I Love Karate

(Charlie Feathers, 'Can't Hardly Stand It,' Delroy Wilson, 'I'm in a Dancin' Mood')

As expected, karate is always good for clearing my head of all those unimportant thoughts and anxieties that disorient. It's good to feel yourself tired by exercise and taste your sweat turn to water.

Things I like about living in Japan:
You can call shows 'lives,' venues 'live houses,' and road stops 'road stations' in English or Japanese, to Japanese people of foreigners who've been here a while, and no one will think it's weird.
Someone can mean to say, "I'm going to ask you a question!" and accidentally blurt out, "Humidity!"

Awa

Awa Odori in Tokushima this past weekend was also tiiiiiiiiiiiiight (you know, say it with that high-pitched voice). Like seriously, it was so awesome. I don't have many pictures, unfortunately, but just trust me, if you ever get the chance to see Awa OdoriDOITDOITNOW. It was seriously one of the coolest musical, performance, artistic, and community/people things I've ever seen. Thanks to my generous host.

'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' by Marcia Griffiths

is a song I'm really into right now.

I got bit freaking hardcore by a friend's bunny I'm taking care of for her. What the heck.
Couldn't get the thing back in its cage for like an hour cuz it would attack me every time I got close to it. Considering not letting it out of its cage today and just dropping some food in from the top of the cage...what's the worst that can happen?

Tom Waits' 'Clap Hands' is also amazing and just so good. That whole album, 'Rain Dogs,' is really good, though it's conjures up a lot of imagery about exotic 'other' races and white people going into their domain and losing their mind. Reminded me of the end of 'Apocalypse Now' when the white people go into the insane realm of Blacks, drugs, Vietnamese, and religious rituals and go crazy.

I should read 'Heart of Darkness.'

Songs I really like this morning:
'Dreamland' ~ Marcia Griffiths
'This Life Makes Me Wonder' ~ Delroy Wilson
'Government Man ' ~ Christel & the Goldmaster Allstars
'Dread Are The Controller' ~ Linval Thompson
'Mr. Wicked Man' ~ Linval Thompson
'Jah Jah Me No Born Yah' ~ Cornell Campbell
'Every Day Is Like A Holiday' ~ The Sensations

Time to clean up.

Last Week

Last week, I got the frustrating yet ultimately valuable experience of my friends and I being refused service for not being Japanese...by two restaurants in a row.

Weird

It's kind of creepy how after local elections ended a few weeks ago and all the other political campaign vans and megaphones petered out, this party, the Happiness Realization Party, has continued sending out its megaphone-equipped vans on their own. I've been seeing them around my town and Osaka for the past couple of months and even have people coming to my door giving me pamphlets (It was a creepy moment when I read this article and recognized the picture of their leader from a handout two women had given me at my door a while ago. At first I thought they were Jehovah's Witnesses, who also tried to convert me earlier in the year, but no, these people are way different).

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090804zg.html

Hi everybody

I just thought I'd give you an update.

I just got back from having an awesome time with two of our good, mutual friends around Kansai.

A terrible taifun hit the area right around where I live. There was a lot of water damage to buildings and houses, roads flooded and fell apart into rivers, and somewhere around 10 people died in the next town over. Whoa. Also, a string of fairly powerful earthquakes went off along the north-east of Japan.

I feel a bit weird in the degree of non-mobility I seem to find myself. A part of me wants to stay in Japan and find another job, continue exploring how to live (here) on my own, whether I stay in my new Japanese hometown or move. One of the lessons I've learned from this whole experience is...actually listen to people! Haha. People who give you advice, like other teachers and past professors, have your best interests in mind and really are trying to help you because they want you to be happy. That plus, listen to your environment! When you hear and notice the same thing coming out of all sorts of signs and different peoples' mouths, you might want to take it to heart, at least a bit (I tell myself now). It happened before, with all the signs telling me to recontract for another year of teaching English here, but at that time I overrode it with my own will and what I thought was a pretty decided plan for the future. Stubborness. I've only recently come to realize how much that comes into play in my interactions with people. Sorry, friends and fam, hehe ; ) But anyway, people keep telling me I'm good at Japanese. I'm not bragging or anything, but teachers and people I've met here've been telling me that all year and I've only now actually started putting some thought into it. Maybe I should just go with that, now that I'm in a position to do so. Find more work, keep studying Japanese, keep taking in the culture, keep learning to live here, because, hey, it might just turn out to be important.

Another part of me wants to go! Go, go go! I've lived in Japan a whole year, I've got a good foundation in human interact in this society - I was thinking something back when I decided not to recontract with this job, maybe I should just trust in the deliberation I put into it back then. There are so many other cultures and places that it is important to understand! How can I relate to more of the world's peoples as a person if I don't get out and meet more of them? At the same time, this feels a little less thought-out and reminiscent of that unmatured urge to just go that I felt more in college (okay, yes I know that was only one year ago, I'm not trying to say I'm so much more matured, hah). And after all, what is the other thing I learned from all this?

No matter how idealistically I want to live, I still need a job and financial stability to live freely in this society. I mean, I need a job to keep sane, but I can't go around being picky about which ones I take, really. This might be the phase where I just go through different jobs and professions, experiencing life in each and seeing what I like.

So I have a little less than a week to pack up the rest of my apartment if I feel I don't want to further pursue a life in Japan after I go home in the upcoming days. Or, I have an apartment from which to continue to search for jobs and out of which to base myself when I come back to Japan in a few weeks. And do I really want to put off school another year/apply to school from a foreign country/live at home in L.A. so I can get ready for school again?

I've decided to let things go instead of stressing about that stuff. I figure life's flow will direct me in a way if it doesn't guide me to a conclusion in my own head. But really, every day that goes by without me really feeling a distinct, determined will to do one particular thing leads me closer to sticking around here. If I'm going to say goodbye to this country for now, though, I'd like to do it with a sense of closure. Though I know I'll be back at some point. I guess I don't really get a choice in these matters, sometimes(?).

Anyways, the whole overarching thing to this whole...thing...(>.<)...is probably more about just being happy and able to live a life that is fulfilling and allows me to do my best in whatever I can, make best positive influence on others I can, and be open enough to be positively affected by all the amazing people/things (...) around me. So, how do I get to that? I had it for a while during that time between April and July and it was amazing. I'd like to rise up to that again.

Once, again, that got longer than I expected. Maybe I'll go to bed now, finally. Oh, by the way, I'm listening to Yo La Tengo's "A Smattering of Outtakes and Rarities: 1985-2003," an album I haven't really given too much of a good listen to so far, and it's really great. Feelings of music are also coming back up, too, now that I have more freedom to pursue that I suppose. Anyways, we'll see. :)

Hello 2.0

Hello.

Internet got cancelled, but should be up in a bit.

Well...I'm not going to write anything about life on a large scale because I myself don't even know what's going on with that! Hey!

So, let me say this...

Roy Orbison is amazing!
First thing that got me into him was the incredibleness of his voice in Dream Baby and Goodnight, but now that I'm listening to some of his other ones, like Only the Lonely, Running Scared, and Leah, I'm witness to a whole new world of lyrical awesomeness! Oh my gosh, the words that make up these stories of songs and the rest of the music that matches them are just amazing. Talk about some weird, deep, and complex emotions and stories being conveyed by a unique and awe-inspiring voice, all in a 2-3 minute song. I am definitely inspired.

I've also been getting more and more into Ricky Nelson (would like to hear some more, but I love his version of I Don't Have Anything), the Chiffons (really trippy, good pop I think; feels like you can hear the change in musical styles at the time), and the Everly Brothers (Their version of All I Have to Do is Dream is incredible! and I had it in my head all day yesterday). Chuck Berry is amazing. All I have is No Particular Place to Go, but I can see why people call this guy the master of guitar now. That playing is just brilliant.

So, here I am in a friend's apartment, using her internet. Some people, sounded like two girls maybe, just rang the doorbell...rang the doorbell again and then tried the door handle. Uh...I'll just act like I'm not here, I suppose.

It's been really hot lately, so much so that you get pretty drained by sunset, that is unless you...eat your EEL! Hm, I love eel so much, it's become a Japanese food very much necessary to my diet! Apparently, it's a summer specialty, although you can get it all year round, thought up however many years ago by wise ancestors to combat the heat fatigue of the intense, humid Japanese summer. I've been told the oil in the eel is good for kicking out the energy (i.e.: 元気が出る！). Or jams, whatever you see fit. But besides that energy goodness, it just tastes delicious. Probably the most prolifically eaten (haha, I'll probably never use that phrase again) eel is known as unagi and is eaten teriyaki style. Recently, though, I gave anago, another type of eel, another chance in its tempura form, and that was really good, too.

I think, though, the original is still my favorite. Man, the people at the local restaurant are actually getting to know me now since I've been coming in like 3-4 times a week now. Hey, I'm actually using one of those repeat-customer cards now, (yes!).

Oh!, and also! I started reading Haruki Murakami's new book, 1Q84! The title's pronounced "ichi-kew-hachi-yon," which in Japanese is the same pronunciation as 1984. Ooooooo. I don't know if there's any correlation or not, but the book is supposed to be horror. I love it so far, even though I'm only 24 pages in (really, 13 or so, since the book actually started on page 11), because the main character loves history and a whole page or so has been just on her imagining what Czechoslovakia was like after World War I. That plus, music has played a major driving part so far and a mystical, kind-of-creepy-kind-of-intriguing taxi driver has given instructions out of a freeway by an unknown staircase with the warning of "Do not be fooled by appearances. There is only one reality. You are about to do something not considered normal, and once you have, things will begin to seem different to you. I have had this sort of experience before." It's just so exciting to read a work in another language right as soon as it comes out, before the translation is even done and published yet! (I actually don't know if the English translation's out or not, I just said that). But in any case, yes, it's very exciting and I'm trying to read it every night to keep myself in it.

I'm out.