography and use those in my own research. Today, I went to the Yokohama Central Library to get some of those sources; they actually had more than half of them. At least, according to the computers, they had these books. I wouldn't really know, because I couldn't find a couple.

Wait, this is a library, right? Shouldn't I be able to find books easily if I know the call number? Not in Japan, or at least, not at the Yokohama Central Library. They only assign the first three digit sequence of the Dewey system, and then if they feel like it, they'll throw on one decimal place. People. It's not called the Dewey decimal system for nothing. Thank you. Use them.

I looked through three whole standard library-sized bookshelves (all 364.2) to find one book. All of the books are on the same subject, and thus have similar titles. To add to the eyestrain, they're all in Japanese. When I asked if there wasn't an easier way, the woman said, "nah, they're not in any order, so you just have to run your eyes over the bindings and find the one you're looking for". Like it was no big deal. I almost wanted to hand the name of the book over and say "you find it".

What should have taken twenty minutes took over an hour.

When I left the library, it was raining, so I couldn't ride home. The closest train station isn't near the subway, so I took the Keikyu line to Kamiooka and walked home in the rain. I left my umbrella in someone's car over the weekend; I haven't gotten it back yet. It was cold today, unlike the warm, sunny yesterday. I mean, I don't mean to whine, but I really have to hand it to you, Monday, you really did a number on me today. The highlight of today would be now, because it's that much closer to Tuesday.

Let's move on to something positive.

I met some new people on Saturday. When J-to-the-fourth were in from Chicago a few weeks ago, I took my rice cooker, some food, and whatnot to their apartment so they could save a little money on food. When I was hauling it all back, I'm not going to lie, it was a little rough with all of the bags, boxes, and all that. I had a backpack as well as full hands. It must have looked like I was moving or something.

So much so, actually, that the woman (who was old enough to be my mom) standing in the train next to me on the way back to Yokohama said something to be about it.

Now, if you're George and you're reading this, this isn't unusual. My Dad talks to everyone. It used to embarass me when we'd go to Milwaukee Brewers games when Nate and I were younger (Mike even came a few times, he brought a foreign language dictionary). We'd pull up to the gate for parking and Dad would address the attendant by the name on their tag. At the time, however old I was, it seemed so patronizing, so embarassing, so whatever.

Then after I moved out on my own in college, I found myself doing the same thing. It doesn't seem bad anymore, in fact, it seems more human. I'm on a long path to becoming my Dad, and I know I've said that before. I'm sure my mom bemoans this detail: "Oh no, not George... just what the world needs, another George...". And then my Dad's reading this right now, and he's doing that laugh that, when my mom hears it, makes her feign a stern attitude, as if Dad were a stinky dog who should be in trouble, but is too lovable to actually get mad at. "Heh heh heh". Anyway. So in the States, I talk to people all the time. I like meeting new people, and I like recognizing people's existence as humans around me. Especially when I interact with them (the supermarket, et al). Here, when I actually have something to say, I do it in Japanese too.

However, the commuter trains in Japan are some sort of no-mans-land where this is unacceptable, or at least, never done. No one talks to anyone they don't know. According to Jeremy, sure, the L in Chicago is similar; I'm not saying this is groundbreaking here, but it was unexpected when she said:

"Where are you from?"

Do I give her the Yokohama bit, or the Chicago bit, I consider for a moment before going with Yokohama. It's fun to answer that, because the opposite party is so clearly expecting the name of a Western country.

She obviously didn't get what she was looking for and rephrases asking where I'm originally from. I give in and answer Chicago. She asked if I was moving, or something like that, and I explained the circumstances I was currently in, and why I was transporting all that stuff. It was nice. She had just gotten back from Ireland. Politely I asked why, and she said she went for a dog show.

Well, now, we were on. So I take out my cell phone and show her pictures of Chance and Otto; tell her a little bit of Chance's story. She shows me pictures of her dogs. I tell her I miss dogs, and I see all these dachshunds all over and just want to pet each one.

(I miss you, Chance. I still think about you a lot, and wish I could be "hugged" by you one more time -- when you used to press your forehead against my neck.)

Anyway, so she asks where I live specifically, and it turns out that her younger brother lives right near by. She suggests I come by sometime. I joke that yeah, I'll walk their dogs for them (they have two minature schnauzers). She takes me seriously, and when we both get off at Yokohama station 20 minutes later, we're exchanging phone numbers and e-mails.

So, e-mails go back and forth between her and I, her and her brother, me and her brother, me and her brother's wife, and then it gets arranged that I'm going to go to a park with them on Saturday and walk the dogs. The woman I met on the train (the older sister), though, lives in Tokyo, so she's not going to come. Makes sense.

When I get picked up (which, mind you, I was not expecting such treatment from people I've never even met), it's not just the brother: it's the brother driving, his wife, their daughter, and both of their dogs. And I've never met any of them, and then here I am climbing in the car with them.

This was the beginning of my Saturday with the Fujiwara family. All of the details aren't that relevant or interesting to anyone Stateside, like where we ate and all that, but there were a few funny highlights.

• Literally, about five minutes after getting in the car, they are trying to engage me with the information they've heard about me from the older sister. "So we hear you have a girlfriend here," the wife ventures. "Well, I did," I respond, carefully trying to gauge the reactions of three people at once. The dogs seemed to be indifferent to this news, I had already won them over. I had yet to have the experience of explaining my breakup in Japanese, and I also elected to take the High Fidelity approach of "saying nice things about her, but hinting at a deep ocean of melancholy just below the surface."
• We went to a cafe after walking the dogs that allows dogs inside the cafe. How cool is that.
• When I got out of the car, I forgot my umbrella. See above.

It's... Pink? Monday March 27

I have added another color scheme to this site in celebration of Japan's hanami, or cherry-blossom viewing season. I went with Kumiko to a nearby park on Sunday, but they weren't really open yet; I'm going back on Saturday with the Madison crowd. It should be perfect then.

School just got back underway today, and man, am I glad. I needed to put some direction back in my life, at least temporarily. Due to my spring break, friends in from out of town, recent developments regarding the job hunt, etc., I just have been doing things a little out of the ordinary recently. This is a good thing, I like breaking routines every now and then. However, next fall aside, I have a goal here until June, and I'm going to fulfill it. I've gotten a little far away from my studies in the past two weeks, and I'm glad to begin the realignment today. Feels good.

I read a whole opinion piece in the newspaper today about hedge funds. That made me happy; I know more basic investment terminology thanks to last quarter's business class. I only used my dictionary twice, and both times, I already knew the pronounciation of the word, I just wanted to verify the meaning. This is what they call in Japanese a jiman banashi, you know, where you just talk about how awesome you are all the time.

About the job search, things have cooled down a little in comparison to the last post. I'd like to say more about it, but as long as this site comes up when someone Googles my name, it'd be wise not to write about who I'm interviewing with and so on. We'll leave it that last week a new opportunity came up, and I don't know if it will turn into anything or not, but it looks promising based solely on the position of the person I was introduced to.

My research project for school is running about one week behind. This is why I am really stoking the fire to get back on track. Giving a fifteen minute presentation in Japanese isn't that hard -- giving one that is relevant, timely, and interesting is a bit of a challenge, however. Let's get started.

Little bit of this, little bit of that Wednesday March 22

This has been one crazy week. Who would have thought it's my spring break.

Let me begin by saying that I am very ecstatic to have Justin and company visiting Tokyo at the moment. I knew someone would take me up on my free tour guide offer at some point, and it only took six months. The summer is still available, folks. Or is it?

I've been neck-deep in the job hunt for fall, and it looks like I have a decent lead at one company that I've had my eye on. I have no doubt that I'll get a job here in Japan; I have never worried about that. The issue is getting the right job for me, and thus avoiding what Michael referred to when he gave me a "talking to" last December. The summary of what he said was to watch out for meaningless jobs. When the bills come, you need money, and to combat that, you have to find something, anything (English teaching, et al). Unfortunately, that stops you from having the time to do other, cooler things. To an extent, he has a point. That's the beauty of advice. You can listen to it all, and decide how much is appropriate for you. I am lucky to have older brothers who have trailblazed ahead of me.

In this case, though, the advice is solid: if a job doesn't help you grow, don't do it. Done and done. The definition of "grow" is where Michael and I may differ, but we're both willing to accept the other's viewpoint. The current position I'm seeking will be a new direction for me, and I'll talk about it more, uh, if I get it, but for the time being I will say what I've said from the beginning about it: it will open doors for me, not close them, and you all know how I feel about that.

This past weekend and early week was very busy guiding the group around Tokyo and Yokohama. We went to Shinjuku and walked to Shibuya on Saturday, Yokohama and Kamakura on Sunday, Ueno and Akihabara on Monday. They went on their own to Kyoto yesterday (Tuesday), and so I have a couple of days here by myself to actually do some posting here, finish some homework before school gets going again next week (what?!), and get ready to hear one way or another about this gig.

She Hates My Futon Wednesday March 1

I've been borrowing a futon since I got here, so I decided that its time I actually go buy one for myself.

This evening, I found a real nice paisley green one for about a hundred bucks. This is the advantage to a system where there are no bedframes: you are essentially paying for padding and the comforter, and the utilitarian side of me rejoices. Who needs more than that? Todd and I lived like that for awhile, actually.

Speaking of, Naomi, do you still have that featherbed?

Anyway, there was one futon for the same price with free delivery, too, but let's face it: while I may be sensitive enough to appreciate the beauty of roses, I don't necessarily need to be sleeping on them every night. It wasn't even a tasteful burgundy or something like that; green and red, splashed together. Clearly, there was a reason this futon set was on clearance.

So, while I was in the futon section, I noticed some daybed-like pillows. You know, the kind you'd prop up against the headboard or something and watch TV. Well, I don't even have a bedframe, but I do have a wall, and watching TV from a chair just somehow isn't the same. Maybe I should get some of these pillows?

Then I walked over to where the regular pillows and sheets are. I also discovered chair cushions. I was thoroughly impressed, and it's a good thing I have absolutely no need for any more chair cushions (I have three that I bought for $2 each at the cheap-cheap store, and moreover, the maximum number of chairs in use in my apartment at any given time is two. I consider this a blessing, I fell in love with the ones I saw today, and they were $10 each).

There's really no conclusion here, other than to say that I am entirely comfortable with my masculinity, and I love shopping for interiors. Yes, it is possible to have it both ways.

I'm giving it a day to think about, if I still want it this bad tomorrow I'm getting it; I'll put a picture or two up.

Lastly, I should mention that the title of this post has absolutely no relevance. It is the title of a half-finished novel that was serially published on the Internet between 1998 and 2000, and it was utterly brilliant. Craig, the author, disappeared for awhile, but I just have discovered that MyBoot is back! Read She Hates My Futon. It will take you a few days, possibly, but it's addictive, and well-written. Sweet!

Karaoke Saturday February 11

I did karaoke again last weekend with the Japanese crowd. It's always a challenge: with a relatively small English selection, my lack of pop song prowess, and my low voice, I am pretty much limited to Green Day's Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). Well, not necessarily a bad tune to be limited to, though. I rawk out.

Anyhow, to combat this deficiency, I've decided to learn some Japanese songs good for karaoke. The problem, as Miss Chee and I have discussed, is that most Japanese pop music is terrible, or rather, just as bad as American pop music in its lyrical and choral predictability, and thus is not interesting to me.

I will always respect artists who write their own music more than I'll ever respect these so-called "performers".

Did you know that the guy who wrote most of Kelly Clarkson's songs is the same guy who did the Backstreet Boys' Millenium album? It's an industry, and it's all written by the same people. Japan is similar. Heavily produced. It all follows the standard conventions of music theory, and thus doesn't do anything to further music as a form of art.

This weekend at karaoke, I counted the number of times dakishimeru (to hold someone tightly) and itoshii (dear, beloved) came up; I stopped counting after four or five. Mind you, I don't mean four or five times in the same song, I mean four or five different songs that all talk about tightly holding on to their darling.

Hrmm, maybe that's not bad Japanese to know.

Revolving Sushi Friday February 3

I went to revolving sushi on Wednesday afternoon (since there's no class then, it's developed into a "thing" at school). Pouring rain outside, it was nice to sit inside with good company, eating sushi, and drinking hot tea.

During the conversation, though, I learned that a few classmates have started dating people here. The details of those situations aren't mine to give, and I'll stick to the point here: These details came out in the conversation rather subtly; both of these guys are really good at keeping their mouth shut about personal things -- something that, for the longest time, I have wished to be able to do.

I don't know why I've always felt some sort of need to share what's going on with those around me; it's not even so much gossip, but rather just that I enjoy making note of the funny ways in which life just is sometimes, and what better way to exemplify that than by the ridiculousness of real-life events?

I guess it's also partially that I'm very open, and I'm willing to share my world with other people. Since other people are more reserved about sharing their world with me and others, it gives me the impression as if I'm overbearing, and thus that would explain why I view my behavior as unfavorable. I wonder?

Fashion has never made sense Monday January 30

Question: You have too many t-shirts, too many jackets (for all seasons), three pair of socks, one pair of shoes (that don't go with every outfit), not enough dress shirts, and only a couple sweaters. It is the middle of winter. You go clothes shopping, and you have little money. What do you buy?

1. New shoes to match the other half your outfits


2. More sweaters to help keep warm


3. Some dress shirts that can be casual or business


4. Another jacket you don't need and a new t-shirt you also don't need

Answer: 4. Sometimes you can't help yourself: sure, you went looking for shoes and shirts, but they didn't have any that jived with your style, size, or whatnot, and then you found quite possibly the coolest jacket you've ever owned. Far cooler than the other five you already own.

Yes, I fell to raw consumerism today. In a moment that I suspect possibly only Todd can understand, I walked into the store, tried it on, asked them if they took credit cards, and bought a jacket I really shouldn't be able to afford. The beauty (and the evil side) of consumer credit.

It also did not help that there was a young woman with me, and she was a strong advocate of aformentioned purchased jacket. Let the record state that when an attractive woman tells you how good you look in something, and you have an interest in said woman, there is no alternative, and you will beg on the streets, if that's what it comes to, to buy that thing. This is one of the ultimate secret powers the female wields, and she knows it.

The power of the "If You Were Wearing This Instead, You Would Have Better Chances With Me" charm. Everyone knows that this charm is not based in reality, and that our clothing really has little or nothing to do with our chances. In fact, it may even be the opposite: I'll introduce Todd's observation once that the times you are most in need of a shower, or the times you are most in need of a change of clothes, that those are the times things go your way regarding the opposite sex.

But men occasionally submit to the charm, logical or not. While it's not the full reason, it's definitely part of why I now own the coolest jacket I've ever owned. The rest of it, is, well, the jacket.

Back to Normal Monday January 23

Things are more-or-less back to normal after vacation. Bike to school, update the blog, check the yen-dollar exchange rate, study some characters, class, lunch, class, bike home, make dinner, do work, sleep, and start the whole thing over again.

However, due to a large intake of caffienated beverage yesterday, I've decided that I'm also going to redesign the front end of pitchpipe. What is currently up there does little to describe what it is that I actually do, and this summer, I am definitely going to rely on some secondary income from programming work to live comfortably. I need to be able to convince new clients that I know what I am doing.

Things on the social front have been progressing well, but slowly. Michael and I were at a family restaurant yesterday afternoon amid many, many college students gathered for some reason. As I looked at these people, I thought, "well, I like Madison [the izakaya near my house] well enough, but it would be cool to spend time with people my own age..." Might be time to expand my social network a little further to include people my own age who aren't Center students.

I apologize for the poor update, and the lack of substance in this post. I've got a lot to do today, and I wrote "blog post" on the todo list, only realizing right about now that I have nothing of value to say.

That was some mighty fine food Wednesday December 21

Since coming to Japan, I've been eager to spend time with Japanese people. This makes sense, right? I'm studying the Japanese language and culture (which are reasonably intertwined), and thus spending time with people who live here permanently offers me the opportunity to learn both.

Of course, there are times where spending time with Japanese people also costs money. I absorb the expense as the "cost of doing business", and I assume that short of spending every night alone in my apartment, I am going to spend money on these sorts of things.

Every now and then, though, I get burned. What I mean by this is someone usually invites me to something, but does not take into consideration that I do not work like everyone else does. It's very uncomfortable for me to ask how much everything is going to cost all the time, so sometimes I make reasonable assumptions. And occasionally I'm wrong.

Like Saturday night, when I was invited to a year-end party (think Christmas party with 15 people). I took it easy on the drinks and ate lightly, focusing more on the conversation. Yet, when the bill came, the person in charge decided the best way to handle it was to split the bill evenly. No one took into consideration that the three gentlemen at the other end of the table were drinking pitcher after pitcher of beer, and I didn't even get enough food.

The net effect is that I was still hungry and paid $35. What's more, the conversation wasn't that interesting. I guess I've learned that I don't learn as much in a "group" setting as I do from one-on-one conversation. Moreover, everyone was over 30, and I think that also had something to do with it. Bob (the guy who invited me) really does enjoy having me, and I know that, but I have to face the reality that, well, I just get along better in a group of 20-somethings, not in a group of 30-somethings. I can be old in 10 years, as for now, well, I'm not there yet.

Anyway, I mentioned this experience to some students at school on Monday. One of the more seasoned individuals informed me that this is always the way it is at year-end parties: the men drink too much, the women don't, everyone pays evenly, and that's the way it goes. Which leads me to the greater point.

Why does the women's liberation movement seem so far behind in Japan?

It's been rough Friday December 16

I'm not going to lie, it's been rough the past couple weeks. Today, I turned off my alarm without realizing it, slept in until 9:30a, and was late to school. That's the first time it's happened. It was no big deal, but I think the larger point is that my body and mind are currently at odds with what I am attempting to do.

I get more frustrated when I can't make myself to do work, and I start that whole "well, this assignment is stupid anyway" rationalization. (I do swear, however, that dictation is stupid and it does nothing for comprehension when you compare it to how much classtime it occupies.) Basically, I stopped working as of about Wednesday this week, just waiting for the weekend. Considering that last weekend was spent very poorly, and I accomplished nothing (and rested little), this is probably why I feel this way now. Two weeks in a row with no break.

In other news, I found a public bath within five minutes of my apartment. It's quite nice, and it's only 400 yen per person. $3.75 isn't a bad price to pay for all the hot water, sauna, and hot tub I can take. This sauna isn't kidding around either: they keep it around 185 degrees. Oh, there's a scale too. Getting sick took some weight off, I now weigh 157 pounds. I couldn't believe that; I have never been that light. For the first time ever, I'm at my ideal weight. Now I just have to shape up a little.

One of the teachers here is good with a camera, and he just delivered a CD to everyone's mailbox with pictures from all the way from the beginning of the program. This weekend I'll go through them, at some point I'll put up another album worth looking at. It'll be fun to reflect back on the past three months. Most of the pictures are of people, so I could even go as far as to make a mini-album of my classmates. Hrm. Maybe that's a little too much.

Oh, and I implore you to check out some of the new pictures I put up. There are a few that show the Minato Mirai skyline, if you can say such a thing exists.

I don't know what I'm trying to say here Monday December 12

Okay, don't laugh. I'm feeling sentimental at the moment.

Trisha Yearwood's How Do I Live Without You has been in the playlist recently; I copied an old MP3 CD I made in high school to my laptop right before I left for Japan. I had downloaded this track in high school because of its connection to the China Palace: the only time I ever listened to it was on "Lite 107.3 WSJY, Southern Wisconsin Best Mix of Today's Hits and Yesterday's Favorites" after 9pm (when the restaurant had cleared out) while washing Sweet and Sour Sauce off of vinyl tablecloths.

While that memory is both vivid and dear, that's not quite why I'm feeling this way. What comes into my head, rather, are the friends that came and waited for me to get off before we all would go somewhere. Or, I'd rush home, shower, eat some Chinese food for dinner, run back out, come home late, upset my mother, and do it all over again the following weekend. Those friends have all gone their own ways, as was meant to happen. I could still contact most of them if I really had the desire to do so, thanks to Internet social networking.

Due to a bigger sampling pool, there was a lot less of a "group" in college, and everyone more or less did their own thing -- at least, compared to high school. Of course, I became close to people in my years at UIUC too, but now it's the same thing again: separate ways.

While we're young and unsettled, certainly, geography plays the a role in shaping the future: if both parties don't take an active effort in maintaining a physically-distant relationship, it just becomes another memory. Now, I'm looking at myself and my life, and I am doing something I have wanted to do for a long time. However, I also have to be careful as not to turn my back on the people who -- albeit being physically distant -- are close to me emotionally.

This is where the sentimentality comes into it: I look at my Dad, for example, who gets together almost every Friday night with Sharon & Dad's friends Rusty & Dave. They play Euchre, talk, and have a good time. They've done this for the past five years, and I'm sure they'll do it for the next five. As we all settle down, we can keep the friends we make close to us for much longer.

I spent last night out all night with two guys who have been in a (cover) band together for seven years. Before that, they'd gone to the same college. When I think about that, I just have to smile. Life's so much more fun when you can connect its various stages together not just in your own memory, but also in the lives of those around you.

The base case of this, of course, is family. I never like to draw a distinct line between family and friends. Is the reason I am close with Nathan because he is my brother, or because we've spent essentially 20 years living together? It doesn't matter to me, but I can say that one of my best recent memories would be this year's Saint Patrick's Day, when Nate and I sat for a good few hours talking about some good times in Champaign.

In my mind, growing with other people, and watching the others around you grow, is the best. That's why I'm feeling sentimental.

Mechanization Thursday December 8

Probably as a measure to reduce labor costs, certain services in Japan are mechanized. Train tickets (save long-distance trips), utility bills, concert tickets, and just about anything else you can think of can be paid for without ever having to interact with a person. These machines are physical units designed with specific purposes in mind. This makes sense when one considers that Japan is a cash-based society; in credit-minded America, you just use the Internet or phone to handle the same affairs.

Anyway, here's an example. I opened a bank account at a unit that had a video camera, telephone handset, scanner, printer, and touch screen. Talking to an attendant through the handset and screen, I went through the process of scanning my essential identification documents. After my account was opened, a door on the machine opened and my brand-new passbook came out -- with my name and account number printed on the cover.

The passbook is a checkbook, but instead of writing in it yourself, you insert the whole thing into the ATM when making deposits or withdrawals. The machine automatically flips to the appropriate page and prints records of your transactions. It makes my head spin when I think about all the machinery required to make that work. Stateside vending machines can't even take dog-earred dollars, but I can drop ¥100,000 ($920) into the ATM with full confidence it's going to count it all properly the first time. It's cool, but also wholly unnecessary. One benefit of this system, though, is that ATM deposits are credited immediately, not the next day or any other time. Anyway, enough about the bank. We're talking about the machines.

Then, last week, I walked into the convenience store, walked up to a machine, punched in the confirmation number for my bus ticket to Kanazawa, printed out a barcode, and took it to the register. I paid for the "barcode", and a laser printer behind the counter printed my bus ticket as soon as the clerk had scanned the barcode as "paid". Now that's cool.

Tonight, I had another "mechanized" experience -- while purchasing kerosene.

Sure, one doesn't need personal identification or a confirmation code to purchase kerosene, but as I learned today, one must indicate prior to purchase via a touchscreen (a) whether the transaction should be measured by money or by liters, and then (b) the details regarding the payment. So, I put in approximately $10.50 and pumped 18 liters. This was the smallest amount available, which is perfect for my 20 liter can. It is not perfect, however, given the distance and the hill between the gas station and my apartment. On the way back home, an old man called out to me and said he was impressed I was carrying the can; to be fair, so was I.

Firing up my heater for the first time, admittedly, my room warmed up much faster than I thought it would. However, after I turned the heater off, it also cooled off much faster than I thought it would. Japanese builders do not seem to share Americans' love of insulation. I warmed it up to 23°, and it has promptly (within an hour) returned to 17°. It was 14° when I first came home, though, so I consider this a tiny victory. We'll see what happens in the next hour.

The point of all this is to point out a certain ridiculousness. Err, "cultural value difference".

I bought bus tickets through a machine at the convenience store down the street and had them printed on the spot. The machine at the train station can figure out -- based on my magnetic-strip ticket -- where I came from, how much I paid to enter the system, and if that's not enough, how much I owe to get out, even if I transferred from a different line or company. Today I bought kerosene from a pump that is smarter than I am.

Yet, in all of this beautiful mechatronic (yes, that's the word) innovation, no one thinks it's a little strange that I bought kerosene (a rather antiquated fossil fuel), hauled it up a hill by hand, and fired up a fuel-burning space heater (mind you, it is electronic and features temperature control, self-timer, and economy mode)? Does anyone see what I'm getting at?

Spare the high-tech fuel vending machine, the high-tech space heater. Install such high-tech innovations like central heating or insulation. I feel like I am in Korea: high-tech consumer goods and services mixed with a relatively low-tech lifestyle.

However, this does have its sobering effects. It is my first real exposure to a (relatively) recently-developed consumer economy: developed consumable marketplace goods (you should see the cell phones!), but relatively undeveloped basic staple goods (insulation & heating). These technologies don't develop as rapidly because they have higher barriers to entry: usually construction. People don't move as often as they buy gas or bus tickets, and once you've built a structure, well, it's there. Once people are used to living in a place with certain conditions (i.e., going to buy kerosene), they don't seem to mind it: it is the routine.

It seems that people only start to mind once they've lived with the convenience of not having to do so, or seen or heard of someone else in that situation. And once that reaches a critical mass, the feeling of not wanting to be "old fashioned", or, simply, "poor", will pull the rest of the people into the era of central heating. Possibly most interesting to me is this "keeping up with the Joneses" effect as a motivating factor of change: if no one had central heating, no one would want it. If only the people who can afford to buy new construction have it, everyone else will start to want it.

In this way, it's not true to say that companies sell products that people that don't need: if people buy them, instead we can say that the people themselves have made, and continue to make, the mistake of symbolizing a product, convenience, or received service as a signal of their own class level, and thus pursue those things in an effort to stake out their societal rank.

Of course, this is a more general conversation: I still think that every new building should have central heat. It's a more efficient use of energy.

I hate it when that happens Sunday December 4

I hate it when I make some sort of quick decision, and then I realize immediately afterward that it was the wrong decision. Take tonight, when I got out of a cab. The cabbie asked me "do you want a receipt", to which I thought for a moment, realized that there was probably no need for record of this transaction, and then got out.

I realized about 30 seconds later that my cell phone had driven off with the cab. That receipt would have been mighty handy. Now I'll have to spend a good part of tomorrow calling up places that have black cab cars asking if a blue cell phone was found in the back seat of any of their vehicles last night at around 3:15am at Sannoshita.

It's like my momma once said, nothing good ever happens after midnight.

Per usual, it's not the cell phone itself that bothers me so much... it's all the numbers entered in it.

All fired up Monday November 28

Today's post is, in part, courtesy of Cake's most recent album Pressure Chief.

In New York City, the air isn't particularly great. Of course, it's a major city with taxis, traffic, buses, and plenty of trucks driving to and fro. However, I didn't really notice it when I was living there; I was usually taking the subway.

In Yokohama, I ride my bicycle. Many times, I literally have to hold my breath because the air is so thick with exhaust (I often am behind buses, the worst offenders). Today, for class I'm reading an article about the Kyoto Protocol meetings in the late nineties. Air pollution.

Now, I'm not going to hate on the automobile unnecessarily. It is, or should I say, the gasoline engine is, one of the most useful inventions in the modern era. However, I also encourage you to find another technology -- over 100 years old -- that is still more-or-less the same today. Telegraph? I don't think you can even get a telegraph line anymore. Telephone? We don't use operators, we have long distance codes; it's all automated. Recently, digital telephony even threatens the basic old POTS service we all know and love.

Competition, in a capitalist society, sparks innovation. New companies introduce new methodologies, improved products, and better ideas to gain market share. Old companies fight back by improving their products and slashing prices. Everyone is supposed to win: high-quality goods for cheap prices. Let's close our America Is Great textbooks for a moment and look at the real situation: the gasoline/diesel engine model is over 100 years old, and we still rely on it for most of our vehicles.

Certainly, efficiency has made great strides in recent decades -- but the major market force in that development was the cost of fuel in the latter 1970s. As my Dad has said about the days before that: "Gas was cheap."

I'm not necessarily saying that we should all go hybrid or natural gas tomorrow -- and I know there are huge barriers to entry. There are gas stations at every major intersection across America -- but there are relatively few natural gas or hydrogen stations. Those technologies have mostly taken off with public transportation units, which is a good start. Natural gas prices do not fluctuate the way that gasoline prices do, and thus it makes economic sense for a metropolitan entity to convert their transportation systems. Anyhow, that's a different conversation.

Let's return to the telephone industry for a moment. There was also a large barrier to entry for companies prior to the 1980s: AT&T owned everything, and thus could undersell everyone. The government stepped in to break up the madness, and now I can call people at home from Japan -- using a British company accessed through the Internet -- for less than 2 cents per minute. This is what I'm talking about: progress with a low cost. Don't hate on globalization -- it has positive influences, too.

America's land mass is too large to implement a full-scale, reliable rail system that would preclude consumers from needing their own vehicles (most other small, post-industrial nations can afford this luxury). America could eventually, and that's a different topic entirely, but I'd love to take it on. For the time being, we must focus on alternative energy technologies for the automobile: that's our current infrastructure.

As you can see, this isn't just about my lungs. It's about a lot of things, mostly political.

Why did we invade a country to ensure a consistent oil supply for both our economy and defense system? The costs of doing so have been tremendous: outrageous defense spending, political repercussions worldwide, and, naturally, over 2,000 American lives and the uncountable number of Iraqi citizens (estimates exceed 20,000) who perished in the "War on Terra", as President Bush would have you believe it is pronounced.

Forget the moral standpoint, I'm talking economics here. For the billions of dollars (soon to be trillions?) we've invested there, imagine the amount of government subsidies and incentives that could have been offered to both the oil and automobile industries to (1) promote new, efficient engine technologies, and (2) promote delivery of these new fuels and systems to places across the country?

Let's also not forget that those incentives would, in some cases, lead to the redeveloping of tens of thousands of gas stations: spending in local economies across the country. Sure, there's an inflationary risk, but in a post-9/11 economy, America could have used the injection of capital.

Am I having an "Emperor's New Clothes" moment here? Hasn't anyone else thought of this? Imagine the political image: "We're reducing America's dependence on foreign governments for oil, creating jobs at home by redeveloping our energy delivery infrastructure, and stabilizing energy prices that will help every hard-working American family save their hard-earned income." Tell me that doesn't appeal to the left and the right. Of course, the part that isn't included in that last bit is "...save their hard earned income for rising education and health care costs", but we'll tackle one issue at a time.

Let's not forget the environmental issue, too. We've already destroyed enough, haven't we? I'm not quite ready to colonize another planet just yet; I've grown quite fond of this world, actually. They've got some great food here.

So, I now leave you with my favorite lines from the Cake song "Carbon Dioxide":

I wish I was in that Mercedes Benz
Sealed away from my sins
I'd have the music high, going ninety-five
Aaaaahhh
Too much, Too much
Too much carbon dioxide for me to bear

I was honked at by a Mercedes the other day. I caught up to him in traffic a few kilometers down the road. I sneered as I passed him, and I certainly hope he saw me. I regularly beat cars because of the traffic and stoplights -- motorbikes usually beat me, though -- they carry the same advantage of being able to weave through stopped cars at red lights.

So inconsiderate Thursday November 17

Click the picture for an enlarged versionSome jackal threw trash in my bicycle basket yesterday while it was parked at the Center. The Center has a private parking place for it and the few offices around it, so it's a relatively small environment. Simply stated, not just anyone did this, but one of about sixty people did it.

I refuse to be outdone. This aggression cannot stand. The trash is not the issue -- the issue, here, man, is unchecked aggression. If I just let them throw trash in my basket without doing anything, they're going to do it again. I am drawing a line in the sand, and saying, "across this line, you do not cross."

As such, showing my snarky side, I made a sign last night and taped it to my bike this morning when I came to school. It says, in so many words:

"To the person who threw trash in this bicycle's basket yesterday: this bicycle, while it seems like a trash can, is in actuality a bicycle. There is a trash can at the Daily Yamazaki; please use that. I appreciate your cooperation. -The Bicycle God"

Am I wrong? I mean, am I wrong? Huah. Ok, then.

Moderation Friday November 11

Ben Franklin is credited with some very quotable quotes (isn't that from Reader's Digest, "quotable quotes"? I don't know, whatever). I say "is credited"; he may have simply just been the first to publish them. The most clever people I meet aren't the most clever people; they're the best at amalgamating the clever things they've heard elsewhere.

Anyway, as a result of the thirteen virtues he published in his late 20s, Ben Franklin is credited with the expression about practicing everything, including moderation, in moderation. Logically, this expression has no meaning, or rather, infinite meaning; expressions are only useful if they can be interpreted, applied, or understood.

As I type that, I start to think about music and art. Art isn't particularly applicable to every day life, for whatever life that may be. Interpretations are usually based on the personality of the observer, and to say we understand art is just outright pretentious. Yet, everywhere in the world, there is music, and there is some form of art. These things aren't "useful" as I have stated above. It seems that there are limitations to saying something is only "useful if it is applicable to life".

This last paragraph is only mentioned as a means to explain the greater issue I've been struggling with. Give me any topic (in this case, it was my desire to talk about moderation and absolutes), and I can find one or more loopholes that must first be discussed. I don't do this merely to prove that a loophole exists, but I am driven by the desire to nail down the "answer". I feel that if I chase the ends of each statement, very logically, I can pin down the assumptions to the extent where I can actually make some statement of value.

Yet, whenever I try this approach, I get lost in the process of tying down those ends. Luckily, this time, I stopped; I was merely exploring it for the sake of example. I've thought that possibly I just need to state my assumptions and traverse from there, but everything becomes the Mandlebrot set: the more you zoom in and look at it, the more complex it becomes. Conversely, the more one zooms out, the more it all comes together. Is this like a zen thing?

There are only two places left for me to go: one, to go mad, which I already slightly am, or two, to find some sort of line of thinking I can manipulate that, by definition, embodies this inability to ever accurately define reality. The latter really sounds appealing, and I really hope it includes my love of claiming that there is only one absolute, and that is that there are no absolutes. We can only take absolutes as such in moderation.

(Ed. note: I realize the logical disjunction that arises from saying "there are no absolutes", and if you post a comment about that, I will fly back and maim you.)

Halloween Monday October 31

Where to start, where to start. What a weekend. Halloween in Japan gets my stamp of approval.

Friday was a great day. It was the last day of the first quarter of my program, and it also marked two months of me living in Japan. My, how the time goes quick. At the same time, when I look at everything I've done, seen, and thought since coming here, it seems about right that it all fits in eight weeks.

I pulled a 95% on my written test from Thursday, and my Friday oral exam went well. Things at school have been progressing. I've started reading an introductory work on cultural anthropology -- in Japanese. Sure, there are plenty of sentences I have trouble with, but it's a topic that fascinates me, so I figure this is best way to do it: dive in.

I went up to Tokyo to see Michael straight from school. Unfortunately, he was busy at work as ever, so I showed Juan how to do some things on Photoshop that she needs for her business, and we all had nabe (なべ) when Mike got home. Nabe is essentially a huge pot of soup that you put in the middle of the table; everyone pulls stuff out and eats. When it gets cold, it's perfect. Unfortunately, I ate so much that I conked out on the couch early and that was that.

Saturday was Joanna's (one of my classmates) Halloween party. It was supposed to be a costume party, but I didn't have a good costume, so I improvised. I have a jacket that's Top Gun-esque, and in Japan, I am regularly told that I look like Mr. Cruise. As such, I used Photoshop to print a "Hello, My Name Is" nametag that was labeled "Tom Cruise".

The party went on all night, but trains in Japan stop running around midnight or twelve-thirty. Everyone migrated to a bar/cafe at about 1am; we stayed there until 4am, whereat Sarah and I decided we needed Yoshinoya, and badly. We had to make it until 5:15am, because that's when the first train comes. Yoshinoya, for those of you who either don't know, or don't remember, is one of the 24-hour beef bowl restaurants that are, well, everywhere, in Japan. When there's nowhere else to go but home, go to Yoshinoya. In the end, it was a moot point; I had received clearance to crash at the apartment of the host; they have a lot of extra futons. Still crazy, nonetheless. I put the Tom Cruise nametag on the inside of my wallet; I intend on keeping it there until it wears away to nothing.

Sunday morning we all (8 people) went to Denny's for breakfast. Denny's in Japan is a classy joint -- meals are a little more expensive than the States, but the service isn't terrible, the food is great, and it's clean. It's actually not even Denny's; really. You can't get a Grand Slam... or Moons over My Hammy.

Sunday evening I met my friend Kumiko and her two friends, Shin-ya and Jun, at Motomachi for another Halloween party. This time, no one was costumed, but there was talk of going to Donki and buying some quick. For those of you that have been following the saga from the beginning, you'll remember that Donki is the Spencer's Gifts of Japan that is three floors, and also is a half-supermarket, half-Best Buy.

The place we ended up at was expensive (25 bucks, yikes), but there was live jazz show, plenty of scantily-clad women, and an all-you-can-eat curry buffet. Much better curry, too, than other all-you-can-eat curry buffets that I've done. Anyway, this is the price I have to pay to hang out with Japanese people, and it was five straight hours of conversation practice. I can't complain about that. I learned a lot of good new words, and more importantly, I have made new friends.

That thing ended at 9pm, so we went to another place to meet up with two Center students who just happened to be in the area. Yet, one of them, and I will be good and not mention names, has a penchant for talking to Japanese girls. That's totally fine -- I'm not criticizing his choice for how he spends his time. It's not for me, and that's all right. However, there's a verb in Japanese called shirakeru (しらける), and it means, basically, to "throw a wet blanket on an otherwise-fun time". That's exactly what happened.

I've mentioned Kumiko to some of the Center students. I will put it like this to the home audience: she is the Japanese version of Naomi. Period. Certainly, their personalities are different; they act differently. Yet, the way that we work together is essentially a copy of Naomi and I's interaction: goofy, outgoing, and always having fun.

So, this guy, who knows that I've made friends outside of school, asks me right in front of her face if "this is my girl". The way he said it makes me shudder. "Hey, welcome to Japan, did you pick up your girl yet? If you need one, well, I've got like six over here... I'll let you borrow one." That kind of creepy feeling. Sure, he didn't say that, but you know.

It was one of the slimiest things that's been said to me in a long time. We ignored the comment and tried to recover the conversation, but it was hella awkward for about 10 seconds. We proceed to watch this guy talk to about 4-5 different girls all night long, and then spill a drink all over one of them. In the end, I was happy: I'd never had an opportunity to use the word shirakeru before, and I know I won't forget it now. Anyway. That was just a small part of the evening, really. It just bugs me, that's all.

I was talking with Bridget online today about a related topic: in college, when you like someone of the opposite sex, things progress quickly -- often too quickly -- because you're living in this weird psuedo-real-world called 'college'. You have all the freedom to do whatever, but none of the wisdom to realize what you should and shouldn't be doing, and on what schedule. This isn't necessarily bad; we all have to learn some time. Yet, now, for me, it's different.

I meet girls all the time, both in the States and here. I like spending time with some of them; I would call them friends. That doesn't mean, "oooOOOooh, I like you", or anything like that. It may or may not mean I'm attracted to them. But as I get older, all these interactions are getting more serious. If there is mutual attraction, even if it's thick enough to cut with a knife, it's just not good enough.

If I'm going to be anything more than friends with someone, it's going to take an emotional investment, and until I feel that strongly about someone, I'm totally content with just being friends. In a time where I'm trying to build a new support system, friends are the best. That's new for me, and I love it. I knew that coming here would have larger effects than just improving my Japanese, and that's part of the reason I knew it was time to leave Champaign. You've got to go there to come back.

So, anyway: the weekend was a blast; I caught the last train home last night and made up for the sleep that I missed the night before by sleeping in this morning, the first day of my fall vacation. Tomorrow I might go to Kamakura (where the big Buddha is) with some Center friends, but plans haven't been made yet.

Weekend Sundries Thursday October 27

(Ed. note: This was written six days before this post, but was not posted for lack of an Internet connection.)

I made Ma Po Tofu tonight for the first time (#42 at the China Palace in both Rockton and Roscoe, for those who are in the know); it worked out well. I received the package from home with all of my winter clothes. Said package also included two lamps and my MP3 player AC adapter. Last, but not least, were two unopened bottles of Sirracha hot sauce. I went to the store, got a light bulb, and installed my favorite lamp; it works well.

However, what has not worked out well tonight was following a classmate's recommendation and watching a particular drama on TBS (not affiliated with the American TBS) at ten o'clock.

In fact, I want the last forty-five minutes of my life back. I think I'm going to bill my time out to the person who recommended it. I should have known better when she said it was "based on a manga". And I could have been reading the cultural anthropology book I just borrowed from the IUC library... this is why televisions are bad, and I wouldn't even have one if I wasn't trying to learn a new language.

Occasionally, we are assigned to watch the news as homework; we have to report on what we learned. I cried "foul" at first because I didn't have a TV, and didn't feel like I should be required to buy one simply because I needed it for a three-minute assignment twice a week. I eventually caved when I saw the $45 used TV (with free delivery) at the shop where I bought my table.

Random: Japanese light bulbs use about one-fifth of the energy of their American counterparts. The sockets are the same, but unlike the States, where 90% of the market is dominated by "regular" bulbs, Japan only has fluorescent bulbs (or at least, the supermarket only carried fluorescent bulbs). I have learned the hard way, though, that my 8-watt "40-watt" light bulb is not strong enough for reading. Good for the ambient feel, bad for the eyes.

Tomorrow's agenda includes: another light bulb (this time we'll try the 12-watt "60-watt"), an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet birthday celebration at Shakey's Pizza (yes, the same Shakey's Pizzas that dot the southern Wisconsin landscape), making okonomiyaki for the first time, and listening to the music on my MP3 player (now that I have the AC adapter for it, at last).

Warning: the following paragraphs are all nerd, and it's pretty much for personal notation. Read at your own risk. Normal readers may stop here safely.

I also installed IIS, PHP, MySQL, and phpMyAdmin on my laptop. Now, I can do development work without an Internet connection. I've started using PHP 5.0; I'm enjoying the extended OOP functionality (er, maybe, "complete", considering that C++ had thisfunctionality a decade ago). The first thing I wrote was an application framework for new projects I design.

I've noted a few major limitations in the User Request » Function » Page Output design that I had been using (with large 'switch' statements). First of all, each execution could only execute one function, and each execution could only display one page. Nine times out of ten, you can get by with this. However, I want to stop thinking in this way: I want to take a modular approach to everything I design.

The more modules I write, the faster the next program will be developed; by abstracting the modules into basic class functions, I can essentially extend the functionality of PHP to meet my own uses. Before I had helper functions, certainly, but not to the extent I am now envisioning. Also, the new framework should help reduce debug time significantly, and it should help reduce versioning inconsistencies.

What's Shaking Monday October 17

My apartment is almost at the top of a hill, and it's not a particularly strong edifice. I wouldn't say that it's weak, but it's not quite the double-bricked construction that Grandma's house is. Anyway, when the kid that lives next door bounds up the outside stairs, my balcony rail shakes a little. When a strong wind blows, my floor seems to vibrate.

This fueled my previous misconceptions about earthquakes. I was under the impression that earthquakes occurred more frequently than they actually do. Since my apartment was shaking a little about once a week, I had assumed that these instances might be tiny earthquakes. When I didn't see anything on the news, though, I figured that I was probably incorrect. Michael later confirmed this for me.

Today, however, while doing computer work at my desk, my floor started to shake a little like it usually does, but then got stronger. I do know that the kid next door isn't that overweight. It had to be an earthquake.

True to what I've heard, it lasted about 15 seconds, and everything just, uhm, shook. I knew I'd probably get to experience an earthquake here, but I'm actually very glad that it happened the way it did. I made the determination quickly that it wasn't a serious quake, and thus I didn't need to seek cover. I stood up and watched out my balcony. It definitely had an awing effect: I just stood there thinking how strange the feeling was.

Later, I turned on the TV to see that it was a 5.1 magnitude quake, which is not enough to cause any real problems. Now that I've experienced that, though, there's no reason to stand in awe next time: especially if it's a more serious affair. I'll head under a doorway, or outside.

My apartment Tuesday September 20

Listening: Cake - Motorcade of Generosity (1999 nostalgia)
Reading: An Introduction to Advanced Spoken Japanese

The big move is over. Many of the details are ugly, involve sweat, hills, bicycles, and being exhausted. Strangely, I had gotten used to living with Riho for a few weeks, and I had been taking a few things for granted without even realizing it. I slept on the floor last night using two cushions as a pillow, which was an urgent reminder to get a futon. I fortunately realized that I lacked toliet paper before requiring it. There is still no hand soap, but we now are rocking the dish detergent and laundry detergent.

Michael had an extra futon, so I went up there today and picked it up. I plan on buying my own eventually, but for now, I will not be sleeping on hardwood.

Yesterday, a moving truck showed up with my appliances; I was pleasantly surprised that they are all new. I am renting my appliances from the landlord, and I am used to Champaign-Urbana landlords' standards. I have a gas stove, and my fridge is bigger than Riho's. Brand new washer. I hadn't done laundry in three weeks, so I broke it in well tonight.

The rice cooker became a priority after the futon, so I pedaled up to Don Quixote in Naka-ku, next to the harbor. Don Quixote, besides being the imaginary Spanish fiction character, is also one of Japan's cheaper stores to find neat stuff. Michael referenced it as "Spencer's Gifts meets Wal-mart"; I consider that analysis to be accurate. I will probably shop at this store indefinitely, seeing that Donki, their mascot, is a cute penguin that greatly resembles the Linux penguin.

On the way there, I saw a bunch of chairs and dressers sitting on the sidewalk, all with pricetags on them. Cheap pricetags. I dismounted, and on further investigation, there was an entire kitchen table for $65. When I asked how much the chairs cost, I was told that they were included.

I then mentioned that despite this bargain of the century, I could not carry four chairs and a kitchen table home on my bicycle. The store owner informed me that they have a free delivery service. So, I bought the set, and arranged a time to return after I got the rice cooker (that is what I set out to do). They tried to sell me that, too, but a new rice cooker only costed $15 more, and it's probably a good idea to get the warranty. Furniture doesn't really need a warranty.

When I came back to the store a few hours later, they had already brought a van around. At first, I thought this was solely for my benefit, but then I noticed that they were unloading gear -- TVs, stereos, and other household equipment. This shop is obviously in the business of getting rid of people's old stuff and recycling it. My kind of store. My table then went in the van, along with my bicycle, my person, and my new rice cooker.

The only issue is getting rid of the table when I move out. My plan is to keep it in good condition, go back to that same store, show them my receipt, and ask if they want to buy it back for $20. That's what they do, right?

The driver addressed me consistently as anata (this means 'you', but there are only two occasions that you say it, and this was neither). This was strange, particularly because I was a customer. I asked him if he was born in Yokohama, and he mentioned that no, he was born in Vietnam, and he had been living in Yokohama for 7 years. Aha. He also volunteered that his brothers live in Australia and America, and that he also has family here in Japan. We then shared a moment of discussing how being far from your family is tough.

I then asked him the important question: where can I go to get Vietnamese food?

Sadly, there aren't any restaurants in Yokohama, he said, and I'd have to go somewhere else (I don't remember the name of the place; it wasn't a well-known place, though). As we continued to talk, I realized that one of my favorite things was occurring. I have studied Japanese, and I am accustomed to Japanese culture more than the average American.

However, I don't know anything about Vietnam, and unless I asked a Vietnamese person in America in English, I wouldn't. Today, Japanese enabled me, even if only for the fifteen minutes while in the truck, to connect with someone who I would have never been able to speak with otherwise. Our conversation was normal, but I felt that "yay, the world doesn't seem like so much of a mystery now" feeling. I suppose if I learn Spanish, Mandarin, Swahili, Arabic, German and/or French, and Hindi, I'll be able to go just about anywhere. Hrmmm.

I called it a 'kitchen table', and it is, but since I do not have a kitchen, it is my desk, my kitchen table, my bookshelf (Chance and Otto figurines are the bookends), and it really makes the room look like someone lives here.

Still on the home furnishings list: a trash can (using plastic grocery bags is getting tiring), curtains (draping shirts over the curtain rail is tacky), shampoo, conditioner, body soap, hand soap, a rug to tie the room together (you know I'm not joking), a pot for the stove (you can't make curry in a fry pan!), and a plant. There will be a plant, and I will not kill it this time. I promise. It's going to be big, too. None of this desktop plant stuff. I want something like three feet tall, like the cornplant that I almost killed. Tim's taking care of it for me now, I think.

In other news, I just registered to run in the 25th Annual Yokohama Marathon. It's not a real marathon; they have three portions: a 5km, a 10km, and a half-marathon (about 21km). I will be running the 10km in November.

Oh, and one more thing. Dachshunds. You know I love them. They are very, very popular here; possibly, the most popular breed. In the States, every time I see a dachshund I want to yell out "Otttoooooo" in that high-pitched voice or something like that. Yet, I can honestly say that after seeing literally more than twenty dachshunds in the past three weeks is that all dachshunds are not created equal.

In fact, Chance, Otto, Daisy, and Oscar are particularly adorable dachshunds. I know that you will contend that I am biased, but I am downright serious. I don't know what their breeding practices are here, but I can tell for sure that some of them -- while still cute -- have breed defects that well, make them not as cute. I'm not being a breed snob; I'm serious. Possibly, they're not purebreds. Who knows. To be fair, I have seen a few that, if I were in the States, I would have stopped the person walking them to pet their dog. I don't think people do that here.

Man, I want a dog. Chance, do you want to go to school?

Weekend Update Sunday September 11

Friday night I went out with the American students. I have been shying away from making friends with any of them; I don't want this to end up like Kanazawa where all the English speakers form a tight-knit group and never hang out with anyone new.

I also need to be realistic: these people will introduce me to new people and experiences; moreover, they offer a basic support structure. These people are struggling with many of the same adjustments that I am, and thus we naturally form a group whether we want to or not.

Friday afternoon was the Official Welcome Party™, and there was sushi, fruit, Japanese pastries, sandwiches, juice, and beer. This is one of those strange adjustments: apparently, it's not strange at all for the teachers and administrative support staff to drink beer right along with the students. I found that odd. Everyone had had quite enough to eat, but the party "ended" at 6:15pm, and no one wanted to go home that early.

Rather, we went to an izakaya, or a late-night food-and-drink place, and we proceeded to chat and drink. This is a pretty common occurrence here, and the restuarant had multiple rooms to support the twelve of us that went out. We had to leave that place by 8pm, though, because another group had a reservation.

So, what's left to do but karaoke? I do a rousing version of "Under the Bridge", if I do say so. Karaoke always comes across to me as something kind of lame, but in Japan, it just works. I had a blast; I sang untl my vocal cords were hoarse. Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely.

I am sure that when I go into class tomorrow morning, some of us will be smiling just thinking about Friday, and that itself is worth something. I feel friendships forming.

Who was I to be a snob about who I will befriend? Why was I biasing against English speakers simply because of their language? Does that really have anything to do with what friendship is about? Not in the slightest.

I make, and will continue to make, many mistakes here that I would not in the States. I'll learn from them, and then everything will be fine. And even now, everything is fine. I am continually improving at my ability to accept and recognize reality. It is a challenge, however, to simultaneously evaluate reality and my ideals, compare and contrast their relevancy, and then adjust them accordingly. This is what we have to do, though.

Kumo-chan Monday September 5

Japan may be small, but there's one thing that's consistently bigger here: insects.

A few nights ago, Riho (the girl I'm currently staying with until I get my apartment set up) was sitting on the couch smoking, and she cocked her head up to exhale -- and then promptly walked across the room and sat down on the bed. All she said was, "ceiling". I didn't get it at first, because in context, I didn't realize that was the word she was saying. Then she pointed.

Look at this image. (This isn't for the sqeamish, that's why I didn't include it directly)

A big spider. About 4-5" in diameter. We're talking a legspan a little larger than a tarantula. On the ceiling in the room where I sleep.

Riho becomes useless just laying on her bed in the other room saying that it's so gross and that as the guy, I need to take care of it. Personally, I hate spiders. I wouldn't have minded leaving it if I hadn't been staying in the same room. I considered just climbing into Riho's bed and just hoping it'd be gone in the morning, but I reconsidered my ability to explain clearly what I do and do not want from her. Plus, if the spider was gone in the morning, how could I know it was truly gone?

I still couldn't figure out how the damn thing got in in the first place. All the windows are screened, and the door was shut.

Eventually, I enclosed it on the ceiling with a small trash can, and then slid a piece of cardboard in between the ceiling and the top of the trash can. Contained, I took it outside. There was no stepping on or killing this spider...

The cicadas -- that Japan is famous for -- are even bigger than our seven-year ones. For someone who hates these kinds of insects, it's a bit of a rude awakening.

And the process continues Saturday September 3

Well, getting an apartment as a foreigner isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Certainly, I have somewhere to stay until I find a place, but it's never good to wear out your welcome anywhere. After 9 days, I might just start to do that here.

In my last post I mentioned the guarantor requirement. One of the teachers at the school I will be attending will act as my guarantor, so I took the documents today to the real estate office. Then, they told me that they themselves would have to speak with the guarantor, and that that would have to wait until Monday (given that it is the weekend).

Then, they'll have to call the actual landlord of the property, which will probably happen Monday afternoon or Tuesday, so we're looking at Wednesday as about the earliest I can be in my new apartment.

However, on the excitement of submitting the completed application with my guarantor's information, I went straight to Tokyu Hands and started to outfit my new apartment before I even am living there.

Buying things -- like placemats and chopsticks -- brings up an interesting feeling I've been having about my "moving around" thing. I'll get to that lateron, but as for now, I'm going to rest: there's a big night tonight.

I'm going up to Shinagawa to see Asako and her sister; I haven't seen her for just about three years now.

Setting up shop Wednesday August 31

I'm still setting up shop around here. Yesterday and today were booked solid with apartment hunting, which was actually quite fun. There's an interesting system here that combines the benefits of real estate with the benefits of rental property. Particularly, when you want to rent an apartment, you don't go to the landlord -- you go to the listing agent for the apartment. Much like it were for sale.

The listing agent makes a commission (usually one month's rent) from each sale, and in return, they show the places to you, explain all the options, act as a resident expert on locations, and help negotiate with the landlord to get the job done. My kind of service. Very convenient, and useful if you don't know an area well (let alone the language barrier factor).

There are only two parts that I don't like: (1) rei-kin, and (2) hosho-nin. Rei-kin (礼金) is money that you pay directly to the landlord that you'll never get back. Essentially, it's "thanks for letting me rent your place" money. From an American perspective in rental property, we can easily see that it's baloney. It merely encourages tenants to resign their leases because they can't afford to pay rei-kin on a new apartment.

Hoshonin (保証人) are people who act as guarantors of your lease. Essentially, you ask one of your elders to guarantee you, which, as it sounds, means that they'll be forced to cough up rent if you don't pay it. The Japanese are societally very low-risk, and thus the idea is that the landlord will still be able to get rent money even if the tenant can't pay it.

Ignore the fact that I have my entire year's worth of rent money sitting in the bank right now; apparently, here, facts are not what is important. Procedure is what is important. This is something even in the States I routinely struggle with...

Anyway, long story short, I found a place I want to move into. Pictures will be forthcoming next week when I move in.

Jet lag's still getting the best of me; I get very tired each day by 10:00pm, and I wake up at 5am. Yikes.

Still Preparing Monday August 1

Preparations are still going well. I have most of my stuff accounted for, if not packed. Move-out is this weekend, and then I'll be residing at Foellinger until either Todd or Sara moves into their new places.

I'm still curious how we're going to get my huge futon from here to Foellinger; last time we had to move it, Razdude and I just carried the thing down Busey.

Rachel just left after spending the weekend in Champaign-Urbana. I forgot how much I liked this town, and then I had to show it to someone else, and all of a sudden I felt rather proud of it.

Odd.

I know I'll miss it.

danyel's wedding Monday July 11

song: the eagles - desperado
mood: like a long time ago

i received an invitation in may for danyel's wedding. i didn't even know she was engaged; since about junior year, i haven't seen that much of her. i simply knew she was dating a guy from iowa that she met in rockford.

my inital feeling was one of obligation. certainly, i wanted to see danyel and her family, but i felt that this ceremony was irrelevant to the life that i now lead, and that it would simply be a 'token' wedding appearance. you know what i'm talking about when i say 'token'; we've all done that "i'm just going to go and show my face and support and then that will be that".

but that's not how it turned out, and i'm very pleased that i went.

i was the only ex-boyfriend invited to the wedding; i don't think that that merits some sort of medal, but rather, it highlights that danyel and i's relationship (in the strictest sense of the word) is no more than a memory of the past, and that no one felt threatened by my presence. it's not hard to write off three years in middle school and high school. but that's not where our relationship really ended; it only changed.

danyel and i have known each other for eleven years. she hated me, or at least, as well as any seventh-grader could, she loved me, at least, as well as any eighth-grader could. i supported her the best i could throughout her brace days, and i was there when she was dripping morphine to ease the pain of the freshly-installed metal rods in her back (scoliosis, for those of you who aren't familiar).

she watched me suffer the pain of gina; i watched her rebound on nick. at uiuc, she committed to someone who wasn't for her; i committed to no one, even the people that were for me. we've watched each other change and grow quite a bit.

yet, all of that changed in the past few years. both of us were distant; not by choice, but simply by circumstance. failing to have her in my life failed to remind me that i wanted her there, and the supportive roles she may have filled were simply taken up by new understudies. not that this is all bad -- i have made many new friends.

when i watched her walk down the aisle, literally, i realized that i wasn't happy with the current circumstances. how could someone who i know so well, whose family i know so well, be so ready to make such a huge decision in her life and i know nothing about it?

i told her at the reception that i was disappointed with the way things had been, and that i will make an effort to come by her apartment before i leave for japan. i will make an effort to meet and befriend her husband, because if he's that important to her, then he's that important to me.

so, about the song. i totally had a zen moment when i got in the car with sara to come back down to champaign. i was feeling all good about the wedding, and sara popped in a mix cd that malia made for her. the first track was the eagles off of 'hell freezes over': the very CD that i listened to essentially non-stop when i met danyel in seventh grade. i think i even made her a mix tape that had some of that stuff on there.

that's one downside to being closer to her again. she could tell story after embarassing story to my future girlfriend slash wife, and even back it up with pictures. oh, to be 12 again.

or not.

a brief lesson in not sucking Monday June 27

My flight from La Guardia to Chicago left 30 minutes late today, and a woman sitting across from me at the gate became very irritable. The equipment was delayed; she checked out the window every minute and a half to see if it had arrived yet. Clearly, when it did arrive, it was so obvious that no one needed to check, but at least it gave her something to do.

Something, that is, other than complain in her cell phone about the lousy airport that La Guardia is. O'Hare, she told her unknown conversation partner, is such a more smoothly-run operation. How DARE these New Yorkers be proud of their city when they can't run a tight-ship operation like Chicago can. Sheesh.

Anyhow, I smiled at her consistently hoping that she would see me. There's nothing more annoying to a scowling middle-aged overweight Illinois woman than to see a 22-year-old sport smiling directly at her right after she lost her cell call to a series of "Hello? Hello? .... Can you hear me now? Hello?"

I'm not doing it to needle her; well, no, yes I am. But my intentions are good: I want to, possibly, remind her that she doesn't need to be such a stink, and that life isn't that bad when you take a limo to the airport and end up waiting an extra 30 minutes because the limo got you there so quickly.

I pulled out a piece of paper and started writing guidelines. Guidelines on how not to act like this woman. In Boston, I had just experienced "married life" as it is for Nathan and Ashley; while it is not significantly different than one would expect, it also had me thinking about my future. What I would someday want?

Nightmares danced in front of my eyes as I watched this woman. I wanted to ask her: "What were you like when you were my age? Were you cool? What went wrong? Is there some sort of early detection scheme I can follow to avoid marrying someone that will end up like you?". Of course these are all terrible questions, that I wouldn't ask unless I was very, very rude, or very, very drunk. I was in neither form at the gate, so I kept my mouth shut and my thoughts running.

Mark's Current Manifesto on How Not To Totally Suck At Life

• 1. Smile more. This one is so, so, so easy and so many people ignore it. I'm not going to feed you that line about how many muscles it takes to frown and how many it takes to smile -- because well, I honestly think that smiling takes effort to remember. But it's worth it.
• 2. Take lemons well. Lemons make lemonade. Don't sit around and bitch because someone's handing out free fruit and you wanted a kiwi. If you don't want your lemon, I'll take it, and then I'll throw it at you.
• 3. Never stop learning. Challenge yourself to learn new skills until you die. A pragmatist might say, "why study Swahili at age 89?", but what's a life worth having if you can't love it and live it? I find something new to love about life every time I learn something from it. That'll keep you going longer than anything else. Side note: bonus points if you challenge yourself to learn things you think you might not like, or things that are totally foreign to you. Remember, it's only foreign because you don't do it yet.
• 4. Don't ignore elders. And don't you dare write off your juniors. Do not take anyone with a grain of salt until they prove their own uselessness. While at age 50 you may have already 'been there' at age 23, you may have been staring at some puppy or out a plane window, and you totally missed something.
• 5. Stop trying so hard. Don't try to be someone you're not. If you don't know who you are that you're having a hard time telling if you're being yourself or not, you have bigger fish to fry first. Equally important: Don't try too hard to be someone someone else thinks you are. Surprise people; while stability is desireable, adding in a dash of unpredictability is downright sexy.
• 6. Be well-spoken. All of these thoughts, emotions, and ideas we have are all chemical reaction sequences. Amazing we can make sense out of it ourselves; even more amazing anyone else can make sense out of what we're experiencing. Don't make it harder than it already is; use language to its fullest. Communicate. Sometimes that means you have to use a naughty word, even. That's why they exist.
• 7. Sunglasses are for outdoors. The New York City Subway is not an acceptable location to wear your oversized aviation sunglasses. I understand that you may have just "forgotten", but there are four of you over there, and I find it VERY hard to believe that all of you are continually forgetting as you look at each other and how ridiculous you look. C'mon, someone be the bigger person and say to the other three, "Guys, maybe it's time we show the world our cooler-than-cool faces?"
• 8. Never make a scene in public. No matter how upset you are, no one else cares, and you look stupid. Also, it's hard to follow guideline [6] when you're breaking [8].
• 9. Don't fear change. Instead, fear the resistance to change; the resistance to accept.
• 10. When societally acceptable, meet new people. When not, consider trying anyway. There is no such thing as normal: "normal" is defined by what everyone does. You, as a person, contribute to what constitutes society, and society's rules. These rules change. See guideline [9]. Act how you think the world should work, and help make it so. Guidelines [1-8] are also instrumental in this process.

two months out Thursday June 23

i'm just about two months out from leaving for japan. i have:

• purchased my airline ticket
• applied for my visa
• filled out appropriate financial aid paperwork
• told my bosses i am leaving
• started to prepare for the good byes

i have not:

• found a place to live in japan
• received a visa
• figured out exactly how much money i will have
• finished everything i want to get done at foellinger

i am currently in boston, visiting nate and ashley, and seeing guster and wilco tonight and tomorrow night, respectively. oscar is here, their new dog. pictures to follow; if you haven't seen oscar, oskie, oskie-wow-wow, or my favorite, oskie-bow-wow, yet, you can see him all over ashley's website too.

terry Saturday June 4

i've been working one night a week at merry ann's diner these days. i can use the extra cash, and let's face it: working at the drunk tank on a thursday morning at 2am is, at the very least, entertaining.

non-smoking wasn't that busy; there was never really a time that i was flexing my serving muscle to the limit. i like it like that, though, because it gives me time to talk to everyone. plinko and i notice that proportionally, the more time you take to talk to your clients for that shift, the more tip you get.

seated at table ten were two people: a 'metrosexual' man, who worked at the bar next door, and a woman with him who used to work at crane alley. she was attempting to get a job at the bar next door where her friend works, but as of yet, they were both settling for breakfast.

i talked to both of them for some time about crane alley and working in bars in general. after they left, i noticed that the following was written on the back of their guest check:

mark, thank you for the great breakfast this morning -- terry -- (309) xxx-xxxx.

the handwriting didn't give a clear indication of gender, and so we had to wonder. i don't think i would call just for the fear of what i would say if the dude picked up.

candles Tuesday May 10

plinko, todd, and i took the first steps in our summer o' creativity: we made scented candles last night. pictures to follow soon.

the estate auction Tuesday May 3

for those of you who may not know, i went to pennsylvania last thursday night to help set up for the estate auction for my maternal grandparents that took place on saturday. i had to return to work saturday night, so i was unable to stay for the actual auction, but i did get to set it all up.

a lot of people have asked me how it was, and all i've been able to say is 'surreal'. my grandmother was a pack rat. the favorite story i have that uncle russ told me was that while cleaning the house out, they found two kitchen faucets. apparently, when one faucet had started to leak, they had purchased a new one. after installation, they took the broken, old one and packaged it up inside the new box. and then put it away with all the other junk.

this isn't so surreal. people collect junk, and most of the auction patrons were likely junk collectors themselves. raccoons with shiny objects, these bargain hunters convince themselves that someday, somehow, they will find a way to use that service fork. that speaker cabinet, even if the tweeter's blown, the woofer in it is a 10 inch, pristine! they don't make them like that anymore! do you know how much those things cost these days?

i understand that mentality perfectly; i have it as well. humans are by nature resourceful people who use their environment in creative, new ways to get by. however, when it manifests itself in this way it is not so relevant these days, and it causes more stress for your family when you pass on.

the main task that we had to complete, outside of moving all of the items inside under the tent outside, was moving the items that my aunt nancy had requested out from a bedroom. she hadn't contacted aunt bonnie, who was running the auction, and as such, we moved the items into the tent to be sold along with everything else.

then nancy called and said she'd be coming to pick up her things. enter drama.

at first uncle steve and i were rather indignant; we had just spent a fair amount of time moving all the items underneath the tent. all of our work had been in vain, and nancy had had a fair amount of time to come pick it up beforehand. we defiantly stated that if she wanted to come get it, she could move it herself.

that lasted for about an hour, and then watching bonnie on the phone between the lawyer and a few others, steve just started moving furniture again back out of the tent for nancy. he didn't say anything, he didn't even ask for my help despite the size of the bookshelves. he just started moving things. and that really put a point on the whole experience for me: it really wasn't that we wanted to be there in those circumstances, and it really wasn't that the labor was that bad: truth be told, my pectorals hurt on sunday, and that felt good to work them out.

we were there because we had to be, and because no one else would be.

sometimes you have to abandon the pride. sometimes you have to abandon all the who-said-what and who-should-have-done-what and who-wronged-who, slap a shit-eating grin on your face, and just do it. whatever it is. and when you do that, you don't feel angry, you don't feel cheated: you have fun.

you examine everything that is going your way in life. work stops seeming like work. and that's how it should be in a family. and that's how it was in pennsylvania.

health care Monday April 18

i'm not trying to sound too much like dad here, but.

also, i am not complaining THAT i have health insurance -- that's a great deal for me -- but:

what the heck are all of these hmo outfits doing?!

i have an "open access" program where i can go to a PPO network or an HMO network, but i get better benefits on the HMO. it took me 20 minutes and 3 people on the phone to just find a doctor that i could get my stitches out with.

stitches. i could do it myself with scissors. but that's not the point. the point is that whoever does do it, if i don't want to pay a lot, has to be in my HMO network.

listen to me. i'm complaining about HMOs and health care. i'm such a baby.

party this weekend Monday March 28

there's a party at my apartment this saturday beginning at 9pm. plinko and i are throwing it together, and it's a formal affair. if you'd like to attend, please let me know. there are a few rules: (1) you cannot wear jeans, (2) you cannot pay for anything, you can only bring things and (3) you must talk to 5 people you don't know at the party, unless you are leslie and special and exempt from this requirement.

leslie commands enough attention as it is; she'll have 5 people talking to her no matter what.

working for change Thursday March 10

one of the greek houses on campus does a yearly philanthropy where they beg for change around the quad, and then donate all that money to child abuse concerns. it's the most successful philanthrophy on campus.

my new job takes me between two buildings (one on the quad, one right off of it), and so i've passed these girls at least 10 times this week. i haven't given them a red cent yet.

it's not because i don't have any money, and while i can be cheap, i do like to give my money away, so that's not even it. there's something that bugs me about it, and i knew it from the moment i saw it; i just couldn't put my finger on it. this post is an experiment to do so, and we'll see where it leads me.

these girls stand out in the cold yelling "every penny counts", "help stop child abuse", and the like. they'll probably each collect around 20-30 dollars per day, and there are approximately 15 of them at any one time. quick math tells us that for a week, they rake in about $2,300 dollars. that's a highball estimate.

but let's take a moment to evaluate man-hours (er, person-hours). if there are 40 hours in a work week, and 15 people working, they're running $2,300 over 600 person-hours. so, the rate per person is $3.85 per hour. that's just over half of minimum wage.

that's one part of it that bugs me -- inefficiency. these girls can give up an entire week (in shifts, naturally) to beg for my change, but really, they are all young, capable workers -- workers that care, no less, because they're out there standing in the cold.

why are they begging for money to pay for help for children? why not cut out the middleman, and just try to help children on their own through volunteer projects with the champaign county DCFS? because that's not as glamorous? because it's actually REAL work?

and here's beef number two: for every single one of those girls out there, how many were wearing nice coats, nice jeans, nice earrings, listening to a nice, new ipod, and let's not forget the nice shoes. if they cut at least one thing out of their monthly budget valued at $20, multiplied by the 120 girls in the house, they'd have $2,400 right there, and they'd have saved a lot of their own time.

time they could have spent volunteering.

time they could have spent thinking about what it means to be so privledged to come from a home where they weren't the ones being abused.

does this make any sense? or am i totally off my rocker?

long story short: if you want to work for change, forget the pennies and nickels and dimes, work for change on the inside first, and everything else will fall into place.

well, that's done with Monday March 7

i have a real battle to fight at work. and it's an internal one. in this job, i can let certain things slide, or i can choose to work to make everything how i want it to be. the question i've been wrestling, then, is how futile my efforts might be in trying to control certain aspects, such as patron behavior.

students will always put their feet on the balcony. if i ask them not to, they won't, but then next time they will again. is there a point? will they ever understand the liability if something were to fall on patrons below on the main floor? why do i think about these ridiculous contingencies? why doesn't anyone else? can't they see what the problem is with that?

these are the kinds of thoughts i've been having. and i'm starting to realize that i do have a stronger background in facility management then i had thought; i am a details person, and the whole thing is one big detail, one big collection of "we must do it this way or we can't do it that way because what if", only there are thousands of what ifs, and there's no way of pinning them all down in your head, but you have to know them when you see them.

all i can do is fall back to my chinese lit class from last fall: is it better to govern with rules and regulations, or govern with the lack of? the less rules there are, the less people are breaking them: reducing the total stress felt by everyone. does that make sense? daoism versus confucianism in political processes.

i'm taking short days on monday and tuesday this week to make up for the fact that i spent the entire weekend at work. tuesday todd and i will be making a chicago trip to see erik. he's going to show us a good time, i guess.

new beginnings Wednesday February 23

it couldn't get any more perfect than that.

last weekend, my thinkpad hard drive crashed. i lost 4 years' worth of college papers, applications, resumes, statements of purpose, funny little pictures, music, and a bunch of other things that i'd rather have.

ibm was nice enough to ship me a new drive for free. i installed linux on it as an experiment; i'm currently deciding whether or not to keep it on there. sure, it's neat, and i'll learn a lot if i keep it on there, but sometimes i just get tired. i get tired of trying to keep up on all the new computer stuff; i'd rather just do what works for me and i know well.

that's the way it gets when you get older, i hear. you just want to do it the way you've always done it.

the reason i make mention of "perfection" above, is that, well, i decided it's time for the posting hiatus to end. i have time again for this website. i have time to document what i'm thinking about, and what i'm seeing. i connected my camera to transfer pictures from my camera to my pc. i finally wanted to show everyone what i've been doing for almost two months.

explorer locked up on me when i tried to copy the files over, so i killed the power on my camera and decided to try again. only, when i turned it on, it reported that the 200-odd pictures on there were, well, missing. apparently windows had corrupted my camera when it tanked.

computers haven't been very friendly to me recently, or at least, they've been okay, but they've been particularly vicious about my data.

it's a great lesson in not holding on to things that you'll never be able to hold on to. memory is pruned over time, and instead we are left with a persona based solely on those experiences, so many of which we will never remember again; eventually only what is "here and now" is what becomes important.

what we have in our heads this day, this week, this month, and even this year; that is what is important and what makes our life "right now". as soon as you wipe the slate clean -- in my case, quite physically with a hard drive crash and a camera blank -- your memories and perceptions of how things used to be just aren't so relevant anymore; you have to proceed into the new era of how things are right now.

absent Tuesday January 25

every now and again i take a small hiatus from posting. it is said that we have time for what we make time for, and i am just trying to keep ends together at this point in time. i have 3 pitchpipe projects that are all in full swing, i am starting a new full time job soon (hopefully) and am in quasi-training for that, and i am still working at merry ann's.

unfortunately, i'm going to have to quit merry ann's soon enough; or at least, only work one day a week. that's more favorable to me. however, i will understand if the management isn't willing to make that kind of concession.

i like posting to my website, though, and i like putting up new pictures for everyone. this begs the question, "then why work so much?"

that's how i was raised. at merry ann's the other day, it was snowy out, and customers kept tracking in snow and dirt and salt. and i kept mopping it. gloria doesn't speak any english, really, but she told erika to tell me that she thought i was a great worker. my mom has told me a lot of things, but one of them has always been that if you're going to work, do it well.

i say "told" instead of "taught". the process of learning things from your parents isn't always perfectly seamless. there have been times where i have done slipshod work, and i have let myself down in those times. why do anything that does not make you proud?

that is why i am a workaholic (currently, for the next few weeks). i am proud of what i do and what i can do, and it just happens that it's all culminating at the same time.

crossroads Saturday January 15

utah phillips noted that things don't just happen in a year, or in a decade, and that we merely package time as a convenience. i agree with that, but after a full year where things didn't necessarily turn out too well, i think that my life is finally coming around.

monika has officially accepted the position in campus development, and i had a meeting/interview (and that is what they termed it, slash and all) last thursday to act as visiting auditorium manager while an official search is conducted. there would be a lot of responsibility in her job; i would manage the staff (people who are now my co-workers), run events, and plan events with student groups and academic departments. i will find out early next week what they've decided to do. it is very likely that i will be fully employed with benefits, and i will try to save a lot of money this spring.

oh, heck. let's just do the laundry list of items that indicate mark's life is on the upswing:

• there is a high potentiality that i will be fully employed in a month.
• i walked back into espresso today and began to feel like i owned it again. lost my turf for a little while; starting to regain ground.
• wilco's coming to foellinger again, and that's monika's last event. i'm glad she's running it, though, because that will leave me free to, uhm, watch it.
• now i have two merry ann's t-shirts. the first one i will keep, the second one goes to justin when it's a little more worn out.
• justin is no longer in iraq*, and i will see justin on february 5th.
• nate and ashley. need i say more. apparently everyone who wants a speech gets one!
• i mailed out another japan program application. this one costs money rather than paying it, but i need options, people. if JET fell through, i'm going hook-or-crook.
• i have a great group of friends down here now. surprised i never hung out with those kids before. monika said that if i get the new job, i will need to curtail some of my activities with these kids, and i know she's right. sad day. but sacrifice is the key to success, and i know that.
• i just moved in with a bigger food and drink snob than myself: plinko. i just introduced him to the above-mentioned friends. i was happy that everyone liked each other and got along.
• yerba mahte. end of story.

* justin said to me a week or so ago, "i'm leaving iraq in a week". i don't know where he is exactly, or if he is in roscoe.

moving day Wednesday January 12

i'm moving into plinko's apartment today. sad to see this place go. i'll revise this post with pictures when i finish.

relatives Sunday January 2

one fateful day in late april, i was working on a final paper for a class when leslie messaged me telling me to join the facebook. i had initially avoided friendster, and the only reason i got on friendster in the first place was to test to see how long it would take friends to find me. friendster was merely a gateway drug to facebook.

the facebook is cool because it is grouped by school, so you can see people in your major, in your classes, or who share similar interests. however, it can also be very stalker-friendly, and you have to watch just how much information you put out there about yourself. i have a problem with this, because as i say, i am an open book.

at tara's suggestion, i searched for other people with my last name; i was shocked when i found another one. by the name of michelle.

so i sent her a message, and we've gone back and forth until i figured out that she is my third cousin. small world, right? at least, facebook makes it one... the internet.

new year's day Saturday January 1

'tis 2005, or the beginning of the second half of the decade. certainly, i remember 1990, but for some reason it feels like i should have a stronger grasp on this decade than the last.

and then it occurs to me that, simply, the farther i get from these memories, the more faded they become, and that the memory of me typing this, listening to cake, on the first of the year 2005 will fade, too, to nothing more than something i can pretend to remember when i re-read this years from now.

in a way sometimes i feel cheated by memories and life, because you spend all your time experiencing all of these things, and then you can't even narrate them later. i think that's why i tell stories, because if i didn't, then i'd slowly even forget the events that were so memorable that they required a story.

then i have to argue, what's the point of having memories anyway, then? if my brain is subconsciously making links and connections of learning based on my experiences, then does it matter if i remember them consciously later? or rather, that my brain has already been loaded with whatever learning it could garner from that experience?

okay, this post is getting ridiculous.

2005 is a good turning point, i think. done with school, time for a new chapter.

passed Wednesday December 29

ok, so now i passed all my courses. which means now i technically should graduate. however, fu gave me a C for his course. i know i had a high B/low A going into it, so he obviously marked my final paper way, way down. it was worth 40% of my final grade, and i had a, say, 90% on the rest of the work. so, to end up with a 75% (mid-C), i received a 50% on the final paper. what a nerd.

i tell you. some people are too uptight about academic deadlines.

in other news, i got an A in my chinese literature class, and a B+ in japanese (what else is new).

amelie Thursday December 23

while we're on movies, nate watched the fourth movie this morning out of the four we rented: amelie. he hadn't seen it, and i've seen it multiple times. however, that movie has the highest rewatchability of any romantic flick ever.

i absolutely love it. and i'm in love with audrey tautou. or rather, i'm in love with amelie poulain.

movie marathon Tuesday December 21

even as a non-student (hopefully, i still don't say anything certainly until i see those transcript grades, even though everyone thinks i'm being paranoid. wouldn't you be paranoid too? do you realize how much professor fu can f-u me here?) ... wait a second, let's start over. that parenthetical notation went on for way too long.

even as a non-student, i still have pitchpipe work to do. i can't escape it, it's how i pay the bill, "the bill" being my airline mileage credit card that i route all my other bills through. yet, because i'm sick with this nasty viral sore throat and fever, and because i just needed to take a day off, nate and i watched a record three films today, one of them topping out at just under three hours.

preliminary reviews:

• das boot · this film is a long, drawn-out WWII epic about the german u-boats. from the german perspective. good war films are like that, showing the humanity of the soliders themselves. enjoyable, but, just ONCE i want to see a sub movie where the depth charges actually just take a submarine down. it can be an empty submarine, that's fine, but i just am losing faith that the things actually do anything.

  i guess what i'm saying is that if japan doesn't pan out, i can call on my boys todd and nate to help me write a war movie about submarines. naomi'd produce it. i envision the initial storyboarding to go something like this:

  mark: ok, and then we've got the scene where the captain remains really calm, even though everyone else is freaking out because the submarine keeps taking water.

  nate: right. we need something to make him nervous, or at least, make the audience think that "this might be it". the nonchalant nature of the captain is not because he's seasoned, but he's too proud to admit that he dived too soon!

  mark: i like it. yeah, let's play up the vulnerability of the captain.

  todd: let's bring on some more depth charges!

  mark: sweet!

  nate: i was just about to suggest that.

  maybe we should stick to our day jobs. and maybe submarine movies should get a new theme. please. but i liked it... all THREE HOURS of the director's cut.



• hero · yeah, the one with jet li. i watched this one for the first time back at 705 california with eric and drew, jie stopped by during it too. i think he made some comment about how good it was. it's certainly pretty, but it's not a movie you can watch over and over again. maybe it's the dialogue i can't get into. i did regret not continuing with mandarin, though. in some aspects, i think spoken chinese is probably far easier than japanese.


• starsky and hutch · i know i'm too tall to be tom cruise or ben stiller, but i wouldn't mind being either if i had to be a movie star. i guess more than those two i'd rather be owen wilson, i just don't fit the blonde part. except that owen wilson was in "shanghai noon" with jackie chan. i don't know if i can forgive him for that. on one hand, yes, you can say to your friends later: "i did a movie with jackie chan", but then their follow-up is most certainly going to be "which one?".

  if chris tucker can score "rush hour" and "rush hour ii", you can do a lot better than "shanghai noon", mr. wilson. and jackie? well, he can make whatever damn movie he likes about the most ridiculous things, because that's what he's always done, and he does his own stunts. he rules in a way that you never will, owen wilson. but other than that, i'd rather be you than ben stiller. but more than that i'd rather be a taller tom cruise. i'd pass on kelly mcginnis, believe it or not. i don't do blondes. and i don't want to hear any tia carrere jokes either, because i don't think she's that cute.

  oh oh! and how can i forget to talk about snoop dogg. any movie with snoop dogg rules. hands down, no questions asked. especially a snoop dogg movie where he starts throwing down about how to golf.

so that wraps up the movie marathon for today. i hope you enjoyed the reviews. i feel less sick. yay.

running a 5k Sunday December 5

last night at my dinner party -- the biggest and most successful dinner party to date -- kathy told me she was running a 5k race today. i wanted to join in.

when i woke up today, the weather was very nice, so i could easily run outside without fear of kicking up my asthma. rather, i think it's better to run out there and get all that junk cleared out. anyway, that's gross.

i was dehydrated for the run, and i haven't been running recently. these two factors do not help when you are running a "race", and therefore set a unrealistically fast pace. my first mile was just over seven minutes, and my second one was eight.

but then i started to lose it. badly. i was by myself (the race had spread out), and all of a sudden i heard nate's voice in my head:

"phooze, don't be a wuss. it's a 5K race. we ran farther than that in boston when we went around the resevoir. c'mon phooze...push."

so i ran harder, and i knew that running harder would bring me to the finish line sooner. and so i started talking back to nate, but since he's nate, i was calling him "holmes" in my head. when i get tired while running with nate, i go off on crazy tangents to rationalize. today was no exception.

"holmes, this whole running thing, i should have had more water. i should have trained a little."

"dude, holmes, i don't know, this wind is unbearable here.."

and so i just imagined nate running right next to me, urging me on. then i looked up, and my quickened pace had caught up to the next person up: a young girl wearing a hooded sweatshirt with a name on the back:

HOLMES

and so he was. my final time was 25:05.

doh Tuesday November 23

for years, i have failed in prioritizing even the most important things. really, everything, in the end, has been "all right".

this is also why, with my JET application due december 1st in washington, d.c., i left campus forgetting my passport (which i need to apply), and a certificate from the LAS office saying i'm graduating (which i need to apply). i'll get both of them, next monday, the 29th, and fed-ex the thing next-day so it arrives on the 30th, one day early.

if it's not girigiri, life's no fun.

asian turkey Sunday November 21

i had to title this entry "asian turkey". had to, had to. just reading the phrase makes me laugh. drag out all your cultural stereotypes of cone-hats in rice paddies, small eyes, and so on, and slap it on a butterball. tell me you're not going to laugh.

on to the story.

a few weeks ago richard and i were talking in japanese class about thanksgiving dinner. he lives with his girlfriend, hiromi, and she does all the cooking. all the time. and is tired of doing all the cooking. all the time. so she told richard that it was his responsibility to cook thanksgiving dinner for their friends, given that she doesn't know anything about "american" thanksgiving anyway.

i immediately offered richard help, for two reasons: it sounded like he needed the help, and it would be fun. wait, three reasons: then i'd get food, too.

fast-forward to today, when richard informed me at three that i was welcome for dinner at six. i asked if i should bring anything, to which he said no, and so i arrived empty-handed at six-fifteen (the bus schedule didn't line up) to find richard and hiromi standing in the kitchen staring at a raw turkey on an oven rack, trying to figure out how to cook it.

i was so hungry, so this wasn't the best thing to see. but we shoved it in and got started on mario kart and jenga. i also got started on ritz crackers and pringles, so all was well in the stomach department.

three hours later, we have a real beauty. and asian beauty?

i should stop.

yikes Wednesday November 17

as nate says, "sometimes you're the pigeon, sometimes you're the statue."

i, personally, don't have anything to complain about this week: i am healthy, i have caring friends, and my dogs and family still love me. life has its ups and downs, and i better be gettin' a big karma package out of this whole affair.

kidding.

i'll be returning to champaign this afternoon.

see you then?

this week, justin. Thursday October 14

i just finished a cd for justin, who will be in iraq until february. i'm planning on sending a mini-care-package, even though, admittedly, i dislike the term.

i've gotten back on the "todolist" track this week. i think i have three going at the moment: "stuff to do before boston", "stuff to do before the weekend", and "stuff to do in general". i don't know if i can handle all of this organization.

the upshot of it, though, is that i easily finished all of my work well before the weekend (now), enabling me to have another rawktober weekend: todd's in town, gretchen's birthday is tonight, tomorrow is the wpgu alumni outing, saturday is pgu pregame, and sunday i've got to work 15 hours at the auditorium.

moreover, i had today's japanese homework done well before last night, enabling me to go to stephy's debate party. uhm, yeah. there were supposed to be rules, but it ended up with most of us just yelling at the television. bush looked markedly better than usual, which gave most of us reason for concern.

things are looking up Monday August 30

as they always do after they've been down, things are looking up. i've received calls from old clients as well as a couple new ones -- it looks like some more people want to work with me. after recent lessons learned, though, we need contracts and deposits.

surely, the downside is that i have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time, but after this past week, i think i can afford to work -- i played an awful lot.

did anyone ever see that episode of the twilight zone where the guy had contracts, and then, like, they cut out his tongue, and put it in a jar, and then it just sat there and grew baby tongues...?

it had been way, way too long since i'd seen wayne's world. last week put it fresh in my head.

update Sunday August 29

life has been busy -- i've been spending every weekend in roscoe either seeing family or seeing friends -- and i've been hanging curtains and cleaning up the room.

not to mention hanging out with people. some for longer amounts of time than others. a full update to come when i get back to school tonight.

my readership Sunday August 1

my readership increased by one today: juan told me she read my site. she saw it in the "history" drop-down box from the times i've checked at her apartment. she said that it was interesting in the sense that it was a side of me she wasn't aware of; at the same time, i don't think that it held her interest to the extent that she will continue to read it.

hence this post.

when i'm at the computer, i'm likely programming, reading, chatting, or e-mailing. all of these activities are not activities where i can carry on a conversation with other people in the room. i can't play the drums, i can't sing and play guitar at the same time, and for the most part, i can't play two hand piano. i am not a good multitasker in that sense. i shine when it comes to focusing in depth on one thing.

i can't get too upset, i used to do it to todd all the time: interrupt him at his machine to say something. now, it drives me nuts. if perchance juan does read this again, let this serve as a warning. she's good at being passive-agressive, so i'll play along by sitting here like nothing's wrong, all the while thinking about the nut job that's sitting at the other end of the bar.

recently, though, juan's been busy with her fashion business, and thus the store's been manager-less. and i abandoned the role a little when i saw that my efforts weren't helping michael per se.

call me selfish.

taking steps Tuesday July 13

i'm taking some steps to improve the quality of my life.

first, i usually will be walking down the street, and something will occur to me. who knows what it is, but it's usually something i want to remember, or something i want to blog about, or something i have to do. and then i forget about it because i have a short attention span and am easily diverted.

to combat this, i've purchased a five pack of little pocket notepads, and i intend on carrying one with me always to write down ideas, to-dos, foreign language words i learn, and maps for people who need them.

second, i have started learning chinese from the people at work. of course i'm still studying japanese, but i feel that getting a head start is always a good idea: i am a self-study person, and i will be enrolled in conversational chinese in the fall at the university. might as well be 'that kid' that everyone hates in class.

i feel the need to come up with a "third". lists usually come in threes, and at the beginning of this post, i made it sound as if there were a varitable multitude of things i have been doing. nix that, it's really only two that i can think of at the moment.

later-in-the-day update: i have rearranged my room furniture in a far more aesthetically pleasing fashion. i might actually want to hang out in my room now. word. ok, back to the original post.

maybe if i had written all of them down on my notepad i'd remember right now.

honk honk honk Sunday July 11

i will go back to champaign-urbana for my last semester, i decided yesterday. there are many explanations, most notably the gradient of the "value of staying here" and the "effort required to stay here" curve. it's rather steep.

or maybe it's the car alarm that's going off outside. and has been for 20 minutes. it's the kind of thing that would make one angry or upset, which is something new yorkers are wont to do. i like living here, and i may live here again, but i will admit that certainly this is not my preferred style. everyone here tells me how laid back i am for this city.

and i'm starting to believe it. i'll see you in urbana on august 11th.

they say it's your birthday... Wednesday July 7

tomorrow (thursday) is my twenty-second birthday. it's been two years now since i've changed the course of my weblogging. twenty-two still feels mighty young. i've had a lot of people tell me, in new york, "eh, you're young yet."

i've gotten this a few times: usually when i talk about women, either my past relationships or what i'm searching for for the future. other times i've heard this include my discussion of what i want to do with my life, and so on. generally, the older ones tell you this in a faux nostalgia for when they were your age.

of course, at age 30, i will say of 22, "i was so young then...", much in the way that 16 feels young to me now. yet, was i not a complete person at 16? did i not have a fully-functioning brain capable of emotion, rationality, and personality? likes and dislikes? and since when do all present characteristics have to be viewed in terms of the past? let me explain a little. i believe, and i have believed for a long time, that people are shaped by the experiences that they have had. through their experiences they learn a modus operandi.

some experiences are rather general, and thus can be identified as the phenomenon we call 'culture', and these help shape our generally-accepted practices referred to as 'values'. tough concepts, because they're all socially-based. for those of you who have read the short story 'the lottery', you know where i'm coming from here: from an outside perspective, other cultures and values seem ridiculous -- but from the inside it is the outside that seems ridiculous.

that said, i have my set of experiences and i'm sticking to them. that's what makes me me, and that's what makes my life, well, mine. i'm glad that i made that clear to aya today.

the best birthday present ever is coming tomorrow: nathan and i will reunite forces in the mid-evening; he's coming down from boston. i haven't seen the mug since january 4th, and i am so excited that he's going to be living with me for a spell.

lost in translation Tuesday June 8

i'm reading a japanese website looking for conversation partners in new york city -- and i come across one board titled, "how do you say this in english?" i started reading it to see if i couldn't help at all and i came across a girl trying to indicate to her boyfriend that they had grown apart, their love had faded, whatever. we've got a thousand phrases that'd work -- but apparently japanese has "自然消滅", which translates directly as 'natural extinction'. this is what the girl had suggested, asking if it was correct.

"baby, i just can't do it anymore. we're naturally extinct."

i never trust my dictionary for precisely this reason.

prolification

to make up for an entire year of crap, i've made it a goal to post at least six times a week. once i get in that habit, i'll make a new goal beyond that to make it six well-thought, good posts a week: new york city provides a lot of fodder for discussion. i can't wait for todd to get here. jen's coming down from boston on thursday, even.

weekend in the city Monday June 7

following is a semantics discussion, skip to below for the actual content if you're not up for it.

i don't know why manhattan is called 'the city'. certainly, i'm far within the limits of what is considered 'new york city', so it seems far more appropriate to call manhattan, well, manhattan. however, as part of my initiative to sound more like a new yorker (not just in the lack of a midwestern accent but also in vocabulary choices), i have adopted 'the city'. semantically, it means manhattan, but is more commonly used among new york city inhabitants who do not live in manhattan. manhattan-residing new york city inhabitants have no need to say 'the city', as those who tend to live on the penninsula rarely leave it; they would likely refer to queens as 'where the airports are'.

friday night i didn't have to work, so i went to meet up with my friend selene from high school. she's been out here since the fall of 2001, and when nathan and i came out to new york that november, we had lunch with her. (that was, by the way, still the scariest flight i've ever taken: two months after september 11th. nate and i held hands on takeoff.)

some of selene's friends are involved in theatre, and they were holding a benefit party to help defray the costs of putting on a show. selene had invited me to join this party, and i left from the store to go, uh, 'into the city'. she works at a sports bar on the upper east side, and the second floor of the bar was rented out for the purpose of this benefit. there was live music, pool, a raffle, and overall, it was a great time. selene and i, though, spent most of our time losing at pool and talking. we did some catching up, but i try not to do it.

i've always believed that catching up is what you do when you no longer have any real reason to speak with a person other than some sort of socially-constructed obligation. i don't like catching up. when i met up with nancy in march in london, she said to me after about five minutes of conversation that she felt like it was that i had never left, and that i was just a friend who went on a holiday and had just returned. while she may not have realized it, i took that as a large compliment.

nancy and i didn't need to talk about what i had done in the past four months. certainly, some of it came up out of necessity, but it wasn't the worn-out standard obligatory relationship that i have with some people: you 'catch up' with them merely because it gives you fodder for conversation, and when that runs out, there's nothing left. i'd rather avoid these situations, because i idealistically would like to believe that there is more substance to my interpersonal relationships than a roll-call of life happenings. and if that is what those relationships devolve into, then i don't try to salvage them for the sake of what they used to be, i try to accept the changing tide of people -- with no hard feelings, hopefully -- and keep going. this is what i strive to, but i know that i fail in this frequently.

elmhurst Thursday June 3

in a previous post, i incorrectly stated that my new apartment was in jackson heights. while it is very close, i actually live in elmhurst. certainly, a name means nothing, but this transcript indicates that 11373 is "believed to be the most culturally diverse ZIP code in the nation". a block from my house there are lots of koreans, i live with a mexican and a black guy, the chinese are around, italians, jewish. the list goes on.

i had the day off today, so i took the time to explore. i walked the span of the neighborhood from the roosevelt station (west end) all the way to queens center mall (east end). i stopped in the park off of elmhurst avenue, where i continued my book on japanese reading comprehension, and then i walked to the elmhurst station (more or less the geographical center). there is a large asian supermarket that i've visited with michael and juan -- they have good stuff. there's also a shanghaiese restaurant that tried for lunch today. the tables on either side of me were speaking in japanese, and i had so much food that i had to take some home -- despite that i spent only $6, including tax and tip. next to this restaurant is a vietnamese place and a thai place, which i will have to try.

there's also a man on the street corner who sells from a hot dog vendor cart, but instead of hot dogs and soft pretzels, he vends steamed dumplings and other edibles. oh, and there's a twenty-four hour laundromat three blocks from me.

in short, i don't just like my new apartment, i dig the whole neighborhood.

getting better all the time Thursday May 13

listening to: the shins - young pilgrims
reading: the fine print on my new credit card
feeling: like everything's getting better

today, i have to write my last paper for school. it's not bad, though. a five to six pager on differences between china and japan. i could write it without a single reference, and i will probably do that, then go to the library and get some sources. point is, i'm taking a 100-level class after taking 300-levels, and i've gotten cocky about it.

so cocky, in fact, that i've taken most of today to sleep in, take care of my laptop, order a new cell phone, and get a new credit card. why, you ask?

• new cell phone
  sprint's been getting on my nerves ever since they reset my contract without my approval. i got out of that, so that's fine, but i had to do a lot of talking, and i can't sneeze without it resetting my contract for a full year. forget that. also, t-mobile's going to offer me $15/mo cheaper for more minutes. and a 917 area code phone number. manhattan is so sexy. and the t-mobile woman and i talked for about an hour on the phone today. she's 23, lives in idaho, and has two children. she was really sweet, and we talked about her deadbeat ex-husband.
• new credit card
  i've been using a credit card for years that hasn't been earning me airline miles. i don't know why, so i've finally gotten around to applying for a new card. i'll be with american; while united has given me better service recently, american does two things i like: offers good deals to NYC from chicago, and is pushing new direct flights to osaka from chicago. that's good.
• ibm has the best service
  i called ibm on monday to report my malfunctioning laptop. tuesday morning there was a return box, postage paid, sitting in front of my door. wednesday morning my laptop was repaired in tennessee. thursday morning the laptop was sitting on my desk, all shipping fees free. and everything's included in my three year parts and labor warranty. ibm is, by all means, worth the extra expense when purchasing a laptop.

the reason i'm so stoked is because i am one day away from being done with school, and new york is starting to get real exciting. i realize now that even if i stayed in champaign this summer, i'd have a good time, but i'd probably waste my time chasing girls that aren't worth my time, and new york is all about not doing that: the focus is me. i'm taking my guitar, my kanji books, and probably a mandarin for beginners book. i'm thinking of getting private lessons too. oh, and i have to read the unbearable lightness of being, too. i've heard such good things about marquez to have never read him.

it's about girls, right?

texas hold'em Wednesday May 12

all-night texas hold'em at my apartment tonight (wednesday). it's going to be a lot of planet djs, but it doesn't matter who's playing. just come take their money. $10 buy-in with option for $20, if you're feeling sinister, and we'll divide up loot into first, second, and third place.

10:30pm. e-mail me if you need directions to my place.

byob and provide your own snacks, i'm just providing the apartment.

the planet barcrawl Thursday May 6

the planet had its barcrawl last week. everyone was there, but that's not saying much, given that i don't know anyone there anymore. certainly, that didn't stop lots of individuals from approaching me and saying, "hey! mark! what's up!" and such. luckily, marian, lindsay, and a couple other non-planet people were there, so i was playing the "i'm going to introduce my friend to find out your name" game. it's a beautiful social construct.

laurel got some great pictures; i forgot my camera at home. some results from the evening:

• stacy, a freshman in promo, somehow entered her number in my cell phone. of course i won't call her. i don't like blondes so much.
• kathy and i are setting up a poker night (hold 'em) at my place next week. when i mentioned this again to kathy yesterday, she didn't even remember talking to me. how sad.
• i paid back heather's friend jessica the five dollars i owed her. true, i was my last five, and i've spent a lot of money recently, but i hate owing people money. hate it.

the barcrawl t-shirts were baby blue and v-necks. how...metrosexual.

an interesting night out Wednesday April 28

listening: dj shadow - stem-long-stem
reading: my btw 250 group's final project draft
feeling: shellshocked

tonight started with long aim conversations i couldn't seem to get out of. certainly, i didn't want to get out of them; b&tw writing assignments are far less interesting. i knew that i would do it eventually, but i kept delaying. delaying, that is, until katy picked me up for a quick jaunt at murphy's.

right before i left, todd said something about this summer. he indicated that regan had located (perchance, not intentionally) a sublet for the entire summer for $120. i was going to charge her $420 for the entire summer. i think her choice is clear, despite the fact that i don't know if i'm going to be able to go to new york city long-term now. i'm pretty distraught about it.

sickness Wednesday April 7

last night i came down with strep-like symptoms, and so i'm holed up inside my apartment until tomorrow when i will (hopefully) feel better. i'm going to see eternal sunshine tomorrow, finally, and lastly, it's basically for-sure that i'll be in new york city this summer.

rock out.

intensity Tuesday March 9

sometimes, life just gets really intense. school work, work work, friends. exams. feels good though, makes you know you're alive.

doesn't leave you with much time to blog, though. see y'all on the other side of wednesday...

summer plans Tuesday March 2

currently contemplating my summer plans. some potentials:

• taking a summer session ii class and working in c-u
• selling software to radio stations who need help
• going to new york city to work
• bicycling to roscoe from champaign
• getting wisdom teeth pulled
• selling all of my worldly possessions, buying a one-way to beijing, driving north to inner mongolia, becoming a desert nomad, and never looking back
• bringing chance to champaign-urbana, or the desert

the leap year day Sunday February 29

perspective is the angle from which we see a given set of circumstances. the circumstances are indeed fact, but since the facts can be interpreted from infinitely many perspectives, does any true reality for a larger-than-one subset of human beings actually exist? certainly, the role of spirituality and religion enters into play in the answer to that question, but in reference to an age of individualism, is there a point to anything?

i understand that asking the 'is there a point to anything' question is a dangerous one. i'm not a nihilist, but i do think that i, as many others also do, find it easy to get 'caught up' in circumstances. as a result, i award them value in my own life, and therefore focus on them further, increasing their relative importance. the same can be said of greek life and its consequences, the radio station, schoolwork, or any other presence in this town (or the world, if we're thinking globally) that i may, or may not, choose to make a part of my existence.

let's show what i mean by example, particularly because this is the example that led me to this post. we'll play the 'what's the point' game on THIS particular activity in my life.

what is the point in running a business? sample answers include:

• because money is necessary
• because i like web systems
• because it is good experience
• because i like the feeling of doing good work

now, i could stop at the first-order, but it gets more interesting to take the subset of the first and iterate:

why is money necessary?

• because i like to travel
• because i like to live comfortably
• because i am a consumer at some level
• because i have decided it is necessary to obtain certain goals

and so on. i'll spare the details of spelling out my mental reiteration of this task serially on this page. the net effect is that i question what i do on a daily basis based on my more long-term goals and wants, which makes me question what i value. in the end, it is our values that are most important to us.

the point is to say that i think that some things i was doing, and on some levels, things i still am doing, do not meet my values and goals. i do them solely because i am 'caught up' in them, and i have ascribed a fake value to them. the question is, beyond accepting that, do i have the self-awareness necessary to devalue them intellectually and emotionally? do i have the self-awareness necessary to change my perspective manually?

truly, we can convince ourselves of anything, but is it better to let our perspective shift as a function of the circumstances and people that we make a conscious effort to put ourselves around, or should our perspective be defined by our own interpretation of what it should be? truly, if we choose only one, we're going to end up blind, for alone we are close-minded, but as a group we are bound to think together.

as if the answer to everything, ben franklin reminds us that moderation is the key.

email Thursday February 26

after my last post, a lot of things i'd like to say sound trivial. .

i finally switched over to cites express e-mail from the students cluster. years of dutiful service, and then they had to go and rip it out of my grasp less than a year before i graduate. cruel, cruel world. the lack of a telnet connection to my e-mail is really going to cramp my style.

last friday night Tuesday February 24

tonight, katy and i went to oakley's to study. we talked about sparta on the way home (the band, not the civilization), and then the car fell silent for no particular reason around lincoln & university.

at lincoln & green, katy started talking about the girl who died on campus over the weekend. i had been thinking about the exact same thing, but neither of us had mentioned it all night until that point.

if you're not aware, a sophomore was the victim of a hit-and-run accident on fourth and john last friday night, and she died later. i don't recall the details precisely, but the article is here. i realize that people die all the time, and that people who don't deserve to die die all the time. this woman, though, was killed by a vehicle, and the fact that that driver has failed to take responsibility for his or her actions saddens me.

i would take five years' jailtime for involuntary manslaughter before i would drive off. the guilt would never go away, but i feel that my social responsibility would be fulfilled. that's the least i could get. i would like to think that anyone with any humanity would have stopped, but she was found in the street.

i considered expounding upon this to talk about unjust death in general, but i'd rather not obscure this particular story, and i don't want to turn this into what "i think" about it. maybe that will be next.

please give her a moment for reflection. her name was nadia chowdhury.

nathan is 25 Monday February 23

i've been spending most waking minutes trying to finish up some changes on gorsvp, get the demo site ready for jj's station, and do homework in between.

i have to take a small break, though, to wish nate a happy 25th birthday. i'll spare you and him the sappiness. i will say, though, that my only hope as a future father of multiple children (if that happens) is that they can have the relationship that nathan and i do. i extend my thanks to the parents for setting that up right.

i've uploaded pictures my mom sent of nathan at various ages.

busy Tuesday February 10

between class, work, and personal obligations, tuesday is just going to be too busy of a day to post. but i want to post, i've got a story about long distance, and a couple comments about the aftermath of my paper that i've previously mentioned.

research Wednesday February 4

for my bt&w class, we were assigned an "audience analysis" of one of our classmates. my problem is that i don't know anyone else in the course, so i must pick at random. yet, to avoid picking someone who's difficult to research, i did some preliminary investigation on google, and i've got it narrowed down to the girl who likes cooking (who coincidentally stopped sitting next to me. i must have said something), the girl who came last in a high school gymnastics tournament (look for uneven bars), and the guy with this 1337 page as his domain namesake.

leave your choice in the comments, please.

also, it just occurred to me that my classmates themselves might be doing the same thing, in which case they could be reading this text. in that case, you could choose me, because this site will tell you anything you need to know if you read enough of it.

happiness Thursday January 29

listening to: cake - mister mastodon farm
reading: the hipster handbook
feeling: stellar

on monday, i was in a good mood. i danced while making beef stew. on tuesday, i was in a good mood. i started reading books again. on wednesday, i was in a good mood. i continued going swimming at freer.

and now, on thursday morning, i'm in a good mood. my throat feels better. i'm looking around my life and realizing that my efforts to simplify are working, and i'm just a happier person as a result. and cake is definitely helping.

now if i could only get chance to stop taking kleenex out of the trash can in the bathroom when he gets mad at me.

final product Tuesday January 27

the final product

this was one of the best cooking experiences i've ever had. i'd like to thank everyone who came over and enjoyed my food, and i'd like to thank rick conners for the recipe. cara, you know what it tastes like, you should make it. it was easier than i thought it was going to be, but it does take a couple hours.

beef stew Sunday January 25

last night i cooked a dinner for katy and her friend, thuan, and liz and her roommate andrea. stir fry and rice, some sauteed squash, nothing special.

last night, something small.
tonight, i rest.
tomorrow night, the world: rick conners' beef stew recipe.

i must say, this eating-out ban is getting better all the time.

ack it's been a week Wednesday January 21

ack. i was supposed to post alton day ii, well, the day after. however, this is what happens when you put almost 1,000 miles on your car within a one week period. and then you come back to have class starting. and a speech due on the second day as one of those lame attempts by a professor to get you to think their class is worthy of more of your attention than the others. i've seen it all before, these silly tricks don't work on me.

okay, tonight the rest of the alton pics will follow, as well as some from the weekend, and my thoughts on music and food. oh, and for the two people this applies to, read my two-minute speech in japanese on the other end of this site and leave comments.

some people do, some people don't Thursday January 8

it's been an interesting past couple of days, to say the very least. nathan's done with his time in champaign-urbana, and i'm "alone" without him for the first time in about three-and-a-half years. i took him to the airport on sunday and dropped him off without incident, because as i've learned, i'm a "hey, i'll see you lateron" goodbye person. in fact, i've already had thoughts about a japan-australia tour this summer. with schaffer, if the mug can afford it. well, if i can afford it. but, like london, somehow i'll find a way.

after dropping nathan off at midway, i drove down cicero towards 91st, and i saw cara for the first time since late august. basically, we sat and talked for quite awhile, and she and i both learned that we'd been operating under false assumptions of the other person's previous thoughts and circumstances. one could argue that "the past doesn't matter" in a logical sense, what is is what is, but i would disagree in the sense that personal relationships don't always follow the logical path, and people simply ignore a past that involves emotion if those emotions aren't clearly displayed on the table.

to that end, yes, i told cara a lot of the negative things i thought i would never tell her, and the resulting effect, i surprisingly found, was that i actually felt much better afterwards. moreover, we mutually explained our positions, and understood each other in a way that will more or less allow us to interact now without bitterness.

however, there's the other wildcard: you can't take for granted that the other person is ready to hear what you may have to say, and if they're not mature enough or it's just too soon in whatever context, it's entirely possible that they'll avoid you and the issue entirely as a defense mechanism for avoiding pain, reinforced by the rhetoric of independence and "cutting off what hurts you".

nate, maybe it's better for me that you've left: instead of having coffee with you to talk about where i'm at, i'm forced to blog it in hopes that you'll read it. which requires writing it down.

side note: the mediation training comes in handy in my life yet again, with conflict resolution styles (be it avoiding or collaborating), and converting positions to needs and wants. interested? email me, or nate.

new year's eve Wednesday December 31

naomi: don't break any hearts tonight
mark: c'mon
mark: pleeeeease
mark: maybe just one?
naomi: ok just one
naomi: but she has to be cute
naomi: none of this ugly chick heart breaking

home Wednesday December 24

the interesting thing about winter break is that it usually offers time for introspection and perspective. you think about where you were a year ago (due to the direct connection of memory from the last christmas), you think about the people you talked to, etc.

last night, out of nowhere, i got an instant message from a girl who i haven't talked to in a year. mind you, she's been on my buddy list for that entire year, but when you're in a relationship with someone else, you don't go making a habit out of sending messages to girls that are only on your buddy list because you were previously interested in them. well, i don't, at least. it's common courtesy.

well, after a little conversation, it comes about that she's recently single by her own doing. then, today, just before i wrote this post, i got another message from another girl i haven't talked to in about two months. her first question of me? when cara gets back from spain. and i told her, "well, she's back, but we're not dating anymore", to which she also tells me that she's recently single by her ex-boyfriend's doing.

now, i'm not trying to say that these women are messaging me solely because they are single now; rather, as i see it, the reason lies in what i mentioned at first: lots of free time and perspective offered by the holidays. people who i've previously had some interesting times with (as friends or otherwise) are left to take stock of themselves and their interpersonal relationships -- and then act on those decisions. it's rather refreshing.

i suppose that leaves the question: "mark, who are you going to catch up with that has been out of your life for awhile?" i can only think of one, but i don't think i'm ready to be the better person and i don't think he's ready to forgive. so we'll give it a rest.

i'm going to go get some chinese food (the real reason for anyone to go to roscoe).

howard dean Sunday December 7

i just finished talking with zack rosen, a friend who lived in the dorm with me two years ago. zack came to my room frequently, and we were far better friends then than we are now. but that's not to say that i don't like him anymore, in fact, i often wonder why we stopped hanging out when we stopped cohabitating the same dorm floor. he's a good guy.

but he messaged me the other day to show off: he's taking this year off from school to work on howard dean's campaign, and while i don't think i maintain the political gusto necessary to leave school for an entire year to work politically, i must say that it is inassailably cool that his picture is on the front page of the new york times' website (on the bottom right, if it's still there). in fact, it was just enough to make me jealous.

so, when he messaged me today, i mentioned that i was doing PHP work as well in my free time. and SQL work. and that's what they use on the dean campaign. he asked if i would help. so, before i signed myself up for anything, because i don't even know who i want for vote for yet, just so long as they are not republican in the bush sense of the word, i looked at dean's stance on the issues. truly, he's got the same visionary statements as any other presidential hopeful about the environment and education, and i don't believe it's possible to do everything as president. the system needs some help, too. but, his policy on campaign finance reform is sexy, and the grassroots campaign is equally interesting.

now, back to me. i don't know anything about RSS. i know what it can do, but i don't know how to integrate RSS and XML into PHP. for those of you who don't program, just assume any three-letter combination of capital letters is another language of information exchange. thus, on a trial basis, i am going to design an RSS dashboard interface that will theoretically integrate all of the individual (not-so-good) RSS interfaces that the software on deanspace.org already has. this software will be used in the synchronization of the deanspace.org sites, which are sites that are "underneath" the dean campaign: iowa has a site, new hampshire has a site, and so on. it's not entirely based on states, but think of it as small support groups for a larger cause.

i'd say that last sentence is what was most interesting to me about the dean campaign. there was a rhetoric that the campaign is not solely about presidency, it is about the attempt to use new social networks (i.e., the internet) to help america rediscover its sense of community by introducing people who have similar interests. america has a dwindling, suffering public life. it would make me feel better to do anything i can in any attempt to counteract that tendency.

liz phair Tuesday November 18

i'm at the load-out for the liz phair show, it's quickly approaching 1am: my eleventh hour in the building. today was a productive day: eleven kanji worksheets, two pages of sentences using those kanji, i met with the planet's new graphic designer, made a fun banner about the opening bands contest, and in general, did absolutely nothing that i needed to do to get ready for my vacation. but then again, you can't really get ready for a vacation that you have no plans for.

some people have asked me if i'm disappointed that i'm not going to spain, or if it's still worth going at all, etc. but really, money isn't really good to me for anything other than spending. my primary goal with the passport is to fill it before it expires in 2009. moreover, now i just have a reason to go to gibraltar some other time. post suggestions of where i should go in the comments. i've got until next monday 'til i have to leave katy's flat in nottingham.

so, no, in response to those people: i'm not disappointed that i'm not going to spain -- it was my own choice.

moving on Monday November 10

sitting in the art & design computer lab, i just read todd's reincarnation and decided that i'd like to start posting something of value again. most of my thoughts recently haven't been on a weblog, but in the conversations with friends over dinners, coffee, and the like. worse yet, none of it was written down, only written in the memories of the people who partook in those conversations.

moving on is a process that i forgot all about. the last time i got out of a relationship that was very emotionally significant was high school, and we all know that gina was well deserving of any ill will i held against her; i'm not saying that bitterness and angst are key variables in the moving on process, and i actually think that they hinder more than anything. however, i have said before that i really hope, to this day, that gina feels residual guilt about her performance in regards to me.

in general, you've got to meet new girls, you've got to make sure not to take the temptation of comparison, and you've got to accept that you've got to start from square one -- and i think that's probably the hardest part. i'm reminded of the shelving unit i'm likely going to buy from todd, where you don't know if you put it together wrong until you get to the last piece, and then you have to start all over again a number of times before just getting lucky.

well, it's similar at least. maybe it's more like setting up an intense domino chain. o'leary walked by just now and i said, "give me something that's like, really annoying when you have to start it over from the beginning because you worked really hard on getting it to where it was." he suggested jenga. but the thing with jenga is, there's a foregone conclusion of impending doom. and that's not what i really wanted to communicate -- eventually, it doesn't fall. also, it gets weaker with time, not the other way around, so i don't really think that that applies.

a house of cards! yeah, that's it. it's difficult to get started, then it gets easier. but, it's worse when it doesn't work after it's been built up so much.

hiatus Tuesday October 28

i'm not going to be blogging for awhile; a couple weeks, maybe? i don't really need to go over why, it's just that i think it's best for me right now. happy 2nd birthday, blog.

cubs Thursday October 16

i haven't been particularly busy on any one thing, but it's been a funky past couple of weeks in general. it's time to break out of that funk, and no one's going to get me out of that funk except me. i've got to turn it around by myself.

i think that the cubs losing last night really helped matters, though -- as much as i wanted to see them go to the series, it would have most certainly made me waste even more of my time sitting at murphy's with naomi watching them get so close and then lose. nate summed it up best by saying that this is the way of the cubs: "extreme excitement followed by extreme disappointment". naomi, you know i've had a good time with you, that's not the issue. it's just that i wasn't doing other things, like posting to the blog, or giving myself enough time to be alone to really think about my life (and therefore having anything meaningful to blog).

jason the sales manager at the radio station asked me if i did any web work on the side because a client of his asked about me. i can't deny that the radio station website hasn't been a great way for me to get new business. i think i finally have a handle on the business now; it doesn't consume my life because i have people helping me, and i put it into perspective. as a result, i'll probably continue with it for the rest of this year, or as long as i have clients. it's a tough decision whether or not to seek out new ones, because i feel like if i do that, then i'm locking myself into this line of work for longer than i potentially want to do it.

in other news, we're at t minus 33 days until spain. practically a month, it's a snap.

details Wednesday October 8

it's amazing to me how some people don't pay attention to details. there's some artwork on display here at espresso, and the one in front of me is this interesting piece that is about the american public's fascination with watching violence.

however, the blurb beneath the picture is all written in times new roman. all i have to say is that i were in the art market, i would never purchase anything where the author failed to make his or her package complete: artwork for sale does not stop at the canvas but continues to marketing and display, and times new roman doesn't sell anything. details count, and i don't understand why some people fail to understand that. if you do something, do it well.

the saga continues... Tuesday September 9

it's time to update the cute girl from math class story.

nathan called me this morning asking if i wanted to eat lunch at home of gourmet, the stellar msg-loaded chinese joint next to espresso in champaign. we walked in, ordered, and sat down at a booth by the window. after a few minutes of disappointingly sub-par hot and sour soup (which is usually one of the home of gourmet highlights), i noticed that the girl seated in the booth directly behind me had a familiar voice, and then proceeded to use her own name in the conversation she was having with someone else. and it was the cute girl from math class.

and then it all made sense. the last time i really saw this girl was spring 2002, when i was dating heather....this girl must be able to smell girlfriends on me or something, because this is the first time i've seen her since last year. well, cute girl from math class, if you're a stalker enough to read this website, i am sorry to inform you that just because cara isn't around doesn't mean i'm getting around. i don't mind if you eat at the same locations i do, but let's just keep it at that. you can have home of gourmet on monday, wednesday, and friday, and i'll get it on tuesday-thursday and every other weekend. fair?

excuse the digression.

since i hadn't noticed the girl until i was back-to-back with her, i still hadn't seen her. when i got up to leave, i had the home of gourmet folks pack up my extra garlic chicken, and in a sleek, sly head turn, i staked it out. i would like to say ahead of time that such properties of a woman's body are unique, individual, and special, and whether or not a girl is her proper weight has no bearing on her worth as a person. but, in this particular configuration (as you will see lateron) i feel i have the right to say something:

she got fat.

yikes.

she's not so cute anymore.

it must be at least thirty pounds.

right now you're thinking i'm an ass.

so here's the justification.

the last time the-now-not-so-cute girl and i met up was at the freer pool, where i had been swimming with todd. this was prior to japan, and thus at that time i was still weighing in at about 185 (as opposed to the current 170-175). as a result, when i had finally introduced myself to her back then, i then proceeded to get out of the pool -- and exposed how built i wasn't. a lot of people seem to think i'm muscular based on my build when they see me with a shirt on...don't be fooled. i think she was, and i think she came to realize at that exact moment that it's all belly. you can say "whatever" if you'd like, but you didn't see her facial expression. i did. i honestly think that's why i never heard from the girl after that.

i don't know if she saw me come in and out today. doesn't matter either way; but if she did, my only wish is that she thought best not to judge my belly by its cover. i think that leaves us with only one conclusion:

mark 1, formerly cute sorority girls 0.

try layin' off the beer, sweethaart.

the new place Thursday August 28

i cannot reiterate how much i like my new apartment. it's clean, it has hardwood floors, i have nice roommates who appreciate aesthetics the way i do, it's cheap, and it's in sleepy urbana. just where i like it.

the lack of cockroaches really helps out, too.

i apologize for the digression and the icky imagery. i'm going to really enjoy living here, and most of the tenants of our building obviously feel the same way: out of five apartments, ours was the only one not to be re-signed. i might just have to put off going to japan just to live here...well, we'll see.

one thing that i didn't realize about apartment living, though, is the consideration of neighbors. in the house, i knew all of my neighbors, and could ask them to turn down music or whatever without feeling bad about it; oddly, i never needed to do such a thing in that old shack called 705. but here, with wooden floors and radiator heating (paid for in the rent!), sound tends to travel. i found this out a couple of days ago when i was still unpacking.

all of a sudden, it was highway to hell. or was it big balls? oh, i don't even remember. but it was AC/DC. i'm sure of that -- it made me think of dad immediately. the basement apartment was blaring AC/DC, and i could hear it clearly as i unpacked my desk items. out of nowhere, i heard a woman's voice (knowing that a man lives downstairs):

"Ohhh, that hurts SO much...Owwww...."

this began approximately forty-five seconds into the song, well before the main riff got going. the woman's voice continued to express pain, but it wasn't unintentional; you could tell from her voice that she was willingfully being harmed, so i didn't knock to see if everything was all right. eventually, the music ended and the voice ceased complaining about the pain. there are only two possible solutions here:

(a) my downstairs neighbor is into s & m, and his girlfriend likes to be hurt in bed. this scenario is possible, as i know every now and then we all like to get our bedroom freak on to classic AC/DC tunes. however, i think it is unlikely in light of (b).

(b) my downstairs neighbor is running a tattoo parlor out of his apartment. this would explain the woman's voluntary pain, and his selection of loud music to attempt to cover up the evidence of such pain. if someone heard about his services, he could be fined for not having a license...i bet they license that sort of thing...yup. right here.

so really, what happened? let's hear your version of the story in the comments.

burma Wednesday July 16

until a couple of weeks ago, my knowledge of burma was that it existed as a developing country in southeast asia next to thailand (thank you, map games), and that a couple of my shirts were "made in burma". however, i've learned a lot recently thanks to my political science international relations class that mandates that i write something topical about current international relations (and everyone in the class decided that iraq and the middle east were off-limits for a 10-page paper).

yesterday, the united states house of representatives voted almost unanimously (418-2) to enact economic sanctions against burma until the military junta running the country releases the democratic party leader aung san suu kyi from house arrest. in response to this action, the myanmar government (what the government of burma calls themselves) released the following statement, which i read in this article:

Myanmar's junta on Wednesday condemned a United States vote to tighten economic sanctions on the military-run country, describing them as "weapons of mass destruction" that would create havoc.

yes, that's right. they used our own language against us. and i think it's brilliant. however, the burmese government's resiliency will not help them as they lose over $350 million in exports, and i suppose i should not laugh about a government acting in a way to force hundreds of thousands of its workers to lose their jobs.

fear not, ladies and gentlemen. it's all in the name of democracy. and i'm not being sarcastic, that's the truth.

barbeque Friday July 11

i don't think the weather could cooperate better. it's going to be partly sunny today, with a high of eighty degrees. the lawn has been cut, the t-shirts laid out, and all that's left to do is shave, get an outfit going, and shape the burgers. drop by at 6 for the barbeque.

oops Monday June 30

so i have two posts in queue, but those were enough to knock off the posts that were already up on the website...so sorry for displaying a blank page over the weekend. i've got to transfer some pictures from CD to my computer before i make my next post, should be up tonight.

ah, yes. summer. Tuesday June 17

i've only been home eight days; it feels like a whole summer. first of all, i've had lots of free time to do the things i need to do. thus, i have finished the entire miller lite site that i had to design (it's really simplistic, but based on the business, what more can you do with it?), and taken major strides in getting a tax break for this year.

you see, i will be receiving a taxable amount of income for all of my web work, so the goal is to operate in the red for as long as possible in order to build a business while not paying taxes. and that's not tax evasion, it's what most businesses do while starting up.

the next "work" related project, then, is to deck out pitchpipe.org. if this page is going to representing the business end of mark, it might as well look that way. thus, you'll probably no longer be able to get to this page from that page, so update your links if you're just lazy and use the root domain.

for the record, on june 10th 2003, champaign county recognized the existence of pitchpipe productions, a company whose sole owner is myself. rawk. and since i use my laptop for a lot of business, that's going to be the first major expense i have.

but it's not like i've been all work and no play all week. quite contrary.

it's a walk in the park

frisbee golf, or "frolf", as schaffer sometimes calls it, is a walk in the park. it's not like real golf, either -- at least, i haven't started caring about it enough to care whether or not the frisbee goes in the basket in the first try or not. sure, it's nice, but i almost feel as if it's out of my hands, like fate has already decided (despite the fact that i'm the one throwing it).

we've been consistently chillin', i've been seeing lots of friends, having a blast, cooking, starting up poker nights, meeting people at murphy's, having radio shows, and feeling generally amazing. i love this town in the summer. or could it be that i'm still feeling the "i-just-rearranged-furniture" high?

a year in review Sunday May 25

view the junior year best-of photo album.

spring Sunday April 27

i've been taking a lot of spring pictures

i tried to catalogue the changing season in the fall, and now i find myself doing the same thing in the spring. jon may tout arizona as a place with great weather, but i'm going to have to say that change is good. it is also very possible that this is my favorite season, especially right before midsummer, and i couldn't appreciate it so much if it was a constant temperature (with cacti, to boot).

jon just had his 21st birthday, and i'm just taking some time to realize just how old we've all gotten now. last night i had the distinct pleasure of going to a champaign party with a freshman-year friend -- i dangerously maneuvered around the urine in the hallway outside of the apartment with my open-toed birks, and the thick translucent plastic really put a nice touch on the carpeted floor of the apartment.

the reason, however, that everyone loves the round balconies (i don't know if that's what they are actually called, but that is their campus name) is because of the, well, huge, round balconies. i stood out there, unwilling to pay even $3 for a cheap cup of beer, and talked for an hour with the only two people i knew there: the two people i came with.

but my shoes speak of the facade i'm constructing. any self-respecting champaign party-goer knows better than to wear birks, and that made me stick out like an urbana hippie. but that's not the only reason i'm not really meeting anyone new at this party. my friends have friends there, and i could easily get involved and meet other people that way, but the point is that i feel like i'm just done with that style of college life. not that i ever took too much part in it in the first place.

at least, i feel older, and as i turn 21 this summer, my insurance rates that i don't even pay go down, and i can buy some nice cooking wine on my own accord. yet, even though i don't view this age-milestone as some raucus excuse to drink excessively, like most students, i would like there to be a raucus of another kind.

in this town, it's hard enough to try to get people together for anything; everyone is so busy. however, for some reason, 21st birthdays have maintained this uber-important status that will cause even enemies to ignore their differences and at least "stop by" for the 21st celebration. i'm sure you've all done this. the conversation goes like this:

a: want to go out to a movie?
b: yeah, but i have to stop by (fill in bar name here, depending on the taste of the birthday person); it is their 21st birthday (insert some span of time that may not necessarily be that specific day), and they invited me, so i should at least stop by and say hello...

dramatizations aside, the more organized and constructed the birthday celebration is, the more these people feel the obligation to "stop by". and if you can rope them in with t-shirts, you're even better off. therefore, for my birthday this summer, i aim to have just about everyone i regularly know and like hanging out with me. i'm going to try to focus on friendship, not alcohol, and i already know that i'm going to run into a wall there when it comes to mister ryan schaffer. but i'll deal with him when he gets here.

the point is: there will be a big 21st birthday celebration for me, phooze, the weekend after my july 8th birthday this summer. circle it in red, and keep watching here for updates.

renaissance Wednesday April 9

so i just registered for classes for next semester, and i had a hard time selecting courses. you see, there's so much that i want to take now, now that i don't have to take a strict requirement, that i don't even know if i can fit it all in. to choose from:

• japanese 205: requirement. what would i do if i wasn't taking it?
• ealc 298: colloquium in modern asia. i'm required to take one of these 298 classes before i graduate, and the topic is always changing. modern asia beats modern japanese religion anyday, which is what the topic was this semester when i dropped it.
• art & narrative media 331: image studio. need i say more?
• art & narrative media 360: moving image. naomi wants me to take this class with her; apparently, you get to make movies and such and express yourself creatively. not a bad gig, if you ask me.
• ealc 170: civilizations of china, japan, and korea. another requirement, probably will be a walk in the park after these 300 level ealc classes i've been taking.
• music 260: choir. i'm in it now, there's no reason not to be in it next fall.
• political science 279: international relations (advanced composition). this has just always sounded like a cool class to me.
• chinese 101: it's never too early to start.

i'll take your suggestions in the comments.

fox (for entertainment only) news Friday March 28

has the whole world gone mad?

we all knew that fox news was bunk, but this, well, in the words of old strong bad, "'dis one takes da cake." not that i watch much television, but this is my public decree that i will never watch fox again (except for the simpsons).

spring break plans Wednesday March 19

so i've been running in circles so much that i haven't sat down and made time for my baby, my website. i've been cheating on you, pitchpipe.org. wpgu.com is my new mistress, and i have to give her a makeover before april 1st. no, i'm not back-burnering you baby, it's just i have a job to do.

anyway, it's time for mark's spring break plans:

• see guster. they're coming to chicago and st. louis. if i can't make time for them, then what kind of person am i?


• go home. i need an occasional influx of china palace buffet, pietro's pizza, dachshund, and rents to keep myself going strong. nate, what are your exact salt lake plans now?


• redesign wpgu.com. i inherited this task. stuff happens.


• sell my soul to erik white. for those of you who know erik, you may be well-aware that the man knows what he's doing with computers -- so much that he's subcontracting me to work on a project for him. but i'm not allowed to talk about it. when we're the next big IPO, then i'll tell you all abo-- wait, it's not 1999 anymore; nevermind.


• read ahead. the idea i have is that if i move ahead in all my classes, i'll have time to pleasure-read. right. but, i have to finish regan's book before the end of the semester.

sigh Monday March 17

this is another "please-come-back-soon-because-i-promise-and-i-really-mean-it-this-time" post. i have to work with class and work today until five, and after that i promise to tell you all about my weekend. there are some new pictures up, however, so check those out.

the final decision Sunday March 9

i have decided to go to japan for an entire year for the purposes of studying abroad. after consulting my parents, my friends, and of course, making a necessary withdrawl from the bank of nate, i have come to the following conclusions on studying abroad for a full year:

• if i do not go, i will not have the opportunity to do so later on the same terms. if i return to japan again after graduation, i will face the costs of living on my own; i will have no student loans, scholarships, or parental support. therefore, it would be advantageous to master japanese by residing there while still maintaining student status.
• if i go for a semester on the senshuu university program, i will be repeating the kind of program i have done before, and while the actual language program may benefit my japanese immensely, i am not intending to studying abroad for language purposes only.
• todd will theoretically have an easier time finding a full-year roommate as opposed to a roommate that will occupy fall-only. the converse of this is that todd and i will not live together in a two-bedroom apartment; something we have decided would be a lot of fun and quite an extension of our allen 41 bachelor pad.
• if this experience does not open any doors for me, i do not see any other doors closing merely as an act of going. there are, of course, issues of place-time, i.e., if i were here, i would be in the right place for something, but the same could be said of anywhere.
• most of the people i know are on the five-year plan, so when i return to uiuc, i can reasonably assume that i will not be missing as many people. and if i am, then that is something i need to deal with; so far, i am an expert at detachment. i still can't determine whether or not that's a good thing. moreover, the people i really care about should be solid enough of friends that time/distance stand no issue. reference jon hutcheson.
• nathan will in law school next year, and therefore even if i did not go, i wouldn't see him. he alone would not be enough to hold me back, but it is a factor (combined with (3), the lease that nathan and i have already signed.)