The Way Things Turned Out

So every once in a while I like to look back on my past blog entries to see what I was doing one or two years ago at about roughly the same time. I didn't realize it but upon reading some of my September 2005 stuff, this was the month that I first applied for my job and found out that I was coming to live here. I remember a lot about that time two years ago because that was the first time that I really started doing things instead of waiting for things to happen on their own. I felt more alive that particular month than I had in a long time.

One post that I thought was funny was me saying that the part about Japan the scared me the most was the loneliness factor. I can now safely say, being lonely sucks but it doesn't bother me like I thought it would or like it used to. Right now, boredom is my #1 dread. I have come to despise being bored. I supposed the alone time and the boredom go hand in hand but more than anything now, I just don't like to be bored. I feel like I am here, and I am here for a limited amount of time now so I need to make the most of it. The downside to that attitude is most of the time, thanks to my location, doing means spending money which is something that I don't want to be doing.

If I don't want to spend money, I just hang out around my apartment or go wander around town but my town is small and that can get old kind of quickly. Today, I cleaned like the dickens and got a lot of stuff organized that will save me some trouble as my time to leave Japan gets closer. Tomorrow, I have a guy coming over to figure out my air conditioner and see what the deal is with that and that acted as a catalyst for my tidying up. The funny part is that only one section of my place really got finished.

I have this wooden cabinet near my door as you enter my apartment. Historically, this cabinet has been where I have dumped all work related papers and anything else that I don't want to throw away but don't have much use for. So today, I think I went through over a thousand pieces of paper trying to decide what to keep and what to toss. Most of it was pretty useless and I ended up chucking out five grocery bags of garbage. Now all of the papers that are in there that I actually wanted to hang on to only take up half of the bottom shelf.

Another thing that I talked about in posts of yore was the fact that I may someday have a Japanese girlfriend. That never really panned out. As far as significant others are concerned I have pretty much given up on Japanese women and have come to grips with not having a lady friend for the foreseeable future. This is not a totally bad thing because I have come to the conclusion that most Japanese women are kind of space cadets. I can't stand people being late and I have found that the Japanese as a whole are horrible when it comes to this. I can't stand people saying they will call and then not calling and this is also a pretty common trait with some of the Japanese I interact with. The gal from the train station has yet to call me and at this point, it is probably a good idea if she doesn't. I have come to the conclusion that I like American women...a lot. With Americans, you know where you stand with them. Japanese women are hard to decipher and I have just stopped trying. There is also a broader selection of women in the US, here most of the women look the same, which isn't a bad thing particularly but they tend to act the same as well. Japanese women strike me as being a higher upkeep than American ones and I am a guy that is still trying to decide whether I want to get a cat or a dog when I come back and am unsure if I will have the time to dedicate to a pet, let alone a person with feelings, wants, and needs and whatnot. On that note, I am looking at cats more and more. As for a woman, I am sure if one came along that interested me, I would have no problem readjusting my timetable but so far, here that has not happened. Japanese women look nice on a whole but I don't like most of their personalities and I hate their voices when they whine and the women I interact with seem to whine a lot.

A couple of things that did turn out how I expected them to are as follows. I expected to learn more Japanese I have done that. I am pretty good with the language and I am happy that I met that goal. The other thing that is pretty much how I anticipated it is my attitude to little kids after having dealt with them for two years. I can't stand teaching the little buggers and after this, I will never set foot in an elementary school unless it pertains to dealing with my own children. I am sick of Japanese kids and I would like to beat 75% of them. Japanese parents do not discipline their runts and it shows. Japanese kids have dreadful manners and I have no patience for their crap anymore. At first, some of their little quirks and outbursts were cute and funny, now all of them are annoying. I will never teach little kids again after this.

The rest kind of went as planned as far as my expectations go. I am a different person than I was when I came and I feel that the experience has changed me for the better in many ways. I have met a lot of nice people and I have sen and done a lot of stuff that not everyone gets to do. Living here has strengthened my desire to keep seeing the rest of the world and travel as much as possible. It has also taught me to not take many parts of life in the US for granted, there is a lot of stuff I miss that I never imagined I would. There is also stuff here that I am sure I will miss too but for now, I really just want to get off this island. I am ready to start the next phase of my life and I am ready to declutter and shift stuff around once more. Coming back to the US kind of creeps me out for a handful of reasons but it is in the same way that I felt about coming here. Yeah, there is creepy stuff just around the next bend but I get a rush thinking about the uncertainty and the possibilities that lay in it and now that I have done this, I know I can handle it all.