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The trip to Hokkaido Sunday June 22

I've already uploaded the pictures, but I have yet to put comments on them. For those of you who don't know, I just completed a 5-day cycling tour in Hokkaido with some coworkers. 5 days, 715 kilometers (that's 444 miles for those of you who don't speak metric), and over 7,500 meters of vertical climb.

Yeah, I'm not going to lie. It was hard. But truth be told, it wasn't as hard as I imagined it may be.

I first bought my road bike on March 2nd, and I set out on Day 1 of the journey on June 1st. 90 days isn't particularly long -- I am slightly amazed at what the mind and body can do in a reasonably short amount of time when one sets one's mind towards a particular goal. Jon was joking that when I first started in March, a day's ride of 70 kilometers seemed like a big deal. Now, that's a nice healthy ride, but nothing I couldn't easily handle. Heck, I do 22-25 a day when I go back and forth between work.

Observation number 2: Hokkaido is much, much larger than I had originally imagined. Certainly, in context of the US, Japan itself is small, but when you deal with Japan, Japanese roads/traffic, and mountains, you start feeling like something 100 miles away is very, very distant-- because it isn't easy to get there.

Originally, I had thought we'd be going all the way around Hokkaido. "All the way around must be something like 500 miles," I thought. Wrong-- we did a big loop that encircled only about one-fifth of the size of the entire island.

This only means one thing I suppose: I need to go back and do a different tour!

You have to go there to come back Sunday November 4

My former coworker in our Osaka office got married in Hawai'i to her fiance recently; since no one could attend the ceremony she scheduled a party back in Osaka this weekend. Yuiko's sister lives in Kyoto (30 minutes from Osaka), so I decided to make good use of the weekend and get out of Tokyo.

I only get two precious days for my weekend, so I decided to make the most of them. I find that when I travel by bullet train, I can't really sleep. Credit this to the cool scenery, to the fascination with a train that travels at that speed; either way, if I had left on the first train Saturday morning, I'd arrive tired.

If I had taken the last train (just after 9pm) on Friday, I'd have arrived in Kyoto late, and not been able to do anything interesting on Friday night other than ride in a train. Enter "Galaxy", the aptly-named sleeper-car train from 1986 that leaves Tokyo station nightly at 11:00pm, arriving in Kyoto at 6:45am. I'd never ridden a night train before, so I decided to try it out.

The space was sufficient (although Nathan may have had trouble?), there were clean sheets and a clean pillow cover; it is definitely worth the price (about $12 more than the bullet train, all said and done). The key point I missed, however, was the arrangement of the bunk beds. There are two levels, top and bottom, and two sets face each other in each berth.

What this means is that if you travel in a group of any less than four people, you'll be sleeping near people you don't know. There are curtains, so this wasn't a privacy issue, but for as great as the Japanese are about technology, they have not yet invented "snore-blocking curtains". Across the berth from me was the stereotypical drunk salaryman old guy who, upon falling asleep, snored loud enough to wake me up, many times. Any of you who know how I sleep, you can understand how severe this snoring must have been to have woken me up.

All said and done, I'd do it again. Preferably with four people, but it was a nice experience, and in certain ways, it's a better use of time than the bullet train.

Yesterday, I spent all day in Kyoto on Saori's (Yuiko's sister) bicycle. I went to Kyoto in just May for a wedding, but I was only able to spend an afternoon here, and with Yuiko and Teja, so I didn't really get to just wander around by myself.

Kyoto is full of temples. Once you've seen one, they get less interesting, admittedly, unless you're a history or architecture buff. The eastern side of the city is full of important temples, so there is a regular tourist industry for Japanese nationals and foreigners alike. I have some pictures to support this.

Last night, Taijiro (Saori's boyfriend), Saori, and I went to Kodaiji, one of the more famous temples, as it is lit up at night, quite beautifully. I asked Tai-chan, after a full day of exploring the city on bicycle, "I understand that Kyoto is famous as the first capital of Japan, famous for its temples, famous for this and that, but what interests me when I visit somewhere is not how people used to live, but how they live now."

About five to ten percent of Kyoto's population is students, according to Taijiro. Every year, a quarter of those people leave the city, and a new batch comes. This is starting to sound like a good recipe. There are lots and lots of tiny Western-style cafes where one could read books, study, or just hang out. Some of these cafes have French bakeries attached.

Tai also pointed out another key point: what has made Kyoto stand out in the past twenty years? The Protocol.

The city is trying very hard to market itself as a leader in environmentalism; the city buses run on recycled cooking oil (this is relatively old technology, actually), they are aggressive in recycling, and when I went to a cultural fair yesterday, all of the food was served on ... real plates. My kind of city. Maybe I should move to our company's Osaka office and commute from Kyoto daily?

In closing, I'd like to return to the title of this post. It had been quite awhile (July) since I had "gotten out of town"; I don't count the Great Wall of China. Even though it was a fantastic experience, it was with people from work, for work, and about work (as much as we tried to not make it about work). Todd and I have long discussed this basic principle of life; in order to maintain a reasonable amount of happiness and balance in our lives, sometimes we just need to leave town, go somewhere, do something, and come back.

If you go alone, it's even better. Todd?

You have to go there to come back, and in doing so, I recommend the Galaxy sleeper train. In groups of four.

A trip to China and back Sunday September 9

Last weekend, about 25 people from my company participated in IWNC's program at Jin Shan Ling on the Great Wall of China. I was lucky enough to be selected, both through my personal endeavors and exceeding sales goals, as well as a little help from my friends. I knew from the moment the challenge was announced at work that I would go; money, while important, is never quite as good of a carrot as a non-monetary goal.

"If you reach x, we will let you go on an all-expenses-paid trip to the Great Wall, complete with your successful colleagues, where you will participate in team-building activities, share knowledge, and learn more about yourself." And that was about it for me; I knew I had to go.

China reminded me a lot of Thailand: actively developing. Some decent infrastructure exists (the Courtyard sported wireless Internet, approximately a 1km hike from the Great Wall), but there are key points that would strike a chord with the unacquainted: throwing away toliet paper rather than flushing it, as the pipes cannot support it. Beijing was busy and over-polluted; I left the airport terminal to find myself holding my breath. As the Olympics are slated for July 2008, the Chinese officials have a lot to do in a short time.

This trip made me think a lot about what it means to live in a "developed" country.

This evening, I left work (yes, I was at work on a Sunday, please forgive me) and returned home on the subway to do some errands. First, I stopped by the coffee shop (no, not a cafe, really, a coffee shop) and ordered 200 grams of Ethopian Mocha; they told me it would take 15 minutes to roast and grind, so I went over to the ATM, transferred money to the US (good exchange rates right now!), transferred money to the travel agent to pay the deposit for Yuiko and I's trip to Hong Kong in November, and then I went to the store to buy yogurt, cereal and jam.

I boiled a kettle while scooping 3 spoons' worth of freshly-ground coffee into my French coffee press, which is oddly made in Japan, not China, and I bought down the road at Tokyu Hands two weeks ago.

When I think about all of these things, the amount of production, coordination, and distribution that went into all of these little consumables, I realize just how easy I really have it. I truly lead a luxurious lifestyle, just by being here every day. It's a shame that most people don't pause to take a breath to realize how truly lucky we are.

But then again, needing all of these systems to sustain our normal lifestyle, are we really the lucky ones? Food for thought.

Back in Kyoto: Five years later Saturday May 26

The last time I was in Kyoto, Richard and I had a JR rail pass, and we were travelling as much of Japan as possible in a one-week period to get our money's worth out of that pass. We stayed out all night in a club in Shibuya, ate at the Yoshinoya in the morning (which I pass by nowadays very frequently), and then headed to the Shinkansen to catch the first train to Kyoto.

Waking up in Kyoto, we walked around, sweated to death in the summer heat and humidity, and got a feel for the place. Unable to stand the incessant travel any longer, I retreated to Kanazawa the next day. Now, five years later, I am in Kyoto again. This time, again, with Richard: he is getting married here.

Also, since it is May, the weather's not so bad.

Hopefully, now that I have a digital camera, I expect better pictures than last time around.

Golden Week: A brief return home? Tuesday May 8

I have no idea why Golden Week is called Golden Week. By some miracle, a couple public holidays and the former emperor's birthday all fell in the same week, so most everyone had last Monday, Thursday, and Friday off of work.

If you're going to bookend a three-day weekend with a four-day weekend, you might as well take the two days off in the middle and have a nine-day trip. When else can you take a nine-day trip with only two days off of work? Moreover, you're guaranteed no one else is doing anything during that time. This must be how Golden Week developed, but I am still at a loss for the name.

Yuiko invited me to go to Nagoya, or south of Nagoya, to stay with her grandmother for a few days. My plans looked bleak: the peak travel means that any trips outside of the country will cost thousands of dollars -- literally -- and a trip inside the country, alone, without my girlfriend wouldn't score me many points, either.

So I went. Have a look at the pictures.

It almost felt like home: I was away from the big city for awhile, and actually saw green things. I felt refreshed.

And this morning's train was as crowded as ever.

Shinkansen Saturday January 13

So, in December, I'm in the room with my manager and the president of my company, and at the end of my presentation, the president says I should go to our Osaka office and work with them on my project. I kept my game face on, but I really did want to go to Osaka, so it was a nice surprise.

It became a big week at work this week. First week back on the job after vacation, first week in a new position, and first business trip. First time really back on the bullet train this time in Japan.

Since I don't really talk about work on this blog, I'll instead leave you with a short video that I took on the train that attempts to give you an impression of just how damn fast that thing goes.

The whole world, scheming against me Sunday November 26

This morning I had a meeting scheduled for 11:30am at Kichijoji, which is about 30 minutes from my apartment.

At 11:30am this morning, though, I was just sitting down with a book to study for next week's Japanese language proficiency test. I had completely forgotten about the arrangement; I had failed to set a reminder task in our proprietary work software. This is my fault.

My phone rang at 11:42am, and the candidate was wondering why I wasn't there. I had a short freak-out moment, followed by a score of apologies, followed by a "do you still have time to meet in 30 minutes?" He said he would wait.

I had already showered (as of course, I would have made it to the meeting in plenty of time had I only remembered), and so I threw on something semi-presentable, and ran down to the station, looking up the train schedule on my phone at the time. There was a train at 11:50am and noon, it said. I wasn't going to make the 11:50am, so there was actually no need to rush.

Or was there?

I walked into the bakery at about 11:54am to buy breakfast so I wouldn't go to a meeting for coffee on an empty stomach. I have six minutes, and the station is right there, I thought. Mistake number one. Breakfast in hand, I walk over to the station, buy a ticket, and enter to find that the train doors have just shut. It is 11:58am. There is a conductor standing there, so I asked him why the train came early. He said that it didn't -- it was on schedule; he proceeded to show me the schedule as the train rolled out of the station. The next train would be in ten minutes.

The schedule on my phone was wrong. There was no way for me to know that, but if I hadn't insisted on breakfast, I would have made it. Mind you, at the best case scenario I was already going to be 45 minutes late (and arrive at 12:15pm).

There are actually two stations right next to each other in my neighborhood. One is part of the subway, and the other is part of a private train company. They meet up one station down the way, above ground, and one can transfer. I thought that maybe I could run to the subway quickly and "catch up" to the train I had just missed.

When I ran down towards the platform (which is two stories underground, no small feat), the train doors were just shutting. I wasn't going to make it there, either.

I ran up to Yamate-doori and looked for a cab. I had to transfer at Shimo-kitazawa, which actually, in terms of distance, is not that far from where I was. A quick five-minute cab right should "catch me up". Sure, 6 bucks is 6 bucks, but the guy was waiting!

My cab driver's name was not only "Miss Daisy", but he made a wrong turn and took me to the wrong station, taking an extra 2-3 minutes. Eventually, ten minutes later, we arrive at Shimo-kitazawa. I bolt into the station (underpaying the cabbie because he went the wrong way, but he was apologetic and accepted), run up the stairs, and run down to the platform.

The doors of the express had just shut.

Another express wouldn't come for 20 minutes. If I took the local, I'd get there first; the local takes 20 minutes.

So there I arrived, 12:44pm, when the original appointment was for 11:30am. And by some miracle of it all, the candidate was still waiting. I had called him from the taxi to explain where I was and that I should be there... uhm, in no time.

He had somewhere to be at 1:15pm, so we had a very short meeting. To make matters worse, while in line at the coffeeshop, he said, "I was out all night; I barely made it up to make it on time. I really didn't want to get out of bed this morning."

I was so frustrated at the world for not going "my way" that I went straight out after the meeting and bought a new rug for my room. I've needed a rug for under my computer chair for a long time now.

How to take the last train, get a seat, and wake up on time Monday June 12

Everyone who's ever lived in Japan knows about "the last train".

The inevitable, and oft-cursed shuuden. Perhaps you've even missed one before. Perhaps you've ridden one only to find yourself smushed against an alcohol-soaked salaryman. Perhaps you wanted to stay out longer, but had to leave the party early. Even if you've never experienced these delights, I've accumulated some tips for late-night Japanese commuter train travel to make your journey more pleasant.

I begin with the story of my last Saturday night. I was at an izakaya in Shinjuku at 11:23; I remember the time because I had just looked up the train schedule on my phone; to my surprise, I discovered that my last train was leaving in six minutes at 11:29. The station was only two blocks away, but I was still pretty sure I was going to miss the train and be forced to start calling friends in Tokyo proper for a place to crash.

When I arrived at the ticket machines, the lines were abominal. Fifteen, twenty people deep. And since most people had later trains than I, no one was really in a hurry; slow-walkers abound. It was a mess, and I was convinced I was done for. Yet, through some act of God, the train was running an unusual three minutes behind, and as I dashed up to the platform, the chime was signaling the closing doors... and he's safe. Lesson learned:

If you're going out in a major Tokyo center (Shibuya, Shinjuku, etc), and you plan on taking the last train, or the second to last train, or what have you, buy your return ticket before going out. Train tickets are valid for the same-day, so planning ahead doesn't cost you anything extra. This is also a nice self-protection against spending your train money on accident on one more drink.

After making this train, I had to transfer at Shinagawa to go down to Yokohama on the Keikyuu line. The last train leaves Shinagawa at midnight, and I arrived at 11:50. Plenty of time, but I'd experienced the "Shinagawa shuuden" once before on a weekend night: it was the most crowded train I had ever ridden on, and I had been squished, standing, between two salarymen who reeked of sake. Not the best way to spend the 40-minute ride home.

You've been out partying. You're tired, and just want to be home. So what's better than to go to sleep when you get on, and wake up when you need to get off? It's like time-space-travel. If you're like me, though, you can't sleep standing up. While many people have mastered this skill, I still believe everyone would prefer a seat. This is not foolproof, but here are my time-tested seat acquistion tricks:

The Strength-in-Numbers Attack

• Get there early.
  People queue up at the boarding locations beforehand, so if you have time to spare, wait for the next train so you can get pole position at the front of the line.
• Get far away from the stairwells.
  Move far away from the common stairwells to find a shorter queue. In many cases, other people use this trick too, so it might not always work.
• Strength in numbers.
  This trick is not friendly, nor polite, so use with discretion. When a near-empty train arrives (say, when that train originates at the station you're at), make sure you and all of your friends are at the same door. Then, the first person in the train when the doors swing open should go as far as possible to the next door down and sit down, thus "claiming" the seats to the close side of that person for your door. If you have two guys, one to sit, and one to run interference by standing in the middle of the car, this method works exceptionally well.
• Draft a good team.
  When you're alone, and can't use the above trick, make sure to join a line of winners. Don't get right behind an old woman with a cane and expect to get a seat. Remember, everyone is thinking the same thing you are, so you need to have every advantage on your side. Timing is huge.
• The U-Turn.
  This one is also a little dodgy; in some places, the train companies have specifically banned it. If you get on at a station that usually is very busy, try taking a train in the other direction to a less-crowded, more remote stop. Then, transfer to a train in the direction you originally wanted to go, easily finding a seat. Keep in mind that this varies based on route, and can also add at least fifteen minutes to your journey.

Congratulations. You have a seat. You're on your train, on time. Now take a nap and start catching up on the sleep you were already missing by being out so late. I can't help you fall asleep, but we'll assume you've got that covered. There's only one problem. Maybe you've been drinking a little bit, maybe you haven't, but it's late night, and you're a little worn out. Have you ever woken up all of a sudden, and think, "Whoa, is this my stop? Is this my stop? Where the hell am I?", only to find that you can't see out the window because the train is crowded? Save yourself the trouble:

When you get on the train, use your phone to find out when the train gets in to your station. Then, set your mobile phone's alarm for one-two minutes before your arrival. Make sure it's on vibrate mode; it's only good manners. Then, fall asleep with ease: your phone will wake you up right when you need to get ready to get off.

I wish you the best of luck. The Japanese people are very polite, but when it comes to train musical chairs, it's war, ladies and gentlemen. The exception you should mind is when there is someone who obviously needs a seat: someone on crutches, a pregnant woman, someone with some sort of immobility issue, or an elderly person. Luckily, you don't see too many of these types on the last train on a Saturday night.

Tools

• Eki-kara: Timetable and transfer information in Japanese

Fresh sushi at six-thirty Sunday May 7

Any guidebook of Tokyo is likely to list "the fish market" as a destination. Where else can you see a gigantic tuna auction? Where else can you eat fresher fish than where it's being sold? Sure, there are other fish markets around Japan, but Tokyo's tsukiji is famous in its own right. They're thinking of moving it, too; it's so close to Ginza that I'm sure the real estate is worth far more than the cultural heritage.

Anyhow, since the market starts before the regular world starts its day, you have to go very, very early if you want to catch the action (and the freshest fish). How convenient, then, that the club I went to on Friday night is just a ten-minute subway ride away? You'd almost think they planned it that way.

A classmate told everyone back in November about this great idea: since the trains don't run all night, you have to stay out until sunrise if you don't catch the last train. This is atari-mae, or just common sense, in Japan, but if you're going to stay out all night, why not end with fresh sushi?

Saturday morning. Six-twenty a.m. Waiting for the revolving sushi conveyor belt to start up. Let's have some more tea, I'm trying to fight off the urge to sleep. I hate to use this expression, because it's so tired, but it's also so true: only in Japan.

Takao-san Sunday April 23

This past Saturday, myself and some of the Center students went to a nearby mountain and climbed it. Sure, there are existing trails, and the whole affair is actually quite painless; it's nothing like climbing Mount Fuji (which I plan on doing early this summer).

Ari-sensei also went with us, so we were using Japanese the whole day. This seemed to amuse the passersby, watching two clearly-American people converse in Japanese as if it were nothing... Hill and I were also accosted by an old man; he said "hello" to us at first in English, but he was taken aback when we spattered back at him in Japanese. He then muttered something borderline indecent about Hill, but luckily for that man's life, she didn't hear him. Dirty old men.

Ashley seemed to enjoy my story about the awkward car situation a few weeks ago, so I'll elaborate more on what came of that. The family and I actually got along on decent terms, and since their daughter Kayuri is twenty-two, she and I hit it off pretty well; we decided we needed to get our friends together to do karaoke. I invited her out (you know, it's like in the States, give-and-take; you get invited, next time you invite) with us to climb the mountain. The bad news is that I didn't tell her we weren't taking the cable car and that we were actually planning on hiking it. Oops. We almost killed her, I think. She said after the fact that she had a good time, and we both conked out on the train on the way home.

But seriously, folks. It's not a big mountain. Totally a "yes, I'm in Japan" feeling. A cable car? We don't need no stinkin' cable car. My legs may have been shaking from exhaustion on the way down, but I didn't need no stinkin' cable car. It took an hour to get up. Yeah. The pictures are in the most recent pictures, which is a new feature I added recently. If you haven't checked it out yet, now's the time.

Today I went to a symposium at Keio University. Keio is an "Ivy League" school in Japan; coincidentally, it's also very close to Michael's apartment. My former Japanese teacher Toyosawa-sensei invited me; it was about the the practice of history. I'm not studying history, and let me add on that it was all in high-level academic Japanese. I understood most of the words; I just couldn't assemble them fast enough to catch everything. To add on to that, the symposium was critiquing a book that I hadn't read regarding the practice of oral history among Australian aborigines. Enough said. The fact that I understood anything was enough to elate me.

I'll say three things about it: (1) I met up with an old teacher, that was neat. (2) I can see how far I have to go yet on Japanese, certainly, and (3) there was a girl there, and man. There was a girl. Mmm-hmm. It was a good thing she was sitting behind me and off to the side, because if I had noticed her sooner I wouldn't have paid attention at all. You know, she had those kinda-thick-frame black glasses -- not to nerdy, though. Just the right touch of "I can calculate the square root of 23 to seven digits in my head", but an equally severe dosage of "I know how to have fun". There was an afterparty at the end of the symposium, but I had previously figured it was only going to be a bunch of crusty professors (who were, by all means, also there), so I didn't RSVP. Doh. Whatever. I happen to know that right now Dream Girl is writing in her blog about the dreamy dude sitting to the front and left of her.

I tell you, though, that's going to be an interesting part of going back to the States. There were about one hundred people in that room today, and I am willing to bet that more than half of them noticed me -- guys, girls, whatever. People. "I wonder why he is here?", they might think. "He looks like he's listening. I wonder how much he understands", "Ew, gaijin". And the like.

It's apparent wherever I go that due to my looks alone, I get a thought or two from people. Good thought or bad thought aside, people are wasting their brain cycles on me (when they could be busy computing the square root of 23 to seven decimals). When I go back to the States, though, I'm just some guy again. In a way, I'm looking forward to being ignored again. In another way, it'll be harder to start conversations with people. As it stands now, I always have something to talk about when I meet new people: where I'm from, etc.

Hong Kong & Thailand Highlights Sunday January 15

Let's hope that my return flight from Hong Kong isn't an omen for the coming year. It was rainy in the Kantou region today, so it was one of those landings where you don't know the ground is right there until it is, uhm, right there. That wouldn't have bothered the cabin passengers so much, I suppose, if they could have believed that the pilot did indeed know where the ground was.

We hit the ground so hard that a couple of the overhead panels (containing the lights, the seatbelt indicator lamps, and oxygen masks) popped out of place and dangled down in the row behind me. I think something went awry on the plane after the jolt, too; while we taxied normally, we had to be towed into final position at the gate.

Japan is cold, rainy, and windy right now. Nonetheless, it felt good to be "home". Living out of a suitcase for three weeks can be rough at times. Moreover, I don't like the feeling of not being able to understand anything, and in that sense, Japan was a welcome return. Just not the weather.

I'll skip the "we did this, we did that" of my trip; most of that can be seen through the photographs. However, there are a few larger thoughts that I want to address here, since no one picture can capture them effectively.

• Cantonese. Labeled possibly one of the world's most difficult languages to learn, this version of Chinese is spoken in southern China and Hong Kong. If I had only tried to learn it when I was surrounded by Cantonese-speaking people for three years straight during high school. What was I doing wasting my time chatting with Kaila and Melissa while peeling peapods? As a side note, Nancy's fake Cantonese-English accent is the best impression I've ever heard, but I suppose it's no contest because she speaks both.
• Group Travel. Our trip to Thailand was a group tour. Given that I knew nothing about Thailand and wanted a safe, secure way to see parts of it, it worked out well. Unfortunately, since you pay for a guided tour, the guides feel as though they must keep you busy 100% of the time in an effort to prove that they deserve your money. Couple this fact with the fact that it was a Chinese tour group. A bus full of Chinese people, and then Kevin and I not understanding a word that the guides were saying. I feel like I missed out on some explanations about Thai culture.
• Chinese Medicines. I don't want to hate on Chinese people, but I will say this: they love their medicines. This root cures this affliction, that food will solve this health problem. As such, since there are certain roots, barks, birds nests, and whatnot in Thailand that are cheaper than in Hong Kong, we stopped along the way every time we went somewhere long distance to have someone try to sell us health products in Cantonese.
• Thai Massage. Obviously, I didn't take any pictures of this, but I got the best two-hour full body massage ever. In the middle of said massage I had to get up and wash off the exfoliate they used...in a bath topped with fresh rose petals. Now that's what I'm talking about.
• Hong Kong. Hong Kong is an amazing place. It's definitely not that large, and the result is that everyone builds up. Near the equator, it does not really have an earthquake concern. I stayed in a sixty-three story condo building. Despite the bustling city center, you can easily take a bus to one of the beaches on the far side of Hong Kong island -- the beaches are free, the buses cost about a dollar (USD), and you can see the beauty that attracted people there in the first place. When I have a good fifty million to spare, I'll pick up a condo on the shore.

Anyway, I'm sure there's a lot more that I could say. If you're interested, send me an e-mail; I'll tell you more about whatever you ask.

Winter Holiday Saturday December 24

Interesting pictures, stories, and news are likely to follow when I return from my travels to Kanazawa, Hong Kong, and Thailand over the next three weeks. I can't guarantee that I'll be able to update as I go, and I probably won't even take my laptop as far as Hong Kong, so please be patient while this site's content stagnates for a period.

I hope that everyone enjoys their family this holiday season -- please do so for my benefit, if for no other reason.

My family and friends: you know I love you all, thank you for the words of encouragement and support you offer me on a regular basis. It keeps me going when I feel lonely here.

Iida Tuesday October 4

This weekend I went to Iida to see Naomi. I saw Naomi, but it ended up being a lot more than that. Everyone in Naomi's family save her mother seemed to think at first that I was her boyfriend. After the first dinner, I cleared all that up; I also cleared up the fact that I could hold my own in Japanese, and that talking about whether or not I was Naomi's boyfriend in front of me was probably not a good idea.

I say that it "ended up being a lot more than that". What I mean is that the reason Naomi herself went to Iida all the way from LA is that her grandfather died two years ago, and it was time for the yearly ceremony to remember him. In the Buddhist tradition, it's called a houji. I had figured that I would simply walk around the town and explore during those times as not to get in the way, but after I arrived I quickly discovered that I was to be included in the ceremony.

I think this is because everyone thought that I was Naomi's boyfriend. Regardless, in the end, it all worked out. Those of you who may know Naomi probably can understand why some think that we date; we are close, and we have been for almost five years. In Japan, moreso than in the States, it's not as common for a guy to have such close female friends he is not dating.

Anyway, I could go into detail about what the houji was like, but I think that it's better left unsaid unless someone is specifically curious. What I was looking at -- from the anthropological standpoint -- is not what the ceremony was, but why it was important to these people. How can I connect these needs and wants to the needs and wants of people I know well, Americans?

How can I start to understand the world as a whole unit that is full of people who just happen to live in different places with the same needs, and thus have different methods of attaining those needs?

That is ultimately what I seek to understand, and that is a large reason I am interested in Japan. It is a strange mixture of the East and the West, and at the same time, often unique. By observing how people in these circumstances create, desire, and fulfill their own needs, I can hopefully better understand how people, in general, do the same.

It was great to see Naomi, but admittedly strange to put one of my close friends in the middle of a Japanese family. Something I had never really thought of...

Naomi Tuesday September 27

Naomi's coming this week for some family-related affairs, so I'm excited; I'll be headed up to Nagano this weekend to see her. Apparently, she may come back to Yokohama with me. Funny, in a way. She's the one who's mom is Japanese, and I'll be the one communicating for the both of us.

Anyone else want to come to Japan? American is offering $385 round trip from Chicago to Nagoya between October 5th and October 12th.

I wouldn't call it 'homesickness', but Thursday September 15

I knew for certain before I left that there would be periods where I'd miss certain things about home. Now is one of those times. I wouldn't call it 'homesickness', but I'm sure the symptoms are the same. I explained it to Michael this way last weekend: in Champaign, I "knew" everything.

You want good Thai food? Oh, man, I know like three places. Never buy produce at Schnucks unless you have to, and if you have to, make sure to go early in the week before all the eggplants have overripened. Need a bike fixed? Todd used to live above this crazy dude who fixes bikes cheap, but the key is to take a pretty girl with you so he does it on the spot instead of making you wait. The Green bus' last trip to downtown is at 11:23 from Coler and Green Streets. I'm sure you know what I mean. These are the bits, coupled with all of the people I regularly saw and met along the way, that make 'home', well, home. Everyone knows that Crane Alley has half-priced pool on Wednesday, right?

Now, even if I moved within the continental United States, I'd have to start over again. However, the rate at which I could acquire such information would be significantly faster than I can here, and using the English language would enable me to make new friends faster.

Facing the language barrier setback, I have had difficulty as of yet making Japanese friends, and I'm still getting used to the way everything is done here. I shouldn't say 'language barrier'. It's not a concrete wall, but a new friend would have to have some patience with me. They'd have to want to make the friendship work. Oh, that makes sense now -- I guess that's why everyone jokes that I should just get a girlfriend.

Right, let me run down to the convenience store and pick one out. Wait, I like that one, no, no wait -- how much extra do I have to pay for this relationship to actually be an emotionally worthwhile endeavor? Oh. Right. Well, thanks anyway.

I suppose that really only leaves one course of action, which is to remove the language setback entirely. This is a difficult goal, but it's what I'm here to do. I guess it's back to studying. In the meantime, though, I did find a great ramen shop, but it's not that cheap.

I move in this weekend. Pictures to come on Monday or Tuesday.

In Japan Monday August 29

Well, I successfully made it to Japan. Certainly, that doesn't sound like it should be a difficult thing; it's the matter of getting on an airplane and flying, but you see, my family seems to have this problem with (a) getting on planes and (b) losing things. These two things do not mesh well while travelling.

Cross reference today, when I left my wallet on the plane, and let my suit on the train. No, it's only coincidence that those things rhyme, but it's no coincidence at all that I got them back. Riho has my back.

Riho and I worked together in New York City three years ago, and she met me at the airport today. Quite a long trip, actually -- it takes two hours from where she lives. It was awfully nice of her, so the best I could do was buy dinner. I got my first taste of Japan being expensive, because it is, but yeah. I needed to buy her dinner for all the time she spent helping me out today.

Okay, enough for now. Just to let you know I'm here, and all is well.

And, I had a great conversation over dinner. I'm getting comfortable with Riho, so it's enabling me to just rattle off Japanese as I think of it, as opposed to trying to sculpt it in my head (read: not the right way to learn a language intrinsically).

Financial Markets Sunday August 14

I have a significant amount of capital saved up for my time in Japan. Of course, I don't mention this to "show off" -- it makes sense that I must have a year's worth of money saved up when I can't legally work on my Japanese visa.

I've started to learn, frustratingly, however, that the value of money is relative in global terms. The US Dollars that I have are only valuable relative to other world currencies: this is obvious to most, but because a dollar still buys what it did last week at the coffee shop, we usually don't think about these things.

When I was in Japan three years ago, one dollar bought 125 yen. Now, one dollar buys 109 yen. Last week, even, it was 112. Certainly, it has been a rollercoaster: earlier this year the yen was changing to dollars at a rate of 104.

All of these factors are based on the supply and demand of the currency, which is based mostly on speculations of future performance of those markets. And now, I'm sitting on all of these dollars, wondering myself whether they're losing value as I type, and whether I should have them in yen instead.

What I have decided to do is choose a price-point. I am a conservative investor; i.e., I cannot afford to speculate on the resurgence of the dollar against the yen, despite some suggestion that a weaker dollar compared to the Euro will fuel exports, reducing the trade deficit, and thus strengthening the dollar against other currencies, including the yen.

Rather, I can only afford to speculate to a point. If the dollar drops to 108 yen, only one yen on the dollar, I "lose" $120 of value from my investment (compared to if I had converted to yen when it was 109). That's a tough cookie to bake -- because if it goes to 112 again, I "make" $360.

My solution to all of this currency market hullaboo is to pick 108 as my price point, and even if it surges to 130 after dropping to 104, at least I'll never have to deal with the idea that I'm losing money I can't afford to lose. Rather, I will miss the opportunity to make money. Not such a bad thought when you remember that because you were conservative, you can eat.

I saw the first of the following two Mark Twain quotes on Rick's door at his office.

• There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it and when he can.
• October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate...Other dangerous months are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.

If I really want to feel better about all of this, I'll look to Benjamin Franklin:

If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

Oh, That's Funny Tuesday August 9

The other day I was telling some friends about how spartan my living situation in Japan will be:

"I'm just going to have a bicycle, a rice cooker, and an apartment. That's it."

"What's her name?"

"Huh?"

I didn't get it.

"The rice cooker," they said.

preparations are underway Tuesday July 5

I must be getting excited about Japan: I've made an Excel file containing most of the items I own, the date I expect to move them, who I am giving them to, or if I am taking them home or not. I've already created a todolist, and since I was on such a roll, I already did three of the things on said list.

Many times I half-ass things; a fatal flaw is that I am happy-go-lucky. I do not want to do that here, so I have turned into Wedding-Weekend-Phooze with the Excel and the planning.

I think I have decided on what to do about the blog. I want to open up my blog to the general interested public (read: many of my current coworkers), but inviting the professional world into my Japan jaunt also invites them to view my past blog archives since, well, 2001. I'm not interested in that; I don't want people I just meet for that matter reading those. I keep them up because people I well know might enjoy one of them, or even need to refer to one.

However, I don't want to start a "new blog": AH was started while I was in Japan, and I think it's rather fitting that I keep it going while I'm there. Rather, I have decided to disable the archives while I am gone. This way, I can hand out the URL freely, and people will only be able to read from right about now on.

I'll also disable many of the old albums such that they still exist, but are not easily viewable.

Comments?

vegas Wednesday June 15

i'm going to vegas tomorrow.

i don't know how i feel about that yet, but there will certainly be pictures to follow next week. stay tuned.

chicago Sunday May 22

a wonderful weekend spent in chicago with todd, nate, schaffer, and some of the sham-kays kids. we titled it a 'bachelor party'; apparently, society calls for such a gathering prior to next weekend's wedding.

this isn't to say that i did not want to do this, or felt external pressure to do so; rather, i am generally displeased with the stereotypical imagery that most people think of when you mention a 'bachelor party'. if you asked 100 people family feud-style, i'm willing to bet the number one answer would be a 'stripper', followed by 'significant alcohol consumption'.

while i can say that we did have a couple of drinks on friday night, i can say that anyone who knows nathan knows that having a 'stereotypical' gathering for him would have been downright outlandish. nothing went as planned all weekend, and for the most part, there was no plan.

i am finding more that planning your own life is necessary, even if the reality ends up deviating from any plan, but at the same time, attempting to plan life when it relies on external factors (namely, 'other people'), you are usually wasting your time. as such, why bother, and why not just go with the flow?

los angeles overview Thursday March 24

i'm putting the cart before the horse here; i should be talking about boston first.

los angeles is incredible. i thought i wasn't going to like it: gas-guzzling cars everywhere, superficial people who only want to know if they can use you for themselves, hordes of film people talking about films i've never seen nor will ever care to see --

after three full days, though, i'm coming to see that while los angeles has all of those things fresh and in-stock, that doesn't mean it doesn't have more to offer. naomi's area is great -- hills, wildlife, hilarious friends. good restaurants. the sunshine is certainly spectacular, it simply puts everyone in a good mood, all the time. i've already seen them take it for granted. that is what we, as humans, do -- acclimate, and then treat any special circumstances as normal (as our environment has redefined our perception of normal).

there will probably be a play-by-play post that follows this this weekend discussing the details of the trip, but i just wanted to check in and tell everyone i'm still alive, sandra bullock looks as good in person as she does in the pictures, and that my big lebowski vacation checklist is complete.

i can't wait to tell you all about the sniper-turned-boxer who loves cobb salads and hates minorities, about how i have learned to love fast food again, about the anniversary screening of an old dolly parton film, and about how i went from chip leader to broke in hold'em in five minutes flat.

we'll see you this weekend.

bauston part iv Friday March 18

this is my fourth time in boston in less than a year. my first time ever was last summer to visit nathan, and then again in october, november, and now march. it's absolutely wonderful here. massachusetts, in general, seems to be more my style than illinois.

nathan and i started this discussion yesterday; he's been in contact with various state educational agencies around the country. apparently, the woman from north dakota discussed how it's difficult to keep good students (i.e., top of their classes) in-state for their undergraduate work.

now, for north dakota, is anyone surprised? what is surprising, at least to me, is that nate was able to share the same sentiment with her: apparently massachusetts has the same problem, despite being the home to harvard, MIT, bu, bc, and a whole host of other famous schools.

we kids are fickle: we always want to go where we are not.

so for me to say that i would like the east coast better may be true -- but is that only because it's a new experience from the same old illinois i've known for years? i'm sure that i'll find the west coast equally interesting for entirely different reasons.

ha cha cha Tuesday March 8

i'm doing a lot of travelling this spring. first, boston next week. then, LA the week after that.

and now? in june, i'll be spending a weekend in the supposedly-fabulous las vegas with nate and the shams crew. let's just see if it's what it's built up to be.

a weekend away from it all Monday February 7

Last Tuesday, I had a hunch that my JET rejection letter was on the way. My mom called to confirm this information. I could stab in the dark trying to figure out why I was not granted an interview, but I think that I know. I have full confidence that I am a good candidate for their program, but at the same time, I must understand that the selection process is not entirely based on merit. Stubborn as I am, though, I simply rejected the rejection as their inability to "see the forest for the trees". I am an ideal candidate, regardless of whether or not one of my references remembered to photocopy her letter.

Last Wednesday, I received a call from Carol in the FMS office. She asked me to come over to speak with her and Mark, and I was greeted at the office with an offer letter, a handshake, and a "congratulations".

Last Thursday, I went to Monika's house for a final goodbye party. Most of the staff was there, and we played battle-of-the-sexes Trivial Pursuit. It was a very good staff-rapport building experience, and I was very pleased. That night, I went to Murphy's with my backpack; both myself and the backpack spent the night on the 508 couch. For good reason, though. No one wants to bike ride from Busey & Springfield to the train station at 5:50am.

Last Friday, I caught the 6:30a train to Chicago. I met Rick at his office. We luncheoned with his IT friend Scott, and I learned in much greater detail what it is that he does. The world of finance is a big game, and I think it is interesting that there is much "officialdom" in the pomp and circumstance of the market and its players, but really, many of them don't really seem to do anything productive other than playing "the game". Their gains are taxable, and their profits are theoretically pumped back into the economy as consumers, so I can't really criticize.

I can criticize, though, the mass accumulation of wealth without pouring it back.

I took the blue train out to California to meet Justin, who got lucky and didn't get shot or blown up in a year in Iraq. There was a party this weekend to celebrate that fact, and that is what brought me to Chicago in the first place. Jeremy, Jen, Justin, and myself (I adopted the moniker "Jesus" [pronounced hey-soose] to fit the alliteration scheme) went out on the town, and we saw a few good bands at Schuba's.

Saturday, though, was far more intense. Morning Jessica's, afternoon computer troubleshooting, evening VFW "Welcome Home" party, nighttime party party. I spent a few hours in a hot tub, coincidentally, the same hot tub I spent a few hours in the LAST time I saw Justin. He said that Iraq made him more rational, and I feel like I witnessed a more introspective side of his personality. I had worried that the war would have "changed" him. He's still Justin, and more importantly, he is still my friend.

At this stage in my life, I think that a mutual commitment to continuing a friendship, in spite of life changes in both parties, takes on an important role in defining that relationship and its value.

Yes, this post is in proper case.

isu never lets you down Saturday November 6

i took a last-minute jaunt to bloomington on friday night to see hairbanger's ball again. they've got a new lead singer now, so, that was interesting. i like the old guy better. really, though, hairbanger's isn't about the music. if it were, i wouldn't have bought earplugs (which actually made it an enjoyable listening experience, at 30dB attentuation). rather, it is about the people: why have a group of around 10 people decided that they will convene in downtown bloomington every time a loud 80s rock band plays? i don't know, but what i do know is that once you have that momentum, it would take a lot to break it.

we ended up at "the white house": a house on isu's campus that puts the ugliest property i've seen at uiuc in a good light. i cannot believe that six guys live in a house and share one bathroom and kitchen. there were dirty, wet socks on the floor of the bathroom. and hair. lots of hair. all of the carpet has stains, and the whole place has a funk. which makes it the perfect place to have people over: no one cares.

we stayed out until about 4, when sarah wanted to go home because she had to be up at 8 to be at work at 10. she has been working at jimmy john's for over two years, and that longevity brings pull. so i asked, "hey, can i come to work with you? i think it'd be fun." so she called her boss, who, despite wondering why the hell i would want to come in to work for free at a place i'm not employed at, told her that i could work if i wanted to.

why would i want to work so badly? simply, the ten people that come out to hairbangers are sarah's friends: her coworkers. working a menial basic-labor job (which i haven't done for some time) is so easy, that well, you can have a lot of fun while doing it if you're doing it with the right people. and just when i didn't think it could get any funnier, todd shows up in full jimmy john's attire. it was the best mid-morning/noon hour i've ever had, i think.

todd and i were rocking the front sandwich line for a good twenty minutes during a lunch rush. i know most of the menu now. the boss said (as he was there) that todd and i were the "best first-day employees" he'd ever had. i assume this is because we knew our opportunity for this was limited, so we wanted to make the best out it. i kinda miss food service sometimes.

it all goes to show: you can never know what's going to happen when you go to ISU on a friday night.

bloomington Monday October 4

the trip to bloomington was relaxing, but sometimes intense. all the way to mahomet there is a shoulder, which is nice. but after that? not so much.

the ride from mansfield to farmer city is straight for five miles, and no traffic. that was my favorite part. and in farmer city? the "family restaurant", which served up some really cheap and really tasty (and probably, really caloric) brocolli soup.

following farmer city is leroy, who is doing quite well in football this year. go panthers. some supporters even went as far as to get cardboard jersey cutouts, and put every single name and number of every player on them, then put them in an serial array so that drivers could see the names and numbers of everyone as they drove pass. my thoughts are that they took this display strategy from the "guns save life" kids. or, it's the same people. eeek. which leads me to my next point.

i was truly in the country, in the middle of republican country. bush '04 posters everywhere. might as well have been texas. certainly, we need all that protectionist rhetoric out here in central illinois, because i heard that al qaeda's next major target was the leroy panthers' homecoming football game next weekend. they'd be hitting america where it hurts, the heartland. let's also not forget that crime runs rampant in the middle of nowhere, so we all have to arm ourselves to avoid getting robbed by the images of black men we see on the regional television stations.

(sarcasm off).

it was too bad i was running low on daylight -- i considered stopping here, saddling up to the counter, taking a stool, and starting a discussion about the presidential debate of the night before. but it's not fair to go pick a fight in someone else's hometown. i wasn't invited there. i thought better of it.

i made it to bloomington in 4 hours exactly, save the 30 minutes i stopped for lunch. but that 30 minutes was also the extra time that i spent getting lost, so if i had had a better bike, no hunger, and better directions, i might have done it in as little as 3:15.

try it again sometime, maybe? check the regular photo albums for pictures from bloomington.

bad idea, good idea Thursday September 30

tomorrow i'm going to bloomington to see todd, and to see hairbanger's ball with todd, sarah, and sarah's roommates (eppie deserves an entire post by herself, certainly). yesterday i was thinking about how i was going to get to bloomington. there's the bus, which is apparently $10, there are friends, but none of them are interested, and then i thought it'd be really neat to bicycle there.

good idea? or bad idea? i can't tell. but it's about 50 miles on 150, so i'll be leaving tomorrow around 11am on my way to todd's house. always an adventure, long bike trips.

maybe i have a penchant for them specifically.

one nutty weekend Wednesday September 8

listening to: gil scott-heron - the revolution will not be televised

on friday night, i made curry for the first time since being back. not only that, but it was also the first meal i've cooked in my new kitchen. i finished clearing out the dining room, and the table has placemats on it. yes, you could say it's finally becoming my home.

i only had two takers for free curry, cara and my roommate billie. billie left, and in a discussion that was more like babble than anything, i told cara that i feel that she's had a positive influence on me. if left to my own devices, sometimes i can get all worked up and just need to chill out. like otto in a frenzy. cara's chill, and thus as a result of knowing her, i've absorbed a certain amount of that, well, for lack of a better term, chill-ness. i was babbling that night, but that is true. sometimes i need to chill.

i would say "this led to a discussion", but it was really just me talking and cara listening. this is precisely what i've been trying not to do recently, but there are certain people that i am close enough to that i can do it when i need to. i was in a room all day by myself working on the new wpgu website prior to making dinner, and thus i really, really just wanted to chatter on for a bit and then leave the house.

so i went on about a quality that i have that is difficult to nail down as positive or negative, it just is: i find it relatively easy to mold myself to whatever person or people i am around. certainly, i have strong opinions, but there are times where the situation doesn't call for me to say anything. or, i recognize that it's just easier to not express myself. it would not be worth the trouble.

sometimes this very positive: i can meet new people relatively easily, and i have a vast array of experiences that enable me to talk about most subjects that are of interest to the person i am speaking with. people feel comfortable when they can talk about things they know, and thus i can make new faces feel comfortable aroud me.

there is one flipside point: as soon as i have created a conversational mark, i have stowed away who i really am to make the social situation simpler, and as a result, those relationships can only run so deep before they simply run aground. that is, naturally, unless the person ends up having a very compatible personality. the effect of all of this is that i am said to be someone that it is easy to get to know, but difficult to get close to. it takes me a while to warm up and really let you in.

unless i'm in one of those weird meet-the-total-stranger moods, which overtakes people like naomi and i every now and then. these occurances should be noted as exceptions. it is difficult to lay down "how it is" in life, because "it" always has plenty of facets and angles and perspectives and people involved. thus, we'll just say that the general case is what i've discussed formerly and that this case is a noted exception.

as an aside, there are a lot of "it"s in that last paragraph; it is interesting to note that the "it" at the beginning of this clause has no meaning: it is simply there serving as a grammatical crutch of the english language. however, the "it" i just used after the colon does have an antecedant. do you know what it is?

enough linguistics. back to business. we're talking about my facade construction and its negative facets.

before i begin this story, though, i should say that, of course, i always try to have a good head on my shoulders, and i rarely find myself swayed to act in a negative manner merely to get on well with someone else. however, i do have some vices that are not healthy, and thus these people are not necessarily "peer pressuring" me as much as they are enablers. college is full of enablers, because it's full of people who want to reciprocally be enabled. okay, the parental disclaimer issued, let's go.

yesterday was the first home football game of the season. which means one thing: planetgate (now: pgu pregame). planetgate has peppered my fall saturdays for four years now, filling my late mornings and early afternoons with large helpings of brats, chips, this awesome potato salad, and either beer or clear soda, depending on my mood. yesterday started out as a clear soda day, but quickly became a beer day. which is fine, because i usually run myself on a pretty tight schedule -- even if i'm going to enjoy a beer, i can't indulge too much because i'll slack in some other department.

now herein lies the problem with planetgate: the tailgate ended at 5:00p.m. i was tired from the heat and a bit tipsy, so i could have easily taken a nap. but taking that kind of nap is bad news, because you'll wake up at 10:00p.m. utterly disoriented. the only thing left to do after that kind of nap is to go out again. i don't quite understand why. i'm someone who's had many a late afternoon nap. of course, those naps were not usually due to beer: eating too much dorm food was a sure-fire way to induce a so-called "food coma". regardless of the impetus, though, the result is the same. you wake up with a feeling like you need to do something to not be an indolent sloth, and thus you get up, take a shower, and try to find something to do with friends. but usually you've slept too late to make plans with people, and you end up alone, bored, and annoyed that you "missed" the night.

armed with all of that knowledge, i was determined not to sleep yesterday after eating dinner. but when you're already feeling drunk at seven in the evening, there's really not much hope for doing anything other than, well, drinking more. that is, outside of sleeping.

and i knew that i had absolutely nothing to do that night.

lawton from wpgu was having a party, so planet paul and i hung out all night. he's a guy i could see myself being friends with. he's really nice, a real good guy, and i don't have that many male friends. i'm not saying i'm explicitly recruiting male friends, but i don't have nate nor todd around, now do i?

while i don't care to go into detail of what happened as the night went on, i can offer a couple visuals: (1) me riding my bicycle from primetime pizza home with my cell phone in one hand talking to marian (via laurel), and a pizza box in the other hand, and no hand on the handlebars. i've ridden without hands many times, but usually my hands are available if necessary. realizing the inherent danger, i put the phone away. tell you man, cell phones, they'll kill you. (2) paul going to the bathroom at lawton's apartment, only to come back to find out that everyone, literally, everyone except for 5 people, left while he was peeing. including all of the attractive females. his face was priceless.

i came home at the reasonable hour of 3a.m., and i promptly set both my cell phone alarm and my desktop alarm for 7:30a.m.

who. was. i. kidding.

i had consumed a couple of glasses of water before going to bed, but the longevity of the day had exacted quite a dehydration on my body. not just alcohol, but exercise (the bike) and heat. i should have had far more water before i went to bed. i woke up feeling, well, as well all know how it goes, hungover.

and there was no way i was climbing in the car to drive 3 hours to saint louis. a long, hot shower, a 30-minute nap, and a lot of liquid later, i climbed on my bike once again and set out for the radio station, where the car was parked. all along the way i knew that the delay was going to throw off my attempts to make that train at 2:10p.m. for bloomington. i left at about 9:35a.m., so add three and you get arrival in stl at 12:35p.m. sufficient, right? not quite.

first, i had to stop at my friend sarah's new house, because i needed to use the internet to look up the train schedule (i wasn't sure if it was 2:00 or 2:10, and in this case, it did end up making all of the difference). she's living with her fiance; they both did research at duke this summer. man, i want to find someone who's as interested in academics as i am. sarah's so happy, and i'm so happy for her. you can see it on her face. i think she lost weight, too, but that would make sense. not onlny was it summer, but she was in north carolina.

then i had to go to schnuck's to buy flowers. yes, i had to buy flowers. one of the most annoying things to me, and i hate myself sometimes because i've certainly done it, is the i-said-i-was-going-to- do-something-for-you- but-never-really-had-the- inclination-to-actually-do-it disease. i was on the phone with sarah (not saint louis sarah, bloomington sarah) thursday night. on my desk sat two things, flowers and a bowl of noodles. jokingly, i told her i would give her something for driving me from bloomington to champaign; i asked her which she would prefer: ramen or flowers.

should i be surprised that she didn't say ramen? personally, i don't think it gets any better than when someone hands me a preprocessed brick of starch with a msg-caked powder packet. thus, i had to buy flowers. because i said i would. and after boarding the train, there would be no opporunity until after sarah had picked me up. taaa-cky. luckily for me, schnuck's are all laid out the same, so i quickly snagged the best lilies i could find for a fiver and ran out to park michael's car where it belonged.

my next destination was the metrolink station at the loop to pick up a lightrail train to the amtrak station. it's like the boston t, except that it's newer. the t, however, does go to more places around boston than the saint louis metrolink. pardon the digression, i'm infatuated with mass transit systems, particularly those that incorporate rails. my first dream job at age 4 was to be a train engineer. ask my mom, it's no joke. when i was 3 i got a train set for christmas, but while it was still wrapped up michael told me that they had gotten me a huge container of socks and underwear. i cried until i opened it. michael has always been good at fooling people with gifts -- let us not forget the year he hollowed out a baking soda box, filled it with snickers, perfectly refilled it, and wrapped it. nate never opened it because he thought that it was baking soda; michael had to tell him the gig. back to the saint louis story.

michael's parking spot is approximately 5 blocks from the metrolink, and i had never been there before. thus, i was a little confused, and right as i figured it out, the train departed the station before i could run to the platform. they were running every 15 minutes. this was at 1:34p.m. my train to bloomington was at 2:10p.m. but i had flowers in hand, and i wasn't giving up. i caught the 1:49 and sat down to call amtrak to inquire about whether or not the train was on time. knowing amtrak, maybe it wouldn't have been a big deal?

but no, she assured me, the train was acceptably on-time. and they were planning an on-time departure. i deluded myself temporarily by believing that that is what the national representative would say, and that she was just telling me that because she didn't have real information. the station phone number just kept ringing when i tried it.

so i stood up and stood near the doors. people who are rushing to be on time for something are funny: they do the littlest things to make the entire process go "faster". and everything that is slow frustrates them. most people hate this. i actually kind of like it. in fact, that feeling has been the inspiration for this post so far. if i had taken the extra five minutes so i could have gotten the earlier train to the amtrak station (mind you, i am still used to new york city where mass transit runs on the schedule of "it comes often") and relieved the whole stress right there.

but stress can be fun, because it becomes like a game for me. how close can i cut it and still make it? i do this with airplanes too. hence why i've missed three in the past year. but two were because of a woman, so i don't think that counts. women always make you late. er, you make yourself late because of them. another aside. i'm making an effort to stop calling girls girls. most of the women i know now are just that. certainly, "guy" and "girl" are acceptable, comfortable terms for the two sexes when referring to one another, but "girl" definitely has more of a younger air than "guy" does. a 30-year-old guy is just that, hey, a guy; a 30-year-old girl is a person who never really earned the title of "woman". the other reason i make this distinction is such that when i meet a girl, and not a woman, i can make that distinction clear simply by my word choice.

this isn't a hard-and-fast rule, just a general trend. so if i use "girl" next week, it doesn't particularly mean that she's immature. but now you can watch out for it, at least.

i really enjoy the positive stress of trying to "get there" in time. not so much "get it done" in time; i've never liked that stress. "get there" requires creativity: unique routes through city streets if driving, knowledge of where shortcuts can be made, where they cannot, and of course, the biggest one: knowing just how long you can wait before actually leaving and still make it.

i started talking to the conductor on the metrolink to pass the time. i was trying to extract information on how long the stations took from her, i felt that if i could just get her stamp of approval, then i'd be fine. if she believed i was going to make it, i was going to make it. at 1:56p.m. i was still two stops away, so she and i were covering all of the steps necessary for me to take after i exited the metrolink platform. turn left, run, be careful down the hill, and there you are. she was really cool, and we talked about how she wanted to move to san francisco. i'm admittedly in love with most anyone i've met from saint louis. they are, without a doubt, some of the coolest people. ever. you didn't hear me say this, but, uh, i think saint louis is cooler than chicago in a lot of ways. except that they don't have the cubs. if the cubs were in the loo, i'd just up and move there right now.

i told her san diego is nice, and that she should avoid l.a. at all costs, and that miloney found a real cheap place on the other side of the bay in san fran. apparently it's cheaper over there. these are the little tidbits of information i hear and regurgitate to make social situations go easier. maybe that's good, though, because i could tell she liked talking to me, and thus i got her stamp of approval. she thought i was going to make it.

at 2:00p.m. the train arrived at the civic station, which is two blocks from the amtrak station. i sprinted the best that i was able with my flowers in my left hand and my man-purse over my shoulder, the majority of its weight being supported by my right hand. i'm glad that leslie informed me that the amtrak station is "in the ghetto", because, otherwise, i would have questioned what i was running toward. and there wasn't anyone around to laugh at how ridiculous i must have looked.

i saw a train and a large group of passengers with luggage. waiting. sweet. i ran inside, bought a ticket, and when i came out, they were boarding passengers. i checked the time when i sat down: 2:10p.m. the train rolled out at 2:15p.m. plenty of time. i guess i had a couple of minutes to shop for some fresh produce at schnuck's. mmm, fruit would have been good. ah, next time.

isn't it beautiful though? now i'm in a great mood because i made my train. imagine if i had given myself ample time: it'd be a day in the life. anything can be fun, you just have to make it that way. i'd like to believe i'm an enabler. a fun-enabler. we should make that a new word. funabler.

funabler (fun'eigh·blur) (n.) - (1) one who enables others to have fun with the mundane events that make up daily life.

airplane stream of consciousness Tuesday August 17

on my way back from new york, i had to fly a commuter prop plane from saint louis to champaign. i thought i was going to suffer, but contrary to my expectations, it was a very nice, smooth flight.

to help combat fear while flying, though, i scribbled a stream-of-consciousness about my time in new york city. i have republished it here for the record (and so i can throw out the paper it's written on; i don't like paper clutter in my bag):

lessons learned in new york city

but not to look on the past too long, how are we going to make a change to better ourselves for the future?

sister-in-law: it is what it is, i love my brother, but i cannot see eye-to-eye with his wife. he needs to do what he needs to do to be happy, and if she makes him happy, i'll live with it. if she doesn't make him happy, i'll live with it. it is his own responsibility to figure out what is best for him. so for me, this means i won't be going back to new york city for any sister-in-law-related business, uhm, as long as the situation persists. however, i have almost a premonition about my brother and his life, and i feel that by going to the city i expedited the outcome of whatever was naturally occurring anyway.

money: money is trivial, so i can't really honestly tell you that $1500 (most of which i would have made in c-u anyway) was worth it. but my young self "got out there". i made all the arrangements and did it. hardships included, i truly am capable of self-sustenance.

differences: new york is diversity on acid; champaign-urbana is a segregated diverse population. yet champaign made roscoe look bad, and now new york city makes champaign look bad. but my heart has a home; my home is rooted with my family and my past, and if i want to take this time to plan what to do next, there is no better backdrop than my shady urbana neighborhood.

future: from here i will make an effort to work on myself; i feel life has thrown some circumstances my way to help me along to being a better person. some say "you are who you are", faults and all, but if that's so, then "i am" a person who is not content with self-stasis. thus, developmental change is my desired position, and i will seek out circumstances that provoke such developments.

it's not where you are, it's who you are.

illinois Thursday August 12

back in champaign. out of my apartment. homeless. mm, that was a good sub. the thing about not having an apartment is that you get to eat out every night without feeling guilty.

score.

yasumi Monday July 26

my friend sachi from japan just got into new york today. she just got into, er, the united states today. she's never been here before.

she's studying english. together we're a powerful combination in...eihongo (a joke that might only be funny to like, two of the readers of this blog, and isn't worth explaining to the rest. sorry).

anyway, i'm stoked, because i quickly took the upper hand and started using japanese to put her at ease. which then led to japanese-only communication (minus the occasional eihongo). so now i get all the free practice. score. and i can already feel myself trying to express more difficult thoughts in the language.

impromptu boston! Monday July 19

i've always wanted to go to boston. nate's living there, and so i am taking the next two days off to go up there and really see new england for the first time.

expect pictures upon my return, or maybe sooner.

sigh Wednesday June 30

tomorrow (thursday) i'm going to altoona to visit my grandmother. back on saturday.

why is this website turning into a forum of empty promises? it must mean i am busy.

side news: might be able to finish the degree at a different four-year college. cooool.

oi! Tuesday June 15

oi, there's a $139 fare on american for the weekend of june 25th. who wants to come visit?

new home! Wednesday June 2

look, pictures of my new apartment!

want to come visit? give me two weeks advance notice and we're good to go.

high school friends Monday May 31

i'm going to the city for the first time since i've been here to meet up with a friend from high school. haven't seen her in two years, and even then, it was only about an hour. we'll see how this goes (i.e., if we have anything left in common at all).

jackson heights: home Wednesday May 26

my new home away from home: jackson heights, queens, new york city. tuesday afternoon, i put down first month's rent and a security deposit on a room in a 4-bedroom apartment just off of woodside avenue at 76th street (the center of this map is where i live, starting saturday).

overall, i think i looked at something like 12 places, and only one of them struck my fancy more than this one. and that one was, literally, more than double in rent. if the place that i realllly wanted but couldn't afford was boardwalk, then i'm staying at marvin gardens. and let me tell you, i always liked the yellow set. the greens were good too. boardwalk is so cliche.

i haven't met two of the roommates; apparently they keep to themselves. the guy i've been dealing with is gustavo, and he's 31, mexican. and i really like him.　　except for the fact that he works for sprint.

new york apartments Saturday May 22

i came to new york to get some time away from school life. time to do things i want to do -- like play guitar, write, study japanese, make this website more than it is now, etc. yet, since i got here on wednesday, i haven't taken a single moment to stop and post about everything thus far. i've been far too busy apartment hunting. let's see, i've already seen ten different places in the past 3 days. that's a lot, given that each one requires an initial phone call or e-mail, followed by an arranged showing, which i have to take time to go to and find, followed by the eventual phone call where i tell them i'm not interested any longer because i found a better place.

problem is, the better place i've found is too rich for my blood. so instead of relenting, i'm searching for roommates. i would live slightly cramped in a nice apartment before i'd have all the room in a dull one. and that's where i think i am different than most people; it's a matter of finding someone who thinks the same.

let's see if i've got any stories yet. new york is great for stories. oh, this one will do. i met a guy today who works for nickelodeon. what a terrible job. but he deals with steve from blues clues, and so he was telling me about steve. apparently steve lives in williamsburg (where else, williamsburg is where the cool kids whose parents still support them live-, or where the hipsters are. or both.) and he has a band that is reasonably successful -- they've got major distribution on their latest record. who would have thought, from the guy who everyone said was dead a year ago?

in roscoe yet again Monday May 17

i'm on a pre-departure trip to roscoe. drop off boxes, wash clothes for free, eat pizza, chinese food, and fajitas, and play with the dogs. just the kind of psychological comfort i need before embarking on a new journey.

certainly, i already feel comfortable about new york city, but i am concerned about my ability to make money. i have all of the savings necessary, that, if i make $0 this summer, i can live and not go into bankruptcy. yet, then i would return to c-u in august with, uh, $0. as much as i like todd, i don't want to be what brett affectionately referred to as "todd-broke".

w00t.

'tis official Tuesday April 20

just purchased a one-way to new york city on may 19th. so i'll be there. for sure. more to follow about the past few days when i get done with japanese midterm #2 today.

apartment hunting Monday April 12

i've begun new york city apartment hunting. based on prices, it seems that i'm going to pay approximately $450-$500 per month. in some cases, that includes utilities. at first, i used the "official" searches, but they all wanted $40 to join to get contact information, so i opted for craigslist instead.

and i've found a cornucopia of locations, including one that's a three minute walk to the store. yet, every ad, or at least, 90 percent of them, are female only. hell, there's even ones where two men want a third roommate...but she must be female. women want to live with women, and men want to live with women. no use for a young, white male. . i e-mailed some of them anyway.

back in ussa Monday March 29

a couple weeks ago, i described my life as 'intense' trying to keep up with all of the schoolwork i had to do. vacation held the same intensity, but in a different way, and it seems it won't be stopping anytime soon. back to schoooool.

i have four things to comment on: spain, cara and more, new york, and theories about travel. i have decided to subdivide my post into these themed segments such that you can skip to whichever interests you...or read all the way through.

---

on the airplane on the way in, i already loved (northern) spain. it's beautiful -- sloping mountains, green hillsides, beautifully refreshing short rainstorms (cara hates rain, though -- i think she's missing out), and good food. the food in northern spain in general is faaaantastic. seafood, amazing. pintxos, amazing. everything is fresh. i envy those living in larger american cities that have access to fresh fruit, meat, and bread products. certainly, i bet i could get fresh baked bread in champaign as well, but it's just the principle of the matter. we all go to the grocery store and buy everything. and even when we do go to speciality shops, we get in our cars and drive to each one -- in spain, we left cara's apartment at 1:30 or so -- making it to the bakery, butcher, fruit shop, and general store all before 2 (when they close for siesta). they're all that close to her apartment.

inspired by the pintxos and ensalada mixto, i'm having a dinner party next tuesday. leave a note in the comments if you're interested.

---

when i arrived in new york city, i unpacked my cell phone from my backpack and called michael to arrange my transfer between JFK and newark airport. the customs people yelled at me for using my phone before clearing customs, but before i hung up mike indicated that he was in the hospital and unable to take me.

on the other side of customs i called my dad, who told me that it was not serious, but that michael had entered the hospital with a blood clot in his lung. i've never heard of such a thing, but i'm just glad that it wasn't serious. it was serious enough, though, that the hospital admitted him saturday afternoon, and as of sunday evening he wasn't leaving.

thus, i walked over to the american ticket counter and changed my ticket to the first outbound flight in the morning, and then took public transportation over to mike's store to meet up with his wife, juan (aya). after waiting for a little bit for her to finish some business at the store, we went over to the hospital by mike's apartment. he was acting just fine, but he was also on blood thinner: maybe the clot would come back when the medication is removed? that's my concern.

my fourteen hours in new york city, though, have convinced me that it's time to seriously figure out what i am doing this summer. i've hinted in a previous post that i don't know what i want to do -- and i have a lot of options. i believe at this point that the most economical thing to do is to go to new york city.

---

there's quite a lot to say here, and i suppose the title of 'cara and more' is a little deceptive. certainly, i'm not going to write about her at great length; it's not fair of me to discuss her in a public forum that she has no control over. however, i can discuss myself in relation to her, and i think that even as she reads this, she'll agree that it is not inappropriate. it's far more about me.

one of my lesser qualities is one that i inherit from both my mother and my father: i am stubborn when i get stuck on something. in the case of cara, i got stuck on the idea that we could make our relationship work with effort. but she herself asked me about a week ago what it was about her that was so special -- and objectively, nothing. certainly, there are things about cara that are unique, and i won't find these combinations of traits in anyone else.

but when i think about the aspects of the dating relationship i valued most, they came in the form of love and support and other feel-good words that are not tied to a direct person, but words that are more the result of spending a significant amount of time building a relationship with some person. and because i had invested so much time in cara as it were, i wasn't just going to give up easily at the first sign of failure.

failure is a dangerous word, and i wouldn't call our situation that, either. more or less, it is the recognition that while we have compatible personalities and goals, we also have a different value system pertaining to our handling of relationships, and that makes us incapable of dating each other as our current selves. i don't rule out the future because i can't predict it. if you were to ask me, though, if i'd date heather again, i'd say 'no' flat-out. i can already say with decent certainty, that heather is not the kind of person that i need to be with to be happy. she's a wonderful person and was a wonderful girlfriend, but the combination of the two of us just wouldn't work. i could go on on this, but it's not necessary to drag out old laundry for no reason. just take my word for it, it's a side point to the final thought anyway.

i can say that the only reason i am so sure i'll never date heather again is that i dated cara, and there were things that my relationship with cara that could not have been (and could not be as far as i can tell) with heather. thus, by method of comparison, cara has been the closest person to what i am seeking in a serious dating relationship. i find this comforting in the sense that she is also my last relationship, and the general trend is encouraging.

indeed, i see my own mistakes from my relationship with cara; when she left last fall i held her back as a pitiful attempt to keep her close to me, and that was selfish: i should have let her be herself. if at that point she chose to stay close with me, then it would be testament to the mutual commitment to the relationship.

internally, i've also been guilty of living in the past. with cara gone but not gone, i could conveniently remember past good times to avoid seeking new ones, and this led to stagnation. while i've certainly done things this year that have been developmental, i will already concede that junior year was far more important in my early young adulthood.

i can cite many positive changes in myself throughout last year, and i'm having more difficulty doing the same this year. i am more or less the same, stagnant. worse yet, by constantly projecting myself into my post-graduation future, and by watching friends' similar growing distaste for champaign-urbana (cf. todd), i was able to convince myself that my developmental stagnation was appropriate, and that there was nothing i could do about it other than wait it until i could change my locale.

peggy kilgore always says that it's not where you are, it's who you are. life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety how you react to it. i have failed to look inward enough this year and grow myself, and i have blamed it on a host
of other factors: location, fewer close friends in town, etc..

and that leaves me right where i always end up (no, not existentialism this time), which is questioning what i really want from my young life. i am amazed how most of us live our lives not knowing where were going, or if we do, why we're going there, and if we do know why, questioning whether that's the best for us. and there's a whole new post that should be started right now on this thread, but i'm going to let it go for now.

---

i talked to some people in champaign who did the standard florida/cancun/south padre-style spring break, and it made me think about how i travel. certainly, what i was looking for from my trip is different than what those friends were looking for; they went as a big group of friends to a location within the continental united states for the express purpose of getting sun, drinking, eating out, and potentially, meaninglessly, and temporarily trysting with members of the opposite sex. and yes, "tryst" can be used as an intransitive verb. i looked it up, foo.

i told charlotte this afternoon that my ideal vacation always seems to be one where i'm ready to go back by the end of it because i've so worn myself down "on vacation". while my impromptu, unplanned vacation to london last fall was a success, i call it such because i got to "live" in london for five days: doing work that i could have been doing in champaign, but was still choosing to do while "on vacation". it's not that i can't escape from work, it is more that my daily life is not stressful enough to warrant "break time" where i can get away and forget everything.

i bought a book called the art of travel when i was in london last time, and it covers this topic significantly: what does it mean to "vacation"? what are we really in search of, anyway? for me, it is never escape, it is always discovery either in self, location, or others. i told reva that i enjoy just going to somewhere new to watch how people from that locale live. watching how people live is fascinating to me, and i think this is further evidence that i should be a social anthropologist. my first task to get such a job, though, is to be able to spell anthropologist without looking it up to make sure it's correct.

i'm sure there's more to be explored on this topic, too, but i'll get there eventually. i just want to get this up and online so i can get back to catching up on my homework. you know, the homework that was due a week ago, but i was out of the country?

out of urbana Wednesday March 17

for the second time in a year, i'm taking off out of the country. by the time i go to japan, hopefully i'll have the miles for a free ticket?

i'm going to go get my fish-n-chips on, see y'all in a couple weeks. of course, there will be blog & picture updates when possible.

alton, day ii. finally. Thursday January 22

believe it or not, the break to saint louis and alton was so good that i can still recall it with clarity, yes, a week later. you might need to read the post below to refresh yourself on what i did on the first night.

on the second day, i woke up in darkness. sure, there was light peeking in through the cracks in the window shades, but it was more or less dark. and i wasn't tired. at all. so i tossed and turned for a bit, but then just decided to wake up and see what godawful hour i was damned to wake up at.

turns out, drew's shades aren't venetian blinds. they're real shades, and they block out approximately 95% of all light from the outside. i woke up at just after one in the afternoon, and had slept so soundly that i didn't even realize that my waking up was due to oversleep, not insomnia.

however, as i later found out, naomi and drew did not go to bed until well after nine in the morning, and thus at one pm, i already was going to "beat" them in terms of getting up first. so i called my saint louis contact, leslie. after some direction-giving over the phone, i drove approximately thirty minutes to her house. she lives relatively close to wash-u, so that was cool. an area i know.

i also met winston, her dog. this dog has a tendency to lock his legs around your leg, and even if you walk away, you'll drag him, his lower end humping all the way. he's a humper.

we went to the south side in search of some good asian food and ended up doing vietnamese. i had amazing soup. i heard a lot about leslie's break, and it was really really good to catch up with her on so many levels. she's been going through a lot of relationship stress, and i can't say either that i've been smooth sailing for the past month.

upon returning to the car, it occurred to us simultaneously to go music shopping. fast forward two hours, and i am the proud owner of five new CDs, three of which he'd been meaning to get his hands on for some time. the other two consisted of a recommendation from leslie, and the other was a band i'd heard on the stereo at stagger inn...again the night before.

• the darkness - permission to land
• the postal service - give up
• dj shadow - endtroducing
• the flaming lips - yoshimi battles the pink robots
• black rebel motorcycle club - take them on on your own

i'm totally in love with the postal service album, and the black rebel CD is quite surprising for a $8 used-CD find.

anyway, we decided to meet up with naomi and drew and eric (and drew's friend from home) lateron, so leslie and i hit the starbucks across the street. gah, i know, an espresso would dominate there, but starbucks got in first. damn them. i want to work for espresso and take on a college campus where starbucks has already tried to win. well, the best way to get back at starbucks for sucking so bad at making coffee is to not to drink there, but that wasn't an option given the "afternoon crash" that was setting in. so i did the next best thing, which is use the bathroom and pissed on the seat.

ok, so i didn't really piss on the seat. at least, on purpose. but there was no way i was touching the lid to lift it, and i was too busy looking at the sign above the toliet. but in retrospect, it's funny that it was something i don't like, much like the osama urinal pucks that showed up after september 11th. gah, forget it. it's a lost attempt at humor. anyway. you probably don't listen to denis leary anyway.

so there's this poster hanging above the toliet advertising something starbucks-y, and it was referencing that there are starbucks in so many countries around the world. thus, the konnichiwa. now, i understand the point of it, and it wouldn't have been much different to say guten tag, but for some reason public usage of japanese is getting my goat these days, and the fact that it happened in a starbucks is enough to warrant posting on it.

the main question i have is this:

since when did japan become cool?

some of my friends think japan is "cool", but when i hear them talk about it, they're not really talking about japan or japanese society as a whole, they talk about some prepackaged safe-for-mom-and-dad stereotype of these wonderful innovative little people who hang out on a volcanic island chain on the western edge of the pacific ocean. they talk about how good sushi is, oh, and have you tried sake, hey, borders has sushi books and mats on sale for the holidays, ninjas are cool (wait. ninjas are cool. they can have that one), and those people are so amazing with all of their technology, they have cell phones that can take pictures, and they have had those for like years before ours, and did you see lost in translation? wasn't it funny when bill murray was walking around tokyo like a stupid foreigner? and oh my god i love anime, i have a sailor moon lunchbox and a hello kitty bookbag.

oh, wait, mark, did you say you're studying the language? wow, that's got to be a great opportunity for you, since you know, there is so much business there and such, that's so wonderful, that'll really work out for you.

gaaaah. okay, i'm done with that for a moment. i just reached my boiling point on people who buy into prepackaged stereotypes of japanese culture simultaneously produced by japan and twisted by americans that can only perceive other people's lifestyles in context of their own world. and at that moment in time, even though they had no intention of it, starbucks instantaneously represented all of those thoughts on the subject and more at one point in time. while i was peeing. so i took a picture.

one of these days, i'll be more educated on this subject, and then i'll be able to appropriately explain myself and support arguments that i may make, but as for now, it's all opinion. and probably wrong. just calling it like i felt it.

so after dropping leslie back off and remeeting drew, eric, naomi, and that girl's name that is currently failing my memory (damn!), we returned to the illinois side of the river for some good times in alton again. they have the best downtown coffeeshop i've seen in a town of that size in a long time, the redspoon, and it has, uh, red spoons all over. but the chick working there is standardly coffeeshop cute, and moreover, she had her friends (and boyfriend, of course, because all cute girls have boyfriends. it's a todd-and-mark-style theorem that has been in the works for years, but every time we come close to perfecting it, there's an odd exception like joanna's old roommate. by my luck, somehow this parenthetical notation will probably get back to someone who knows her. ah, life's full of chances like that.) anyway. redspoon.

so the girl and her friends and boyfriend were playing scrabble, and when you work at a coffeeshop so chill that you can hang out with your friends at work, play board games, and listen to stellar music with good books on the shelf, you know you work at a hip place. i don't have any pictures.

then, we went to catdaddy's, a really, really cool pub where eric and i talked about music all night while naomi and drew played cards with drew's sister courtney (who we met up with back in alton). eric and i got really into it, and i need to make good on my promise to send him some stuff i've worked on.

then, denny's for the worst meal of my life. i don't even want to talk about it. seven dollars for the ugliest, least satisfying meal ever. never eating there again, and i don't care if it's two in the morning and they are the only place open. i'll buy a tuna salad sandwich wedge from a gas station instead. and a coffee. and probably get better quality.

we went to bed rather uneventfully, and i woke up the next day trying to get on the road soon, because we needed to drive via bloomington to drop off naomi and drew with sarah before taking eric back to work in champaign by four. so that was the trip.

alton, part i Wednesday January 14

on monday afternoon, naomi, eric, and i drove to the mississippi river -- just north of saint louis. i could say "alton", but much like when i tell people i'm from roscoe, it doesn't do much good to tell people the name of the town. my former roommate drew lives in alton, and he intended to show us a good time.

naomi was so proud of the directions that drew had sent her, she opted to use those instead of printing out mapquest or yahoo directions. acceptable, and i think that we might have taken the wrong turn that we did take even if we had had more "official" directions. however, the beloved illinois state map in the glove box guided us to what naomi labeled, "the gray road", i.e., the road that wasn't large enough to have a name on the map, that would lead us back to where we needed to be. turning down that road reminded me why i'm afraid of my fellow citizens.

it was as if we in some parallel universe on what ended up being called "seiler road". a parallel world where guns shoot mail at people and turn the tables on "going postal", everyone has a gun, and most importantly, bruce willis willis bruce is the pastor at the church down the road. the sermon on how to make bombs attached to chairs and throw them down building shafts like in die hard was excellent, and informative to boot.

enough joking aside. the gray road took us where it should have, and we ended up sort of where we needed to be. a quick phone call to drew resolved everything. we ate a quick dinner and ran for coffee at redspoon, the hippest coffeeshop i've ever seen in a town under fifty-thousand people. but then, we strolled on down to the river for alton's main vice: the alton belle. riverboat gambling at its finest.

like any casino that panders to those of us who are generally strapped for cash, this casino offers nickel slots -- where i quickly lost eight dollars. in the process of about twenty-five minutes, like a kid in an arcade, i came back empty-handed and disappointed. eric lost as well, but i had to continually look over at naomi and drew, who ended up profiting approximately two dollars each.

we left for edwardsville to meet drew's sister, courtney, who goes to school there. we met her at the hippest bar i've seen in a long time. not that i see a lot of bars. whatever. figure of speech.

despite the name of the stagger inn...again, it's not a home of drunken debauchery, or at least, it wasn't on a monday night in the middle of january when we stopped in. excellent music (the pixies and the black rebel motorcycle club were the two albums playing when we were there, i believe), excellent beverage choices, one of those cool shuffleboard-esque tables where you have to knock the opponent's thing off the end of the table, and a really nice atmosphere with free popcorn and live music on the weekends. eric said that the place was "everything murphy's should be". i couldn't agree more. the bar was almost empty except for a couple regular-types, us, and lesbian vampires who lived in the rafters a couple of cute girls (that's naomi's inside joke about the b-movie she wants to make).

the best part of this place, possibly, though, was the bathroom. someone had gooseegged all over the wall, and some clever soul had penciled in ones to make a binary string of digits. intelligence rears its ugly head even above the urinal at the stagger inn.

we went back to alton after that and decided to try our luck again at the belle. this time, i was going in, and i wasn't coming out until i had re-earned my $8. so i waited while everyone played more slots. i talked to eric, and we all drank lots of free coffee. they even had the amaretto flavor creamers that are so tasty. but then when everyone was out of money, i pulled out a crisp jackson and went upstairs to the tables. you see, if you're going to win in a casino, you don't do it at the slots. you do it at the tables. the tables were $5 minimum, so i knew that i needed to be careful. i only stayed in for three hands.

first hand, up five.
second hand, even with the dealer -- no change.
third hand, showing eleven.

you always double down on eleven.

so i did, and won. up to $35 on a $20 investment, i decided that i would probably end up back at $20 if i kept playing, and my sole point in playing was recouping my $8 that i lost at the slots. so i got up and left and cashed out, totally proud that in the end, i had gotten free coffee, gotten my money back plus seven dollars, and gotten that much closer to lung cancer from secondhand smoke. from the two casinos i've now been in, though, this one had MUCH better ventilation. the other one i literally had to leave.

(friends who smoke: i'm not trying to make you feel guilty. i wouldn't hang out with you if you smoked and i minded. but buildings that are smoky sometimes win out in the end over me -- and i have to leave. do yourselves a favor, though, actually make good on that promise that you always make to yourselves about "quitting after college". your time is almost up.)

and that was all on the first night. more to follow later.

the loo Monday January 12

i'll be heading to saint louis this week for some visiting of friends who are much in need. i'll be back on wednesday, WITH a blog post that i plan on writing in the car. i promise. i have a lot to say.

i did put winter break pictures up, but they are mostly all of dogs, so be forewarned.

london et al Thursday December 4

i called nancy from monument station at the prescribed 10:30, but she said that she needed until half (past) eleven. thus, i left monument in search of the thames, walking south across a pedestrian bridge and continuing towards waterloo station along the river path that i walked along three years ago. i passed a park bench with the inscribed placard: "everybody needs a place to think". forty-five minutes later, i reached waterloo station and took the northern line up to angel to meet nancy.

people asked me why i was in england, and i usually said, "because i was supposed to go to spain, but then i didn't." vague at best, the inquistor usually did not press for details. those who did did not hear the story, just the circumstances. i knew before i left that this time abroad was not going to be about vacation, relaxation, or trying to bury the real reason i had purchased the tickets in the first place. london was, as i expected, not much more than a place to think.

after adjusting to jet lag and developing a daily routine, there were moments where i started to feel like i was living in london, and that i was not on vacation. during those times, one of which was during that walk along the thames, i thought of what cara felt like living in granada. surely, it couldn't be too much different than those pangs of independence i felt throughout the latter half of my time abroad. out of nowhere, i felt like i understood why she wanted to go it alone in terms of our relationship.

my initial emotional reaction to this was mixed, as the empathy i felt seemed to require me to agree with her actions. when you understand why you have been hurt, demonizing the other's actions or thoughts becomes difficult. circumstances become the demon, and circumstances have no agency on their own, thus we can do no more than accept them as what has become. this isn't to say i have agreed with her to every end, but i cannot disagree that we all need enough emotional and physical space to find ourselves in a life that gives us the privledge of consistent distraction from what's really important. in fact, it seems that we often don't stop to even question what is important.

so, it was good to get away from urbana. having so much free time and no way to spend it, i was forced to think about what i would fill my time with if i could choose over again, cutting out the things that are less important to me. and so i started thinking about my future after college. sure, i've led myself to a particular path based on my studies of japanese language and culture as well as my business in programming and web design. however, as long as i am in college, my place of residence, and thus my scope of opportunity, remains chosen for me. following graduation, i have to choose where i reside, and what i will do, and in that equation, my determination is the only limiting reagent.

how sexy.

but i have always been the fat kid at the buffet of life, and i've apparently gotten to the age where i have no choice but to order one entree off of the menu. such a choice requires the careful weighing of all involved advantages and detractions, and a decent amount of consideration about what my true motivations and goals are in my young life.

all right, i'm going to zoom in a little, as the abstraction of my situation may make for better reading, but it leads to no concrete conclusion. the requirements for graduation with a bachelor's degree in east asian languages and cultures are six semesters of one language, four advanced-level courses on any topic, and specific courses on asian history, literature, and society. on top of these requirements, i must meet the university's general education requirements, of which i have done all but two courses. in the end, i need six specific courses to graduate: just outside of the grasp of a single semester. i have also considered summer courses that would lead to an august 2004 graduation, but the problem is that i cannot take all six courses over those two semesters because some of them are not offered concurrently, and some are not offered at all during the summer sessions. i have yet to look into guided individual study, but as a procrastinator, it seems like a bad idea.

therefore, returning to school in the fall is most likely imminent. unless something better comes along, i'd like to do the JET program in japan to pay off those burdensome college debts soon after graduation as well as to be able to express myself in this goofy language i like to study in my free time. the problem i thought i had, though, was that the JET program is specifically crafted for recent college graduates: the program begins from september and lasts through the following year. i had a mental roadblock before that kept begging the question: well then, what would you do between january and september? and for awhile, that question stumped me, and the lack of an answer frightened me into not considering any option that created such a circumstance.

london gave me the right push here. who is to say that i cannot leave champaign-urbana in december of next year after graduation and go to japan to live and work? who is to say that i could not do the same for london? south africa? new zealand? thailand? it could even be new york city. am i bound for a city no matter what? probably not, but for someone who has little business so far away from "home", it's natural that the easiest work, friends, and lifestyle will come with a big city: it's full of people doing the exact same thing.

even though todd recommends against it if i want to avoid doing it indefinitely, i can also continue to do freelance web work from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. i thought about that when i was working at the coffeeshop off of piccadilly circus this past week. piccadilly circus. the espresso in urbana. kanazawa. it doesn't matter where. if it's got an internet connection, it's a potential office for me. and that's actually quite liberating, not constraining as i had originally envisioned the business to be.

i can't quite say what i'd like to do after the JET program yet. signs point towards some graduate work, as i'd like to write academically, i think, but i have no way of knowing what kinds of opportunities or interests will develop in the coming two years. funny though, for over a year now i've been making plans in my head to study abroad in japan again, but when i clear my head a little, i realize that it's the country i want, not the school, and that i'm quite done with going to class. in fact, writing a paper should follow writing this text, if i get around to it on this leg of the trip...

i know i've gone in a lot of directions here, and covered a lot of ground. there may be more detail that you think is lacking, and you can ask me about it. but i didn't want to make this exclusively about my future, or about what i did in london, or how i feel about being single again, or anything in particular. take it as a more-or-less state of the union of my inner selves. odd, when i use that phrase. anyone remember my "state of the union" e-mails?

egads Wednesday November 26

sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you.

this morning, i got on the tube to go to liverpool street station to take the train to stansted, the airport to go to brussels. the train stood in the station for 10 minutes. then, an announcer indicated that up the line a power system in a train had failed, and thus the eastbound service would be delayed up to an hour. clearly, i switched lines and made it to liverpool street anyway.

however, that fifteen-minute delay initiated a chain reaction: i could not catch the 9:45 train to stansted, instead i had to settle for the 10:00. the 10:00 arrived at 10:45, and even though i rushed up the stairs, the ticket counter had closed at what they said was 10:50 (11:30 was the flight, but ryanair has a strict requirement of checking in 40 minutes early). thus, i would have had to wait 3 hours and buy a new ticket ($70). now, sometimes i have moments like todd, where i am dead set on something, no matter the cost. but in this case, i sat down in the terminal with a pen and paper and made a "go" column and a "stay" column. i can't fully explain my reasoning now; i only have 28 minutes on the computer. i will probably put this table up later, though, because i think it's amusing.

so i'll be in london until i leave on monday. and really, that isn't so bad.

it really is a great city.

back to notts Monday November 24

i'm in nottingham again. lots of pictures from the weekend, still sorting out how to purchase tickets for tomorrow. i think i'm going to go to amsterdam, holland, and then on down to germany.

london Thursday November 20

back in the travel mode. sitting in london, waiting for it to get light enough out to call katy about the train to nottingham. time on the internet is about to run out, so i'll hit the site a little more in-depth when i arrive up there.

the conclave Tuesday July 22

last wednesday at midnight, i departed from the planet with nine other employees, headed for minneapolis, minnesota for the annual conclave radio conference held there. i'm not going to recount every detail, but it is worth mentioning that all of the pictures that are fit for public consumption are available here.

in other news, i wrapped up the rest of the interviews for pitchpipe today, and i'm sitting down and figuring out all of the database tables right now. once that's done, i'll be able to draw up the projects and call the people i choose to contract. i had seven interviews, and i plan to hire two or three. ah, decisions. with those guys coding (i did have a female apply, actually, but she will not be back on campus until august), i'll be free to go out and get more clients...and hang out a little more. i realize i've been a hermit these days, coding whenever i can.

arizona summary Sunday June 8

if you want it, go to arizona and get it.

jon lives in the same apartment that he lived in last year; things haven't changed much. one addition to his apartment complex this year, though, was this cat. this cat meowed a lot, and it looked lonely. i don't like cats, but i felt bad for it because it seemed like someone had abandoned it in the 95-degree heat. however, after awhile it seemed as if someone was letting it in at night, and there was no way i was going to give it milk or food. in that case, it would never go away. i told jon to call animal control, and i would have, but i, sadly, never got around to it.

the scene of the crime

this is jon's living room, the place where i slept (there is a futon couch on the left). this is also the room where jon and i sat for an entire weekend, beating zelda start to finish. here's my take on zelda, if you've played at all: don't waste your time on the joy pendants; you only need 21 of them, not 41 as it may seem. moreover, if you want a silver membership at beedle's shop, you're better off reconsidering. not worth it.

thanks for the info

apparently, on may 31st, the sign above was discussed over dinner. jon's friend chris, albeit being a stellar guy and guitar player, has little self-control in terms of gambling...and he'll admit it. since i had never been to a casino, we took a stroll out to one of the indian casinos before it was too late for me -- as i don't turn 21 for another month.

a sight you don't see often

yes, i was drinking starbucks chai latte. light on the ice. however, i had my revenge against the crappy-coffee-corporate-congolmerate known as starbucks: jon knew a guy on the inside, and this drink was free. that's right, starbucks, free. i feel so good affecting your bottom line with a dash of red ink.

the dynamic duo

jon's on-air show is called the wednesday weekend kickoff. almost in big ten school style, weekends start on wednesday at arizona state. we hosted a show together, and we had some really solid material. jon recorded it, it's part of their summer protocol: looping old shows. it reminded me of "the loop show", and WBCR. long live college radio.

the drive to san diego

the five-hour drive between arizona and san diego is beautiful. absolutely amazing road trip material.

oops

jon accidentally spilled pepsi on himself. this picture was not posted to make fun of this fact, because, face it, we've all done that. the point is is that i knew from the moment we left the interstate looking for a place to eat, i knew pizza hut was an incorrect choice. i just had a feeling about it. and then jon believed me after this.

pearl jam rawks with the lights on

pearl jam played three encores. so much music, in fact, that the venue (the san diego sports arena) turned the lights on in an effort to notify the band that their time had expired. i'm glad that they finished anyway. cutting that show short would have resulted in very anger people, which is would have been bad: there were lots of metal folding chairs available, WWF-style.

i've got the atlantic, both sides of the pacific, and the sea of japan (as if that counts). now it's time to cross off the indian ocean.

on the drive back

the drive between san diego and phoenix is killer, dude.

wrapping it up Saturday June 7

...and other adventures in the southwest

i'm teasing the (long, long) story that will soon appear here when i return safe and sound to champaign sunday afternoon. but until then!

'zona Friday May 30

i'm in arizona for nine days, sleeping on a futon without a blanket, and feeling fine. you see, it's so hot down here, you don't need more than something to cover you -- and the only reason you need that is to calm that feeling in your body that wants to be covered while sleeping.

jon likes showing me the places to eat around here, and i truly don't mind, but i'm going to ask him to show me where the workout facilities are so i can go running inside, get all sweaty, and then jump in the pool. and then eat a nice lunch. like, that's my ideal day, i think, every day. hrmm, impe pool here we come?

i wanted to go to new york city after i returned from arizona, but i have to work a lot at the auditorium: which means that i can't make it out. however, once summer session ii starts (june 16th), i will have fridays off, so i can take three/four day weekends if i leave thursday nights; and this would be an adequate amount of time in new york city.

anyone else travelling these days?

and i'm off. Saturday May 17

off school, but never off of work. the erik white project is nearing completion, but i've been psuedo-hired by another company to do another project. this one, however, will take only a couple days, and the payoff is good. where, in the midst of all of this work, you ask, does phooze take a break?

alas, wednesday, may 28th, i will be headed on a plane to phoenix, arizona to work on my tan. and i'll be back on june 7th. anyone want to give me a place to crash in chicago for a night?

my week in review Friday January 17

after three days of this, i needed to get out of town (and a haircut)

i spent all of last weekend and early week at wpgu pulling new cat-5 cable through the ceilings. it's not a job that requires a lot of skill, but it most certainly requires a bit of physical effort and a chunk of time. i had both, but after laying just short of 2000 feet of blue cable, i don't feel like dealing with it anymore. that's unfortunate, given that i only have two cables (out of 20) left to install.

sarah.nerd > mark.nerd

i went to visit sarah at illinois wesleyan, and i am both proud of and disgusted at her for this. i thought i was the worst person about fridge poetry, as indicated by my november poetry rants. after she got ready to go to work, i left for illinois state to see delynn, my roommate katy's sister.

thanks for the advice, delynn.

this is the parking garage that delynn told me to park in. she knew that i would get a ticket, but apparently isu doesn't really crack down on non-students who get tickets. she didn't know, however, that they just tow everyone without at permit at 4am. i woke up at six to move it and found it had been moved for me.

the deathtrap where katy thought i wasn't.

this is watterson, the dorm that delynn lives in. i slept on her air mattress, which since she travels every summer, is rather hardcore. however, katy didn't realize that i was going to be sleeping at her sister's place, she just thought i was visiting. apparently, there's a huge difference, so katy called delynn at 4am (after she and i had been long asleep) and made sure i was behaving myself. i'm affronted by the suggestion, but i'll let it be. delynn yelled at her enough for waking us up.

delynn and i had gone out to dinner, then she did homework while i studied (what else?) japanese. however, the rest of our evening was occupied by strong bad's email, and if you haven't heard of it yet, you need to go see this one and this one.

so that's my bloomington trip. we spent all thursday day getting my car back, which included a ride with the coolest bloomington cabbie behind todd's christmas cabbie experience. this guy, his name is tim, used to be a "pest control specialist", and he worked in the business for 20 years. then he got edged out, and he was telling us all about it. then, he told us about how he was going to get those bastards back and start up his own pest control business and steal their accounts from them. then, he told us about his two dead ex-wives, the first of which died because she ate poison mushrooms. he didn't say what the second died of, and i don't want to know. she was a terrible cook, though, and he made it sound like he killed her.

we got to the towing place, and there's this HUGE sign saying that they only take cash. the phone book had said credit cards and checks accepted. i mentioned that to the man who was barely audible behind the plexiglass window counter. apparently they've had problems with angry towees? maybe just precautions, i thought. and then i found out what makes some people so angry:

he said that the credit is only for non-impounded vehicles, and then goes back to his monitor. i told him about the phone book, and he asked me if i had "seen the asterisk saying otherwise". those dirty asterisk-using sons-of-bitches. they KNOW you don't see it. they're just playing with you for kicks. i told delynn and the cabbie that we were going to have to go to busey bank, and from there i'd get the $50 to pay to get my car back. tim, without even listening to me, pulls out a wad of cash and slaps down $50. "you can write me a check," he said.

how cool was that? i tipped him $10. good luck tim, i hope you end up starting your own pest control business, and i hope you manage to edge out the company that edged you out. but do me a favor. don't get married.

after getting my car back, i drove delynn to class, took sarah to the airport so she could go visit her man at duke, and then drove back home. the day was not going so well, but then it improved sharply when i did the following things:

• ate at hot wok with ashley and nathan


• went to murphy's with cara


• watched lock, stock, and two smoking barrels. that movie is great, and i've only seen it three times. i want a copy. no, i want a british accent.

bloomington Wednesday January 15

todd canceled on me, you can read about that on his site; i, however, will still be trekking up to bloomington, illinois in about three hours to visit some folk.

i just visited new york city, and i know i am truly american when i contrast the two vacations. it always feels good to get out of town, but there's something strangely gratifying about when you drive your own car (or, at least legally speaking, your mom's car) somewhere you want to go. in a plane, it's clear you're going from one airport to another, and the time is set; you most certainly can't stop for lunch on the way there. i suppose it is the total control and freedom that the former gives that makes it so appealing.

cars (and motorcycles, todd) allow the traveller to sample the surroundings along the way. the example that i think of, and i'm sure you can develop your own if you agree with me, is the road trip to atlanta last september. had we flown to atlanta, the experience would have been entirely different, and i am pleased that we elected to drive eleven hours each way.

but it is not just limited to cars. this summer, when i took my bicycle trip, i had the same feeling; it was just downscaled to match the range of a bicycle. ground transportation in general (specifically those that one can control the direction and speed of) satifies wanderlust. i guess that's what i'm trying to say. so i need to go to bloomington, because new york city didn't do it for me in that respect (but i did get a new coat).

new york pictures Thursday January 9

the photo album is complete. i set out to take 255 pictures, and i actually took over 325, so i guess that means i win. however, since i delete the bad ones on the fly, i only came out with about 200, plus some movies.

• the album
• the movie that might make this picture make more sense

it's a thousand miles to chicago... Wednesday January 8

listening to: they might be giants - put your hand inside the puppet head
reading: the sunday new york times
feeling: like i've reached a milestone

today is my last day in new york city until at least spring break, maybe longer. i wanted to link up with jon for that, but our breaks are holy misaligned. i like working for my brother, and moreover, the tips i make pay for the plane ticket out here. however, again, much in the way i felt when i was in roscoe, i am ready to return to champaign to get some real work done.

however, when i get back, it is the weekend, and i have to work all day thursday, friday, and saturday at foellinger because of theatrefest 2003. personally, because it's all natsukashii (nostalgic but not quite) for me, i'm excited.

let's hope my flight home is as smooth as the one on the way out, and hopefully i'll run into i-shan at the airport. i leave at six for chicago, she leaves at five-thirty for indianapolis.

sweet, just in time. ashley, lyrics are for you:

all the people are so happy now, their heads are caving in, i'm glad they are a snowman with protective rubber skin, but every little thing's a domino that falls on different dots, and crashes into everything that tries to make it stop

and the mirror, it reflects a tiny dancing skeleton surrounded by a fleshy overcoat and swaddled in, a furry hat, elastic mask, a pair of shiny marble dice, some people call them snake-eyes, but to me they look like mice

and nothing's smelling like a rose, but I don't care if no one's coming up for air, i know nothing's gonna change my clothes ever anymore

yeah, you nerds out there know where i'm coming from when i say that.

my new (york) coat Tuesday January 7

for the record, the look is called blue steel.

yeah, i blew all my tip money yesterday at century 21 and took advantage of their winter clearance sale. you see, i can't walk through life with brown shoes, a brown hat, a brown belt, and a black coat. well, i suppose i can. but how am i supposed to get dates?

cavin' Saturday November 30

So, i spent my entire thanksgiving break driving all around the state of IL; Jon had no car, and I was a charfure, I drove to home and back, and I visited the luxurious beauty that is Macomb, IL. As if that were not enough Todd, Regan, and I are leaving shortly to drive five hours to Kentucky.

Once we get there, we will stay over night in some sleazy travel lodge, and then go on a five and a half caving expedition tomorrow. After that, we'll drive five and a half hours back Sunday night such that we all can go to class on Monday.

Its been that kind of break.

(regan typed this dictation-style as i walked around, hence the capitalization.)

asako Saturday November 2

asako-san ga kita.

one more time Saturday October 19

i realize y'all don't care about japan anymore -- nor did you in the first place, but the statute of limitations on you feeling obligated to care had not yet expired. anyway, i finally did some photo developing, and there final batches of japan pictures up in a new album. if you haven't figured out where i moved the pictures yet, click right brain -> media. there ya go, champ.

a rematch: me versus the bicycles Saturday September 7

this morning was the university parking's annual bike auction. essentially, all the bikes that they find/cut off/recover from being stolen they sell auction-style. it was very crowded, and i could have gotten a much nicer bike if i had decided to wait around and view the entire inventory. but i didn't feel like it.

i'm now the proud new owner of a random 18-speed that's big enough for me. that's all i was looking for, and i only paid $55. how ominous that i paid $55 (in japanese equivalency) for my last bicycle, which broke on me when i needed it the most. this one needs a new back tire, but other than that it appears to be in rideable shape. i'll post pictures after i clean it up.

the end of summer Thursday August 15

don henley (of eagles fame) recorded a song called the boys of summer, and then also put out an album with another single entitled the end of innocence. in an 80's-anthem sort of way, i am having difficulty remember what each one sounds like, but given my post title, they're both playing simultaneously in my head. i leave arizona tomorrow to move into the new house. naturally, i am very excited.

my summer vacation that began with a 28-hour amtrak ride with my mother is ending in a incoherent 3:26am blog post about the similarities of eighties pop songs by don henley.

note the lack of cohesive point between the start and the end, and todd, that's my metaphor for the entire summer. i'll see all you kids on friday morning.

back in the states Wednesday July 24

play-by-play, for brevity:

my body slept in a bed: 55 hours ago
my body was graced with a shower: 65 hours ago
my body has slept since that bed: about 6 hours

i think you know where i am going now. to shower, then to bed. tomorrow will see reasonably interesting posts, most of the stuff i penned on the plane i could not sleep on.

last post from japan Monday July 22

saturday evening, i parted company with richard in kyoto via the hokuriku line (it's an express line, but not a shinkansen: the japanese bullet train) bound for uozu. again, meaningless to anyone but michael. meaning: headed straight back to where i came from, the destination being where i gave up on my bicycle during the crazy bicycle-to-asahi trip.

why would i return to the hokuriku area (ishikawa-ken, toyama-ken, think "region" of the country, but all the regions are much smaller here) when i could be seeing the rest of japan with my unlimited rail pass?

i honestly took this point into consideration prior to reserving the ticket. however, after spending six weeks in ishikawa (of which kanazawa is the capital), i really like it here. moreover, after hitting up tokyo for a few days this past week, i decided i definitely prefer it "out here". contrast living in new york city to living in small-town urbana, and this is how it is. i like new york, but i wouldn't want to live there: the same is for tokyo or any other large city. when i travel, i can stay everywhere, but when i live somewhere, i prefer to i am a country bumpkin, pure and simple. because i have been living in japan for six weeks, i have stopped being a tourist. i have become a student.

there are other places i want to see in japan; however, put yourself in america (or wherever). imagine a foreigner coming, spending a day in your town, and leaving. would they see/do all there is to see/do? probably not. you'd take them to the major places, and then send them on their way; tourist-style. now, i want it all. i want the guts of everything: the good, the bad, the ugly, the not-interesting: some of those seemingly mundane practices are by far the best things to experience when learning culture.

i got off the train in komatsu, one stop short of kanazawa. i wasn't continuing on to uozu anymore; with little money until monday (post offices are closed on weekends), i needed cheap housing. naturally, a town where i know people is the best place: i write this message from the upstairs of a beautiful house outside of komatsu where a KIT student named asako lives (keep your comments about me staying with a girl to yourself, please, i am staying with her entire family). i would not want my trip to japan to end any other way: i am learning again, speaking japanese, and picking up more culture.

that, i believe, beats a snapshot of a few major "famous" landmarks.

once more i cave? Friday July 19

i figured out why i had such an excellent time returning to the same coffee shop the other day as i did three years ago. i say this, of course, typing at a computer at the other coffee shop we frequented (which i also found, score!).

i travelled to tokyo in the summer of 1999 with nathan to visit our eldest brother, michael. at that point, i was moving into my senior year of high school, and i was very pleased with my life -- i was, along with jon, owning high school. moreover, at that time, it was the middle of july -- like it is right now.

eleven-hundred days later, i am in a place that evokes nothing other than memories of the time before; i truly see how much i have changed. surely, some things are a given: i am a better card player now, and i look a little older, but i am referring to, of course, what is the internal composition of who i am. my id and ego. who remains constant in three years? and on top of that question, do you view it as rhetorical or an honest query?

enough with the unanswered questions, mark. give them something concrete, something they can quantify, digest, and feedback to you. i now present the "top five biggest life changes since three years ago today". i encourage your lists in the comments.

five: i begin with the superficial: i have grown into my body. since second grade on, i have been overweight. as puberty occurred, it became less of an issue, but i always have had a small paunch around the midsection. however, in three years, i have grown to look older (someday i will post an old picture for fun), and grown into my body a little bit more. however, when i get back, (who hasn't been saying this for years?) i really need to start doing sit-ups regularly, or my recent weight loss will do me no good: i'll look like that guy who won the first "survivor"; skinny, but still lots of skin. ewww.

four: japanese. i liked japan before, and at that point, i was mystified by it. in high school, i had no venue to learn it, and so when i started in college, the interest was ignited. why have i chosen to follow the path of michael? japan and its language and culture is fascinating alone, and all i needed was someone to show me that. thanks, michael. now that i see what you saw, i fear i may just make my mom's prophecy come true. she told me once long ago that i, unlike michael, was not allowed to leave the country for years on end. birds of a feather.

three: friends. naturally, i am not in high school now. i talk to a few from there, with no need to mention names, and the rest have been not forgotten, but placed in that box in the side of my head labeled, "remember this stuff if you ever go to a reunion". now, i have my friends at college. again, i will take some of them with me when i leave there, and most will get put in a similar box next to the high school one.

two: outlook. before, i had no plan. i woke up every day and went to school. now, i also wake up every day and go to school. still, i have no plan. what has changed except time? the realization that a plan is not going to materialize out of nothing. before, i lived and just let life happen to me, because it was easy that way: at that time, things just come to you. in college, and moreso thereafter, you need to do things yourself if you want to go anywhere. in the often-put-in-quotes "real world", you alone make yourself. i get that now.

one: self. another vague list entry. i have a stronger knowlege of who i am, i know that i like my coffee black at espresso and enjoy wasting away the days drinking it while reading a book and, now and then, chatting with todd at the counter when he's not busy. and in these chats, we discuss the obvious things like girls, weekend plans, and the lack of money. but that's not the point. the point is that i have a stronger grasp of who i am now than i did then, most likely because high school, actually, is rather oppressive. moreover, i have a stronger grasp on who i want to become, and that is something i have only realized through experience. three years worth.

now, on to you.

Comments

• nate on July 20, 2002 01:09 AM
  alright, i'm willing to indulge your penchant for lists... top five changes over the last three years (chronological order) 5. 1103, essentially making a lot of new friends and getting out of comfort zone 4. graduation - finishing up college and all the host of things that come along with it (growing up, responsibility, getting a job, losing a lot of friends) 3. enjoying my own company (also being single for an extended period of time). have stopped denying need for social activity but have also not grown reliant on it. living by yourself is fantastic 2. proactive - like you stated a bit, i have gone on the offensive in terms of seeking out things i want to do (put together softball team, coach little league, go to new ultimate games, read more books, etc.) 1. letting go - in the sense of feeling i can look at and appreciate life but don't feel the need to alter it just to fit it to me, rather i try to fit myself to it
• on July 21, 2002 12:59 AM
  what are you saying? you ARE leaving the country for years on ennd?? oh.. my heart..
• Ashley on July 21, 2002 05:10 PM
  In no particular order: * May 25 of '99 I was raped by a friend's older brother (and again by someone else later that summer). That took a lot of getting used to. Like a lot of other rape victims, I blamed myself instead of putting the blame where it belonged--on the guy. I had a few of meaningless "flings" as a result of my numbness towards affection and sex. It took me awhile to cope, understand, and overcome what had happened to me. * Graduation and going to college meant a lot of growing up and learning to do things on my own. I still live at home with my parents, but I commute back and forth between home and classes, which leaves a lot of taking care of myself in the real world. * Just because I was growing up didn't mean that I was growing into myself. What I mean by that is I was still very much the shy, inward child of my high school years up until about a year ago. I had little understanding about my place in the world or even who I really was. My job has forced me to interact with a lot of different people, and this interaction has given me some understanding of own my values, beliefs, and character. I feel very solid and satisfied with myself now, something previously unknown to me during my dark, "I hate myself" years of high school. * Not all of the changes are positive ones. Something I regret changing is my habit and desire to write. I used to be able to sit down for hours, penning out novels, short stories, and poems. Now I'm lucky to blog every couple of days. I think part of that is because my education is so consumed by English/writing (after all, that *is* my major) that I've sort of just lost the passion I once had. If I could change anything in the past couple of years, it would probably be this movement away from writing. Hopefully some interesting classes will ignite the fire of inspiration once again down the road... * I think one of the biggest changes would be those occuring in the relationship department. This change is dependent upon a couple of others--the dealing with/healing of the rape incidents and discovering the *real* me. How can I commit myself to someone if I don't even know who I am, what I want, or where I am going? Needless to say the majority of my relationships during this time were big flops. I was always the one doing the dumping, too. I think my perception changed when my heart was the one being broken for once. After that point, I began to take love more seriously. I also had to learn that I can't "fix" someone else. I was a chronic "fixer" during my down years; I always wanted to help my guy with his problems because I felt better about myself in doing so. But after devoting 16 months of my life to someone only to have him tell me that he still felt like "nothing," I realized what a waste of time it was--a person changes on his/her own. So once I stopped trying to fix people and figured out who the girl was staring back at me in the mirror my relationships just got better and better. Hopefully the one I am in now is the fairy tale ending for which I've been searching. I am now what I previously was not: a self-sufficient woman who knows and loves herself, her body, and even her faults; more of a do-er instead of watching everyone else from the sidelines; strong in spirit as well as mind; outgoing; "smiling on the inside" as my mother would say (i.o.w. truly happy); optimistic yet realistic about my future.

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i am a nerd. Wednesday July 17

so i could not help myself. i have had internet access daily for years on end, and now, i had it suddenly taken away: i am in an english-speaking internet cafe/conversation table in tokyo. oddly enough, i found it because i came to tokyo once three years before, and something about the memory stuck out in my mind enough that i could find it (even though it is on the fifth floor of a side-street building three blocks from a train station).

that is the pull of the 'net, i guess, and that is proof-positive that i am a nerd. things are well, but everything in tokyo is far more expensive than kanazawa. michael, the vending machines went from 100 yen when you first got here to 150 now...the world is getting more expensive to even refresh myself in.

travelling japan: round two Monday July 15

the program is over. i have a one-week unlimited rail pass.

when i travelled to toyama-ken via bicycle, i had a plan. i knew where i was going to stay, and that was all. this time around, i am going to tokyo, where there are plenty of places to stay. so why plan?

i will have no computer, no internet access, only a backpack, and one week of no plans. then next time you will hear from me, if i am still alive and have not broken down and gone to an internet cafe, i will be in new york city. with that, i would like to thank everyone who has been an active part of my life even while i was across the ocean, and would like to say that even though everything is wonderful here, i could not have done it without your support, interest, and love.

ganbarimashou.

slurping noodles Saturday July 6

this picture was put here solely for the personal enjoyment of naomi. if you're not her, i cannot promise enjoyment, so you are viewing me at your own risk.

my host family Wednesday July 3

i have yet to detail my host family, and considering that i have spent a fair amount of time with them, i suppose it is fair time i do so. let's go from the beginning, the second weekend of the program. i went to go meet my host family with everyone else, but the 中山 (nakayama, or "middle mountain") family couldn't make it out; only the obaasan (grandmother) could. i couldn't understand a word she said, and i was a little frightened at this point. we left soon enough, and i got a phone message from them two days later insisting that i return their phone call and say whether or not i could join them for dinner. naturally, i accepted, and went. we went out for sushi, and i had a blast. there is the grandma, grandfather (who still works, it is a young family), father, mother, and two children -- a boy who is nine and a girl who just turned seven.

then, last weekend i went to stay at their house for the "home stay" portion of the program. basically, i didn't use any more japanese than usual: the whole family is trying to suck up as much english from me as possible. the father is decent, and he and i hit it off right away. when i teach him a new word, i will say it, and then the mother will make the children repeat it until they can say it like i do. i'm not kidding.

anyway, we went to a soy sauce factory for a tour first, and it was really cool. i kind of have to wait until i get the pictures for this one, but we went into the rooms where they ferment the soy mixture. imagine about forty twelve-foot-cube vats in three seperate rooms. in each one, they put soy, salt, and a few other ingredients. and then they let it sit. for a year. my father, the guy with the master's in food science, could tell you more about it actually works, but i will say this: imagine the most potent smell you've ever smelled. not necessarily bad or good, but potent. that was this room. fermentation decomposes the complex soy substances into alcohol groups and gas (woot organic chem). the vats were filled with a rust-colored fungus on the top, it was the decomposing agent. given that there is limited circulation, everything reeked of alcohol -- and not the "i smell liquor on his breath" alcohol -- we're talking moonshine-style here. so as the guide (a personal friend of my host father) explained how it happens, he stuck his hand right down into the vat and agitated the fungus so we could see underneath. it was just a darker rust color, and wet and mushy. it looked like diarrhea (you know you're afraid to click there), and i hate to make that allusion; however, it is the truth.

it gets worse. he continues the tour with brown, fermenting soy on his right hand. eventually, as we're wrapping up in that room, he looks down, makes a comment about the taste at this point, and licks his fingers briefly. the host father then proceeds to stick his hand in, and then licked it. "shoppai," he remarked. (salty) oh, what the hell. and yes, it was one of the saltiest things i have ever tasted. that was settling information, i realized that nothing other than yeast and soy could live in a brine environment like that. those clothes still reek of crude alcohol.

then, he took me to a store. i thought we were just looking around at clothes, but he insisted on getting me a $40 outfit that i can't remember the name of currently. it's what you wear around the house after taking an evening shower, so i am sure the 705 gang will get a hint of it in the fall. the top is pretty nifty, since no one will have a clue what it is, maybe i'll wear it out. nah.

after that, i showered and had a great sukiyaki dinner (i finally understand what that word means now: literally, "favorite things boiled", and that's exactly what it is). went to bed, and woke up the next day for a trip to kenrokuen, the japan-famous garden in kanazawa. somewhere along the way, i had won the affection of rei-chan, the seven-year-old. she grasped my hand wherever we went, and her family started to crack jokes about marrying me. the family runs a boarding house for kit students on the second and third floors of their building, and they also noted that i was not the first and most definitely not the last 20-year-old boyfriend she's had.

after that, we went to the department store (japanese department stores span usually 6-7 floors of a building), and when i was distracted by the kids, they bought me a electronic dictionary. i said i was considering getting one earlier, and decided to get me what they called an "early birthday present". i shouldn't have told them when it was. either way, they probably blew at least $200 on me that weekend, and i felt a little bad. but as i was getting out of the car to come home, they asked if i was free for dinner on tuesday.

and so it is. i've befriended a japanese family. they're great, and i really enjoy escaping from this sandbox called kit to go live in real japan. now, i just need to find a way to pay them back.

feeling brave? Thursday June 27

i finally finished the novel of everything worth mentioning from my weekend of travel. if you are either (a) really bored, (b) really interested (hah!), or (c) at work -- feel free to read it. a picture-style storybook (much shorter!) will be tossed together before the weekend, for those of you who aren't interested in reading and/or don't have the time. (you'd need about 25 minutes.) the working title of this piece will be: kicking ass and collecting style points.

somehow still alive Tuesday June 25

my previous post was both correct and incorrect: correct, it is possible for me to ride a bicycle that bicycle about ninety kilometers; incorrect, it is more than ninety kilometers to asahi-machi, toyama-ken. so, after two 8 hour biking trips, 3 short hitchhiking jaunts, and a few train rides, i am back in kanazawa. only my camera witnessed what i saw, and i shall set up a seperate page for all the pictures when i scan them this week. therefore, all you have to know is that i am back and i am safe. and both my lower back and my bicycle are seemingly broken.

however, because i feel that every post should be content-worth (not strictly informative), i feel obligated to give you at least one antecdote: when i was returning from the onsen, or hot springs, i fell asleep on the train and almost overslept my stop. the train halted, and i woke up disoriented. i jumped to my feet, ran to the door, and looked at the platform. i decided that this was similar to tomari-eki, the asahi-machi station, but it was not. i claim ignorance due to sleep. at the next station, i decide to walk back instead of waiting 35 minutes for the next train. i walked along the ocean, and it started to rain (what else?). my umbrella is functional, but markedly of the "travel" size. most of the way back to town, a late-model black sedan pulled up along side me.

"doko ikimasuka?", or, "where are you going?", the young, beautiful woman inside asked me. definitely a time to try to sound proficient in japanese. i explained my situation, and, after nodding, she added that it was strange to see me walking in the rain on the side of the road: foreigners don't come here often, especially without a vehicle. that comment, however, was no longer in japanese: it was excellently-accented english; it was followed by an invitation for me to get out of the rain and into her car. yeah.

after getting out of the car, i contemplated dinner for about fifteen seconds before i mentally slapped myself on the forehead. when she asked where i was going, why did i not say, "to find something to eat"? living nearby, she definitely knows what is good -- and probably hadn't eaten yet either. moreover, the reason chikumi was speaking english to me was not because i could not understand her: it was because she truly wanted to practice with a native speaker (she mentioned this). chikumi teaches young children english for a living, but she couldn't have been a day over twenty-three. and i got right out of the car without even realizing what i was doing.

a classic mark scenario: opportunity knocked, but i was not paying attention.

i am baka-gaijin Friday June 21

listening to: the stereo mc's - sofisticated (yes, without the ph)
reading: my new map of kanazawa, with a homemade distance ruler
feeling:: bring it on. go ahead, try to put hair on my chest...just keep it off my back.

translation of this title in full english: "i am a stupid foreigner." reasons: tomorrow morning, i will awake around 9am and leave for asahi-machi, toyama-ken, japan. for most of you, this means little. however, for an individual who just purchased two maps and on atlas on the exact roads and distances, i have a 180 kilometer bicycle trip ahead of me -- ninety each way. that's only about 112 miles, i know; only a little more than half the way to roscoe to champaign. let's take a comparison, however.

factor	roscoe, il to champaign, il	kanazawa-shi to asahi-machi
instrument of choice	badass buick @ 74mph, 17mpg	my one-gear bicycle @ 10mph, 350kcal/h
average terrain	curvature of the earth only	jagged hilly thingies that the japanese drilled tunnels through
travel conditions	arguing with nathan about not listening to sports on AM	jagged hilly thingies that the japanese drilled tunnels through
weather conditions	annoying suntan on one arm only	rainy season
directions	all interstate, all the time	at least five necessary turns; the rest is improv with a compass.
likely difficulties	no gas money left once in champaign	inability to read road signs, warning signs, and "no trespassing" signs.
language	hick-glish	日本語
travel time	three hours	hopefully one day

so, there you have it. it's clear-cut that i will have the time of my life. i intend on stopping at onsen (温泉), or natural hot springs, along the way. maybe when i am in asahi-machi i will take a bus up into the mountains. if i die, i hope this post was an entertaining last one. if i don't, you'll hear from me on the other side.

for reference, a picture of my route stolen from yahoo japan maps is here:

cultural assimilation Wednesday June 19

listening to: cake - haze of love
reading: japanese grammar and communication strategies (still)
feeling: worried about successfully biking 160 kilometers this weekend

three events have occurred to turn my mood from jaded to better. first, i met my host family last night. i have a hard time calling them this, because i will only be staying with them one night; i will call them the nakayama family. i went out to sushi as their guest last night, and had an amazing time. i was right in the middle of a true japanese family: there were no ties to the school or class or anything. i was on my own with a dictionary. the language went all right; per usual, i could understand more than i could say. they have a 7-year-old daughter named rei-chan who instantly took a liking to me, and she and i had a good time. when learning a new language, talk to kids. they talk slowly and use words you can understand. moreover, they're good at saying what they want and only that.

the second thing was today, when i visited a shinto shrine about 20 minutes south of kanazawa (by train). yes, i have seen them before -- but we were allowed to go inside and watch a ceremony. there i was, kneeling on a tatami mat, bowing ceremoniously as the shinto priests cleansed us on the outside by shaking a stick with papers attached around us. after a fifteen minute ceremony i can't quite recall the exact order of, we completed the purification "internally" with a sip of osake. in this way, shinto is more of a ethos than a religion. who else mixes alcoholic beverages and religion but the japanese?

the third thing, well, is minor. the japanese students are wrapping up finals soon, so they will be free whenever we are. translation: i can most likely take sachi-san out to dinner? one final note: i got some postcards at shirayamahime (the name of the shrine), so those of you who i have addresses for will get one. if you want one yet, mail me -- we'll work it out.