Business or Pleasure? – Both

Well, it’s safe to say that I have been busy.  In the course of three weeks I will have made three different “trips” to see friends or for work.  Last week I was in Sendai to visit friends for a short while – That was a 3.5 hour bus ride both ways, yesterday I took a 2.5 hour Shinkansen ride to Morioka for a business meeting with all the other teachers in my region, and this coming week I will be make a 2 hour train ride up to Odate to teach at my “hotel school” for a week.  All in all, a fairly busy schedule with traveling.  In other words, in the course of three weeks I have/will only been/be in my apartment for 4 days.  As much as I like saving on electricity, I do miss being able to sleep in my own bed and cook some nice HOT meals that do no come prepare wrapped.

There is a silver lining to all my travels though.  I have had to opportunity to finally sleep (cue drum roll) in a capsule hotel!  That’s right, my bucket list of “must do’s” for Japan has had an item marked off.  Now all that is left is:

• Battle Godzilla to the death
• Become the true Last Samurai
• Kiss Mao Inoue
• Enjoy a Soap Palace
• Have a maiko fall hopelessly in love with me

In other news…I’m trying to find a place to go buy ice skates since there is a really nice skating rink here in town and I’d like to get back to skating around a lot.  So, for those of you who live in Japan please give me any ideas you might have for where I can buy said hockey skates.

In other, other news…I am a zombie!  And I’ve got the pictures to prove it!

Okonomiyaki, "Music," and The Golden Classroom!

Well, my one week of golden students came to and end on Saturday and I am now stuck waiting another four weeks before I get the chance to meet my favorite students. At this school I really do get to see the students that everyone dreams of having in their classes. They are smart, funny, motivated, and polite. The parents are great too.

It was a great way to cheer me up since I had just realized that I had been chasing a ghost for an entire month.

Since it was parent ops I was given the opportunity to meet the parents briefly along with the siblings. I had a lot of fun, to say the least.

During the lessons, the Japanese Teacher (Nami-sensei) would take the parents back and speak with them about their child and about the classes so that I could still work with the kids and give all the parents a chance to observe my lessons as well.

Apparently I impressed a great number of the parents since some of them even stated that they wanted to join the classes so that I would be their teacher. Talk about stroking my ego, right?

All in all, it was a great classroom.

After the week had finished I went out to dinner with Nami-sensei and she took me to a nice okonomiyaki place. It was wonderful. It meant a lot to me since it was my first time eating okonomiyaki again since I came back to Japan. I wish I had taken pictures for everyone to see, but oh well. I guess I can't always be dragging my camera everywhere, right?

After eating and talking to Nami-sensei about pretty much anything that popped into my head, we headed over to DonQuiote, which is the closest thing to Walmart Japan has, and I got myself some much needed pasta sauce and a wine bottle opener.

The next day I had planed to do errands, but of course it rained (since it has managed to rain almost every day I have off). Seriously weather gods? You gotta rag on me and my coworkers every time we are trying to relax on the weekend? I ended up just getting some hot chocolate at starbucks and heading back to my apartment.

Soon after though I got a call about a music party going on at a local bar so I thought I'd tag along. Of course, my friends was using the word "music" very loosely since it was all experimental crap which would have even made someone tripped out on E scratch their head in confusion. In other words, 1500 yen down the drain. Honestly, even the free drink I got was lousy. I have never heard sounds like I heard that night and I pray to God that I never do again. Maybe it was my classical training or the fact that they just screamed into the microphone while playing out of tune and rhythm on purpose.

I've still been feeling pretty down lately. I'm trying to raise my spirits up again, but it is not easy. I hope I find a nice girl soon. I mean, all this bad luck has got to add up to something, right?

There is obviously something wrong with me. Without a doubt. There is something in my brain -- Some chemical, nerve ending, or small troll which constantly per verses my thoughts and actions. I'm not all together sure as to why it seems like I can truly relate to no one. I don't know why my opinions always seem to be the ugly minority in a group. Maybe I was just born to be a contrary and always work against others.

I just don't seem to fit right. I'm not talking about fitting in with Americans or with Japanese. I'm focusing on humanity as a whole with this statement.

(By the way, if you are wondering. No, nothing awful has happened. I've just had a lot of downtime)

I highly doubt that there is anyone out there who can understand me the way I wish to be understood and who can accept me for who I am. Because it always turns into me being "too (insert adjective)." Too nice, too angry, too sad, too weak, too smart, too stupid, and too childish.

I don't know what has happened to me recently or in my past that has caused me to veer so significantly from the social highway everyone else seems to commute on everyday. While they are cruising by at seventy-five miles per hour, I am crawling down some back road with more than enough time to casually survey any condemned building I pass.

Some may argue that it is the human experience and that there is nothing strange about this. But I would disagree. I would say that it is the "true" human experience but that most people are too foolish or short sighted to ever realize what they are doing or how things are affecting themselves and those around them.

Anyway, this is just another small pondering on why I continue to ostracize myself from everyone else

Tales of a Boring Work Day

Got bored during work today and started having fun with philosophy and word play...

Life is full of it's little ups and downs. At one moment you may find yourself residing in a golden palace sipping delicately at a diamond encrusted goblet and the next you might just be poor innocent fly killed by a farmer protecting the grapes which created the fine wine upon which you were sipping. Of course the same can be said for the recently deceased parasite becoming a king. But then again, if we look at the British royal family, what is the difference between a monarch and a parasite in this modern world?

Semantics aside - if at all possible since it seems unlikely that I will find it near impossible to subjugate myself to writing in such a dull and straight forward tone- One's life is filled with missed opportunities, foolish mistakes, childlike naivety, good fortune, dumb luck, and thoroughly planned successes. If one were to ask why I continue with this string of thought that hardly seems worthy of a quick jump out of the bath shouting "eureka!" they would be adequately answered if I were cease my script at this point, but unfortunately for them, my prose does not come to a halt so soon.

I make mention of these frequent mortal turbulence for the purpose of asking a single, yet all be it slightly ambiguous, question:

Can these good times and bad times and all other juxtapositions found within poorly edited British literature truly be what they are? That is to say, are they good and bad? Are they grand and small? With proper thought and diligence one might witness something miraculous. They may observe that the these seemingly independent moments within one's life are no more separate and qualified than the poorly rolled, and useless, ball of yarn a cat finds such joy in. Since it may easily be agreed upon that missed opportunities and other forms of "misfortune" are present within one's life, it seems as though a curious mind is forced to ask "what makes them poor in comparison to other experiences?" Perhaps at the time of occurrence these circumstances may seem to carry with them a sense of ill fortune, yet does not any one of these inopportune situations lead us down a path towards happiness which would have remained unused if not for the previous fall from grace? It is true that falling from your horse in to a cave may seem utterly deplorable, yet when said cave is actually a mine filled with rare gems what is the verdict? Would that sudden fall still be considered a misery invoking scene of pain and indignation? Of course the same might be said for good fortune and its unwelcome effects on future venture since perhaps the previously imagined mine may be extremely rich but lost in a later, rather costly, divorce settlement brought on by the newfound greed of the wife and husband whom reveled in their fortune.

To better illuminate one's self to this idea let us look into the classic piece of literature "The Count of Monte Cristo.". In the case of Edmond Dantes, it is only through his wrongful imprisonment that he befriends an academic friar who teaches him language, science, math, and philosophy while providing him with the whereabouts of a grand treasure which aids him in making his want for vengeance a reality. That being said, does this misfortune of Edmond turn itself into a grand and lustrous opportunity? Possible, but we must also look into the reasoning for his wrongful imprisonment. It is true that he was betrayed by his friends and neighbor as a traitor to the state and brought to prison, but why did his comrades feel the need to act as such? Jealousy was the cause. Jealously of Edmonds good fortune of becoming a ship captain, of being financially stable, and of holding the heart of the most beautiful woman of Marseilles in his hand. That being said, do these fortunate occurrences then become the abysmal servants of fate and demise? Possibly, yet as stated before, such observations are only relative to the time they are given. The thoughts of the next hour are very likely to vary from those of he proceeding day.

So it would seem that Edmond is neither fortunate nor cursed, but merely the victim of the universal ailment known to all as "life."

Life is life. It cannot be altered or graded. As seem by these examples, life is nothing more than an incoherent compilation of events and circumstances which place one upon a path designated only for them to walk.

All in all, why worry about good and bad fortune as it is all relative to the eyes that witness the products of these events.