*... everyone around me is a total stranger...everyone avoids me like a psyched lone ranger...everyone... ((turning japanese, i think i'm turning japanese, i really think so)) ...*
Sunday, August 31, 2003
*... owarimashita (I have finished.) ...* I move tomorrow. I start Japanese class on Tuesday (I guess that will answer all you folks' question of, "So, are you, like, totally fluent now?"). I have a job to go to, karate to practice, and lots of people to show pictures to.
I threw myself so intensely back into San Diego that it seems that I have snapped my Japan connection almost entirely. It's hard to explain exactly what is going on through my head these days; it's far beyond jet-lag. I have a chapter full of contextuals, and am not sure what to do with it. I find myself editing things that pop in my head, stopping myelf from saying things, or attempting to explain things with the preface of "you're not really going to understand this, but..." I am glad to be back, but I am a bit mournful that the experience of it is so utterly over. Never again can I have the sensation of leaving behind everything I know and moving to a place so utterly foreign. Of course I can DO that, but at least the next time around, i'll be a little better equipped, ne?
If you had to ask me about the worst, i could go on and on about the lonely winter, the frustrations in the workplace, the body demons and accepted gender harrassments, and the perceptions (or should I say misconceptions?) of American and other Western cultures and being made to feel responsible for those. If you had to ask me about the best thing, I couldn't tell you, or at least nothing springs to mind as strongly as the bad parts. The ShinKenKan people were lifesavers. My students were the reason I went to school. The really cool, really Japanese things I got to see and do, as well as travel about to other SE Asian countries and see and do things there were absolutely invaluable. And, most of all, the everyday challenges and the subsequent solutions (admittedly not always the best decisions, maybe) I came up with to cope with them showed me so much more about myself than I could have imagined. And I thought I knew myself pretty well.
So, yeah. I'm back. And I'll be here for a while. Will I ever go back? Who knows, and in what capacity is even less answerable. But I'm happy to be here, I'm happy I was there, and I hope I don't lose that 1/24th of my life somewhere in the midst of trying to get ahold on things in general. I hope that you all may have the opportunity to learn something as valuable as that somewhere on your own lifes' path.
* eYeS/hAiR/wEiGhT. brown/reddish?/yes. * cUrRenT wHeReAbOuTs. back back to cali, cali * bEdTiMe. my body has decided to forgo sleep for now. * fOoD. it has also decided it's anti-food. * pHrAsE. ahh! too many people speaking English! * mOoD. i feel weird, yo. Like twilight zoney, in another world weird. * tUnEs. i get to listen to the radio in my car again! * qUoTe: "whereas i am trying to read in the succession of things presented to me every day the world's intentions towards me, and I grope my way, knowing that there can exist no dictionary that will translate into words the burden of obscure allusions that lurks in these things."
*"One, seven, three, five -- The truth you search for cannot be grasped. As night advances, a bright moon illuminates the whole ocean; the dragon's jewels are found in every wave. Looking for the moon, it is here, in this wave, and in the next." Zen Master Hsueh-tou
* tHiNgS i WiLl MiSs... *
* kaori (kojima) and mariko, kaori (honma), marika and etsuko, setsuko, nakano and sakai (aka "the boys"), kelly, alan
* most of my students
* some of my teachers
* the Shin Ken Kan crew
* my granny bike (a little)
* speaking Japanese
* traveling
* tHiNgS i WoN't MiSs... *
* the staring
* the bus
* being bored outta my gourd
* sleeping on the floor
* the Japanese Way
* secondhand smoke
* the fashion
* jApAn, AkA tHe LaNd oF... *
* "We Don't Believe in Cilantro"
* "We Don't Believe in Towels"
* "Obscurely-Sized Paper"
* "Flouride is Foreign"
* "It's Rude to Eat on the Streets, but it is Perfectly Acceptable to Blow Smoke in your Face"
* "9am is Too Early for Stores to Open"
* "We Just Make the Technology, We Don't Use It"
* "Central Air? Never Heard of It. Central Heating? Nuh-uh. Heated Toilet Seats? Well duh, of course!!"
* "Deodor-what?"
* "Open 24Hrs = 7am - 10pm"
* "Our Knees Don't Freeze"
* "We Want to Speak Like Americans and Look Like Americans and Act Like Americans, But We Don't Actually Like Americans"
* "Hey, Free Beer!"
