Mogwai's Mind

I'm Really Starting to Hate Facebook

2011-05-10T15:46:00.003-06:00

The title to this post pretty much says it all. Facebook and I are not getting along right now.

1. When something happens in Boise or makes national news everyone makes essentially the same damned post. Take the death of Osama Bin Laden for instance; not only did I have to get it 24/7 from every media outlet on the planet, I then had to go on Facebook and wade through 250 posts all saying that Osama had died and how awesome it was. I am almost tempted mute everyone out of my news feed and nominate like two or three people to represent people on my friends list who are for the lack of a better term, B-List friends to make the status updates that I know all of the rest of them are making too. This way I just see three possibly funny or creative news updates instead of 250 updates that all say the same thing.

2. There are some people who are on my friends list that I can't stand. But I can't "unfriend" them because of connections to other people or family that would cause awkward situations. They are essentially the Facebook equivalent of testicular cancer. If you take measures to get rid of it, you risk losing a testicle but leaving them on there is slowly killing you. I know you can make it to where you can't see their posts but I am hesitant to do that because sometimes other friends refer to the peoples' posts and I don't want to be out of the loop.

3. People say the dumbest things in their status updates. When I post, I try to make the post funny or creative in some way. I despise posts that say, "Today, I ate at Denny's". Seriously, you really had to let the world know that? Idiot.

4. This part sounds mean but I am really not trying to be mean at all. Many of my friends have kids. I love that my friends have kids. I even like hanging out with most of their kids. But I have a couple of people on my list that insist on doing nothing but posting pics of their kids and telling me that their kid farted and it was funny. What I really really wish people would do is make a Facebook page for their babies. Then if the kid does something funny or you have the sudden urge to post 522 pictures of them in succession, you put them on the kid's Facebook page. That way, I don't have to see all of them or hear about every time they eat something they aren't supposed to. Like I said earlier, I love that my friends have kids, I just wish I didn't have to hear about them as much. I think you think things your kids do is way cuter when they are indeed, your kids. From an outsiders perspective, most of the things other peoples' kids do is kind of boring.

5. Do not use your damned Facebook site to sell crap or advertise for a business. I will admit, I am slightly guilty of this because I do very occasionally plug my photography stuff. But I do not use my profile page to whore out my Etsy goods or announce every time there is a dog that needs rescuing or every time my boyfriend's mediocre band is playing at a venue that I have never heard of. When people do this occasionally I am not bugged, when people only use their profile pages for this, they should be banned. That is why Facebook has pages for businesses and causes.

6. People who group invite all of their Facebook friends to something should be shot. It makes the people being invited feel like they don't really matter and it makes the people hosting the event look lazy and uncaring of who really shows up. If I am invited to an event that every single friend this person has is invited to, I am not showing up. Invite me personally or don't invite me at all.

7. All Facebook games and the people who shill for them should be shot. Nuff' said.

8. Facebook is not the place to share bible verses that mean nothing to anyone other than yourself. Facebook is not the place to put your extreme political views regardless of what side you are on. Facebook is not the place to tell me where you are at any given point in your day. Facebook is not the place you should go for personal validation.

That is all, I just needed to get this out. I feel better now.

Ticking Down

2011-04-13T18:18:00.004-06:00

The clock seems to be ticking down on everything as of late. Less than two months left in this school year, just over two months until Malia and I are married, just over two months until our honeymoon which I am beyond excited about. Lots of widgets are in a clockwork motion and winding down to zero hour for a lot of big stuff.

I am superduper excited about Malia and I's honeymoon. Since there is a chance she will read this post before we set off, I can't say much about the trip other than it will be epic. I think I mentioned earlier that the honeymoon will be a total surprise for Malia and I have been planning it for almost six months now. But Tyson, you and Malia haven't even been engaged that long! Very true, I have been planning this honeymoon since Malia and I started dating again. I knew that once we started dating for the second time, we would get married so I have had ideas percolating for quite some time. I hate keeping secrets, especially good ones but I think this one will be worth it. I call it the Honeymoon of Infinite Mystery for a good reason. It should be entertaining. Man, I want to say more....but I can't.

With school winding down, I am finding it exceedingly hard to concentrate. I am just like the kids I teach in this sense. After Spring Break, I have to give it my all to not be useless for three months. I am excited for the end of school for a number of reasons. First, I have two kids graduating this year and I am excited for that. Second, I am photographing the prom and graduation ceremony for the school. Third, I get to teach summer school this year! I am teaching Government and Economics to a student this summer and am very happy to teach something other than Special Ed. It will be a good breather for me.

Malia is pretty much moved into my apartment now. The move and the wedding are stressing her out. She is currently sleeping at her brother's place but she stays over at my house until bedtime usually. I think living in two places has been hard on her and it is starting to stress her out. I have been trying to keep the place clean so that she doesn't get stressed about that. I love her sooooo much and I hate to see her bothered but there isn't much to be done about that.

I think the wedding planning is moving along. I am not in charge of much in that area so I am not totally sure how everything is going on that front. I think it is going well. I hear snippets and see mock-ups of things. It all looks nice. Wedding stuff also stresses Malia out and I am going to try to help out more in that area. I just want it to be done and to be married to her. It will be nice to have her around all the time.

In other news, I have been really stressed lately. It sucks because it isn't a compartmentalized stress about one particular thing, it is a ton of stuff that bugs me. I hate being a worry wort but I am. I worry about work, going back to school, my health because of my worrying, the wedding, THE HONEYMOON A LOT, money stuff, marriage stuff, friends stuff, etc. I know it is dumb to worry about some of it, especially the marriage stuff. I have a better feeling about Malia and I than I did about Becca and I. I am not sure why that is but it just feels...better. I feel more like a grown up this time around.

Speaking on the theme of time that I started this entry with. I am feeling 31 years old now. This bothers me. I have never really felt my age, I have always felt 25, even after I was older than 25. Not anymore. I think I have been very stressed for a while now and I think that is aging me. This school year has been a learning experience. It has been a great year but it has been stressful. That is very true for the last couple of months. I never feel like I am unwinding, I always feel like I have stuff I need to do (and I usually do), and I can't leave work stuff at work anymore. Work is definitely bleeding into my personal life, like right now, it is almost 7pm and I am sitting in my office. I love my job but lately, its been getting nuts. Two more months.

Speaking of my job, I know I will have a job next year but I can't stop but worrying about how many years I can count on that. Sometimes, working for a charter school feels like being a cog in a time bomb. My job rocks but I question the longevity of it sometimes. This is bothersome because with marriage, kids will come. I just want to be sure I can always provide for Malia and our kids. It would kill me if I couldn't. I hate feeling like a grown up.

Anywho, I need to get going. Malia will be at my place soon and I won't be. Besides, I think I have more than put in my time at the office for the day.

Tick tock tick tock tick tock.

Giving This A Jumpstart

2011-03-16T11:36:00.002-06:00

Since my last post, I have been busy. And at Malia's suggestion, I may be starting this blog back up because she wants me to document our lives together. Oh yeah, we are getting married. (^_^)

I asked her on February 5th after she took me out for my birthday dinner. I figured she wouldn't expect getting asked that night and I would surprise her. I was right! She was speechless as we walked around downtown Boise. It was actually kind of funny because for the few weeks leading up to that night, marriage had been a hot topic. Malia worked a bridal show and so we talked about stuff related to that and then her mom, in a moment of infinite tact, asked us outright when we were getting married once night over dinner. I told her it would probably be a year or two and this didn't make her very happy. In reality, I had ordered Malia's ring a couple weeks earlier.

The wedding will be on June 25th in my parents' backyard. It will be pretty chill and fairly small. The honeymoon will start the following day but I can't say anything about that because I know Malia will read this and the honeymoon is a surprise I have concocted for her.

I think we are going to stay in my apartment for a little while rather than getting a house right off the bat. We want to save money and my rent is super cheap. I also doubt that the housing market is going to be turning around anytime soon so we are not in danger of paying significantly higher home prices if we wait. We figure that if we save now, it will help us out down the road and put us on more stable footing for the future.

So that is the big news.

Other stuff is going well too. I am sure I will keep my teaching position throughout next year and I may even be doing some Social Studies teaching this summer if stuff works out. I am still taking pictures and will be launching a professional photography site soon. I am working on the logo for it at the moment and expect to have it up by the end of the month or beginning of April. I need to get a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens badly. After that, the lenses I get will be toys but for portraits and some landscape stuff, I need that extra zoom the 70-200mm would provide.

I have been thinking a lot about Japan as of late. With that earthquake and its aftermath, Japan is everywhere 24/7 it seems. I feel very bad for the people there but I think the damage could have been much worse had it not been for their technology and preparation in the area of earthquakes and tsunamis. Everyone I know who lives over there is doing well from what I can gather and the area that I lived in has been largely unaffected by the disaster. Sometimes I miss Japan. I want to take Malia there someday and show her all of the crazy places that I explored.

Totally off-topic: Tyson, King of the Nerds, picked up an iPad2 on launch day. It rocks in pretty much every area imaginable. Except for the cameras....the cameras on that thing suck. I have been reading a lot on it since buying it and I am very happy with that aspect of the device. Reading books on that thing is a dream.

My family is doing well and my nephew, Broxton will be getting a sister soon! Her name will be Tinley and she is due about a month before my wedding. I am very excited to be getting a niece since there are not a ton of girls in my family. Very happy for Brody and Michaela and Brox.

It is weird to think that I am getting married again and that Broxton and Tinley may have cousins to play with at some point. Me with kids = very very weird. It's a good weird I think but still...odd.

Anywho, I am ending this now. I am typing this as I work with some of my students in a study lab that I run. They are all doing very well today! Time to get back to helping them out!

One Year Later...

2010-11-08T15:56:00.002-07:00

Obviously this blog is pretty much on life support. It has been over a year since I have posted here and I have serious doubts that anyone even knows it still exists. So I figured making a new post would at least serve as a nice bookend to a blog that had a pretty good run with all sorts of plot twists and crazy events to keep things occasionally interesting.

When we last left our protagonist, he was working as a PSR working in an elementary school in Caldwell, ID and preparing to be interviewed by the Meridian school district for a possible job. Things were looking pretty good and they were. Unfortunately, neither the job he was working at or the interviews with the Meridian school district panned out. I quit the PSR job because I got a flood of interviews as soon as I got my special education certificate. It would have seriously been hard to keep my job for as often as I would have had to call in sick in order to go on an interview for a while. There was also some odd stuff happening at the place I worked for that placed me in Caldwell. So one day I just quit.

Then came more than a handful of interviews and assurances from higher ups in the Meridian district that I would land a full-time teacher job with them. In the end, I was told not to take any part-time or temporary jobs because I would "definitely" be in the Meridian district by the end of October. This was last year. I ended up turning down two jobs that were not full time and by the time I realized I wasn't getting a full-time job, I had missed my chance on the two part-time jobs. This led to a three month stint in which extreme frugality, photography jobs, and patience kept me afloat without an actual factual job.

Then one day a person I had gone to school with called me and asked if I had a job yet. Nope. So I was told to go interview at this one charter school who was in desperate need of a special ed teacher. I went into the office and had a 45 minute chat with the director of special ed and a couple days later I had a job. It was 1/4 time and that sucked but it eventually became 1/2 time and now, I teach here full-time and am chilling in a rather spacious office that I occupy forty hours a week. It is a virtual high school which means everything is online. This means I almost never see kids and just do paperwork. For a job in Special Education, this is pretty much the most pimped out gig I could have. Oh yeah, it also pays better than any district in Idaho by a long shot.

So that is how things have turned out on the job front. Am I staying at this school for the rest of my life? Doubt it, but it will do for now and for the next few years while I get my Masters which I am starting in the next year or so. Don't ask what I am getting a Masters in because I am not quite sure. Boise State has basically rolled out the red carpet in terms of degrees in Education based on how I did during my Special Ed credentialing but I am also considering Mastering in a particular History field too. Maybe I will just end up with two Masters so I don't have to decide. Who knows?

My photography stuff is doing well despite me. I basically make no attempts to market myself but have shot weddings, senior portraits, kids portraits, family portraits, Christmas cards, and soon, two graduations ceremonies and two proms. Weird. I am basically to the point where my pics bring in a few extra bucks on a fairly consistent basis. I need to get my more professional site up and running but I will be damned if I have had the time to do that. It is nice though to be able to plan on making a few hundred extra every month for basically going out an playing for a couple of hours. I bought a new camera a few months ago and am trying to get the lenses I need in order to round out my kit but I have already dropped $6000 on stuff and need to recoup a little more before dropping a couple thousand more. I picked a spendy hobby.

Lastly, I have a girlfriend and that is going super well. I don't know what else to say there other than I really dig her and that she probably is one of the few people on this earth who get me. It is creepy how similar we are sometimes. Which is good, its cool.

Lots of other stuff has happened in the past year too! I have a nephew, his name is Broxton. He is basically a carbon copy of my brother in almost every way. Hanging out with Broxton is kind of like going back in a time machine and playing with my brother at that age; you just replace Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Toy Story and that is pretty much it. I will also be an uncle times two in the Spring so that is super cool too. I like being an uncle.

So that is it. I am thirty now and I am finally starting to feel kind of like a grown up. I still play more video games than a cracked out Japanese kid and I have more Legos than any man my age should ever be allowed but hey, life is pretty damned good at the moment and that doesn't look to be changing any time soon. Will I write in this blog again...maybe. I am not promising anything. After all, I can't make more than one post a year it seems and I don't really care anymore. This blog started over five years ago and it has had a good run, we'll see. I would be a shame to let it die...though I kind of already have.

Later.

Another Short Post With Lots of News

2009-09-23T22:15:00.002-06:00

Ok here it is!

Earlier this month, I became officially certified to teach Special Education K-12. Go me. It took a year and three lame tests to get but I think it will be worth it. The other upside is that I am done with school again...at least for three years.

Shorty after getting the Spec. Ed. certificate, I applied for and got a new job. I am not teaching Special Ed. but I am working in an elementary school. Essentially, I am doing the same job I was doing, working with kids with issues, only now I am doing it in a school setting and getting paid pretty close to what I would make teaching and getting benefits. Teacher benefits are way better than what I get now but I haven't had health insurance for four years so I will take what I can get. Some is better than nothing. After being in a school for two days now, I can safely say I do indeed want to teach for the rest of my life. I feel so at home in that environment and I like the idea that I am helping out kids who actually need it. Right now, I am pretty happy with my new job.

But why end this post on a calm and serene note? Just before I got done at school today, I got a call...from the Meridian school district....from the head of the Special Ed department in the Meridian district. It looks like I will be interviewing for an actual factual Special Ed teaching job in the next couple of days. If offered the job I will take it. Period. Which sucks because I love what I am doing now and I just started it a few days ago. But I figure I have to look out for my career and I am going into the interview feeling like I have already won. If I get an actual teaching gig, great. If I don't, I still work at a job that I am really enjoying at the moment and only making a couple grand a year less than if I were teaching.

Stuff is looking up lately. Oh and Fall is here! I love Fall!!!!

School Is Done Once Again

2009-07-26T20:34:00.003-06:00

Well, I did it. Yesterday, I took my last test for teacher certification in Special Ed. I am pretty sure I passed it and with that little battle won, I am pretty much certified to teach Special Ed. This is good. :)

If you can't tell, I have pretty much left this blog to crumble and decay. I am not sure what else to say, I just don't have the time or the patience to write on this anymore. Facebook has made life a lot easier and I find that since I don't seem too compelled to write on this anymore, the little status updates that Facebook allots me seem to be enough to quench my blogging urge.

Not a ton else has been happening. A few weeks ago, I had a sort-of-but-not-really girlfriend and now I have a sort-of-but-not-really ex. I saw that coming and can't say any of that really surprised me seeing we had nothing in common. When entering into a relationship with someone, it helps to have things in common. :)

Anywho, I wanted to post on here tonight for some reason unknown to me. I will probably post on here again but I don't know when. Life is going well and things are in motion now so that I may be able to actually start a career soon. I really need to get teaching again...and get a house...and kind of be a grown up.

My Six Rules.........That I Try To Live By Most Of The TIme.

2009-05-13T00:28:00.002-06:00

When I was growing up, I had fairly simple expectations for my life. I knew I was not going to ever make a ton of money because I have never wanted to do much else other than teach. I think I had a fairly old fashioned view of how my life would go, I would graduate college, get married, get a History teaching job, have some kids, maybe travel a bit, live in a little house, and just kind of be average in my own right.

It is funny how things work out.

Now, I am an uncle....probably on track to fulfill the role of "odd uncle" but nonetheless, uncle. Since Broxton was born I have thought a lot about advice I would give him as well as my own kids when I stumble upon them. I don't know what got me thinking about all of this except that it occurred to me that my job is essentially telling other people how to effectively live their lives when I am not so sure the way I live mine is the best. If people ask me if I am happy, I can't give them a clear cut answer either way. Been better, been worse. People ask me if I really want to teach Special Ed, the answer there is "probably not" but it at least gets me teaching and I do know I want to do that. It isn't a matter so much of wanting to teach Special Ed, more than it is that I can teach Special Ed. People also ask me and joke about me moving away again. I think once you go far away people close to you are sometimes either afraid or eager for you to leave again. For the moment, I like Boise. In the future, I can't say I won't try to take some wicked vacations but I suspect with some regret and relief that my days of living in places not near here are over. I think I am growing up despite myself.

Things I will tell my kids and Broxton someday:

1. Don't expect your life to go as you have planned. I say this with no bitterness; it is the simple truth. I think for a person's life to go exactly how they expected it to go requires an exceptional person and circumstances. I don't know many people who are where they are today because that is exactly where they planned to be.

2. Be flexible, positive, and deal the best you can with whatever comes your way. This kind of ties into the first thing but being positive is the important part, though it is sometimes the most difficult. If you can find good in all circumstances and you find enough good, did anything bad actually happen? I read this in a book once and will probably get it tattoo'd on to me at some point, "Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was." Look at where you are today, what happened to get you here? I like that quote because it sums up the importance of history and the past in one sentence. Good history, bad history, you are the person you are because of it. The same can be said for the world.

3. Be the person you want to be, do what you want to do. The only times I look back and think, "Wow, I was an idiot" were the times I was trying to be something I wasn't. The entire four months I thought teaching maybe wasn't for me is a fine example of this. Be true to yourself.

4. Be afraid as little as possible without getting yourself or others killed. This world and everything in it is an amusement park, enjoy the rides and learn from them. The more you do, the more you learn. Never stop learning.

5. Be happy as much as possible. Sometimes this is a hard one and it is one rule that, like I said above, I am not sure I follow as often as I should. The way I figure it, is that at the end of life, if you can look back and come to the conclusion you had more good times than bad, you had a pretty decent life. Don't waste more time than necessary being sad.

6. The last rule and most important, be a good person. Pick someone in your life that you know to be good and try to pick up as much as possible from them. Sometimes, there may not be a lot of good people that instantly come to mind and when that is the case, the one rule I follow that has never ever let me down is to do what I think would have made my grandpa proud. Happiness comes from good and rule five says to be as happy as you can as often as you can. This means you should try to do a lot of good.

One Semester Down, Two Classes to Go

2009-05-10T23:07:00.002-06:00

As of a few minutes ago, I put the finishing touches on my last final project of the semester. This means that I have one summer school class and one independent study that I am doing this summer until I have done all of the school work for a Special Ed endorsement. I also have four tests that I am taking at different times this summer. After that, I am certifiably a Special Ed teacher. One cool thing about most education classes is that there are no final tests, yay! I had to knock out three projects but they went smoothly and I expect a 4.0 again this semester.

In other news, I am moving ahead with getting a modest house for myself. The townhouse I am looking at was made in 1980 but has been revamped on the inside. It is listed for $78,900 but I am going to initially make an offer for $70,000. I do not expect the owners to give it to me for that and figure the final cost of the home will be somewhere near $74,000. I am hoping they will end up covering the closing costs as well. This may sound like a lot to hope for but I know the house has been on the market for almost a year due to the crappy economy. I considered renting but for what my monthly payment on this place will end up being, it is almost pointless to throw my money down a rat hole. Financially, I know I can make all of the needed payments and I will be meeting with my bank later this week to make sure everything is in order there. Oh yeah, the place I am looking at is a two bedroom, one bathroom townhouse in Boise. It isn't fancy but it will be good for me and in the future, will make a great rental property when I get something better.

Overall, stuff has been going well lately. I am getting more clients at work which translates to more money. School is all but taken care of so I should be getting a teaching job this Fall or next Spring. I have also been dating more. This has happened with mixed results but hey, at least I am dating.

Oh oh, for anyone who has known me for a while, you know I have a small demon dog named, Lucky. I know there are those of you out there with scars and nightmares of him but you can all rest easier now. Lucky is being put down on Friday. He is 14.5 years old and deaf and blind. He also has bladder issues and we think his joints are putting him in pain most of the time so my family decided he needed to retire. I expect my mom to be inconsolable this weekend.

Housing Frustrations....Again

2009-04-14T22:31:00.002-06:00

Went looking at a couple of houses tonight....they were both creepy and ghetto in their own special ways. This means that the house I was originally interested in is still my best bet when it comes to home ownership.

There are a couple of things that suck about this whole thing though. First, I like the house I am looking at but I don't LOVE it. I like it as a quaint little place I could live for a year or so and then rent out. I think the place would make an excellent rental property. The problem is that if I don't live in the house as my main residence for three years, I can't get that $8000 tax credit. Could I live there for a year, sure, past that it gets sketchy. Secondly, the place is really small. I have lived in small places before and this isn't a huge deal to me but if I am going to buy a house, I would like it to be a place that could hold a few people in the event of a party.

The downside to all of this is, until I know for sure that I have a teaching job, it is hard for me to legitimize getting a house that I would actually be cool with living in long term.

The next option is to stay in my parents' basement. This is smart because I save money here and I don't really have to pay anything. Man though, the social life is having a mean damper put on it because of this. Dating is...interesting. Having parties or people over is...odd. Dealing with the eccentricities of my parents and the dogs can be trying on the nerves.

That leaves me with one other option and that is renting. I hate this idea for numerous reasons. The house I would consider buying would have a mortgage payment about the same as a rent payment. I would have to commit to a lease for an apartment and it could very well be that I can get a house this summer or fall and then I would be stuck in the lease. The apartment I would end up in would probably be about the same size as that house too.

All I know is that the basement isn't working at the moment and each day gets a little more desperate. I need to get out of here. I need a place of my own. I need a better job. Man, why didn't I go into engineering like the rest of my friends? I just had to be a teacher. I am kidding about all of this...sort of.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T12:10:00.003-06:00

So Easter is here! Today looks to be a pretty good day, I think my fam is going on a picnic and that should rock because it is really sunny today.

School is starting to wind down and then I have two Summer school classes to finish my Special Ed certification. I just want school to be done at this point. I almost don't even care about grades...just want to finish.

Not a ton of stuff has been happening lately. Actually that isn't 100% accurate; this week I went on a date on Thursday and then over to someone's house for dinner on Wednesday. Friday and Saturday were spent with Jake and Heather. My ambition has been bottoming out a lot lately, think I am just drained from school.

Anywho, not a ton to say. Just wanted to update for some reason...not totally sure why I write here anymore. I think it is habit or just not wanting this blog to die.

Holy Crap....701 Posts On Here

2009-03-24T12:29:00.002-06:00

I know it has been forever and a day since I have put anything up here but as the title says, this is my 701st post. Go me!

To be truthful, Facebook is killing this blog. I don't get the time or the inspiration to write much on here anymore and Facebook serves my ambition much better, allowing me to write one sentence updates of how I am and what is going on.

So what the hell has been going on??

First and foremost, school. I found out on Friday that I will be able to complete all of my classes for my Special Ed certification this summer. What that means is as long as I pass the four tests I have to take (I need to get started on those) I should be certified to teach Special Ed by the end of the Summer. This means I should in theory, have a teaching job this Fall. If I can land a teaching job, this means I should be able to snag a house before October. If I can do that, then I get that kooky $8000 tax credit that Obama is handing out to home buyers. All of this falls into the timetable for the goals that I set for myself this year. I am excited and nervous all at the same time because one of the tests I need to take is a math test. I suck at math.

Other than school, I went to Oregon last weekend to visit my cousin and Dustin. While in Portland, I had a great time. On the way back home my clutch blew out and I had to be towed back to Portland for repairs. Two extra days and $700 later, my car ran like a dream once again and I was able to get back to Boise. Thanks to Dustin for tolerating me for two extra days.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked this one girl in a class I take to go out on a date with me. That simple question has spiraled down a rabbit hole that I had no idea was as deep as I am finding it out to be. The girl I asked out is semi-normal but her friends are FREAKS. Our date never ended up happened due to a couple of factors but I don't feel too bad about it. Reasons for my lack of caring:

A. The night I asked her out, we went to pizza with her friend Christina. I thought Christina was this goody goody Mormon girl. I have had a few classes with her and that is just the vibe she gives off. I was wrong. Christina is a sex fiend who uses this one dating website like her own personal catalog of men. After a few beers we started to talk about sex and I made the mistake of mentioning how long it has been since I have actually had sex...way too long. Both girls vowed to get me laid by the end of the month. Chistina made the off comment that her roommate would probably jump me just for fun. I thought she was being flippant. I was wrong.

B. After the night of pizza and drinking with the two girls and some of their friends, I agreed to go to a BBQ at Christina's house that Friday. Thursday came along and I got a text from Christina, inviting me to a game night at her house that night. I said sure and figured there would be quite a few people there. I was wrong again. It was Christina, here roommate, Kate, and me. Christina's roommate is a clinical nympho. Of this, I am absolutely positive. The entire time Kate would talk to me, she looked in my direction but was not actually looking at me. After a while of conversation, I confronted her about this because it was slightly unhinging. She then told me that she preferred not to look people in the eyes and liked looking at her own reflection in the window when possible. What. The. Hell. Over a game of Sorry, Kate started talking about these guys that she had slept with and while she was doing so, I was keeping a mental tally in my head. I had hit about five when she stopped and so in my mind, I figured she was talking about her lifetime batting average. I was wrong, she had slept with five different guys in the last week. On top of this, the weekend before I had met her, she decided she wanted to see what sex would be like with a guy in a wheelchair so she went to a bar, found a guy in a wheelchair, and proceeded to take him home. She said she would not do that again. Kate is messed up in ways beyond my previous scope of understanding. Kate scares me.

C. After Thursday night's game night of mild creepiness, I was barely looking forward to Friday's BBQ. But I had said I would go and I wasn't going to back out. I was also told that there would be more people at the BBQ. Christina was right about that, there were more people at the BBQ...and all of them were women. One of them was as old as my mom and was looking for a way to score some pot. WTF?! I left the BBQ early because Kate was making eye contact with me and signaling that I should stick around after the BBQ. I may be on a sexual drought that is on par with the Dust Bowl of the 1930s but I do not want an STD and the percentages for Kate having one are statistically pretty high. Which is a crying shame because Kate is pretty cute...and she does have a nice body...I do not want and STD...I do not want an STD...I do not want an STD.

Since the BBQ, Christina texts me all of the time. I am not sure why but whatever. I am trying to play it cool with this group of girls because I have to take classes with them and don't need things to get awkward. The upside is the girl I asked out was the least creepy of the bunch that I met. The downside is that all of the women I met are in Special Education to some extent. Special Ed teachers are freaks.

Busy Busy Busy

2009-02-22T22:25:00.003-07:00

School is kicking into high gear and that means that with my job and school, I have damn near no life. Though I did go to a party last night...and last weekend...that is beside the point.

Anywho, stuff is going alright. School is a cinch, it just takes up time. I need a vacation and I will be taking a short one to Portland on March 13th. Yes, Dustin, if you are reading this, that means your couch is mine...at least if that is still cool with you. :P

Time for bed now but I will report more later. Next time, I will tell the story of how I almost bought a house last week but then decided not to.

G'night!

Woot, I Am Back

2009-02-05T18:14:00.001-07:00

No clue why it happened but a few days ago, Gmail decided that my password was no longer valid. This in turn locked me out of this blog, my Facebook, and my email. What a complete pain in the ass this was. Anywho, now I am back. Yay!!!

It Isn't Coming Off

2009-01-27T09:19:00.003-07:00

Okay, this is just messed up.

So I am going on my third week of working out every weekday. I do take the weekends off. I go to the gym, run for half an hour, and then lift weights for about 45 minutes, rotating between upper body and lower body workouts every other day. After this, I sweat in a sauna for 10 or 15 minutes. I have been watching my diet and portion sizes and when I have a Coke, I have Coke Zero. I have not had a real Coke in weeks...sigh...I miss it. I might have a few beers on the weekend but other than that, the drinking is in relative moderation. I have been taking my multi-vitamin and I have been eating three meals a day every day.

Bottom line: I AM NOT LOSING ANY WEIGHT!

On the upside, I am not gaining any either. I have a feeling I am building muscle as I burn fat and this is offsetting any weight loss that may occur, seeing that muscle is heavier than fat and fat people tend to convert to muscle faster than skinny people.

While I may not be losing weight, I have been feeling consistently better than I have in years and that is worth something. I also feel less stressed. I think the working out is working, I just wish I was losing a little weight because in the back of my head there is a little voice saying that that is all that matters. I know this isn't true but there is nothing like seeing pounds come off that scale.

Anywho, I am off to work!

The End Of The Week

2009-01-16T16:42:00.003-07:00

Since my last post, progress has been made and I am pretty proud of myself.

I have gone to the gym everyday this week and have started going in the mornings like I had been talking about. I can safely say, I am addicted. Working out in the mornings is sooooo much nicer than dealing with it in the afternoons. In the morning, I am pretty much alone in the gym and the whole process just seems so much more relaxed. The other cool thing about working out in the mornings is it has changed my eating style. If I begin the day with a workout, I am off on the right footing and I don't want to screw it up by eating crappy food or more realistically, huge portions of crappy food. Daily morning workouts have served as a reminder to me as to what I am working out for and that reminder keeps me mindful of my diet throughout the day. I think I am doing something now that I can keep up. Oh yeah, the amount of energy and positive attitude I have through the day is crazy.

Ben, you do not have to pay me to lose weight. Thanks for the offer but for me, the feeling better thing is its own reward. I woke up a couple of weeks ago and it just kind of hit me that I was ready to not be chubby anymore. I have had that mood before but this time it has stuck and this is the most driven I have felt about it. I just don't feel like being overweight anymore so I don't think I will be...at least not willingly. I know this is going to take some time but I feel very committed to being healthier right now and so far, all of the good feelings I have had this week have re-enforced that. Ben, you mentioned weighing myself and I am actually already on a schedule for it. Once a week on Mondays. This may get changed to Friday but right now it is Mondays. I think anymore than that and it will feel like I am beating my head against a wall. Knowing my body, I will probably lose about 10lbs. in the next week or two. It is all water weight and comes off easily. After that, I think I will start grinding away at the actual fat I have let build up for far to long. I know it won't be tremendous gains all the time but knowing that now will keep me from being disappointed later. Oh yeah, I like the smell of two Axe(tm) varieties and have been using them since I have moved back from Japan. :P

Dustin, you mentioned how snacking can be beneficial and for some people I think that is true. For me, I am kind of afraid of it. Historically, I don't trust myself around food. I have known for a long time that I don't eat because I need nourishment, I eat simply because I like the act of eating. I love food. I love the preparation of it, I love the taste of it, I love the look of it, and I love eating with other people and the sense of community it brings. I just like food. Knowing that, snacking is something I try not to do because I think I have a hard time telling what is a snack and what is a meal. When I snack, I purposefully stick to food that I know other people consider snack foods like apples or a pack of M&Ms. I am lucky because I don't care for most candy or sweets. I like them but I am not driven to eat them all of the time. For further explanation, I used to consider a meal at McDonalds a snack. In my heart, I know this is not a snack but I would use it as such. For the past couple of weeks I have been very mindful of what I eat and I make a conscious effort to track my food intake. Right now this is working and so I will stick to it. I know a lot of it is food choices and in the past I have not made the best food choices. That is slowly changing and I feel like how I have eaten over the past week or so has been much more reasonable and I have done it in a way that does not make me feel like I have missed out on anything but I know I have eaten way less.

As for money stuff. I met with my IRA guy and I took out $3200. After fees and whatnot it was closer to $5000 but I still feel like I have made the right decision. I feel like crap for doing this and I know Ben is shaking his head right now, but I know that for me, this was a good choice. Basically, $1700 of it is going to pay my tuition for this semester. Some of it will also go to books. Some will go to pay the few hundred I have on my credit card. A small portion will go to pad my checking account and the rest is being put in a regular savings account. What this means for me is that I am no longer living paycheck to paycheck. Each check I am putting some directly into the savings account and after I am sure I can afford it, I will be putting extra toward my car payment. Lately, even with the small checks I have been getting, I have managed to save money and so I think I am in a position to be able to bank a good sum each paycheck.

Ben, I know you have never liked the idea of me taking stuff out of my IRA and frankly, I haven't either. But we are in different situations financially. You already have a job in a field that you consider your career. You make good money and even better, you make about the same amount each month. You have stability. My job pays way less, my paychecks vary greatly from pay period to pay period, and what I am doing now is not what I will be doing five years from now...hopefully, not even a year from now. What I am trying to say is the road you are on is a little bit clearer than the one I am currently on. While going to Japan was a great experience, it held me back in several ways. Had I stayed here, I would have gone back to school much sooner and would be teaching by now. I would also probably also have a house by now. Though I may be dipping into my IRA now, when I have a teaching job, I will have a killer retirement plan and benefits. My Special Ed certification will also bring me a job security that would make most people weep. I know that once I get that piece of paper, I am set...I just need to get there.

Financially, I am also repairing a lot of stuff that I messed up a long time ago and it takes a bit to get out of the hole I dug for myself. I think I am out now and I don't plan on falling back in. I feel very liberated right now.

Ben and Dustin, thanks for your input. I appreciate the advice and have always valued what you guys have had to say. I know I am not the most money minded person in the world but I think I am finally mastering my finances and your advice has helped me a lot.

Anywho, I need to format my computer now so it is time to shut down my web browser, pop a disc in the drive, and re-install. Joy!

Reboot

2009-01-12T17:40:00.002-07:00

I think this week is going to end up being good in the long run but for the present, it is going to suck. I have been in a right crappy mood lately due to a lot of factors that I have mentioned before and a couple of new ones. Well, I am sick of being bothered about stuff so it is time to change some plans and get on the right track.

The first thing that has bothered me (for years) is my weight. Since I have come back to the U.S. I have slowly but surely been getting bigger. Where I am at now isn't bad but unless I make some corrections it is going to get out of hand and that isn't going to happen. I attribute the weight gain to me not eating Japanese food two thirds of the time and me not riding my bike like I was over there. Eating American food the way most Americans eat food is basically signing up to kill yourself in a slow and delicious fashion. Portion sizes and I have never gotten along and I think I am going to take control of that now. Also, I have been working out more but it is irregularly and I am getting myself on a set workout routine. Until now, I have been working out when I finish with work for the day. This has been problematic for several reasons: 1)There are days when you get done with work and just don't want to go to the gym. 2)There are days when you are going to hang out with friends after work and have a life. 3)School is also after work. To correct this problematic scheduling, I am going in the morning. I hate getting up in the morning. I loathe it. But I need to do it. So starting tomorrow, I will be waking up at 6:30am in order to be at the gym by 7am. This will allow me to get my full workout in and still have plenty of time to get ready for work. The other advantage to subjecting myself to this dawnish hell is that I will eventually get used to it and it will put me right on schedule for when I get a legit teaching job. I am still not a fan of this idea but it needs to happen. I hate how I look and there is now good reason to sleep in everyday until 9:30am so this kills two birds with one stone.

The second area that needs adjusting is my financial state of mind. Last Fall, I took a bit out of my IRA to get some debt taken care of and that has been very nice. The problem is that I should have taken out more to give me a cushion in my checking account so that I am not constantly going paycheck to paycheck. So I am going to dip into Mr. IRA for a second and final time. This time I am going to get enough to pay for school this semester instead of having my dad pay for school and me pay him and get enough to get rid of the little debt I have accrued (like a few hundred bucks...not much)and give me a cushion that I will use to pad my checking account and possibly start a savings account with. I am not overly trusting in the stock market as of late and starting a savings account is a good second option. It also allows me to get into it without the stupid penalties and taxes that you deal with when dealing with the IRA. What irritates me is that I almost took more out the first time and I should have because a week after I started all of the IRA stuff up, the market went to hell and I lost about six grand in about a week. Beh...stupid markets. I am also setting early February as my date to start going cash only on purchases and day to day living. There might be a couple of extenuating circumstances to this rule but for the most part, I want to go cash only.

All of this leads up to the goals that I have set for myself this year. Last year I had eight goals and all but two of them got accomplished. This year I have five goals but they are a little bit harder than last year's.

First, I really need to find a girlfriend. This whole single thing sucks. The downside to this goal is that I can't totally control it. I can do things to help it out though. The working out thing can't hurt and I am also getting out more thanks to finding this online group that isn't online dating but more like an online event finder called, Meetin. I am hoping I can widen my social interactions through some of the events available on the site. I am going to my first Meetin event tomorrow, nothing big, just a dinner club that is meeting at Shige's for sushi. I am not expecting a ton but I am looking forward to at least meeting new people and I need that...and I have been craving good sushi lately so here is to hoping.

Second, I need to finish school. This is the easiest goal because nothing is more brain dead than attending graduate courses at BSU. I wish classes were harder but I am not going to argue with a good hour or so each night dedicated to Facebook.

Third, I need to get out of my parents' basement. Living here has not been bad, I like my parents and it is free. But having all of my stuff either in boxes or crammed into my room is slowly driving me insane. The other thing that irks me is that it seems like I am the only one that does not have my own house or apartment. As much as I applaud them for achieving it, hearing about all of my brother's friends that are getting houses is almost like listening to nails on a chalkboard. These people are five years younger than me and they are getting houses! I do not have a house. I know all of the decent reasons as to why I don't have a house but it still doesn't mute the voice in my head that is constantly reminding me that I don't have my own place. This needs to be rectified. Finishing school and shoring up my finances are helping this but honestly, until I get a legit teaching job, the house thing will probably not happen. In the mean time, I am considering finding a reasonable apartment and possibly moving there. The downside is that the job I have now is a tad unpredictable and that makes getting an apartment, let alone a housing loan, something that mildly creeps me out.

Fourth, getting a legit teaching job. Finishing school pretty much guarantees me getting a Special Ed position. I think I just need patience here. I am doing everything I need to be doing for this to happen and it is really a matter of time but sooner than later is a very very good thing.

Fifth, is losing weight and getting in habits that make me healthier. This means eating smaller portions, limiting my self to one Coke a day if even that, working out on a routine, eating all meals(something I rarely do), taking my daily multivitamin, trying to eat more green crap, and put a limit on the booze. It isn't like a drink a ton right now but cutting down saves money and calories. I know what I need to do and I think if I follow the above rules, I can succeed at this goal. I don't snack very much so that isn't really a problem for me. I just need to get correct eating habits put into place and not deviate from them.

That is pretty much it. If you want to know what I am thinking about for 75% of my waking hours, the above stuff is pretty much it. A couple of other things have been nagging at me this week but they aren't important and will pass. I think the time of year it is also has not been helping me. I have not been taking a lot of pictures lately because the weather has not been kind to photography and I have not been cooking as much because of time constraints. I just need to chill out and get into a positive groove. I think I will be there in a couple of weeks.

2009?! What the....whatever....

2009-01-06T01:09:00.003-07:00

Well, the holidays came and went and to be honest, they felt weird to me. They were nice and it was cool to see the family and have a traditional American Christmas for the first time in a couple of years but there was just something that felt off. Unfortunately, it seems I was not alone in this feeling and the general consensus among most of the family was that this year was odd.

The really weird part and this is not a slant toward this Christmas but I found myself really missing my first Christmas in Japan. I hung out with Reid and Karie and we had a generally rockin' time. I miss that Christmas. I liked this Christmas because it felt comfortable but I liked that Christmas because I felt free.

In other news, Broxton is doing well and I think Brody and Michela are getting adjusted to being parents. It is kind of cool to see Broxton and to see him at a time when almost every time you see him, he looks a little bit older. He also looks more like a baby and less like a small alien creature. I think I like Broxton; we will have a lot of fun when he gets older. Right now, he doesn't do a ton other than sleep and eat and in that sense, he and I may be more similar than I care to admit.

Being on Christmas break from school was fun for about a week. Not being in school means time that I am not being a teacher. Not being a teacher means more time that I don't have my own house. Not having my own house means more time I am living in my parents' basement. Living in my parents' basement isn't doing me any favors in the not-being-single department. It is somewhat nerve wracking to know that most of my future well being hinges on one very slow moving process that I can only partially control. I wish I could take all of the classes I need in one semester but as it stands now, I have four classes coming up and then one or two summer school classes and depending on how many summer school classes are offered, maybe one class this coming fall. I really need to get a teaching job and school is slowing me down. Upside, I got a 4.0 this last semester and I probably put about as much effort into studying as I do in watching a couple episodes of the Simpsons. So much for being challenged. I am beyond wondering whether the classes are really easy or I am just creepy smart, I just know I am bored out of my mind.

So now it is the new year...I am not totally sure what I think about that but it isn't like I have a ton of say in the matter. I went into 2008 knowing that the year was going to be a wash and knowing that it was going to be a sort of an administrative year to figure out my new American life. It was a good year but not a ton got done on my part. Good things happened like Ben getting married and Broxton getting born and Malia being my girlfriend...and then not. I sold some of my pictures and I like my job and it is nice to hang out with my old friends all the time. The thing I was hoping for that didn't happen was that the administrative year that I knew was coming, didn't really end. It is looking like 2009 will probably also be an administrative year. Maybe I will just call it 2008.5.

I see progress being made and I see a light at the end of the tunnel but man, the train I am on is moving at an absolute crawl. I take solace in knowing that I am doing all that I can in regards to school and my career and future but it is so irritating to know that I can't just wake up tomorrow and get on with my life.

In a totally unrelated vein of thought, I really dig this show on A&E called, Intervention. It is basically about drugees and alcoholics being confronted by their families and getting treatment. I have no clue why I like this show but I have been watching it for three hours now while typing this out and doing some stuff for work. I can probably relate to it because some of the people I work with should really be on this program.

Good News!

2008-12-16T17:22:00.003-07:00

Today, at little after 10am my nephew, Broxton Dean Chaplin was born!!!!!

He weighs in at 6lbs. and is just over 19 inches long. He and his mom are both healthy and doing great! Congrats Bro and Michaela!

Bored and Single in Boise = Sucks

2008-12-07T22:39:00.003-07:00

I am in a kind of bad/depressed mood.

This whole being single during the holidays thing kind of sucks. I have come to the conclusion that I should get pro-active about finding a girlfriend to hang out with. How I am to go about doing this is beyond me. No available women at work...none that I would ever consider going out with anyways. No church community to tap into. No friends with cute friends to hook me up with. BTW if you are a friend and have a cute and non-crazy friend to hook me up with, do so now. I just have been doing some cool stuff lately and it would be nice to have a significant other to talk about things with.

In a similar vein, I find myself getting slightly bored with Boise again. I am having a hard time finding stuff to do that interests me. The Boise Flickr group kind of sucks. We almost never do anything and when we do, the same people show up. Oh yeah, most of them are guys too. If I had a girlfriend, I don't think I would get bored as much. Significant others tend to be time sinks, which is good because I have a ton of time to sink right now.

I have been dreaming in Japanese again. I have been back for almost a year now but I still remember the vast majority of Japanese I learned. When I dream in Japanese that is a signal that I am homesick for Japan. I have to admit, I have been really homesick for Japan lately. The irony is, if I were in Japan right now, I would be homesick for here so I am screwed either way. At least when I was lonely/single in Japan, I had an excuse. Here I don't get that luxury.

I have decided I need to take a road trip. The problem is that I do not have the time or money to do so and the locations I want to hit would probably not jive weather-wise. I want to make it up to Canada to visit Reid and Karie but am fairly certain the roads would not be the best to drive on right now. Since I cannot make a road trip right now, I have been planning my next big one that I hope to do this summer. I am going to start by going South, like to New Mexico and Texas. I would then head East and make my way across Louisiana and Mississippi and eventually, Florida. Once I hit Florida, I would turn North and hit the Carolinas and Washington D.C. and then New York City. After New York, I would turn West and head back home. I am not sure how long this roadtrip will take or how much money it would cost. I have friends in DC that owe me a couch for a few nights but I am lacking in Southern friends to crash with. Sleeping in my car is an option and so are hotels, but hotels cost money and I am trying to keep the price realistic. Oh yeah, I am going through the South because it is the only part of the United States I have never seen other than Hawaii. Flying is also out of the question because I don't have a specific destination for this trip. I have this weird drive to see all fifty states and flying doesn't help that out. As it stands I think I am in the mid-twenties so I am about halfway through. Roadtrips are also preferred because they provide more of an experience than flying does. Driving allows me to meander and hit strange places that I happen to come across, flying just gets me there. If I were to fly, it would be to DC or New York but I really do want to drive.

In other news, I am all registered for next semester are that means about $1700 in new debt. This is depressing because it always seems like when I am financially on track, something comes along to screw it up. After this next semester, I have three more classes, one in summer school and two during the Fall. So this whole thing about getting my special ed certificate will have taken me about a year, not bad as long as it gets me a job.

I REALLY need to move out of my parents' basement. I have no space here and sleeping in my room is starting to be difficult just because of the constant clutter. I want to get a house but that takes money and I wish I was more stable financially. A teaching job will get me there. What I am doing now, does not.

Speaking of my current job, I may not have it in about a month. Thanks to all of the cuts the state of Idaho is making to stay afloat. The fund that pays my company is getting slashed pretty hard and if the cuts get much deeper, the owner of my agency is closing up shop. I am ambivalent about this other than the fact I am out of a steady income. I could stand a different job and I always seem to be able to find new jobs. I like what I am doing now but I am getting bored with it.

I am just getting bored with everything at the moment.

And I Become a Professional Photographer

2008-12-06T20:00:00.003-07:00

And I mean that in the most basic sense.

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I was invited to put up some of my photographs as filler for a coffee shop art gallery. That opportunity has blossomed somewhat, with fun results. My pictures have been displayed for over a week and since hanging them, I have learned a couple of valuable lessons.

On the day that I was to hang my pictures, a couple of cool things happened. First, one of my pics sold before I even hung it. A guy that used to be one of my biggest customers at Costco bumped into me at the coffee shop, saw one picture in particular, and paid me $40 for it on the spot. Thus, I entered the world of professional photography! This happened at a very opportune time because the people that were orchestrating the whole showing were there and took note that this guy that was a last minute invite was selling his work before they were even getting to the wall. A few minutes later I was told that I needed to raise my prices and that my photos were of a caliber that could get me more money than I was asking. I was also invited to become a permanent member of the artistic co-op and was told that as long as I could supply pieces, my pictures would be at every showing that was lined up for the group. Sweet!

The next cool thing that happened came about ten minutes later. Other photographers are shown in this shop and I was particularly impressed by one man who is a local professional photographer and was showing several very cool pictures. As it turns out, he was in the shop at the same time I was and one of the show's organizers knew him and introduced the two of us. He was a nice guy and gave me several pointers that I have started utilizing in my work. In my opinion, when you are looking at a picture, you should not be seeing a signature from the photographer because you are to be looking at a photo, not a signature. As it turns out, people are more likely to buy a work if it is numbered and signed. So from here on out, I am to get my pictures printed with borders so I can write the title on them and sign them. Numbering is optional but when people think they are getting something that is limited, they are more likely to pay more for it. Things I never thought of!

I am also learning the importance of framing. A good matching frame can sell the photo sometimes faster than the quality of the pic itself. This was the case for my first picture that sold. The frame matched it very well and added to the picture.

Notice how I said, "first picture that was sold", that is because I sold another one this morning to a lady who is also in my co-op. It was one that I took at Ben and Kristy's rehearsal picnic that has been getting attention and today it was snagged.

I am guessing two more of my pictures will sell, possibly three. There are three out of the ten that are hanging now that people speak highly of. If I sell one more picture, I will have paid for the printing and framing of all of the pictures and then a little bit of profit. Not too bad for a hobby.

One other related thing to note. It is a very weird thing to sit in a coffee shop and listen to people talk about your pictures when they do not know you are there listening. So far, it has been an ego boost. I wish someone would come in and bad mouth some of the pics because I would like to hear their criticism. Most of the criticism I get on my pics comes from friends and family and sometimes I wonder how much they sugar-coat the advice they give me.

Anywho, I am getting some recognition now and it feels pretty good. It is kind of funny but it's a pretty good feeling. Oh, if you want to see the pics and live near Boise, the pictures are hanging at Dawson's coffee shop on 8th St. and Bannock and will be there until the end of December.

Thanksgiving 2008

2008-11-27T13:21:00.002-07:00

Well, it is Thanksgiving. Today has been pretty interesting for me.

First, this has been pretty fun because for the first time in a couple of years, I am actually celebrating the holiday properly, with the correct food. Japanese people have problems conceptualizing a bird bigger than a chicken, therefore, find a turkey there was pretty much out of the question.

The other thing that is fun is this is the first holiday season that I am getting to view my family as a group of adults. My family is evolving and aging. Once, this was a holiday for me to play video games and put up with my younger cousins and brother. Now, my youngest cousin is eighteen and my other cousin became a father a couple of days ago. I know times are changing for a couple of reasons other than that: A) I played football B)During the football game my brother had to leave to take his very pregnant wife to the hospital.

Times are definitely changing but for the better. We are all a tad older but we all get along very well. I am thankful for being able to spend a holiday with my entire family and have all of us enjoy each others' company.

Off to Reno

2008-11-20T23:44:00.004-07:00

Since Saturday is the BSU vs Reno game, my family and I will be cruising down to Reno for the weekend. That should be pretty fun...at least the poker will be. I am going to the game but could really care less. Poker on the other hand, I enjoy and have yet to lose at when playing in casinos. It will be a good, old fashioned family road trip as it will just be my mom, dad, brother, and I and a family friend. The downside is we are all fitting in a Civic hybrid for the ride. Yay.

In other news, I had the weird luck of getting invited to put my photography in an art exhibit at a local coffee shop. I went with a client of mine to a meeting for the organization of an art collective made up of people with mental illnesses. They needed some filler for a week and once they saw one of my pics that was in my phone, they invited me to join up too!

School is going well...it is almost over for the semester so it is getting better and better the closer to December 16th it gets.

I have been busy doing things so posting on here has been quite far from my mind. Stuff is going pretty well though and I am looking forward to the Holidays. It is creepy that Thanksgiving is next week. For certain Aussie readers, don't feel bad, you are just missing a feast of turkey and stuffing and the awesome leftovers that follow. Don't feel too bad Ben, I will eat some Wendy's for you. :P

And Welcome To November

2008-11-02T20:51:00.002-07:00

Holy crap, I only made one post last month. Sorry. There was a lot going on and this blog is starting to play second string as I devote more of my time to my Facebook page.

I feel bad about not posting but really, those of you who read this aren't missing much. I go to work, I work out, I go to school, and I play some video games. That is pretty much my life at the moment. My money is going to other stuff right now so I haven't been traveling a lot. Work is work and while I like it, it isn't eventful and the stuff that does happen, I can't ethically put on here for the most part. Stupid expectations of privacy.

I found out I didn't get that teaching job. Ehh...I care but not enough to get all bent out of shape about. What irks me is that people can't even take the time to call and tell you you didn't get the job. So that is probably it for teaching interviews for a while, whatever works, at least now I can work knowing that is what I am going to be doing for a bit.

School is so irritating. I really should be getting my Masters instead of just a Special Ed certificate. The people I take most of my classes with are in the Masters program and for the life of me, I can't figure out how that is. It isn't that they don't know the material we study, they just don't seem like people that I would classify as deserving enough to be awarded a post-grad degree. I know what they get on our tests and I can safely say, they should be thankful the classes aren't curved because if they were only about three people would be doing well, me being one of them. It really isn't my business what grades other people get but I am shallowly motivated by the drive that makes me want to be at the top of my classes grade-wise and at the bottom of the classes effort-wise. I have near 100% in both of my classes at the moment and I can confidently say that I have spent more time watching one episode of the Simpsons than I have studying for both classes combined. I wish school was more challenging, I get bored.

Halloween was fun. I dressed up like Walter from the Big Lebowski and went to a pretty good party. I think my sole purpose for going to the party was to be the bartender which is cool because I like making drinks. If I ever had the money given to me, I would start a bar and it would rock. Sometimes I wonder if I would make a better bartender than a teacher, I have an equally good time doing both. Bartending would probably pay more with tips included. :P

Anywho, this is me at the beginning of November. I am not totally happy with life at the moment but I am content knowing that it is all a work in progress and it is actually moving somewhere. Later.

One Crazy Half Spent Month

2008-10-19T16:34:00.002-06:00

October is one of my favorite months. This October has been absolutely nuts and it is only half done.

It all started with me shuffling my belongings back into the depths of my parents' basement. They left for a weekend and what started as a, "Maybe I will just take the Xbox over," turned into a full fledged move and by the end of the day I was out of my lofty palace in the foothills and back in my parents' basement. It is a tad tight in here right now. When you have enough stuff for a house or apartment and it all gets put in one room, you have to be a tad creative with how you do it.

Then, I went to California with Tony to be the best man in Ben's wedding. That was an awesome weekend filled with drinking lots of wine and White Russians and eating a mean BBQ. Oh yeah, Ben got married too. :P The wedding was amazing and it is definitely the most beautiful event I have gone to. Ben and Kristy got married at this big vineyard near Santa Rosa, California. It was awesome and I am very happy for them. Though I am jealous, they are in Hawaii right now.

The one other big event to happen this month was my interview with another school. Two days before I headed down to Cali, I got a call from an almost frantic principal asking if I had a teaching job yet. I told her that I did not and the next day I found myself in a conference room being grilled by five administrators of this middle school. They need a special ed teacher for the resource room and all certified special ed teachers have jobs. That means I may also have a job. They are interviewing four other people and I will probably find out this next week if I have a job or not. I think my interview went really well and my odds are much better this time around. The other cool part about me getting this job would be I would only be teaching about a month and a half before Christmas break. I am hopeful and on Friday the principal called me to let me know that I was still in the running and that she would call me regardless of the outcome.

This next week will be good. It is the first time in a long time that all of my clients will be able to have all of their hours with me and this means that my next paycheck will actually not suck. This is good because money is still tight. Money is also another reason it would be good if I got this job. One month's pay would pretty much make all of my troubles go away. Anywho, here's to hoping.

Guess I Didn't Get It

2008-09-28T11:45:00.002-06:00

So the high school that I interviewed at never even called me back to tell me that I didn't get the job. This irritates me, not so much because I didn't land the sweet teaching position I was hoping for but more because they didn't have the common decency to call and tell me.

So now I guess it is back to life as usual. This week has been pretty sweet. Work has been going well and my boss is happy that I am still her employee. Last night, Jim and I went to the Idaho International Film Festival to watch a funny show called, Tokyo Gore Police. It was basically an absurdly bloody Japanese slasher movie that was so gory it was funny.

Someone that I don't mention very much on here but have been hanging out with a lot is my friend/girlfriend, Malia. It is kind of difficult to explain our relationship because we technically broke up after going out for about a month but that didn't change very much in terms of our practical relationship. Malia and I are pretty much perfect for each other...if it were not for the fact that she is Mormon and I am not. This has made for a somewhat confusing relationship. I think now, we have basically come to the conclusion that we just are not going to think of us in terms of going out or not going out, but we are just going to hang out until the whole relationship breaks down or one of us finds someone else. It sounds very pessimistic when I put it that way but both of us are pretty realistic in terms of the chances of this working out due to religious differences. Either way, I enjoy whatever it is that I have with her and I have been spending a lot of time with her as of late.

Not too much else to report, everything is going pretty well. Tony and I leave for Ben's wedding in two weeks and I am getting excited for that. Ben's wedding is a win-win situation for several reasons. First and foremost, Ben is getting married and that is pretty freakin' cool. Second, he is getting married in California and that means that I will be eating In N Out sometime in the near future. Third, Tony and I get to have a little road trip in order to get to the wedding and I am happy for that because Tony and I don't get to hang out as much as we used to.

Anywho, I didn't get the job but if you can't tell, I am not overly shaken up about it. I will just keep going to school and eventually I will get the teaching job that I want. Everything else is joyfully moving right along!

On The Eve Of Something

2008-09-23T00:06:00.002-06:00

I am feeling so very odd right now.

Tomorrow, I will find out whether or not I have that History position at the new high school. I am very anxious for the news, in a good way. I have never been in a position where I like my current job enough not to be too heartbroken if I don't get this next job. I feel somewhat torn.

On one side of things, if I get this job lots of stuff happens. I get a significant amount more money a month coming in. I work a lot more hours. I still like my job. I will basically be living my dream. At the same time, it will be a lot of responsibility and that is something I have grown rather accustomed to not having. Right now, I have a handful of people to look after. If I get this job I will have over a hundred. This is my career I would be starting for real.

If I don't get this job, life kind of continues like normal. I like the job I have now. I live comfortably. It is laid back.

I know I crave more than I am doing now and I think getting this teaching job would be challenging and fun and rewarding. Ok, I really hope I get this teaching job. So on the eve of my big news one way or the other, I am hoping for something new. I want this job...bad. It means a start to the next level of my life and I am ready for that. The other day my dad told me he thought I had paid my dues for long enough and that I deserved this job. That made me kind of proud because I have put a lot of work into a teaching career and so far, it hasn't been exactly extraordinary. I am ready for the real deal.

I guess I will know if I get my shot tomorrow.

Interview = Aced

2008-09-19T09:27:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, I got up pretty early and soaked in the jacuzzi tub for a bit to try to calm my nerves a tad. I then watched a couple episodes of the Simpsons and that also helped to ease the tension that I had coursing through me. I am not sure why I get nervous for interviews because I am pretty sure I do well in them. Either way, I was definitely nervous.

I got to the school ten minutes early and the principal was ten minutes late in getting done with the interviewee before me. Once I got in there and started talking to him, it was easy. The answers I gave were what he wanted to hear I think and I know I impressed him several times during our chat. It helped that he was Japanese and has been to Japan several times. I knew where his family lived in Japan and he knew roughly where I had lived. We spoke a little Japanese and talked about traveling around the country. When he asked me the question that pertained to the job, I think I answered them to the best of my ability and he agreed with me on my answers. All in all, the interview didn't last long but I think I did well. At least, as well as I was capable of doing.

Now comes the waiting game. This doesn't bother me nearly as much as the days going into the interview did because I know from this point on, the ball is out of my court and I have done all I can do. I know there are sixteen other candidates for the job but on paper I would guess I look better than at least half of them due to my Special Education stuff and the work I do now. What will keep me from getting this job is if there is someone with more experience than me or someone that had an insanely great interview. I thought mine went pretty well but who knows, other people probably interview better than me. Anywho, I will find out on Tuesday if I got the position. I hope I get it but if I don't I will probably feel crappy for a day or two and then get over it. I like the job I have now and I know that once I get all of my Special Ed stuff done, I will get a teaching job for sure, it is just a matter of time.

When I find out more, I will post it!

Ready!

2008-09-17T22:29:00.003-06:00

Well, my clothes for the interview are all laid out and my resume has been touched up and printed. The letters of recommendation have been assembled, I think I am ready for tomorrow morning. Am I nervous, yes. Am I very prepared for this, yes. Do I think I will get the job, dunno.

I think I am qualified for the job and I think I would do well at it. But, I also know that there are definitely people out there with more experience than me. I think if I do not get this job it will be because there was someone with more experience than me that was interviewed. I also know that I have done well to make myself look pretty good on paper so at this point, I think it is up in the air.

People around me have been talking so positive about the potential of this job for me and how good of a fit it all is. This makes me nervous because despite my best efforts, I am getting hopeful that I will get this job and think I will probably feel a tad put out if I don't get it. But if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen and there is always next year. Besides, I like the job I have now and don't mind doing it for the foreseeable future. But I will be a little let down.

Anywho, I am anxious but I feel like I have done everything leading up to tomorrow morning to prepare me and qualify me for the position so I will just give it my best shot and see how it all goes.

Wish me luck and I will tell you what happened tomorrow!

Nervous In A Good Way

2008-09-14T19:47:00.002-06:00

Last week was really stressful. Nothing bad happened per se and I didn't work very many hours but the hours I worked seemed to drag on forever because of all of the extra little stuff I was doing for clients that I don't normally need to do. None of that stuff was particularly difficult either, it just broke up my routine and that sent time spiraling out of control.

Having said that, I deemed that Saturday would be a day of supreme relaxation and it was. Until I got a phone call.

A new high school has opened up in Meridian and this school is state-of-the-art. It is awesome on about eight levels of awesome. I have never been inside of it because I have had no reason to go there...until now that is. I have an interview for a History position this coming Thursday morning.

I am not sure why I am nervous about the interview because I have designed myself to look pretty awesome on paper. When interviewed, my credentials for a beginning teacher are also pretty tight. Not only am I certified to teach History, I will be able to teach Special Ed in less than a year. I also spend my days working with people with disabilities and have taught at a private school in Japan. I have also worked solely with kids with autism. I guess what I am saying is that my resume is very tidy for a school looking to pick up a History teacher. I am not bragging about this particularly, I am just very proud of the work I have done to put myself in the position I am in as far as hire-a-bility is concerned.

I think I am nervous because if I were to get this job, it represents a significant change in my life. I am in a rut that I like being in now but if the opportunity were to come along, I would have to take this job, regardless of pay or hours. Getting in on the ground floor of history at a brand spanking new school is an exciting opportunity. If hired, I would be amongst the first generation of teachers at that school and I like that idea for some goofy reason.

I think I am writing this post more to convince myself that I shouldn't be nervous because I know I am in a good position to get this job. I look good on paper and I interview well in person. I think the reason I am nervous is because of the change and because of how my first History teaching interview went several years ago. I was just out of school and was somewhat cocky and didn't answer some questions like I should have. I know better this time and will use that first time and the various other interviews I have had to build on for the upcoming interview.

I just hate having nervous energy, whether it be good or bad nervous energy. But I really like the possibility of being able to finally start my career for real this time.

Summer's End

2008-09-09T23:48:00.002-06:00

Well, it is that time again. Summer is pretty much over and Fall is almost here. I am excited because Fall is pretty much the best time of the year. At the same time, I am kind of at a loss for stuff to say. Lately, things have been going well but different things are not clicking that I want to click.

I was going out with a really cool girl for about a month and that ended do to religious differences. I ended it, that was odd. I have never broke up with anyone before and I felt bad. I felt really bad because other than religion, we were a perfect fit it seemed. Oh well, stuff will work out, it always does.

Ben's parents have now given me a date as to when they are coming back for the year. It seems I will probably be going to live with the older roommates (parents) for a while. I have already set my Winter goals. If I am going to be at my parents, I am going to save money like mad and workout like mad. Those are my two goals for the Winter.

School is going well. It is easy; it always is. I wish that I could find a class that challenged me that was not math related. I wish I could take a class where I actually had to think. Oh well.

If you can't tell, I am in kind of an "oh well" mood. Things are going pretty good but could be better. Things could also be much much worse. Things just kind of are.

Recent Happenings

2008-09-01T14:52:00.002-06:00

So it is now the first day of September.

Yesterday, I got back from going to Craters of the Moon with Jim. That was pretty fun, we did some cave exploring and looked around the barren wasteland that is Craters of the Moon state park. We also made a trip to ERB-1, the world's first nuclear reactor that was used for something other than building nuclear weapons. I also talked my way out of a speeding ticket.

I am also now going out with someone. I like her but I worry about the fact that she is Mormon and her family doesn't really approve of our relationship. I am not sure how it is all going to turn out but I like hanging out with her and figure that I can just spend time with her and have fun and worry about the future later.

School has started again and so far it looks like it will be pretty easy. I have an internet based class this semester and I am not fond of it but I need to take it so I guess I will just grin and bare it.

Work is going okay. I wish I could take a real vacation at some point. I am not sure what I would do on said vacation but I would just like to go somewhere for a little while and not have to worry about anything. Not that I have been worrying about much anyway but I just want to get out of town for more than a day or two.

I won third place and honorable mention with the two pictures I submitted to the fair. I am not sure if I have mentioned this already so if I have, sorry, if I haven't, go me.

Anywho, that is what has been going on lately! I will post more soon.

Game Over, I Win

2008-08-19T01:37:00.002-06:00

Well, Summer school is finished and I just got the grade for my final. I am not sure how but I scored a 100% on it, getting almost five points higher than the average. I also got a 9/10 on my final paper as well. I think this means that I can safely say that I rocked this class and probably most of the people in it. The Fall semester should be fun because I have this professor again and I know what to expect from him.

In other news, I entered two of my pictures into the Fair and upon going to see how they did, I found out that I got third place for my picture with the little mossy statues and I got honorable mention for my black and white of the statue of the guy listening to a Walkman. This makes me pretty happy because I wasn't sure what to expect from that and it verified that my photos don't suck...at least not as much as some of the others.

The last bit of news is perhaps the biggest of the post. I am no longer single! There was a girl named Malia a year behind me in high school and she took Drama with me. After school, we lost touch but thanks to the wonders of Facebook we started talking again and found out there were a lot of similarities between us. She basically started out going for Special Ed and then lately, has decided to go get a History degree. I did everything opposite. We hung out a ton this weekend and decided to give things a shot. So far so good. I like Malia and feel like I can be myself around her. She is a way cool girl and I look forward to hanging out with her more.

All in all, this was a pretty sweet weekend!!!

Me And Intellectual Superiority

2008-08-11T00:28:00.003-06:00

I have been trying to figure out how to write this post without sounding like an ass but something tells me, that is going to happen anyway so I may as well commence typing.

If I were stuck in a room full of one hundred people and we were all told that the dumbest half of the room population would be executed, I don't think I would be sweating too much. I don't think I would be the smartest guy in the room either, probably not even in the top twenty, but I am confident that I wouldn't be in the bottom fifty. I guess what I am getting at is that I am not an idiot but I am far from being Einstein. In cartoon terms, I am smarter than the average bear...but probably not by a ton.

Now that I have stated the same thing a handful of different ways, I will go on to say that I have a mean competitive streak in me when it comes to getting good grades in classes. In my last two years of college I learned that for me, the best motivator to do well in a class was to make it my mission to get a higher grade than certain people in the class. Sometimes these people would be the annoying, overly talkative people, or the snobby I-am-so-much-smarter-than-you types. One way or the other, it was my goal in life to make absolutely sure I drove them into the ground grade-wise. Most of them probably never even knew I was competing with them, which meant that I had an advantage...but nevermind that. For me, it was all about competing with someone. I have found that as long as I do this in every class I take, I will come away from that class with an A. Not because I am smarter or care more about the class, but because I smoked several people in the class in a competition that only I knew about. Is this a somewhat childish motivator? Yes, but as long as I get a good grade, I couldn't care less.

This summer school class has been the same, except this time I pitted myself against everyone in the class because I have come to be slightly annoyed by all of them. These women and their political correctness, professionalism, and elitism have pushed me to do better than all of them. These Masters students that consider themselves better than me, though several of them have never taught a day in their lives. Well, screw them. I have made it my goal to get an as good or better grade than them and do less work than them. So far, I have succeeded.

In my first test for the class, I scored a 96% and only studied for about half an hour. In my second test I scored a 99% and studied for fifteen minutes. I have gotten perfect scores on all of my papers with the exception of one and on that one, I got one point taken off. The thing that makes me happy is that I know that most of the other people in the class have studied their butts off and have done no better than me. Except on the last test, I know one girl got 103%. That's ok, if you study hard you should get good grades. She did better than me and I am ok with that because I know she studied for at least an hour by conversations I overheard after the test. My point is that I am succeed without doing almost anything. I am winning in a competition with a bunch of elitist Masters snobs. I knew I should have paid the extra grand and taken this as a Masters class. Oh well.

One more test and one more paper. The paper is a cakewalk and so far, the material for the next test is too.

I am winning.

The Reunion

2008-08-03T12:51:00.002-06:00

So this weekend was my ten year high school reunion. I have a multitude of things to say about it and most of them aren't that good. Bare with me, this is a rant.

Up front I will say that yes, the reunion was voluntary and there wasn't a gun to my head forcing me to go. I will also say that I was voluntarily the sound and music guy for the event and so my gripes about that are also my own fault. But I have decided that the whole concept of a high school reunion is an absolute crock.

Why Reunions Suck:

Reason 1: While the people I went to high school with may have gotten prettier, balder, fatter, married with kids, etc. They really haven't changed all that much in areas that count. The shallow, self-absorbed people are still shallow and self-absorbed. The friendly people are still friendly. The jerks are still kind of jerks. Maybe the handful of years has dulled their edges a bit but most people are the exact same people you knew in high school, just older.

Reason 2: Having said all of that, everyone still hangs out with the people they hung out with in high school. So when you go to these events, you aren't actually going to a reunion where people commune as a group, you are going to a big room so that everyone can sit and stand in their same cliques they belonged to in high school. Sure, I got to hang out with some people I haven't seen for a while and it was nice to be able to talk with and joke with some of them again but really, this is nothing that I couldn't have done at a barbecue or some other smaller, more personal event.

Reason 3: By the end of day two of the reunion, I could just about have punched anyone in the face that came up to me to make casual chit chat. I like making small talk with people, I do it all of the time when I bump into people at Walmart. The big difference is that at these things, people feel obligated to talk to you even if they know they probably don't have a single thing in common with you other than the fact you went to the same school at the same time. At least at Walmart, the small talk is free and if you really want to, you can avoid people that you don't want to talk to and not seem like a dick.

Reason 4: The whole thing just kind of felt like a big pissing contest to me. People coming up and talking to me and then without prompting, telling me what they are doing with themselves now, like I have a speck of interest. And then when the guy tells you that he works at a steel working shop or an insurance company, you have to feign being impressed as to not come off like a dick. I hate having to be fake in order to fit into a situation and I did a lot of that this weekend. What I have learned is that most of the people I went to school with are a pretty mediocre bunch of folks. This isn't a bad thing, I just expected more. I expected people to not be amazed I lived in Japan for a while or could speak Japanese. I know I wasn't the only one to have gone away for a while but it seemed like I became known as the guy that lived in Japan. Was I really one of the handful of people to have actually gotten out into the world and lived somewhere other than Idaho or Oregon? I have to say, most of my classmates have let me down in that regard.

Another thing that irks me, not so much about the reunion but kind of at a few of my friends is the fact that they had a slightly different view of the reunion. They said that they didn't have a lot of people coming up and talking to them and that the reason so many people talked to me was because I am a memorable person. How the hell did I get to be so memorable?! I never went out of my way to get attention. I just kind of did my thing. Yes, my thing involved being in Drama and writing for the school paper but I didn't do that stuff for attention. I wrote in the paper because I like to write and I was in Drama because that is where a lot of my friends were. I never jumped up and down in the halls yelling "Look at me! Look at me!" I was just me and I don't feel like I am any more or less memorable than my friends. I didn't want to stand out, I just wanted to keep my head down and get through the whole ordeal of high school. I never wanted to be popular and I don't think I was, I just knew a lot of people and could talk to them. I guess that is one way that I haven't changed...I am an extrovert whether I like it or not.

The one odd event of the whole thing was this:

I forgot that in high school I was one of the "Crazy Bread Guys". Basically, me and my friends Jon and Vince got on the morning announcements a couple of times a week and did a funny skit promoting Crazy Bread bread sticks from Little Caesar's. I completely and totally forgot I did this but a lot of people I talked to remembered those skits and how funny they were. I will admit, some of the skits were a crack up but I didn't think they would be anything people would talk about ten years from then. I was wrong. This caught me totally off guard because when I started to think about them, most of the skits I could remember doing kind of sucked.

It is strange what people remember you for. No one mentioned all of the trouble I got into on computers back then or how a good chunk of my friends and I wore trench coats. No one told me(at least not to my face)that I was a dick to them in high school, which toward some of the people who were there, I know I was. I guess I have mellowed out and have grown up a tad. I will admit, some of the kind of mean stuff that cracked me up in high school, still makes me giggle. The difference is that I wouldn't act the same way if most of that stuff happened to or around me now. Nothing like having your maturity shoved in your face. :P

The good thing that came out of this weekend was seeing a few people that I had really been looking forward to seeing, like Toby Borup and Joe Elder. It was fun to catch up with them and others that I did truly miss from high school. It is funny that people I knew then and got along with, I still got along with this weekend and we hadn't seen each other in at least eight years. Like I said, I don't think people really change all that much so it makes sense.

The big question is, will I go to my twentieth reunion? I kind of doubt it. Part of me says, it will be the exact same horse and pony show and it will leave me in a slightly bad mood like this one did. The other part of me says that maybe ten years just isn't enough time for people to drastically change and maybe in ten more years that will be a different story. Most of the people there this weekend felt like strangers to me and if I want to talk to strangers, I can just go to a bar. I have decided that instead of going to the reunion, I will just broaden the web of people I keep in contact with and make an effort to maintain communication with them.

I did volunteer to spearhead the fiftieth reunion. I figure that by that time, most of us will be dead and I can just make arrangements for the survivors to meet at McDonalds for breakfast one morning. That way it will be more personal and maybe by that time, some of them will have stories to tell me instead of the other way around.

Surviving and Thriving

2008-07-26T14:01:00.003-06:00

The ability for stupid people to breed amazes me. I got a new client a couple of days ago. He is in his twenties and is well-intending but he has to be one of the biggest idiots I have ever seen. And of course, he has twins. The truly dippy people are rewarding the world two kids at a time. I am slightly bitter about all of this but on the upside, getting him has allowed me to make a ton of money this week.

In other news, class is going well and I am enjoying it. I will be glad to take another class from this guy in the Fall without all of the snippy women. I will pay another guy to take the Fall class with me. We had our first test day before yesterday and I did alright on it. The nice part is that I did alright and I study for all of twenty minutes for it.

Everything else is going well and I am going to a former co-worker's birthday party tonight which means Olympic level drinking. It should be fun seeing that I haven't done that for a while. In general, I am just kind of worn out. This new guy is awesome for my finances but having all of my clients plus school makes things a tad crunched time-wise.

First Day Of School

2008-07-14T23:30:00.003-06:00

Well, today I went back to school. It was interesting in a lot of ways and very invigorating. I only had one class today because my other summer school class has been canceled due to only three other people signing up.

This is going to sound cocky and maybe a tad arrogant but I am pretty confident I am smarter than almost everyone in my class. Albeit, the class only has 11 or 12 people in it but I think I could outscore at least 8 of them on any test or paper we have. They are all nice people but they all seem very inept for graduate students. Now I am starting to understand why the chair of special ed wanted me to start my Masters.

Having said that, I am feeling a little bit bad for being mean but I am serious when I say, gone are the days when only the people that were actually intelligent got Masters degrees.

I like being back in school, so much so I think I am going to go talk to the Japanese department and see what I would need to do to either get into 200 or 300 level Japanese. I am starting to forget what I learned while in Japan and that bothers me. It may bother me enough to drop a ton of money to keep studying it. That and if I take the classes and then test for it, I can teach it and that can't be bad.

After school Jim and I went out to lunch and that was nice. Then I came home and was still feeling all productive so I watered all of the plants in the house and then proceeded to sort MP3s for almost 4 hours. Tonight, I feel like I made a dent in the music collection so that is good. So many songs, so little time to properly tag and name all of them.

Oh, one more thing about class. I am the only guy in the class. The downside is that all of the women are either my mom's age or spoken for...or not my type. There was one girl that kind of stood out but was disqualified for historical reasons. Why do I always end up liking cute girls named Becca that work at hospitals?

Star Gazing

2008-07-10T00:27:00.002-06:00

Have you ever gotten into a swimming pool at midnight and just floated on your back and watched the stars? If not, you should try it sometime. It is so relaxing just to lay back and look into the night. The cool part about doing it in a pool is that in the dark it makes you feel like you are drifting through space, weightless and alone. Very zen.

School Stress

2008-06-30T15:52:00.002-06:00

Today has been extremely productive in non-productive ways.

I have to start Summer School at Boise State in a few weeks so I have been looking into how I am going to pay the $900 bill for that. When I logged into my school account a while ago, I noticed they have billed me for the classes I need to take in the Fall as well, another $1200. Beh. I hate money stuff.

It isn't even an issue of whether I can pay the bills or not, I can, I just don't want to. I have been doing well as far as saving money goes and I have finally gotten a small nest egg set aside. Now, it looks like I will be cracking open that nest egg and throwing it in the frying pan to pay for school. What irritates me is how the payments and loans are structured. I called my bank today to see about possibly getting a student loan so that I don't have to drain what I saved up. Since I am not going full-time or even half-time, I don't qualify for any type of loan they could give me. I then found another company that is an offshoot of my bank that enables you to do a series of monthly tuition payments. This place would have been great, except BSU does not allow for that payment plan because they have their own in-house plan they offer.

BSU's in-house plan sucks. Basically, you have to pay off your bill in three payments. For me, that is three payments of $400 for three months in a row. This will also be right after me paying a lump sum of $880 for Summer School because BSU doesn't allow for any special payment plan other than charging it to your credit card or writing a big check. I refuse to use my credit card for this.

My parents said they would help me but I don't really want to take their money. I just don't really want to blow all of mine either. Other school stuff has been bugging me too.

For starters, in the Fall I have one class that lasts the whole semester and starts at 3:40PM. This will not be a big deal unless, I get lucky and land a teaching job for the Fall. If I land a teaching job, I have my doubts as to whether or not I could make a 3:40 class without being late. This means I will have to do some sort of bargaining with the professor to see if I can show up late or make up time or something. You would think that a Special Ed professor would be willing to make these concessions for someone who is teaching Special Ed but I know if I was a prof, I would be pissed if a student asked me if it would be ok to be late to almost every class. Oh yeah, this specific class, I have to get special permission from the professor to take because I don't meet the prerequisites for the class because the prerequisites did not exist when I graduated with my degree. Lastly, if the professor for some stupid reason says he won't give me permission to take the class, that will change my bill for tuition for the Fall so I am hesitant to make any payments on the Fall until I know I am in that class. Then if he says he won't budge on me being late if I get a teaching job, that will change things too.

The other thing that bugs me is that I have to take a math test to get the Special Ed certification. What would happen if I take all of these classes and spend this money, only to fail the math test and have it all be for nothing. Even if I pass all of the Special Ed classes with flying colors, if I fail this math test, I can't get certified to teach Special Ed...which has absolutely nothing to do with math.

For once in my life, I have the grades and the financial means to do what I want but I want to keep some of that money around. I like the fact that I can save a bit, though it isn't much. I know I should think to the future when once I have this certification, I will have a job pretty much where ever I want one and I will have job security due to the demand. It is just hard to see that now because of all of the stress that this amount of uncertainty is causing me.

-$75.00

2008-06-27T20:10:00.000-06:00

Note to self: Stop at stop signs when there is a cop car parked next to them.

Long Time No See

2008-06-17T00:29:00.002-06:00

Tonight was kind of funny. Somehow, someway, I was kind of drafted to help with my class's ten year reunion. I have been against this whole reunion business since day one but after tonight, I might be having a change of heart.

A small group of planners met at a pizza place here in town and discussed what we all wanted to do for the event. It was actually a good time. My old friend Kendall was there and so were a couple of other people that I remembered. As I was sitting there tonight, Kendall crept up on me and put me in a headlock. While not a fan of the headlock, I did like the camaraderie and sense of belonging to a group. Maybe that is what this whole reunion business is for.

So after it was all said and done, Kendall and I got put in charge of music and booze for the event and I was also recruited to help with the finding of people. All of the rest of the people that showed up were Mormons and that meant that Kendall and I were obvious choices to handle the booze. I think this stressed Kendall a bit but after I told him that even if we screw it all up, there will probably only be fifty people angry at us seeing the rest wouldn't be drinking anyway, he lightened up a tad.

After the meet, Kendall came over to visit for a while and have a couple of beers. We then went out to eat at Merrits. I really kind of felt like being in high school again. It was kind of cool.

In other news, today marks the last day of me officially doing stuff to get a teaching job. All of my applications have been submitted and all of my screening interviews taken and passed. All that is left now is to wait and hope an opening comes open. I also met with the second in charge of Meridian's special ed program and talked with her for a few minutes about me being available for a position in case they do not have enough Special Ed teachers to fill the vacancies. She seemed pretty positive and so maybe, just maybe, I will get into a teaching job this Fall. I hope so. I am hinging a lot of stuff on that, like getting a house.

Other than that, not a ton of stuff to report. I have been fairly busy lately and haven't been doing a lot of super fun stuff. This weekend looks more promising for that though.

My Weekend Age Regression Trip

2008-06-07T23:21:00.002-06:00

On Thursday I took a roadtrip. I love roadtrips, but Thursday's trip was one I haven't taken in ten years; a trip to my cousin's in Washington with my parents. One of my cousins was graduating from high school so we decided to show up and be part of the cheering section.

As a general rule, taking roadtrips with my parents isn't something that I do very often these days. But thanks to gas being as ungodly expensive as it is, I decided to have parent-son bonding time. All in all, it went pretty well. I sat in the backseat and listened to my iPod and read magazines along the way; just like I was ten years old again. It was pretty funny, not a ton has changed since I was ten...be that good or bad.

The one thing that drives me nuts about traveling with my mom and dad is how slow they choose to traverse the American highway system. From Boise to my cousin's place takes at the very maximum, eight hours, max. My parents decided it takes two days and a stop at some random Indian casino along the way. Have I ever mentioned I hate casinos? Now, just because I despise gambling establishments does not mean that I won't take money from them and that is just what I did. I sat down at the poker table and walked away with forty bucks. I like poker, regardless of the location of the tables I choose to take down.

The next day we embarked on the second leg of the trip and made it to Washington. Once at our destination we hooked up with my brother and his wife and my cousins. I haven't been to their house in years and had all of my family around me. It was nice. My cousin's graduation went nicely and we all played a lot of Wii. I also got to shoot a beefy, Rambo-esque compound bow. That was also fun.

Tomorrow, I travel with my brother and his wife back to Boise. This whole weekend has been so funny and now it ends with a trip with my brother. I feel very young right now and I think that is good.

Everything Tempory, Nothing Lasts

2008-05-26T14:38:00.002-06:00

Lately I think I have been in a funk.

The past few weeks have flown by and I am not sure why I feel like I do. I have spent this weekend moving and the place I am moving to rocks and will be a lot of fun. But I know that it isn't a permanent thing and that in six months or so, I will be looking for another place. I really want a house of my own but this will do for now and it will definitely be more relaxing than living with my parents.

My jobs(pick one)are going nowhere. I don't feel like a ton of the work I do is very helpful to anyone and I have a sneaking suspicion that my good job exists just so the state has someplace to throw money at to make it look like they care about people with disabilities. Don't get me wrong, I think I do some good at my job and possibly, more than I realize, but I just don't feel like much of anything ever gets accomplished with any of the people I deal with and hear about. One exception to this is one of my clients. He is doing so well since I started with him that he will no longer need services in a month or two. This is great for him but it means I get a pay cut because I am down one client when he is taken out of the program.

A while ago I was hopeful about getting an emergency special ed teaching job but now that is looking less likely. The Boise school district called me and told me that they weren't even going to screen me because I am not close to getting my Special Ed certification. I was told that they would have to be extremely desperate in order to hire me. I understand their position but that didn't feel too great to hear. I still have some hope for Meridian and I need to get my app into Kuna this next week. I hope that something comes through on that end because I need a new job that has some kind of a future.

It also feels like everyone around me minus a couple of people has become totally unreliable. Unreliable isn't the right word, maybe distant. Maybe that is just me projecting that feeling because I feel a billion miles away a lot of the time. I am just having a hard time feeling like I am fitting in anywhere lately. It isn't anything that people have or haven't done, I just don't feel like almost anything is right at the moment and I don't know why. I feel very alone in a sea of people and places I am extremely familiar with. I go places and I do things but I don't feel like I am connected to any of it.

I am moving to Ben's parent's house. Tonight will be my first night there. The house is at the top of a hill that overlooks everything. Perhaps I am not seeing the forest for the trees and by moving up there, I will be able to get a clearer view of what is going on with me. Why is it that when I am out of my element I excel but when I am in places I should be comfortable I feel so trapped and transient at the same time?

Dreams of Pixel Pub

2008-05-18T16:35:00.003-06:00

For almost six hours now, I have sat in my video game store and have done absolutely nothing. I think a dozen people have been in here all day and not all of them bought stuff. This is boredom at its finest.

My thing is, why are the owners of this place letting this stand? Why would you own a business that you are losing money hand over fist on? I have seen some evidence to show that this store is probably not going to be around forever and I can't really blame them. The part that sucks is that if the video game store closes some people are going to be out of a job that could use the money. I am not one of those people, but some people will get the shaft.

I kind of want to open up and run a game store just to show these people how a real game store should be run. The major difference between my game store and theirs is that mine would have a full bar. I would call it Pixel Pub and also have a small vintage arcade on the side of it as well. My boss here used to be a bar tender and so did his brother, Teddy and two other people that work here could run the game store , and I could float between the two. No, I haven't thought about this much. The only real downside is that Idaho has a bunch of pain in the ass liquor laws that would make the bar a chore to open. But it would be fun and I would bet we could get some decent business. The geek culture of Boise is lacking in a good adult oriented hangout and I could provide that niche.

Now, I just need a bunch of startup money and a liquor license.

Appointments and Schedules

2008-05-16T11:56:00.002-06:00

Staying on par with the past few months' course, I have enrolled in Summer school which means more weeks without any free time. I am excited to go back to school but not horribly thrilled with the price of it or the amount of time I will end up sinking into it. I am taking two Summer classes, one is on the fundamentals of teaching special education and the other is on teaching severely handicapped students. Both should be interesting and both should be easy, I just wish that I got paid to take the classes.

In other news, I have my screening interview with the Boise school district in the second week of June. This isn't anything special, it is just me getting asked a bunch of questions by the head of the History department (a guy I have known for a while) and being okay'd to be put into the pool of potential teachers. There is one history position open at a junior high but I am not sure if I will be added to the pool soon enough to qualify for it. We will see. That would be an interesting wrench in my plans if I were to sign up for all of this Special Ed stuff and then get a history job. I wouldn't complain though.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I went to work and found out that I had meant more of my hourly goals with clients than any other person and I got a prize. It wasn't much of a prize but I was happy that I was on top. To add to the fun of the day, I kind of sort of bought a 46" Sharp Aquos LCD television too. I had no intent to buy a tv yesterday but I know I will need one soon and this was a stupidly good deal so I had to take it. Grand Theft Auto 4 on a big tv is fun.

Lately, I have felt like such a robot. I don't do much other than work and it is starting to wear me out. There is no variation in my life and I still have not had a day off. I need to get a teaching job soon so I can feel like I am not working my ass off just to tread water. There is something to be said for treading water though because I am finally getting some savings built up. It isn't much but it is better than nothing. I feel like I have breathing room again.

A Slew Of Job Related Stuff and Everything Else

2008-05-10T10:40:00.003-06:00

Ok, I haven't posted in about ten days and that is my bad. But in my defense, I have been super busy.

I went and talked to the guy at BSU and he got me all straightened out. I had to re-apply as a student and got accepted the other day. Now I have to register for two Summer school classes and take them. In the Fall I will be taking three classes, same with the Spring semester. After that, I have two classes left to take and those will hopefully happen in the Summer of 2009 but possibly the Fall of 2009. After that and a couple of tests, I will be certified to teach Special Ed.

I have also been busy filling out applications for all of the school districts in the area. I turned Meridian's in the other day and Boise's is finished, I just need to submit it. After that, I will submit Kuna's back to them as well. The hope is that one of the districts will not be able to find all of the special ed teachers it needs in time for the next school year. That means they would go into emergency mode and I would then be qualified to be hired on as a special teacher and do the job while I go to school. Everyone seems to think I will have a job come August but I am not that hopeful. It would be nice though.

As for my current job, it is going well. Not too much to report on that front. My video game store job is also going well, though there is always more drama going on there than at my other jobs. The problem I have with my jobs is that they eat up all of my time. I haven't had a day off work in about a month and a half. Part of me says that sucks but the other part of me doesn't know what I would do if I had a day or two off anyway so I may as well keep working and getting money. My money situation is pretty much squared away. I have enough coming in now that I can pay all of my bills, play a little, and save a bit. This is good.

In other news, I found out last week that I will be an uncle before the year is out. That will be funny. I am not sure why but this makes me feel younger for some reason. Lately, I have been feeling younger and that may be because of going back to college and just staying as busy as I have been.

Oh oh, at the end of the month, I will be moving into Ben's parents' place for the Summer. That will also be fun. Sorry, I am out of adjectives at the moment and just want to get all of this stuff out. I need to post on here more frequently so when I do post I don't just verbally vomit all over the place. Anywho, I need to go to work now but will post more later.

Up Early, Getting Worms

2008-04-29T12:28:00.004-06:00

Today has been a crazy day and it is barely past noon. I had to get up early and take my mom to work. After dropping her off, I went over to the state board of education to see what I needed to do to get my Special Ed endorsement. After basically getting the run around by those guys, I headed over to BSU to see if I could have better luck with them and I hit a homerun.

The head of the special education department was a huge help and actually cleared his schedule to have a full-blown meeting with me tomorrow to figure out exactly what classes I need to take. He also gave me the name of a person in Meridian that may be able to find a spot for me in that school district. Finally, it feels like I got the ball rolling in the right direction.

Quick Post

2008-04-21T09:49:00.003-06:00

I don't have a lot of time to type at the moment but I talked to that guy on Friday and after speaking with him, I am definitely going after a Special Ed job. Now, I am just filling out applications and trying to call the right people. The teacher I talked to seemed to think that I would most likely have a job by August so now I am just hoping he is right.

Smart Decisions

2008-04-15T23:52:00.002-06:00

Lately, I have been thinking about the future...a lot.

The job(s) that I have right now were good things to get me on my feet upon returning from Japan. In the long run, however, none of them are that great. The company that hires me to do the work with the autistic kids and the PSR work is an okay place to work for but my hours kind of suck, the commute to certain clients kind of sucks, and the lack of retirement packages and benefits kind of sucks. Essentially, I like the job but I hate the material things I am getting out of it. I could be working somewhere that pays me more and gives me some stuff so that I can plan for my future a little more.

Then there is the video game store. Let's be honest, the video game store is a crappy place to work but I do it because it is kind of fun and I like a couple of the people I work with. There is zero future there and it is basically a hobby for me. To top it off, I seldom play that many video games and the games I buy are few and far between. I like the job because of the discount I get on games but I have yet to buy anything there so what is really the point, aside from the extra little bit of cash it gives me?

So where does that leave me?

I have a few options. First, I could go back to school. The upside there is that I like school, I can meet people, and I can make myself more appealing to employers. The downside is that school costs money and I can't work as much while I am attending classes. This means I would need student loans and some form of income that could sustain me. I hate applying for loans and I am not sure what job I could do that I could live off of and go to school.

The second option is to apply to every school district I can and basically say to myself that I will move to wherever I am hired. While this increases the odds I get a job, it also increases the odds of me moving somewhere I don't particularly want to. It also means I get paid less if the job is in some nowhere town.

Option three, while appealing is probably not the best idea and that is to pack my bags again and this time, go to China. This is something I think about daily. Part of me really wants to do this but the other part of me wants to stay put and figure my life out. I needed to go to Japan, I don't need to go to China. Not now anyways. If I were to pack up now, I would essentially be delaying the start of a career. China would be fun but it really wouldn't do anything for my future.

This leaves the last option and most likely the one I am going to take. Special education. The benefits of being a special ed teacher by far and away overshadow the two things that I see as being a downside. The two downsides would be that I would be teaching history and that I don't feel my calling is to teach special ed. While I don't consider special ed my calling in the education profession, I do not think this will keep me from doing a good job at it. I have had a taste of what it will be like from my current job and it isn't too bad. Other things I am taking into account are the benefits and retirement. The pay for special ed is higher than that of a normal teacher. Special ed teachers are needed just about everywhere. Special ed teachers get the same holidays and vacations as regular teachers. I would have fewer kids to worry about and those fewer kids would be able to get more of my attention. I would have less homework and finals to grade come test time. And lastly, I would still qualify this as a job to get the ladies. Also, I think it would at least get my foot in the door so I could teach history some other time or maybe part time.

Having decided this, on Friday I am going to talk to a special ed teacher for a high school in town and see what he knows as far as when and where would be the best time for me to jump in. While I am not special ed certified, I have a teaching certification and experience in the field. This means that I could be approved to teach it on an emergency need basis. I have even heard rumors that some schools will then pay for me to get the special ed training and certification that I would need. On top of it all, if I choose not to stay in Idaho, special ed teachers are in need pretty much everywhere and so I would open some doors as far as that goes.

Kind of along the same lines as far as future thinking goes, if I am going to try to stick around here and teach for a bit, I have been passively looking at houses. What is funny is that the houses I have been looking at are in the same neighborhood as my brother and his wife are probably going to be moving in to. Did either of us know this, no. But it would be cool to be able to live next door to my brother, that would be fun. Of course, the housing situation is largely reliant upon the job situation so for now, the house hunting is premature but still kind of fun to do.

I guess it all comes down to me being sick of treading water, which is what I have been doing since I have come back from Japan. You might even qualify my last year in Japan as treading water but I wasn't done with what I set out to accomplish there and therefore, I didn't want to come home. I came home when I did because I had accomplished all I wanted to get out of Japan and a little more. I am just ready for the future and in feeling more ready, I have felt a tad younger. I have been working out at least every other day at a gym and that is also helping. I can go for eight miles on an elliptical machine in half an hour so I must not be too old yet.

I think for a long time, I was waiting for stuff to fall into place and maybe that was part of my reasoning behind going to Japan. I just wanted luck to take over and put me wherever. What I have found is that luck can only get me about $25k a year without benefits and no future so now I need to take a more hands on approach to my life and maybe make it a bit more how I hoped it would turn out on the first try.

Bored In A Video Game Store

2008-04-11T11:28:00.003-06:00

You would think that a video game store would be a fun place to work at but, as I am learning, it isn't so much.

Things I have done today:

1)Drank my iced mocha.
2)Wiped down some TVs and glass cases.
3)Read a video game magazine...boring.
4)Played some video games...boring.
5)Studied Japanese.
6)Talked to one of the store's owners.

Notice that nowhere in that list did I mention, "help a customer". This is because in the two hours since the store has opened, I haven't had a single one. Not a single freaking person other than the owner and myself has walked through the doors.

I was hired to increase sales because I am some kind of a "sales god" but it is nigh impossible to sell stuff when there isn't a single soul coming into the store. If I were the owner of this place, there is no way I would keep this store open when the other store does much better and has a more positive vibe going for it. I have a feeling that if something doesn't happen in a month or two, they will start to think the same way. All I know is that I am going out of my mind from the monotony of listening to video games chirping and no one to talk to.

Taxes

2008-04-09T10:31:00.002-06:00

I dread taxes. Yesterday, I finally got mine sent in and that was a pain. Unlike most of you guys, living in Japan has given me some special circumstances to deal with. Special circumstances means paperwork that even the IRS people weren't totally sure how to feel out.

The upside is that I am basically exempt from taxation this year from both state and federal entities. The downside is that I am not 110% sure I filled out all of the paperwork correctly. Either way, it is done now and I am reasonably certain is is done correctly so I am happy.

My question is this: If Peppy Kids Club knew I was going to have such a pain in filing this year, why could they have not helped me, because I am sure I am not the only American that has ever had to come back to the US and file a tax exemption? The IRS guy said that almost all overseas companies help you out with this. Not Peppy Kids Club. The other thing that irks me is if the US government expects EVERYONE to file some sort of return, why can they not word them in plain English so everyone can understand them. Yes, some CPAs would be out of a job but is the government here to serve us or a gaggle of accountants. Don't tell me, I think I know the answer.

The Video Game Store and I

2008-04-04T00:40:00.002-06:00

I have mentioned on here a couple of times that I am working at a video game store now kind of as a fun little hobby. Well, yesterday I was officially hired. The kicker is that there were several key things I didn't know about this place:

1. I am the most educated person that works at either of the stores and this includes the owners.

2. I have more sales and merchandising experience than all of the people in the store combined...this also includes the owners.

3. I am the oldest person working at this store...other than the owners.

What does all of this mean?

Let's just say I got the job. Oh yeah, I also have one of the stores to kind of use as my sandbox and figure out how to increase sales and traffic into the store. I have been hired as a "leader" of the store which means that there are really only two people I answer to and I have three people that now pretty much do my bidding when I am around. So much for this just kind of being a hobby job that I go to and relax.

So tonight, I went into the store and started looking at different things that could be done right off the bat to give sales a quick boost. There were two areas that my boss and I tackled tonight that I think will help tremendously. First, we created a bargain bin of really crappy or old games, marked them down and placed it right in front of the door. Anyone that comes in is going to see the stuff and so hopefully we can sell some of it. The second thing I switched up was the placement of newer games in hopes to attract peoples' attention as they come into the door. It was at about this time when my boss realized that I actually do have some experience with this kind of thing thanks to 7.5 years of Costco and told me he liked what I was doing.

Toward the end of the night, my boss and I were both busily sorting and alphabetizing games when out of no where two cops burst through the front doors, poised to shoot someone. After both my boss and I fervently swearing we worked there, the cops told us that our "stick up" alarm had been pressed and they thought there was a robbery in progress and came to thwart any would be criminals. This was obviously not what was going on.

So now the cops are wandering around the store and my boss is on the phone with the owners trying to sort everything out. One cop walks passed my newly placed bargain bin and exclaims, "Wow! These games are cheap!" Yes, yes they are; it is like those games are there for a reason....hmm. He immediately finds one title he wants and I tell him he should find another one so that he can utilize the buy two and get one free special we have on those games. After a few seconds of looking, he hasn't found a game that sparked his interest so I decide to suggest something.

"How about Grand Theft Auto?"

The cop's eyes lit up and he said, "Do you have it for the Playstation 2?"

"Yes, I do. And this is the Grand Theft Auto with the badass 80's soundtrack too."

"Sweet! I'll take it!"

And this is how I sold Grand Theft Auto to two uniformed police officers who had originally come into my store looking to stop a crime.

My boss gave him another game he was looking for as his free game and with that, the cops decided that they didn't need to fill out any paperwork for the incident, which meant that we didn't have to pay a $25 fine for the false alarm. All is well that ends well in video game land.

The Inaugural Meeting of The Cooking Club

2008-03-30T13:13:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was the first ever cooking club event that Jake and Heather, and I have started. It was a lot of fun. The theme for the day was curries and so I did Japanese curry served with breaded chicken breast strips. Heather did a chick pea curry and another red curry that was Indian inspired.

Everything turned out very well and a lot of people showed up for the cook-off. Since it went so well, we are going to do monthly meets, each with a different theme. April is going to be a Texas BBQ theme and May is going to be an "Anything Grilled" theme since Summer will be starting up around then and people will be warming up their barbecue grills.

My Japanese curry seemed to be well received and thanks to the way the Japanese serve it, it was also good for the couple of vegetarians in the group. My Japanese rice cooker also got some recognition which I thought was kind of funny. Heather's two dishes were very good and the mango lasses that she made to go along with them were excellent. It was fun to see how other people make dishes that I like to eat. The other cool part about this club is that I get to meet new people and most of the ones that came to yesterday's cooking were pretty cool. It is always good to expand your people pool.

In other news, I am going over to Ben's parents' place for dinner tonight and am looking forward to that. Ben's mom is a kick-ass cook. I also got a new client at work which means more hours and money. He is a nice guy and I don't think it will be much of a chore to help him out. We are almost the same age and like some of the same stuff so that helps. He is an awesome artist and I am hoping to trade him some of my photos for a piece of his artwork. There is one piece of his in particular that I like and I think it would look sweet in a frame so after I get to know him a bit better, I may try to make a deal with him.

Other than that, not a ton is going on. The crappy part about moving back is it seemed like every weekend I could do something new and exciting in Japan without much effort; here, it is a bit more work to find something unique and cool to do. Anywho, I am getting ready to format my computer and the files I have been copying over to one of my drives look like they are almost done so it is time I close this up and get ready to format the drive.

Stupid Sentence

2008-03-25T00:11:00.003-06:00

Last Sunday, over steak dinner with Tony and my family I unintentionally said this, "Do not dictate to me what condiments I can and cannot use on my food."

Say that sentence to yourself and tell me what two words stick out. Yes, it is childish but at the time it was really funny and best of all, it was my dad that caught it first. Somehow, off color humor always pops up around my family's dinner table when we least expect it. Tony quickly followed up that little moment with a conversation about how people classify one thing pornographic but not others and what elements lead to something being deemed pornographic.

All in all, it was a savory and proper Sunday dinner for all who attended.

Winding Down and A Sort of New Job

2008-03-20T08:41:00.003-06:00

As the weekend approaches, I can feel a wave of relaxation washing over me. This week hasn't been that stressful but I have really been looking forward to the weekend. Tomorrow I have a bunch of stuff going but most of it is fun so that is good.

On a different note, I think I have a new job. Teddy works at a video game store that is near my house so I occasionally go there and hang out for an hour or so. It came up in conversation the other day that I should get paid for the time that I spend there and then I sold about $125 worth of stuff to a guy that had a severe hankering for the original Super Mario Brothers. After some figuring out of schedules and whatnot, I think I will spend a few hours a week tending a video game store. This is a good thing for several reasons. First, it's a few more bucks a month that will be coming in and as I said, money is good. Second, discounts on video games can never be bad. Third, I normally go to this place to kind of relax and hang out so I may as well do the exact same thing and get paid for it. It should be kind of fun and it will help pay the bills so that works. I just never thought I would work at a video game store. Oh, I will still be working with kids with issues during the day, this is just kind of a side job that I am doing mostly for fun.

Not a whole lot else is going on. Tony is here this week so we have been hanging out and trying to fix his new computer. I can't get the sound to work on the stupid thing and it is starting to irritate me. One way or the other, the thing will be figured out before the weekend so I am not too worried about it. I just don't have the patience that I used to have when fixing computers.

Anywho, I am up way early today because I had to follow my dad to the place where he was dropping their motor home off to get tuned up and bring him back home. Now I need to find some breakfast before I head off to a meeting at work.

Yes, I Need To Update More

2008-03-14T23:54:00.002-06:00

Stuff has just been a tad busy.

I started back up at the gym and pretty much all of my excess energy that I have been dealing with as of late is now gone. I missed the gym so much; it feels good to be lifting weights again. Now I just need to work on getting my diet in order.

Work is still going well. I am continuously amazed by the total lack of parenting prowess exhibited by one of my client's elders. I learned the other day that when they don't want to talk to or deal with their children they go in their bedroom and hide in a closet. This is the parents I am talking about here, not the kids. The icing on the cake came when after my client's two sisters failed to find their parents, the three year old sister suggested that both of the adults my have committed suicide together. All of the inhabitants of that household are totally sane...really.

I have been taking a few more pictures lately but I haven't had the time to upload them to the Flickr account. Expect an update in the next several hours. I have some nice country scenery I have shot and some of it turned out well. Speaking of photography, I attended my second Flickr meeting tonight. I enjoy talking to a few of the people there and it is nice to be able to talk about picture taking to other people without sounding like a nerd. Oh yeah...I am a nerd. Oh well. Either way, it's nice to talk to people outside of my normal circle of friends.

I have been procrastinating about turning in my application to the Boise school district. Instead, I may go back to school and get certified in special education. The way I see it, I like the job I have now. A special ed certification would let me teach pretty much anywhere I wanted and I would get paid well and still have all of the normal school holidays off. I would get good benefits and the admiration of all of the ladies when I tell them I help special kids. We will see, but right now, I think I am leaning toward this option. I should still turn in my app to the school district right now but ambition has been lacking and I am not sure why.

Not a ton else has gone on to report. I have just been hanging out with friends and going to work. Work is good and the friends are good so I think life is going relatively well at the moment.

I Like My Job!

2008-03-04T10:18:00.003-07:00

I think for the first time in a long time, if ever, I can safely say that I enjoy my job. Yay!!! I can't get too specific about it but I enjoy working with the kids and now that I am getting more hours, I am liking the money too. I got a new client yesterday and may have one more new one by the end of the month so that is cool. The people I work with are also pretty cool so I think I will hang around at this place for a while.

The way that I started to get more hours is by picking up a second job within the company. Now on some mornings, I work with a couple of autistic kids. I am meeting one of them today for the first time but I have been working with the other kid for about a week. He is a funny little guy.

In other news, Boise is kind of sort of boring. If you don't have any other things going, it seems like the three big things to do here are renting movies, going to the movies, and going bar hopping. The latter can be fun in moderation but I don't see a point in the other two. I think I would be less bored if I had a girlfriend or significant other or something, maybe I should get on that and work my manly wiles on some poor lass. Or maybe I will just play more Halo 3. Seriously though, it bothers me that there isn't more to do around here and it bugs me that so many people are okay with just going to the movies. I will be glad when the Shakespeare theater starts up in the summer; it is at least something different. I have been feeling very boxed in and anxious lately and I think it is due to Boise's size. It is very odd to move from hanging out in cities with twelve million people to one that has about three hundred thousand when you add in all of the smaller towns nearby.

Ten Year Reunions and Anxiety

2008-02-25T22:28:00.004-07:00

The topic of my ten year reunion has come up a lot in the last few weeks. People have been mentioning it to me and asking if I am going to which I have responded with a resounding "NO". Now, I am not sure. I think if I know some of my friends are going I may drop in but I will be going with wingmen or not at all.

I have been dreading the reunion for several reasons. First, most of the people I wanted to keep in touch with, I have. The other people I don't care so much about. Despite this, I still visit the sheriff's website and collect snapshots of my peers and figure that maybe at this reunion they would be good conversation starters. Maybe not. Maybe I just like being "big brother" and knowing about the side of people most would not choose to share with others.

Second, up until a few weeks ago I haven't been that proud with what I have accomplished in the ten years since I left Capital High. Telling my ex-classmates that I had spent the past ten years working at Costco and getting divorced didn't sound that appealing. Now that I have done the whole elitist "I am a world traveler" thing, I feel a bit better. I also have a job now that I am kind of proud of and enjoy and that helps too. I haven't failed in my life by any stretch but I still don't feel like I have accomplished enough to consider myself successful in the past ten years. Then again, knowing me, I am not sure how much I would have to do in order to consider myself successful. I have resigned myself to just doing as much as I can and mining a few good nuggets from the bunch.

I am not sure why I feel like this but I am not going to this thing to see people; if I go it will be to prove myself to others. I really shouldn't need to do this but seriously, there aren't a ton of people that will be there that I feel compelled to see again. I don't even feel like I have to prove myself to any of them but, the way I figure it, reunions are things you go to to make yourself feel better about yourself. I figure I am at least on par with most of my peers so I may as well see how I compare. Statistically, I figure I am in the top third of my class and feel that that is how almost all of my friends rank.

Who knows, will I go or won't I? I guess we shall see. Tony and Jake, if you're up for it, I guess I am in. This thing will have an open bar, right?

Aside from all of this reunion talk, I have been antsy as all get out for the past few days. I have been bothered about money stuff and some other stuff and have just had a generally hard time calming down. Partly, this is due to my job giving me almost no hours and no hours means no money. I have bills to pay and I am not sure that they firmly grasp this. I don't want to get a second job but if this lack of working goes on for much longer, I am going to need one until I get established at the main place. I don't want a second job but if this keeps up going into April, I am not going to have much of a choice. There is hope though and in a week or two I may not need to worry.

I just feel like there is so much to do and I am playing catch up since moving back. I don't have a place of my own, if it weren't for my nest egg I brought back from Japan, I would not be making ends meet. I have financial goals set for this year and if I keep going like I am, I will not meet them. I won't even be close. One upside is that it looks like I may be teaching summer school this year and that would be cool if that opportunity works out. It looks good on my resume and it gives me an extra three grand to work with. I need to complete my Boise Schools application again.

Anywho, that is what I have been up to. There is so much I feel like I need to do and I am unsure how much is really necessary. I think once I get my money stuff straightened out, I will be able to relax. Hopefully, that will happen soon.

Thoughts From A Crowded Bar

2008-02-24T00:06:00.003-07:00

In a bar right now; the name has changed since the last time I was here. All of the people look the same, the music sounds the same. I have seen people I used to know but have since become names and hazy memories. It is all very loud; I am not sure why I used to like this. Everyone has tattoos and is loud. I feel out of place but find everything curiously enjoyable; its like I am at the zoo.

Signs of Exceptional Parenting

2008-02-19T23:54:00.002-07:00

By "exceptional" I mean "piss poor". The kid that I am now charged with helping has a dipstick for a mom, I have already mentioned this. However, each time I interact with her, I am awed by her complete lack of parental ability. Here are some examples of how not to raise your kids.

1) Please teach your three year old daughter that, "Hey, bitch!" is not an appropriate greeting when interacting with practical strangers.

2) Multiply the above statement by three when those practical strangers work for an entity that is employed by Medicaid to ensure your children are doing well.

3) Let your children know that scaling counter tops and shelving like they were practicing for a run up Mt. Everest is ill-advised during visits with people that actually care what they do at home and in their daily lives and whose assessments can affect the future of those kids to an extent.

4) When talking to the guy that is in charge of ensuring your kid's behavioral well-being, don't use the F-word more than two times in the same sentence.

5) Again, let your three year old daughter know that hitting visitors and calling them "bitch" is indeed a bad idea.

6) Please refrain from telling visitors that your six year old step-daughter needs mental help...when the child is three feet away and listening to the conversation.

7) New flash: No matter what you think, pot is indeed a drug and it IS illegal. Not my call, that is just the way it is.

8) When you and your boyfriend go out, leaving your ten year old son that has behavioral issues to care for his two younger sisters is NOT a good idea.

9) Do you really think that telling a kid with anger issues that he gets to determine the severity of his siblings punishment when you aren't around is a good idea? Really?

10) When you tell your son not to do something and you do that very thing seconds later, are you setting a good example? No, your pissing him off.

Ok, you get the point, I will stop there. So far, this job is making me want to have kids just so I can set an example for people on how to be at least a decent parent. As it stands right now, if I had the power to take these kids out of the household I would be seriously weighing the consequences of doing so.

Real Work and Other News

2008-02-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

This week is my first week that I actually get to work! No more training or anything like that. The downside to this is that since I only have one client assigned to me, I am not getting a ton of hours. Hopefully, this will change soon.

My first client is an elementary school student with some moderate anger issues and some other minor problems. In reality, he would be totally normal if it weren't for his complete nut of a mom. If anyone needs help, it is her. For privacy reasons, I can't say a ton more than that but I have a feeling this kid and I will get along pretty well and if I have any problems, they are going to come from the person that gave birth to him. I can safely say that if this kid grows up to be a killer or kill himself, 90% of the blame can be placed firmly on mommy's shoulders. It makes me sad to think he would be a totally normal dude if it weren't for the rotten luck that placed him in a nutcase family.

My initial meeting with my kid went very well. I took him out for ice cream and just talked to him for a bit. He is a smart kid but I can see a few things that I am going to need to watch for. For one, I know he takes after his mom and that means he is used to manipulating people to get what he wants. He is not above lying and trying to pit people against each other to get what he wants. While I am new at this whole thing, I can read people pretty well and so I am not too worried about most of this. These are all behaviors that can be unlearned and if they present themselves, I can deal with them. The thing that I have going for me is that I am used to dealing with kids and I am in constant contact with his teacher and counselor as well.

In other news, Tony was in town this weekend and we got to hang out. Jim and I went to Twin Dragon to eat with his mom and sister and her boyfriend. It was a good time and nice to be able to see him. If there is one thing that rocks about being back, it is how accessible my friends are again. I went out to eat with Jake and Heather on Friday and then went to an Obama fundraiser thingy at a bar. The event itself wasn't anything to write home about but the whole experience of being able to sit in the same booth as Jake again and have a couple drinks rocked. I missed that and its nice to be able to do it again.

I think I am finally starting to get used to the day to day grind of the US once more. I work, I fill up the car with gas, I take pictures, I drive everywhere. Much of it is like I never left. Then there is the other side of things; all of my friends are older acting now and have kids and careers and houses and significant others. Though they don't see me as one, I feel like a third wheel sometimes and it makes me wish I was married again or at the very least, was in some kind of relationship. Must.Have.Patience.

Oh oh, one other fun thing that has happened. I went to Ben's parents' place for dinner about a week ago and we got to talking about their recent upgrades to their cabin in Stanley and how they were going to live there full time for the summer. It came up that their current(and sweet) house was going to need a caretaker and that I fit the bill pretty well. So, around Memorial Day, I will be moving into their house and kind of sort of, making it my own for a few months. Ben's parents' place could basically be my dream house if only it had a hot tub. Other than that, it pretty much fits the bill. My rent is pretty low, I mow the lawn and trim the roses. This will be nice because it will give me a few more months to save money before I decide whether or not to rent a place of my own, buy a place of my own, or move away again.

Well, I am making turkey curry tonight and I need to check and see how everything is cooking. I will post more soon!

Typing Hurts

2008-02-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

If you were to judge me by the condition of my hands alone, right now, you would think I was a zombie. They are swollen and skin is peeling off of them and the meaty parts look like raw hamburger in places. I can't feel anything with my fingertips so touch typing is out at the moment. Touching anything hurts and my fingers are so stiff I can't make a fist without them hurting. All of this because of nerves.

I am still a tad stressed but feel better than I did the other day. Stuff is just so weird and I can't settle down. It is good to see friends again though and it is so strange that they are so accessible and close now. I spend a good chunk of time with Jim because he is currently less-than-employed and so he has more free time than I even do.

I went to the Flickr meet the other night and that was cool to meet some of the people I talk to on there. I also got to play with a D3 and had to wipe my drool off of it when I was finished. As far as Nikon cameras go, the D3 is pretty much the Ferrari and costs are also comparable. The camera body alone is around $6000. It was nice to meet new people though and I will definitely be attending all of the future meet-ups. People also seemed to like my pics so that was cool. Speaking of my pics, it looks like Heather and Jake may be buying some of my shots. I told them they could just have the files and print out whatever they wanted for free but they are insisting that they pay me. Whatever works, I can put it toward paying of my credit card.

Speaking of paying stuff off, that would be a ton easier to do if my new job actually gave me hours and at full pay. Currently I am client-less and having to shadow other people. This means I get half pay and almost no hours. This would be great if I didn't have ambitions and payments to make but as it is, it kind of sucks. Supposedly, this will all change in the next couple of days but if it goes on like this too much longer I will be looking for a new job. I am putting in my applications to Boise and Meridian schools today or tomorrow. It would be nice to have a consistent job again. It would be nicer to have one I actually like. I like the new job but so far I am not doing much and it is aggravating.

Tony comes in on Saturday so I get to see him. I am excited for that, I have missed him. As I said, it is so strange to be able to see all of my friends again. Very odd. Anywho, I need to get some stuff done before I leave to go shadow a guy for my job and my hands are killing me so I am going to wrap this up. More news later.

Homesick

2008-02-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

I really miss Japan right now and wish I could go back to my home there. I don't know why but for the past couple of days I have kind of felt like this. Things here are so strange now and I am not sure how much I fit in.

I feel like I talk about Japan all the time and I feel bad for it because no one else I talk to understands what I am talking about. I think if I could find more Japanese people to talk to here I would feel better. I miss them.

I guess this is all part of the readjustment process but it sucks. I feel like I don't have a home at the moment and I feel like I am getting tired of the vacation and should be heading back home but I can't go back. Just feel kind of depressed; it being my birthday and all doesn't help too much. Doesn't feel like my birthday and I don't particularly want it to be.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day and I am sure I will feel better after I get some sleep. Night!

Blog On The Back Burner

2008-02-06T01:39:00.000-07:00

Now that I am getting settled back into life here, I am starting to get busy again.

Tonight, I went to the Idaho Democratic caucus and I am happy to say that Barack Obama swamped Clinton and got 79% of the eight thousand some odd voters. I had never been to a caucus before so this was interesting. While I like politics, I usually don't get very involved in them but I feel strongly for Obama and this was a good way to make a meaningful difference in the whole campaign year.

I also started my new job today. While I can't say a ton about the people I work with due to privacy issues and laws, I can say that so far it is interesting work. At the end of the day you feel bad for some people because they have made some extremely stupid decisions in their lives that have mentally ruined what was a generally good person. I think the job will prove to be an eye opening one for me and I enjoyed my first day.

Yesterday, I went to Costco to print out some of the pictures I have taken of Japan and found that people really like some of my shots. One person liked one so much that she basically paid for all of my prints in return for letting her keep one large print of one pic I took in Kyoto. That was a good deal because all of my prints would have come to $30 or $40. They also suggested I enter my pics into a contest that takes place in a few months.

I got all of my car stuff squared away and now it is mine again. I like my car.

If you need a gadget to suck up your random free minutes during the day, get an iPhone. All I can say is that it is pretty much the best toy ever. And in suit with my past iPod buying history, within a week of buying it, a new model got released. Damned you Apple!

While at a coffee shop today a funny thing happened. I was sitting there and I heard Japanese. Out of the crowd I picked out Japanese being spoken. This was not your run-of-the-mill Japanese, this was fluent native Japanese. That could only mean one thing, real life Japanese people in Idaho. Low and behold there were two Japanese women in the coffee shop with a little girl. After saying a couple of things to the little kid, I asked her mom if she knew anyone that could give me Japanese lessons. I explained I had lived in Japan up until last week and I wanted to keep learning Japanese. Forgetting where I was, I said all of this is Japanese and found many coffee shop patrons ogling me. Luckily, I think I found a prospective Japanese tutor and this makes me happy.

Life in America is strange. I can say one thing, white women are extremely good looking now. Or I am getting more desperate which is also a possibility, I suppose. One thing I don't like is how dry Idaho is. I wake up almost every night stuffed up due to the lack of humidity. Japan was too humid and Idaho is too dry. I may need a humidifier at some point.

Thanks to all of the stressful fun of this last week, my hands are once again covered in micro-blisters. I feel like I am wearing gloves right now and some of the blisters are pretty big. Of all of the ways my body chooses to manifest stress, why did it have to pick this as my primary way? Anywho, I am tired now and there is a wicked snowstorm going on outside right now. Time for bed!

This Is How You Land On Your Feet

2008-01-29T23:08:00.000-07:00

Before coming back to the United States, I had a pretty well thought out plan for how everything was going to go down when I returned to the country. Thanks to some luck and me being a veritable rock star of men, my plan has gone off without a hitch so far.

I had my job interview yesterday and found out today that I got the position. Starting late this week or early next week, I will be working for a small company that helps mentor and teach mostly kids with behavior issues. It sounds like a really nice group of people and it is a profession I had never pictured myself in but find the field intriguing nonetheless. It also pays pretty well and once I am full time there, I should be pretty comfortable. I pretty much knew that I had the job by the end of the interview

Which is good, considering that I should have my car by the end of the week. My baby, the 2005 Toyota Matrix XRS will soon be sitting in the driveway with me behind its wheel once again.

The new job requires me to have a phone and will pay for part of my monthly bill so yesterday I picked up an iPhone. Actually, my parents picked up the iPhone, as it was their Christmas present to me. I have to say, all of the hype that has surrounded this gadget is well worth it. The phone is simply amazing in terms of use and functionality. My only complaint is the size of the buttons when typing on it; with my big hands, it is easy for me to hit the wrong button. I think that will just take some practice though because I am getting better the more I use it.

My other new toy is an Xbox 360 Elite. I have wanted one forever and have held off until the day after I hit town and then I snagged one. It is a fun toy, though I feel a tad guilty for buying it. It used money that definitely could have gone toward something else more useful but well...yeah...I wanted an Xbox.

So right now I am feeling pretty good. It is strange to be back but I am taking measures to keep all of the stressful stuff to a minimum. I have found that if I don't have to interact with a ton of people, I end the day in a pretty good mood. People, especially those in the service industry, have been driving me nuts. They are just so different and more rude than the people I am used to dealing with.

I also have one other gripe. What in the hell is with all of the people(mostly women) walking around in public while in their pajamas? It drives me nuts. If you are going to leave your house, get dressed. It is a very simple practice that has been done for centuries, wake up, bathe, put on clothes, leave your house. It doesn't get easier than that but for some reason people insist on wearing pajamas outdoors. Stupid.

One thing I have grown to love about being back is taking trips to Walmart. If I need a boost, I stroll the aisles of that hollowed center for cheap food and odd people. I wouldn't say I am thin but after ten minutes of Walmart, I feel like I just came out of boot camp and the gym. Americans have gotten bigger in the last couple of years, much bigger. Combine pajamas with an abundance of flesh and you feel like you are at a sleep over hosted by McDonalds. Walking through Walmart makes me feel like Brad Pitt and I don't even have to break a sweat.

In other news, it was snowing like mad today. It made for scary driving and so I decided today was a good day to let other people cart me around. I went out to lunch with my brother and after a couple of entertaining and somewhat frightening incidences involving his car and a snow covered road, I knew I made the right choice. It is good to be able to be back and able to hang out with him again.

Oh yeah, before I forget. For all of my friends on the North American continent, can you please email me your phone numbers and birthdays. I need to get numbers into my phone and so if you haven't already, please email me your info.

This Post is Brought to You By: Jet Lag

2008-01-27T03:38:00.000-07:00

So here I am, back in Idaho and wide awake. I like being wide awake, I just wish it wasn't at 3:41am. I got in around 3:45 yesterday afternoon and by the time 6:30 rolled around, I was dead to the world. For one reason or another, I was up at 2:30am and have been ever since.

Being an early riser hasn't been all bad though. I unpacked some of my stuff started to get my room looking somewhat livable. I also proceeded to do something I haven't done in a long time, get leftover pizza out of the fridge along with a pop and eat a very early breakfast.

Oh, fun story. When I woke up this morning, I didn't know where I was or why I was in a very fluffy and large bed. It took me several seconds to remember that I was in the United States and figure out why the ambient temperature of the room was very comfortable. Beds and central heating with good insulation are a welcome addition to my life.

I have to say, I am in a killer mood today. Yesterday, upon seeing Boise out of my airplane, I was smothered by a sense of impending doom and dread. A wave of depression washed over me and I wanted so badly to be back home in Japan. It wasn't that I wasn't happy to see my family again, it was just that Boise looked so small and I instantly felt like I was trapped in a box. Today, I feel much better so I am thinking that a lot of the bad vibes I was getting yesterday came from being very tired and hungry.

Tomorrow, I have my interview and I am getting excited/nervous about it. I am not worried so much about the interview itself, more of about what the job means to my immediate future. If I can snag this job, I can truly hit the ground running and that would take a lot of weight off of my shoulders right now. I think it would be a very interesting and rewarding job as well and definitely something I would like to try but right now, I am just concerned about the financial ramifications that are tied into this. Car loans, apartment/house shopping at some point, etc. Getting this job means that I can relax sooner than later. Not getting it means I get to seriously start job hunting.

One other thing that made my day very early on was an email I received from Ben, asking me to be the best man at his wedding later this year. I am so excited that he asked me and can't wait to help him out and support him. It will be a fun wedding I think, and it will be in California which means one thing, road trip.

Anywho, it's after 4am now so I think I will finish this up and see what else I can do in the wee hours of this new day in this new place.

Departure Terminal

2008-01-26T00:34:00.000-07:00

What a strange and sobering day so far.

I got up pretty early this morning to tie up the last couple loose ends that I had remaining in Japan. I rode about Fukuchiyama on a bike and took in the little town for the last time. That was kind of sad; while I have no doubt I will come back to Japan someday, I know I won't be coming back to Fukuchiyama. It has been my home for two years and knowing that I wasn't going to see it again made me a little sad.

Around 11:30 I lugged my "American-sized" baggage to the nearby train station and after a small skirmish with my big bag, I got on the train and watched my neighborhood roll past me for the last time. When I got to Fukuchiyama station, I went to the convenience store and got laughed at by the staff for the giganticness of my bag. When I told them I was going back to the US they asked if I was taking Japan with me in a bag that big. I wish I could.

My train ride out of Fukuchiyama reminded me of one of the reasons I love this place so much, the people. I let everyone board the train before me because I knew I was going to be standing in between the cars most of the way because there was no way I was going to be able to fit my big bag in the train car. As I got on, I had another battle with the big bag and was help by a guy in a business suit. As the train pulled away, I was standing near my big bag when he came back to where I was and told me that he had made room for me to come and sit down. I was hesitant to leave my bag unattended but he seemed to think it would be ok and so I went to sit down. What the guy actually did, was explained to a person that I had a lot of bags and convinced that person to share a seat with someone else so I could have two seats to myself. As I sat down he then offered me some rice crackers and after accepting them, he went back to his own business.

A short while later, I made room for a lady to sit down next to me and by the end of the train ride she had given me her address and phone number and told me that if I ever came back to Japan, that I should give her a call and visit. If I was in to older women, I would have a hay day here.

After the first train, I jumped on to the express train that would take me to Kansai Airport. I could have sat down but they had a standing area that no one was occupying and I figured I would watch the sprawl of Osaka coast by me just one more time. What started as a snowy day morphed into a slightly cloudy but sunny one and I was able to see the cityscape draped in heavily contrasted shadows and streams of sunlight. It was a good way to end everything.

Now, having gone through customs and having surrendered my Japanese ID, I am no longer a resident of this funny little country but rather a tourist making his exit. I am sitting in the flight terminal, watching puffy clouds hover over one of my favorite cities from across Osaka Bay. It is quiet now and it feels like this paragraph of my life is gently writing its epitaph as I prepare to get on a plane and embark on a new page.

Going Off The Air

2008-01-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

Well, the time has arrived!

Today I am packing everything up and tomorrow I will officially move out of my apartment. I will be staying with Toby for a couple of days and he doesn't have the internet so I don't think I will be adding too much to the blog in the next few days.

My boss, in his infinite and over-powering wisdom, decided to move me out tomorrow instead of today but forgot to tell anyone else that fact. So this morning, I get a knock at the door by a guy telling me he had shut off my gas and water and was here to collect the last bill. I had enough on me to pay him but I needed to make a run to the ATM machine to pay the electricity guy that I knew would be on the way. He came while I was taking a shower in Toby's apartment and I missed him. This caused all of the corporate people to panic and so they started calling me wondering why I wasn't at the apartment with Dave. It's good to know communication runs strong in this company.

So the move out is officially tomorrow now, no thanks to middle management.

Anywho, I will be back in Boise on Saturday and am getting excited. All of the drama this morning just makes me want to leave more. So, I will talk to all of you very soon and for some, in person. For others, at least now we will be on the same continent!

My time in Japan has been great and I will miss this place but now it is time to do something else. See you all in a few days!

My Last Day Of Work

2008-01-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it is here. I didn't think it would come this fast but the past couple of months have shot by at an alarming rate. I am going to go to sleep and when I wake up, I will teach my last day of classes and then come back here and start to seriously figure out how I am packing.

I am heading into Osaka on Sunday to meet the poor guy that is replacing me and getting a fat wad of cash from him for 80% of my worldly belongings in Japan. Seeing that most of my worldly belongings have something to do with cooking, they are pretty easy to part with. The joy of cooking is that you can do it anywhere at anytime with almost nothing if you absolutely have to. It is nice to know that my next domicile is equipped with a complete working kitchen however.

I met my favorite Japanese teacher for the last time today and she gave me a small photo album of all of the kids I teach. Me being the sap I am, almost cried. Almost. Tomorrow will be hard because all of my favorite kids at this school are Saturday kids and so I will see the last of them tomorrow. As much as they drive me nuts sometimes, I have gotten attached to them...even some of the completely nutcase ones that make me never want to have kids of my own for fear they will turn out half as bad as them. This is kind of when teaching kids sucks, either they move on or you do and you don't get to see them anymore. At the school I am at tomorrow, I have been these kids' teacher for the last two years and have gotten to know a lot of them and it will be sad not to be able to follow their lives anymore. The upside is that in teaching, the stream of kids is pretty much never ending and I know there will be others to take their place.

Man, That Is A Big Suitcase

2008-01-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

When I came to Japan, I brought with me two suitcases. One suitcase is on the small side and I have loved it because it has accompanied me on every trip I have taken in Japan that required a hotel or staying at someone's house. The other suitcase is bigger, MUCH bigger. I forgot how big the bugger was until I pulled it out of the closet a few minutes ago to start the preliminary "how much crap can a cram in this" phase of the packing.

As it turns out, I can cram a lot. For example, if I were to want to kidnap a small child and bring them back to the US with me, they could easily fit and then use the box for my computer tower to sit on and still have a little room left for snacks and the obligatory Nintendo DS they would bring along. Or I could just put my desktop in there and a bunch of other random stuff and use the smaller suitcase for random stuff and then put it into the bigger one as well. I will then use my big red duffel(hehe duffel) to put all of my clothes into and some other random stuff.

It is looking like I will be making a trip to the post office again for several reasons. I have yet to come up with a way to take my LCD monitor back with me via the plane. It is too big to be a carry on and I have more valuable things that need to be in my checked baggage. Of all of my stuff, it and my one framed picture are too big to fit into the big suitcase. Actually, the framed picture fits, I just worry for its safety amongst the other things and being thrown around by baggage handlers. Both of these will need to be sent. The other thing I am having issues with are the cases of DVDs I have accumulated since I have been here. I am bringing them with me for sure but I don't think I can fit them all in my two big bags. That and I am not sure how customs would react to seeing a guy with hundreds of burnt DVDs on his person. I have burnt a lot of DVDs since I have been here. A lot.

Having taken out the big suitcase from its space in my closet, I have been struck by a wave of finality. My wonderful experience in Japan is really ending very soon. I can't say I am not bothered by this but at the same time, I know it is my time to leave. I have done pretty much everything a guy can do in this country. I never got to see a sumo match in person but other than that, the checklist is pretty complete. I have seen a baseball game, climbing Mt. Fuji, seen all of the major cities, and learned the language pretty well. I have a ways to go with the language yet but I will keep practicing; I like Japanese.

On that note, I bought an electronic Japanese dictionary the other day. I figured if I was going to continue studying, I should have something that can answer my questions when I don't have a Japanese person to ask. It is a pretty spiffy little gadget and has improved the speed of my manga reading greatly. It has a mode in which I can actually write in the kanji and it will try to identify it for me. It can also speak to me so I can hear pronunciation of words I am not familiar with. It is essentially an expensive Speak N Spell on steroids.

Anywho, I have three days left of teaching and it can't go fast enough. While I will miss a lot of these kids, I am really anxious to be done with Peppy Kids Club. My boss is getting flakier by the day or I am becoming less tolerant of him, probably both. I just know it will be nice to find a new job and I will hopefully feel like I make more of a difference in peoples' lives at it than I do here. It will be good to get home.

My body is starting to feel that way too. I think my back somehow has a sixth sense that is telling it that it will soon be laying on a very soft mattress on a pretty large bed and every morning for the past week or so, I have woken up feeling like I need a massage. Funky dreams don't help that one bit either and I have been having my fair share of those lately. When I came to Japan, I was excited because I didn't know exactly what I was getting in to. Now that I am coming back, I know exactly what I am in for and it is stressful. That is not to say that life back home wasn't nice, it is just that living is Japan is very simple and cut and dry. It is more peaceful here.

Anywho, I need to get back to my packing strategery and start thinking about bed. I am determined to be in bed before 4am today. I can do it!

Two weeks!!

2008-01-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

The title says it all: 14 days 15 hours and 43 minutes until I am on a plane.

I Hate Moving

2008-01-07T02:05:00.000-07:00

Lately, the whole getting excited to move back and feeling bad for leaving emotions have subsided and a general feeling of stress has replaced them. I hate moving. I loathe it. It is worse than buying a car or setting up cell phone service. Beh...I hate it.

Thanks to visitors and getting a car and whatnot, money is tight. Actually, "tight" isn't exactly a good adjective, "allocated" is probably a better one. Almost every single yen I have to my name is budgeted for something. Be it transportation for the next couple of weeks or bills that I know are coming at the end of the month, I have no cash to spare and it sucks.

Aside from the money, I have mostly been concerning myself over what I am throwing away and how much stuff is actually coming back with me. Fortunately, the guy that is replacing me has agreed that I should just leave all of the miscellaneous stuff I have and let him decide for himself whether or not he wants to keep it. That is fine with me because it means that I have to do less sorting and house cleaning stuff before I move. My biggest moving concern at the moment is how to get my desktop back to the US. I think I know how but I am not going to be happy about it until I know for sure it is going to fit; let's hear it for big luggage.

Japan is making it hard for me to cancel services as well. My cell phone service is proving to be almost impossible to quit correctly and the same goes with my internet. The internet is basically squared away but I am still working out how I am going to be paying my finals bills there. I do not want to not pay the money I owe them but they are putting me in a position that makes it extremely easy and consequence free. Right now this is where it stands, and I am quoting the internet service rep here, "You should just have a friend pay your final bills for you." They are trusting people, yet they wonder why most foreigners skip out on paying their final bills.

In other news, I had a really cool past few days. Jay from Videolamer and his girlfriend, Lou-Ellen(sp)came to crash with me for a few days and we had a lot of fun. I took them into Kyoto and Osaka and I think they enjoyed their brief but packed trip to Japan. While here, Jay and I decided we should find the Nintendo world headquarters and did so with almost no effort at all. After taking a few pics, we left because you can't get in for tours or anything. We also went to the top of the Kyoto Tower which is something I hadn't ever done so that was nice.

I was also happy to hear the news that Barack Obama won the Iowa elections. I refuse to vote for Hillary Clinton and all of the Republicans this time around look like tools, so Barack Obama it is. If he doesn't make the ballot at the end of the year, I probably won't be voting. I dig his plan for public education and I despise Hillary so Obama is my guy. Now he just has to win.

I found out a couple of days ago that the person I have been emailing about a possible job interview is happy with my resume and qualifications so now I definitely have an interview set up for a couple of days after I get back into town. I think it would be a good job for me because it is something I have never done before but think I would probably be good at and it will look great on my teaching resume. The people that I have been in contact with that work there also seem like great people and I am excited that I may get to work with them eventually. I guess we will see after my interview at the end of the month.

Lastly, tomorrow I start back to work. On one hand I am happy to get back to working because each day that passes is now one day less that I have to be here and I can see a very bright light at the end of the tunnel. On the other hand, after having three weeks off, the prospects of doing my job for a measly ten days before I leave just seem kind of like torture. I know this week will fly by but next week is going to drag on forever.

In celebration of almost being done, and the fact that Toby and his little brother wanted to drink, we had a party last night. Well, if you can call three guys going through a bottle of crazy strong pirate rum and two of the three guys passing out in a bathroom a party, that is what we had. By the end of the party, I had to take pictures because the events that unfolded needed to be captured for future generations to take warning from.

Behold:

That is Toby and Chuck passed out in Toby's bathroom. They drank a tad too much. Chuck decided to use the bathroom at which point, he "fell asleep" over the sink while propped up on the toilet. Toby, wanting to make sure Chuck was okay, went in to sit with him and then Toby "fell asleep" on Chuck while propped up on the side of the bathtub. It truly was a Kodak moment and a shining example of brotherly love.

And Now It's 2008

2008-01-02T08:39:00.000-07:00

The new year came without a ton of fanfare on my part. I went into Kyoto and met Jessica and we wandered around for a little while before eating a really tasty katsu place in Kawaramachi. After that, we met up with a couple of her friends and they took us to a temple that neither of us had been to. It was fun to ring in the new year the way many Japanese people do and it was good to eat all of the festival food that I love.

Saying that, other than going to a temple or two, it didn't really feel like New Years. I don't know why but lately, holidays have gained a habit of passing without a ton of the bells and whistles I am used to. Jessica let me crash over with her and on New Years Day we both woke up in the early afternoon and just sat around for a bit.

After leaving Jessica's, I headed to Kyoto to meet up with my buddy Jay, from Videolamer. He and his girlfriend decided to come to Japan for the New Year and it has been fun to show them around. Right now, they are snoozing in my guest bedroom aka the kitchen. Tomorrow, we are off to Osaka for a day in Den Den Town and maybe some karaoke afterward. We shall see.

Anywho, not a ton else to report but I am happy to say that I will now be back in the United States in less than a month, 23 days to be exact. I get all chipper when I think about the fact that by the end of the month I won't be working for Peppy anymore and I will be able to be back in the US. I will miss Japan but at this point, I am very ready to come back. Well, off to bed, we have an early and slightly busy day planned for tomorrow.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

2007-12-25T04:48:00.000-07:00

To say that my Christmas day was exciting and full of surprises and joy would be similar to saying that Halloween isn't about sugar and scaring the living daylights out of people. I have done pretty much nothing other than eat and drink hot chocolate and Baileys. It's a hard life.

However, I did get one surprise today. I got a phone call from the post office (yeah, they are open Christmas day) and was told that the way I had filled out some paperwork for the two huge boxes of stuff I sent home incorrectly and I had to go back to the post office to fix the problem. The lady that helped me didn't know you couldn't insure a package for more than the cost of items inside. I kind of wondered about it at the time but since she was the one that through the amount out there for me to insure the packages for, I figured she knew what was going on. Evidently not. Anywho, I came back to the post office because no Christmas day is complete without a mid-afternoon trip to a Japanese post office and it wasn't like I had other stuff going on. The lady that helped me before was the one who called and when I got there she apologized to me over and over and I told her it was no big deal but she thought otherwise. After the problem had been rectified, there was a difference of 100 yen in my favor and so I was given two postal stamps that I will never use. As a parting gift and for inconveniencing me on Christmas, I was given a present. I would tell you to guess what it was but you wouldn't get it in a million years so I will just tell you. They gave me a roll of Saran Wrap. I am not kidding, my one true Christmas present this year was a roll of plastic wrap. I can die happy.

Plastic wrap is awesome because you can do so much with it. Of course you can bundle food stuffs in it but that is just one narrow-minded use for the stuff. What about stripping naked and wrapping yourself in it, like in Fried Green Tomatoes, or draping it over your windows to keep out various plagues and virii? It is also fun to wad into balls and throw at stuff and can be colored with a marker and then put on a light bulb to make it cast a different hue of light. Let us not forget the classic, plastic wrap over the toilet prank. So thank you Japan Postal Service for a gift that has left me truly in awe and amazement.

Merry Christmas everyone and I am sorry you didn't get a gift as cool as mine!

A Christmas Story

2007-12-23T11:31:00.001-07:00

I wrote this for a video game site I occasionally write for and figured you all might enjoy it. Now, it is time for bed.

Looking Back Through Christmas Past

2007-12-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

When you keep a blog for as long as I have, several odd things morph out of something that started as a mundane way of keeping track of events and small memories. For me, it is almost Christmas Eve, so just for fun I decided to see what I have done for all of the Christmas's since I started this thing. I find it strangely comforting that I can go back and see what I was up to on any given day in the last four years and look and laugh and feel a tad bad because the Tyson that wrote those entries didn't know what was in store for him.

In twenty-five minutes, it will be four years to the day that Becca and I were driving to her parents' house for Christmas Eve dinner and arguing the entire way about the prospect of having kids. I still don't feel that was the most appropriate time to have had that conversation and I still regret the answer I gave her, which wasn't really an answer at all, more of a way to get out of talking about it. Hindsight being 20/20, there are three or four conversation/arguments that she and I had where I still to this day think that had I said something different, so many things would not have happened that did. That Christmas Eve car ride is one of them. It makes me a tad sad but at the same time, the Tyson that argued with Becca all those times isn't the same guy that is typing this now. That entire Christmas Eve was tainted with a bad vibe thanks to that argument. So dumb to think about now, oh well. The other thing that cracks me up was in several of those Christmas time 2004 blog posts I mention the fact that we needed to move to a bigger house. That was pretty much Tyson code for "Becca and I have been bickering and arguing again" and little did I know that about a month and a half after posting those entries, I would indeed be in a different house. It cracks me up. A couple of years ago that wouldn't have been the case but now, what else is there to do?

For 2005, I barely remember Christmas. I was two weeks away from going to Japan and so many things were buzzing by me at the speed of light. I was getting scammed in my car selling on eBay and that sucked but other than that, I don't remember much. The Christmas of 2005 was a blur of people and hugs and knowing that soon, everything would change. I remember being so ready, angry, excited, sad, happy, nervous, and relieved that soon 2005 would be over and I would be very far away from everything I had come to know.

Last Christmas was much better. Reid and Karie were still in Japan and I spent the entire holiday season with them. It was probably the most laid back and relaxing Christmas I have ever had and I enjoyed all of it. I especially enjoyed getting mildly toasted on Christmas morning thanks to hot cocoa and Baileys and various other tasty beverages. Last Christmas I was pretty much back to being me and it was the happiest I had been in a very long time. I know I have quite a few Christmas holidays left in me but the Christmas of 2006 will be hard to top. It was a good time that I will never forget.

This Christmas is...well...this Christmas just is. 2004 may not have been a gloriously happy Christmas and 2005 was definitely a lonely Christmas, but I have never been truly alone for a Christmas until now. It is very strange. I can't say I dislike it, but it is definitely a change of pace from the previous 27 Christmas seasons I have had. I have an extremely hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it is Christmas time. Today, it was almost 60 degrees here and pretty sunny with a little rain. The biggest conversation I have had with someone in person over the past three days has been the Jehovah's Witness that knocked on my door earlier today. Fortunately, I have been able to talk to friends and family over the internet but it just feels strange. It also doesn't help that I haven't decorated at all this year, nor do I intend to. There is just no reason.

This will be the Christmas that I will quietly nod my head to in acknowledgment as it passes me by and then go about the rest of my business. I feel like I should do more or be more sociable but I am not sure what I would do or who I would talk to. If there was something like a volunteer kitchen for the homeless or something, I would probably go and help out there because I haven't been doing anything around my apartment or town today. It has been a desperately boring past couple of days and I am going stir crazy.

Looking forward, next Christmas is going to be very loud and very Christmasy. There will be all of the yuletide stress and noise but when I get in a bad mood around this time next year, I will have this post to look upon and realize that I am taking for granted what Christmas time is about. Christmas time isn't about rushing or pretending to be happy or even presents. It's about the people you care about and celebrating the time you get to be with them. I am not sad to be spending this Christmas by myself and no one else should be sad for me because this year is my test Christmas to help me bring focus and understanding to all of the years that follow this one.

Merry Christmas everyone and take a minute to think about the people and things in your life that make this holiday so special for you!

An Overdue Update

2007-12-20T01:16:00.000-07:00

Get ready, this post will most likely be all over the map.

All sorts of stuff has been happening over the past week. None of it is horribly big or exciting but all of it sums up to be rather significant and has kept me rather busy.

I will start with the news that I may have a job prospect upon returning to Boise. I am not going to say a ton about it until I am more certain that I actually have a job but I can say that I think I at least have an interview. While it isn't a teaching position at a school, it would utilize my education degree a little and I would be helping people. Hopefully it pans out but at this point I am not totally certain I even have an interview, though it has been suggested that I most likely will. One thing is for certain, meeting people online isn't a bad thing sometimes. :)

Next, today I finished wading through all of the bureaucratic smoke and finally got my visa stuff taken care of. This is good because it means I can get all of the money I have coming to me from my company and I am not going to get a lot of hassle when I leave the country. Everything I have to get updated is updated, tomorrow I just have to mail a copy of it all off and I am done.

Speaking of being done, I booked my flight home and that is all paid for and finalized. I will leave Japan on the evening of January 26th and land in Boise in the middle of the afternoon on January 26th. I love traveling into the past, I gain a day.

My next big project is house cleaning. Tomorrow, I am going to pay some bills and get the ball rolling for getting stuff turned off and canceled at the appropriate times next month. Then comes the sorting through everything and figuring out what goes, what stays, and what gets thrown away when I move. Most of it is staying or getting chucked, I just need to sift out what I am actually taking with me when I leave. I already have two boxes of books and manga that I am preparing to send to Singe_ID and will probably be mailing that off tomorrow. Singe_ID, that means get ready for books and your Christmas present. Feel free to browse through the boxes but know that you probably won't understand about half of it unless you have been studying Japanese. :P

Christmas is going to be interesting this year and by interesting I mean boring and uneventful. No one is coming over and I am not visiting anyone I think so that means sleeping in, getting up, taking a shower, getting some hot chocolate and Baileys, and watching movies all day. I may go somewhere for dinner or I may just make something kind of fancy for dinner, I am not sure. The only thing I am sure of is that I can do whatever I want because it's just going to be me. Speaking of Christmas, it doesn't even feel like Christmas. The weather has been nice and today was sunny and in the high 50s. Snow hasn't even attempted to invade my mountain town and only a handful of people have put up any lights. It just doesn't feel like Christmas. I am not bothered by this because how many times in your life do you get to have Christmas exactly how you want it to be? I would prefer to not be alone but other than that, I can't complain a ton. I don't have the constant pressure that the holiday season puts people under in the United States and I don't have to worry about any obligations that come with visiting friends and relatives. Not that visiting people isn't nice, it is just a funny feeling to know that I am not in a position to have to even think about it. I imagine this will make next Christmas seem hectic and crazy but I think I am about ready for another hectic and crazy Christmas. I know that I am getting bored with being alone regardless of what day or time of the year it is.

As of this very moment, I have one month, six days, one hour, and eleven minutes until I get on the plane to come back. I am getting excited worried about coming back to the US, and homesick for Japan all at once. There is so much to do and see and start again in the United States but I am also starting to remember all of the entanglements and complications that come with the culture and society I am going back to. I think that once I get back to Idaho, I will be ok for a few months but after that, it will really start to sink in that I am not going back to Japan to live again. I am expecting March and April to be rough months because they are two of my favorite months here and I will be missing cherry blossom viewing. Oh well, I will see it all again someday because I will come back to at least visit again.

Anywho, that has been what's been going on in my world. I am on Christmas vacation now and if last night was any benchmark for how the break will go, I am going to be bored out of my mind until New Year's Eve. I do have plans then but I will elaborate more on that in another post. Now, it is time to watch a movie and relax for a while.

10.9.8.7....

2007-12-14T19:08:00.000-07:00

After today, I only have ten days of actual teaching left before heading back to the United States! d(^_^)b

Speaking of heading back to the US, it looks like I may already have an interview lined up for a pretty good job too. Yay!

And So Begins The Downward Spiral

2007-12-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

It is setting in on me rather quickly that my time here is starting to get very short. While I am glad to be heading back to the US and getting a fresh start on everything, pangs of sadness that I am leaving all of this behind are becoming more frequent. Japan has been very good to me and I am going to miss it. I have seen and done so much while I've been here and now that is all coming to a close.

When I left America, I knew I would be back at some point. Leaving here though, I am not sure if I will ever see a lot of the places I have grown to love again. There are so many nooks and crannies that I have explored here and now I am going back to familiar ground and won't have as much to explore that I haven't seen before. This bothers me, but at this point, I am ready to leave Japan and start anew somewhere else.

I am now to the point where each day I teach is the last time I will ever see these kids and for the most part that is just fine with me but I do have a few that I will miss and I wish I could do more to explain to them that I have had so much fun with them and I hope they keep studying English. As for me, I am firmly resolved I will keep working on my Japanese. I have learned too much to forget and have no desire to stop now. Who knows, if I get good enough, maybe another door will open for me that will lead me to this wonderful country once again.

The cleaning and the sorting has begun in earnest and I am fairly certain I will not be taking a ton of stuff back with me when I leave. Aside from books and my largish collection of manga, I have not bought a lot of stuff while I have been here. At least not meaningful stuff. The nice part about my manga collection is that when I buy a new book, I know it will help me keep studying Japanese and as I learn more, each book will become more accessible and more fun to read. My manga collection will also probably make me a god amongst all of the Japanese cartoon and manga nerds in the US. As I am learning, it sounds like there are starting to be a lot of them too. I am not sure how I feel about this but whatever works, at least when I read manga, I will be doing so in Japanese, the way it was meant to be read. Elitist, yes I am.

Anywho, everything is starting to wrap up and I am going to try and stay cheerful because I know I have no good reason to be sad. While I will be leaving Japan, there isn't much here that I haven't accomplished that I set out to do. I have seen centuries old temples, I have climbed mountains, I have seen sprawling metropolises. I have pretty much conquered this island nation and now it is time to go.

I Guess They Liked Me

2007-12-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

Tonight was the last night for me to teach my private lessons with Maya.

We had three classes and she told me before class that she had told the kids tonight would be my last lesson because she didn't know if I would have to time teach in January. I am not sure why she thought this because I told her two or three times I could definitely teach in January but whatever. Since it was my last lesson and all of the students and their families had been informed of this, I was sure I would get a couple of thank you cards from the kids and maybe a small gift from one or two of the parents. I was wrong.

As it turns out, my last lesson was also meant to be the Christmas party of sorts for the kids so at each of the three houses, there were snacks to be munched upon and pictures to be taken. Toward the end of each class, I did get the usual thank you cards and Christmas cards from the kids but I was floored at what the parents got me. One family bought me a complete dictionary set, one volume for Japanese to English and another for English to Japanese. And I am not talking about a student's beginner dictionary either, I am talking a full-blown academic set with very nice bindings and very complete word lists. These are nice dictionaries and it set the parents back at least $60, I know this because I have actually looked at getting a similar pair of dictionaries. When I saw them, I was almost speechless.

Another family surprised me because I had only taught this specific group of kids a handful of times but it turns out, all of them really enjoyed having me as a sensei. I walked out of that house with a box of cookies specific to my town, a box of traditional Japanese kelp snacks, a post card set from Fukuchiyama, and a thank you card. The generosity shown by everyone tonight was extraordinary and I was extremely grateful for all of the gifts, especially since I wasn't expecting any.

After my lessons, Toby and I went out for sushi and then to the arcade to play some ultimate air hockey and a racing game. It was a good time and was a nice ending to a great and fulfilling day. I am glad I at least was able to have some impact on my private students because I enjoyed teaching them. When I get the pictures from tonight, I may pop one or two on here.

Still A Bully

2007-12-08T11:28:00.000-07:00

I have always had a faint hint of a mean streak and my friends know that no one can rip into a person with quite the verbal finesse like I can when I am on a roll. There were times in high school that I did things to people that I shouldn't have and I felt bad for them afterward but it doesn't really change the fact that I did them. I was kind of a jerk and still in a number of ways, I still can be. Here is an example.

Today, I was in a school that I have never been to and will never again be at. I had one class of six and seven year olds with one kid that was four. The four year old was the younger sibling of a kid that was actually old enough to attend the level of class I was teaching at the time. Peppy drives me crazy with how they decide what kids go into what class. Because Peppy wants money and isn't horribly concerned whether the kids learn anything or not, if an older kid has a younger brother, often times they will place the two kids in the same class. This is especially true if Peppy wants to rope in an extra little kid but knows the tyke won't be able to cope well with the material or may be afraid of being away from his or her parents.

I think this tactic is nothing but money grubbing BS. If you are going to teach a kid a new language, start him out in a class of kids his age. Don't throw him into a big kid class and expect him to keep up. And on that note, don't expect me to pander to the little kid just because you want to milk the family for a few extra bucks a month. If I were to dote on every ankle biter that should be in a lower class but isn't I would spend my entire lesson dumbing stuff down just for them while more advanced kids sit there and ponder the finer things in life like whether or not they will be able to get every gold coin in The New Super Mario Brothers for the DS.

This poor kid was in somewhat of a double jeopardy because he was whiny and jumpy around me. Kids that are creeped out by me just because I am bigger than they are and white kind of annoy me. Most kids will come into class and just see me as another adult but one in every ten of them will see me like a child eating monster. Little do they know, children do not taste good, therefore I do not eat them.

So anyway, I am playing with the other kids and chasing them around the room and everyone is having a good time except for the kid that shouldn't be in the class to begin with. I am running around and out of the corner of my eye I can see this kid waving his hands in the air as if by magic, his frantic gesturing will make me go away. To be honest, the opposite is true. It is at this point that I proceed with the "breaking in" section of the lesson. Basically, Japanese kids are very pampered. The boys especially, are brats. So I figure that if the kid's parents are forcing him to be exposed to white people, I should kind of get him used to what he should expect when he encounters the great Caucasian beast from the West. This is how I legitimize scaring the crap out of little kids.

Most of the whiny, afraid of whitey variety are very easy to break in. I look at them, say their name and give them a kind of wild and crazed look that I expect many Roman soldiers came to fear when eradicating the Visigoths from Eastern Germany. You know what I mean, the look that signals to someone that you may actually try to eat them if you were even the slightest bit hungry...and if children tasted better than they do. All it took to make this kid squeak in fear was my eyes.

Now I do not want to terrorize children; I just want to keep them on their toes. There is also a section of the class that involves a lot of running and playing and it was during this section that I actually had the kid in tears three times. I didn't mean for that to happen per se, it just did because the other kids enjoyed the game I was playing with them and I didn't see a need to damper the fun of seven kids because of one wet blanket. But my plan worked and by the end of class he was totally comfortable with me. If he were to complain to his parents, maybe it would inspire my company to move him to a more age appropriate class where he belongs anyway. He was a nice kid, it is just a shame to think he won't be learning as much English as he could be from this point on. Oh well, as of right now I only have three more weeks of teaching to go.

Also, you won't hear me say his too often anymore but the kids I taught this week were for the most part, an amazing group of very smart kids. I actually enjoyed teaching every lesson I had this week. It is a shame I only had the opportunity to go there once.

Hotel Bliss

2007-12-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

Being the swinging, crazy bachelor I am, I am spending the night in a hotel. Alone. In the middle of nowhere. Since I have nothing better to do, I am going to tell you about Japanese hotels. The difference between in Japan and the United States can be summed up just be examining the hotels that populate each country.

The hotel I am in now is small. Not the smallest hotel I have been in but definitely not the biggest. The room is about 9ft x 8ft and has a bathroom that is about as big as an airplane toilet plus a shower. There is a tiny mini fridge, a 12" TV, a tea set, two pairs of slippers, and two pairs of pajamas. I think the bed is a full and there is a chair off to the side of the room near the desk, upon which I am typing this. Oh yeah, this is a double room.

Americans crack me up because whenever we go on vacation, the first thing out of our mouths upon opening the hotel room door is, "Ohhh, this is a nice big room." It is as if we are going to magically fill the entirety of a 15ft x 15ft room with stuff accumulated by two people and a couple of days of shopping. Maybe it is just me but the American obsession with size and space is a tad odd. I will be the first to admit that I can't wait to get back to a full size kitchen and a queen size bed but I will also say that having lived in Japan, I do not need that much. I have done well on a twin sized mat and with a gas burner and a microwave and rice cooker for two years. Except about six months ago, I got all spaced aged and bought a crock pot. I have gotten by without an oven, though I miss one and I do miss the comfiness of my cloud-like mattress on my big bed, but really, those aren't things I need.

The second things Americans look at when entering a hotel room is the TV. Did they get a good sized TV? Does it have a VCR or DVD player? My question is, if you are in a hotel, why in the world do you even need a TV? Go out and explore the alien landscape that you find yourself in. Sure a TV is nice but if you are on vacation, do you need it? If you are on a business trip, I can understand wanting a TV but still, why not go out and explore?

After basking in the glory of the TV, Americans then turn it on to see how many and what channels it gets. And lets admit it, we all scroll past the Pay-Per-View to see what porn is playing. I honestly think more porn would be watched in hotel rooms if Pay-Per-View didn't attach itself to your room or your credit card. Japanese hotels cleverly skirt this issue. On every floor near the elevators, you will find a little upright rectangle that looks like it could be an ashtray but it isn't. Oh yeah, no smoking in American hotels, in Japan, just don't smoke in bed. Anywho, this little ashtray looking gadget has a money slot that you feed a ten dollar bill into and having eaten your cash, the machine spits out what looks to be a cheap calling card. You then take this card back to your hotel room and pop it in the box on top of the TV set and you have yourself at least an hour of pixelated censored hardcore porn. Yes, in Japan you are not allowed to view uncensored porn. But at least when you run for President no one can track down your porn viewing habits by looking at your hotel invoices and credit card history. This is a good thing because the last Japanese Prime Minister before Abe-san is rumored to have had a voracious appetite for porn.

Weird stuff to be found in a Japanese hotel room:

1)Tea packets and a hot water maker.
2)Pamphlets advertising what porn is viewable for the day.
3)A flashlight near the bed in case of earthquake.
4)A bright red rectangle on the hotel room window to let the fire department know
that there may be an occupant in that room near the window in case of a fire or
earthquake.
5)This room doesn't have one but I have been in rooms that have emergency rope
ladders in a steel box in the corner to climb out the window with in case of a fire
or earthquake. Ever get the feeling like Japanese people are into earthquake
preparedness?
6)Most hotel rooms locate the radio, alarm clock, lighting, and air conditioner
controls all in a tidy little panel at the head of the bed.
7)Every hotel I have ever been in here comes with a bidet and toilet seat warmer
called a "warmlet". Japan is obsessed with bidets but that shouldn't come as a
surprise because the Japanese are neat freaks.
8)To go along with the room slippers, there are also several packs of slipper sheets,
think of them as toilet seat sanitary covers for slippers. Yup, clean freaks.

One other odd thing about Japanese hotels. Many of them have a strange habit of insisting that you give your room key back to them whenever you leave the hotel. I know this is so you don't lose it or attempt to make copies of it but still, it is just a strange thing that most of them make you do. For one reason or another, I hate this rule and make it a habit to sneak out of hotels so that I don't have to turn over my room key. I have no idea why it bothers me so much but I will say that the sneakiness of it all adds a James Bond-ish mystique to all of my hotel stays. The one thing James Bond had going for him in most of his movies is that he wasn't the only white guy in at least a ten mile radius, for me, this fact just adds to the difficulty level of the game.

The one thing I will give to American hotel rooms is that they are kept looking new and up-to-date. Japanese hotel rooms, especially the not so fancy ones, all look like they were made in the 60s, 70s, or early 80s. I am currently in an 80s room at the moment.

I guess the best way to sum up this whole post is that Americans value two things above all. They like space and they like frills. They like knowing that they are getting their money's worth. Japanese people are much more utilitarian. Size is almost never a concern and the Japanese as a whole, are not known to be the type who cheat people out of money so the worrying about getting shafted out of your money isn't too much of a concern either. There are other things too but it is funny that the differences in culture can be seen so clearly in something so mundane as a hotel room.

In other news, I found out who will be replacing me and have emailed him. He has a very strange name but I am not going to post it here because I don't want him finding my blog if he hasn't already. You see, I need him to buy all of my old stuff off of me before he finds out how much my town and Peppy suck. I feel for him because not only does he have a goofy name but he is getting stuck in a tiny town with a lousy job, however at the same time, I feel for my wallet too.

I don't mean to be complaining about my town because I like it a lot but I don't think I am normal. I know Toby hates it and no other foreigners I have talked to seem to like living there either. Who knows, maybe my replacement will come to enjoy the little place too.

Smell Memory

2007-12-03T05:56:00.001-07:00

I just had the weirdest thing happen. I have a good nose, I don't smoke and I don't drink coffee everyday so my nose and taste buds are usually very good about picking out scents and flavors. I am kind of like a bloodhound in that way. Anywho.

I just lit a stick of incense that I found laying around my apartment and it was an identical smell to an incense I used to love during the second year I was in college when I shared an apartment with a couple of my friends. Instantly, I was transported back to a string of memories that all had to do with that smell and my room in that apartment. It was so strange, as soon as I got a whiff of it, I was back in the Fall of 2000. Very strange.

This happens to me sometimes but I am always amazed at how vivid the memories are just because of a smell. I keep a mental list of all of the smells that do this:

Berry Body Wash from Bath and Body Works
Old Spice
Bacon and coffee mixed
This incense
Cut Grass
New Car Smell
Apple candles from Eye of the World near the Co-op
Lucky Strike cigarettes
The smell of my grandpa, which smells like Old Spice, sweat, and...my grandpa. I smell it on my pillow sometimes and it is weird.
Pickled Asparagus
Magic card smell
Brush fire smell

Spare Change

2007-11-28T21:50:00.000-07:00

For the past two years I have hoarded coins like they were going out of style and today I cashed in.

If there is anything more useless than pennies and nickels, it is one and five yen coins. I am also not a fan of the ten yen coins either, so whenever I get any of them they are all go into a jar. Over the months, one small jar became eight small jars and then eight small jars became one huge two liter jar and eight small ones. I hadn't cashed in before now because I have always been told Japanese banks don't like to accept large amounts of change and that I may have to cash in only several hundred coins at a time. The other day, I learned that this was simply not true so this morning, since I had to go to the bank anyways, I decided today would be the day.

The look on the bank teller's face when she saw the red duffel bag I was carrying was priceless. I told her that I needed to deposit some coins and she got me this cute little orange tray to put them in. Then I told her that I had a lot of coins and she asked how many. I unzipped the duffel bag and her jaw dropped. Evidently, Japanese people don't amass change on the scale that Westerners do. I rule.

The teller then told me to start dumping money into the tray and that she would get a couple more of them. I started pouring out the copper and aluminum bits and she soon realized that three trays were not going to be enough. I then pulled out the big two liter jar and that took up two trays by itself. Then an assistant started coming over to collect the stack of filled trays and she needed three or four trips to get them all. I was cracking up because I just kept pouring out money and it got to the point where some of the bank employees were giving me the, "you're a nut" look. This is what they get when they call me, wake me up, and tell me that I have to come in and fill something out at 10:40am.

After several minutes of the coin counter whirling away, the teller told me they had my grand total. I had a whopping $305.00 in change! Yay!!! d(^_^)b

The reason I had to go to the bank in the first place is kind of amusing. I had to make a bank transfer the other day to cover the cost of my plane tickets home. While at the bank, my ATM card broke. So with two months left on the island, I have to get a new ATM card. While I was filling out the paper work for the new card, I forgot to fill in what I wanted the pin number to be and so I got a call this morning telling me I needed to come in by the end of the day to fill in the blank. That was a fun phone call because the bank lady woke me up. First, I don't speak Japanese well over the phone. Second, I don't speak Japanese well when I a still half asleep and groggy. Third, this lady talked really fast or my brain was going really slow, probably the latter. Anywho, I figured out that she needed my pin and I told her the number I wanted and then she said something that sounded like a chipmunk talking and I assumed it couldn't be the same number as my old card so I told her a new set of four digits. More chipmunk talk and then my brain started to come online and I figured out that she needed me to come in and personally fill out the paperwork. Now it is going to be a week or so before I have my new card. Not having an ATM card sucks.

But hey, I now have $300 more than I had before.

Whoever Says Girls Aren't Inherently Evil Is Nuts

2007-11-27T08:27:00.001-07:00

Today I went to my favorite school and expected a peaceful week. It most likely will be a pretty good week but I found out something that will probably make at least tomorrow more interesting.

At this school, I teach mostly girls. I would say that 3/4 of my students here are female. This is one of the reasons I expect peace and quiet when I come here, girls and I get along tons better than the boys and I. The girls are also more willing and wanting to learn English than their externally equipped counterparts. The dark side to teaching girls is that they are about 362 times more devious and conniving than boys. The boys I teach are like dogs, you pay attention to them and give them a reward on occasion and they will behave for the most part. Girls' thoughts tend to run deeper and this creates new and fun challenges for me as a teacher.

Today I learned that I have two sisters that are basically running an extortion ring while in English class. It isn't really extortion, it is actually more like they are charging late fees on a particular item. Japanese girls are very streamlined when it comes to being girly and learning about other girls. Instead of passing a series of notes and carrying on heart to heart conversations while doing each others' nails, Japanese girls carry with them papers called "profiles".

Profiles are professionally printed sheets of notebook paper that contain sections like: My favorite color or My favorite food or My favorite movies, My blood type is, etc. When girls meet each other and decide that they might actually like each other, they exchange profile sheets. It is then up to the girl to take the sheet home and fill in all of the blanks so that when they meet up again, the to would-be friends can share all of their important information with each other and the completed sheets are then filed away in a binder that each girl has that is built for such profile sheets. It is essentially, a rolodex/Facebook for the age 9-13 crowd.

Anywho, these two sisters are giving out their profiles to other girls in the class only on the condition that the profiles will be filled out and returned by a specific time and if the person fails to return the aforementioned profile, they have to pay these two sisters money. Evidently, last week the Japanese teacher caught one girl paying them and forbade the transaction and told the parents. Now the sisters won't talk to her and one other girl has been absent from class for two weeks because we think she hasn't returned her profile and doesn't want to pay. If she comes to my class tomorrow, I have to make sure no money changes hands.

Part of me says, "Hmm...I wonder how big my cut could be if I keep quiet and let the sisters run their operation?" The other part of me says that I need to lay off the Sopranos. Whoever said organized crime was on the way out has not met some of my students. I love kids.

UPDATE: I just got back from the class and the two victims of this sibling run extortion ring didn't come to class today. Hmm.

And I Find Out The One Way The New Guy Can Drive Me Nuts

2007-11-24T09:31:00.000-07:00

I was in a drinking mood tonight. This doesn't happen very much anymore but when it does, usually I like to start out with a beer or two and then it leads to something more. Tonight was no different. I started out with a few shots of whiskey and a beer and then it turned into a trip to the bar.

As it turns out, Toby LOVES the one bar that our town has. He likes it so much that he is willing to get stupid drunk there and become the annoyingly loud Westerner that I have grown to loathe. Jeez, Toby is annoying when he is drunk. And, he can't ride a bike in a less-than-sober state either. He crashed into the bushes on the way home and hit his head on a telephone pole. I laughed but unfortunately, he got up too fast and it was to dark to take a good cell phone pic of him splayed out in the bushes.

I could tolerate and even enjoy his drunken state while we were outside but when we came to our apartment building, I had had enough. He tripped on the first floor landing and in his drunken sauntering around the hall, he took up the mud mat that was laid out for everyone to use. When I told him to put it back he then had the nerve to say no to me. Then I told him in a less-than-friendly manner to put the mat back or there would be issues and then he did. It is good to know that in an animalistic and slightly drunken state, I am the alpha male of the two of us. After some struggling and some help, Toby managed to get the mat back into place but then decided to sing me a song...at 1:30am in the hall of an apartment filling with sleeping occupants other than us. After a couple of lines of "If I Were The King Of The Forest" from Wizard of Oz, Toby realized that I was no longer there and yelled at me to wake him up tomorrow morning for our supposed trip to Osaka. Did I mention that there are other people sleeping in our vicinity and it was 1:30am? Beh.

So the plan for tomorrow...err...today, is that we are going to Osaka to get him a Northface coat from Costco. I told him that if he was going to make me go to Osaka so he could use my Costco card, that I was going to have a nerd day looking for manga in Den Den Town first and he could do whatever he wanted in the mean time. The bottom line is that I have some gaps in my manga collection that require me to go to Osaka to fill in so I may as well do it now and help Toby out at the same time.

I like Toby but damn, I have now found out he is just like every other Westerner and I have to say that I am a tad disappointed. Man, I am going to be in for a shock when I come back to the US.

Busy Busy Busy

2007-11-21T22:20:00.000-07:00

Lately, it has been non-stop. I forgot all of the fuss that surrounded coming here but preparing to leave is drudging up all sorts of memories.

Today has been a perfect example. I woke up around 10:30am(yes, I am spoiled) and from the get go I was immediately busy. I went to the convenience store ATM to make sure I go paid today and from there I went to my actual bank to send a chunk of cash back to the US. After that I headed to the city hall to get an adjustment made to my ID card to make sure that nothing would gum up the visa stuff that I have to do this next week. After that, it was back home to call the travel agency and book my ticket to come back home. As soon as I finish typing this, I need to finalize the travel details because they were just emailed to me as I was typing and then I am off to teach class.

Yep, just a tad busy. Anywho, I am still alive, just not to the point where I can make a lot of blog entries at the moment. I expect that by next week things will have calmed down a bit so I will probably be able to post more then.

Oh yeah, today is Thanksgiving for me too. I had spaghetti for lunch. All of you that get to eat turkey tomorrow suck.

Kids Gone Wild

2007-11-14T04:08:00.001-07:00

Last night I was awed twice while on a trip to the grocery store.

I had just walked into my super market, Super Fresh Sato, to buy something for dinner when I saw the strangest thing. I had just made it through the automatic doors and I noticed a door close on the little van parked nearest to the door. Out of the van comes this little kid that was no more than three years old. He had on the super colorful pajamas and little sneakers and no parents. I repeat, no parents. Where were his parents? Who knows. Did the Rapture magically happen and leave this child orphaned with no parental guidance? Maybe.

So this little kid decides he wants to come into the store and happily walks right past me. Now, if you were a munchkin, roaming free in your pajamas in a grocery store on a cold November night, where is the first place you would head? Yes, the ice cream section. But the little guy is too short to actually see the ice cream so he proceeds to climb almost all the way into the freezer bin to get a better look at all of the frozen confections Super Fresh Sato had to offer. Still no parents. It should also be mentioned that this kid had a sister who was also spared from the Rapture but was still sleeping in the van. Like a good brother, he left his female sibling to fend for herself...or just sleep.

By this point the kid has climbed out of the freezer bin and I am standing in the same place I have been for the past couple of minutes, just waiting to see what this kid does next. I also noticed people staring at me so I decide to move around a little bit so people don't think I am getting ready to kidnap this kid or worse, think that I am his father. So I leave the tyke to his own devices. A minute or two later I noticed him wandering some aisles but still without a mom or dad. The rest of the people in the store seem to be oblivious to the free range toddler but I figure that his newfound liberty isn't really my problem so I proceed to checkout and go home. As I left the store, his sister was still asleep and unattended in the family vehicle.

A few minutes later, I am walking though a neighborhood to get to my apartment and I hear screaming. These are not playful screams or screams obtained through various pleasureful acts, these are blood curdling "I am wading through the blood of my dead family members" kind of screams. Then I hear some furious kicking and hitting at the door sounds. I am just going to speculate here but if I were to guess, I would say a little girl or perhaps a sissy sounding boy was being punished and locked in their room. The punishment sparked a hissy fit so loud I could hear it from the middle of the street outside the house. Also, by the sounds of it, the door did not make it through the ordeal unscathed. Or the entirety of a family, minus an aforementioned girl or sissy sounding boy, had just been slaughtered, leaving the little kid to wail amidst splatterings of familial blood and gore. Either way, that was some really loud screaming and punching and kicking at the door.

Parenting in Japan is pretty much non-existent. I wish I could say that kids roaming free in department and grocery stores was uncommon but it isn't. Parents pretty much just let their little goblins do whatever they please when in public places. They figure that the kid will eventually come back to them and that all will be well. This leads to kids being kids and generally annoying me while I shop. If I were these kids' parents I would have them all duct taped to my shopping cart and most likely gagged. The one thing that parents do in an effort to keep track of the kids is to give the smallest of them squeaky shoes. You know, the ones that we see as toys in the United States? In Japan, the squeaking that is made by the shoes is employed as a way to always know where your kid is. What is really fun is when you have a handful of two and three year old kids running through a store. I hate squeaky shoes despite their being adorable for about ten seconds.

I have a feeling kids are left to run wild because this is how the parents kind of get them ready for going to school and riding trains and buses by themselves. I have been in cities like Tokyo and Osaka and have seen two or three six or seven year olds riding the train together sans parents. Japanese people look out for kids and there is very little in the way of kidnapping or violence against children but to me, it is still ludicrous to think that I would let my seven or eight year old go to and from school alone in a city with 14 million people.

I was talking to the mother of one of my private lesson kids and she was asking if there are kids in the US that are very well behaved when playing outside and then go crazy when they play indoors. I told her that usually if I was being crazy indoors, my mom told me to go play outside. For Japanese people it is the opposite, being crazy and hyper outside is not good because then the neighbors can see how nutty your kids are and how bad of a parent you are. The downside to this is when your kids are nuts, you have to put up with them being around you inside the house. I would take my sanity over what the neighbors thought of me any day of the week.

The other funny thing about Japanese families is how discipline is metered out when it actually is...which isn't very often. Every family has one parent who is the disciplinarian. In Japan, 99 times out of 100 it will be the mom that is the bad cop while the dad plays good cop. The reason for this is that fathers in Japan work all of the time and mothers generally are around home a lot more. When dad comes home from work, it is his time to see his kids and hang out with them. Kids here are brought up to see bonding time with dad as much more of a valuable commodity over quality time with mom. Moms on the other hand, are almost solely in charge of making sure that the kids do well in school and do not fall behind their peers. This is the reason why many of my kids are taking English whether they want to or not. Japanese mothers are super competitive when it comes to their kids' educations.

Some new classes just started in one of my schools and there are three boys who get along great together in one of them. Evidently, in their real school, two of the boys are troublemakers and one is the good student. The mother of the good student is asking the Japanese teacher of my classes to take out the other two kids and put them in a class separate from her son. When the Japanese teacher said that the three boys played very well together, the mother threw a fit and said her son was not like the other two boys. I guess the mother was actually crying by the end because the Japanese teacher would not move the two other boys just because one mother had a problem with them in school outside of my English class. The next night the grandmother came in to try to get the two other boys moved. Japanese mothers make American soccer moms look like deadbeats.

Having said that, when dads do get into the chewing out of a kid, usually it is something to watch. I was teaching a lesson that the parents were allowed to come and observe and one little boy tried to kick me in a not happy place. He missed but the fact that he tried at all, Set.The.Dad.Off. The guy who had been quiet all night, gets up, grabs his kid by the collar of his shirt and drags him into a corner. What followed were the hushed shouts of a father educating his son about why you never, ever, for any reason kick a guy in the Southern Hemisphere of his body, especially in the magical island in between his legs. After this speech, he smacked the kid upside the head and then pushed him back into the group of students. It was almost awe-inspiring. Never before or since have I seen a Japanese parent lay into their kid like that guy did to his son. Amazing.

De-Isolation

2007-11-11T02:51:00.000-07:00

Since Toby (the new guy) has arrived in my town, my life has been changing and it is very strange.

For the past two years, I have basically been left to my own devices as far as my day to day life is concerned. I have Japanese lessons on Monday, teach class Tuesday through Saturday, and relax on Sundays. I go to look at manga and nerdy things usually once a week and if it is nice day, I will go take pictures around town or in Kyoto or Osaka. No one bothers me, I have no unscheduled visitors, I do what I want to do when I want to do it. And while it may bother me at times, I am usually quite comfortable with living in my own little world, alone. At least this is how everything was until Toby moved in.

With the arrival of the new guy, my life is now prone to random calls at strange times in the morning or at night, sporadic knocking at my door, and someone wanting to talk or watch a movie whenever the moment strikes them. It is like people are being reintroduced into my day to day life and while I like it, for the lack of better phrasing, it makes me very tired. It has been nice to have someone to talk to but at the same time, I miss having the consistency of my pattern.

I have found that it takes effort for me to want to talk to him and hang out with him and it isn't because he is a bad guy, it is because I am just not used to being sociable. When he comes over and hangs out, I find myself wishing he would leave and when he does leave, I feel drained from the whole experience. Since he has come, I feel very strange because I have always been a rather extroverted person but now that I have someone to talk to, I just want to be alone. I find myself even liking going to class because I know he won't interfere with my rhythm while I am in another town.

When my friends and family have come to visit me, I have never had this feeling and I think it is because I was so happy to see them. I view Toby as a regular guy and so he is just another factor that has been added into the ecosystem of me. I enjoy hanging out with him and I am glad he is here because I have a feeling that having him here will kind of ease me out of my isolation and prepare me for going back to and living in the real world again. I just wish it wasn't such a tiring and draining process.

I view the new guy as kind of my test pet to see if I can handle dealing with a dog or a kitten on a daily basis. He is kind of my social hamster or gold fish.

Feeling Campy

2007-11-05T20:19:00.000-07:00

Well, after trip number three to the doctor's this morning I have found out the source of my issues. I have contracted an infection called, Campylobacteriosis. The name makes it sound much cooler than it actually is and the bacteria is somewhat common. Usually, when you get it, it goes away on its own after a little while. In extreme cases (me), you need antibiotics to flush it out of your system.

So now I am on new medication and within three days I should be back to normal. It looks like I have to go back to the doctor's one more time but it will just be for a follow-up and nothing major.

If you want to actually read more about Campy go here.

One good thing that has come from all of this is I don't think I am bothered all that much by doctors anymore. If I have to go to one in the US, at least he will be fluent in English.

And Back To The Doctor Again

2007-11-05T06:12:00.002-07:00

Ok, this is starting to get boring.

Today, I went to the doctor for my follow-up visit since I am getting better but still not 110% well. My lab test was supposed to be back today but it was late for some reason and so the doctor just gave me more of the stuff I have been taking after every meal for the past four days. He told me that when the test came back, if it was something other than what he thought it was, I would need to come back to get different medication that could better treat whatever bug is happily kicking around in my digestive tract.

Well, I just got a call from Maya and they called her and told her I need to come in tomorrow. They couldn't tell her the exact results because she wasn't related or married to me but they did tell her I didn't need to worry. So tomorrow morning, for the third time in less than a week, I get to see the cheerful old man that has become my doctor. I am seeing way too much of this guy. Lucky for him, he gets to freshen up his English skills. I just get to take more meds and wonder when everything will get totally back to normal. The thing is, the stuff he had me on has been working but evidently there is something more effective.

I vote that we start a pool to wager on what I have.

My bet is that I got E-coli. Either way, I find out in about 11 hours. Third time is a charm.

Anitbiotics and Nara

2007-11-04T01:12:00.000-07:00

That pretty much sums up the past few days. After going to the doctor on Thursday, I started to get cabin fever and decided that the next day, I would go to Nara.

Nara is a strange place to visit. It is one of the oldest cities in Japan and therefore, contains some of the oldest buildings in Japan. When you go there and see some of the temples and the deer that roam around the town, you get a sense of just how small our time on this Earth is. Many of the buildings I went into were built before 800AD. Do you realize how old that makes them? I was walking around an area that existed 700 years before Christopher Columbus was even born. The first Crusade was still a couple of hundred years away and the Byzantine Empire still ruled over a chunk of Eastern Europe. It would be one thousand years before the United States was even founded. That is a really really old place.

One example of this is Todai-ji Temple. It was built in 752AD and is to this day, the largest wooden building in the world. This is despite the fact it has burned to the ground twice and the current building that was built in 1692 is two-thirds the size of the original.

This is Todai-ji:

Now, you must ask yourself, "Why in the world do you need a building that size?" The answer is simple, you need to make a shelter for this to sit under:

The picture doesn't give you a good gauge of how big the statue is but the head is almost 18ft. tall and the body is almost 50ft. tall if that helps. This is the Vairocana Buddha and it was also made in 752AD. It is bronze with gold leaf and like the temple, has had to be repaired several times. Todai-ji Temple is the heart of the Kegon Sect of Buddhism and was constructed to be the head temple to all of the provincial temples in Japan. Basically, this temple is very old, very big, and pretty important.

The other fun part about Nara is the deer that call the city home. Many temples have families of cats that have inhabited them for generations, Nara has herds of deer that make most of our family trees look pretty pathetic. The Nara deer are funny because they are the most domesticated I have ever seen. Visitors will give the deer cookies that are made especially for them and the deer are quite accustomed to walking up to people and begging for handouts. As you walk by them, they stroll up to you and start nodding their head and making noises. Once you give in and give them a snack, they let other deer know and pretty soon you end up getting stalked by three or four woodland creatures in search of yum yums. When you run out of treats for them and if they feel like you haven't given enough, they will start nipping at your pockets and bags in search of more food. They can actually be quite indignant creatures. Here are some deer related pics:

This is a sign warning people to stay away from the baby deer during the spring so that the parents don't become angry and try to kick or ram you.

These are the deer snacks you can buy all around the area.

This is what happens when you either run out of or are unwilling to give them cookies.

Various pics of deer hanging out around the park.

Some of the deer obviously have no fear of cars or crowds of people and lounge wherever they feel like.

Likewise, some kids have no fear of the deer. Unfortunately for this little girl, a few minutes after I took this pic, her mom and grandma urged her to get closer to one of the deer and try to pet it. The deer was getting agitated after all of the constant attention and after a few seconds, he either butted or kicked the little girl to the ground pretty hard. She cried for a while but was okay.

Speaking of little kids, here is one of the many flocks of school children that take field trips here everyday.

So that was my trip to Nara. While I enjoyed the excursion, my stomach did not. I think all of the activity and walking started to bother it. It could have also been the antibiotics kicking in as well. Either way, my tummy was not happy the rest of the day.

On that note, the antibiotics I am on are helping...I think. Yesterday, I felt pretty good but today I feel even better and my plumbing issues are showing signs of clearing up. I have to take meds after every meal and they are strange. I have one pill and then a packet that contains two more pills and this weird white powder that tastes like I would imagine very fine sawdust to taste. So far, I think they have worked. Going to the doctor also calmed my nerves somewhat so that my have played into it all too. Who knows, I am just glad to be getting better.

Tomorrow, I think I have one more trip to the doctor and I think I get to find out the results of the lab work they did on me. I am hoping he gives me a new supply of pills because while I think they are working, I think I need a few more days to get everything back to normal. I guess I will find all of that out tomorrow.

Doctor Day

2007-11-01T00:43:00.000-06:00

So today was the big day, Maya picked me up this morning and took me to a clinic nearby to see what in the world was wrong with me. If you know me, you probably know I am not a fan of doctors. I respect their profession I just don't like visiting them. Today was different though.

I haven't been to the doctor in a long time. It has been years. I went to the hospital four or five years ago when I almost cut off the tip of my finger while making turkey curry but other than that, no accidents or illnesses that have warranted a doctors visit since the last time I was very sick which was January of 2001 or 2002. I don't get sick very often and so when I stay ill for long periods it starts to worry me which is why I went in today. I was past the fear of doctors part and just wanted a resolution. And I got one.

Before I go into that, I need to say something about the difference between Japanese and American doctors' offices. In the US, you go to a doctor's office and most of them are the same. White walls, white high traffic carpet, a couple of magazines that are three months old on the coffee table, and almost no noise. The doctor's actual office is very sterile, more white, and very tidy and clean. Japan is the exact opposite of everything I have just described.

In a Japanese clinic, it is like senior social hour minus the bingo. You have old people coming and going and it is something to watch. When a new old person arrives, they spot someone they know in the waiting room and rush over to chat with them. I honestly wonder how many of these people have actual issues or just come to meet friends. Maya, one other guy, and myself were the only people that were there that were under sixty. Naturally, this morning's social hour was somewhat enhanced by the presence of a big white guy hanging out with a younger Japanese woman. I am not sure what got more looks, the fact that I was white or the fact that I spoke Japanese and Maya spoke English. Either way, the room was humming with murmurs and whispers about "gaijin" this and "gaijin" that. It's good to know I haven't lost my edge in the shock and awe department.

The visit to the actual doctor was amusing. Maya was a sweetheart and even came in there with me to translate. I did not expect this and probably could have managed but it was nice to have her there just to make sure the communication was crystal clear...or at least hazily clear. The doctor himself was as old as most of the people in the waiting room and kind of funny. His desk was cluttered with papers and rubber stamps. Since Japanese uses Chinese characters, using a rubber stamp for common terms saves a lot of time over having to write out each character. Therefore, his desk had about fifty stamps scattered in piles around it.

I think my doctor knew at least some English but since Maya was there he preferred to talk to her over me. Once he realized I was understanding most of what was being said he talked to me a bit more but still mostly relied on Maya, as did I, I was constantly verifying what I had heard just to be sure I heard it right. The only time the little doctor spoke English directly to me was right before he was preparing to do something particularly evil to me and he was leering above me, silhouetted by the office light. It was in that moment that I envisioned this guy in his 20s using the exact same cheery tone to speak to an American POW right before he strapped the GI to a metal bed frame and clamped a car battery to it. Fortunately, he was in a better mood when dealing with me and the ordeal was over with quickly.

In the end, I probably have a bacterial infection brought on by a bout with bad chicken. Last Monday, Toby and my boss and I went to eat at a yakitori place to celebrate Toby's arrival in Fukuchiyama. Yakitori restaurants are awesome, pretty much all they serve is random chicken parts prepared in various ways. If you want chicken heart, there is heart, tongues are good too. I like chicken thigh, wrapped in a leaf, and dipped in a plum sauce. Over the course of the night, we ate just about all there was to try, including chicken sashimi. Chicken sashimi is raw chicken and before you all tell me I am an idiot for eating uncooked chicken, just know that it is prepared very thoroughly here and is quite tasty and I have had it before that night as well. Though on Monday night, I would guess that that is the dish that let a rather nasty microbe jump aboard my body and wreak havoc on my digestive system. The doctor took some samples to send to a lab and I will find out for sure on Monday but he seemed pretty confident that the yakitori was the source of my problems. Why could something so tasty want to hurt me? Then again, they said the same thing about the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters.

Anywho, I feel pretty good now and I have been given a regimen of pills and powders to take after every meal. While the trip was not planned and wasn't all that fun, it was very interesting to see how a doctors' office functions here.

Another Un-Halloween

2007-10-31T00:33:00.000-06:00

Halloween in Japan is lame. I said it last year and I am saying it this year. I wish the Japanese liked Halloween more.

Since there is nothing cool happening, I am guessing I will end up watching a couple of horror movies and then going to bed. What a spiffy Halloween.

In other news, the flu that I said I had in the last post, well, I still have it. It is a very strange little bug though. I feel good, like I have no flu symptoms whatsoever other than one thing that can involve frequent trips to the bathroom, if you get my drift. I don't understand why I can't shake it and it is actually starting to worry me for a couple of reasons. I tried to go to the hospital today because there is an English speaking doctor that works there but they have a rule that unless it is an emergency, they don't register first time customers after 11am. Part of me also wonders if I have the flu at all anymore and if it is my worrying and nerves that are keeping stuff from getting back to normal.

Speaking of worrying and nerves, I have stupid micro-blisters all over my hands and fingers. When I get stressed or sick, sometimes I get these tiny tiny blisters underneath my skin on my hands and sometimes my feet. Thanks to all of my being bothered now, I have them really bad. It feels like I am wearing gloves all the time and while they don't hurt, the whole thing is quite annoying. It just bugs me that I haven't ditched this flu for going on a week. I am never sick for this long.

I think I would actually be more worried if Toby hadn't been sick too. Toby was actually so bad that he became dehydrated and had to go to the hospital. Fortunately, they got him on meds and he is much better now. I just wish I could feel better. It is times like this when I wish I could just quit, pack up, and come back to the US now. I think Toby has also been feeling this way. He did not want to be placed in Fukuchiyama and is now realizing how far removed from everything we are here. He is homesick and keeps talking about food he wants and this is not helping me at all.

Only two months and twenty-seven days until I can come back and get on with life.

Update: I just got off the phone with Maya and she is picking me up at 8:30am to go to a private hospital she said may be faster than the other one I was trying to go to. I know how much Toby paid for his visit and I was cool with that, I hope this isn't a ton more. But at least the problem will get dealt with and I can stop worrying about it.

Happy Halloween 2007!!!

2007-10-31T00:22:00.000-06:00

Since I can't carve a pumpkin this year, I drew a goofy picture instead.

Yakitori, Booze, The Flu, and The New Guy

2007-10-24T21:16:00.001-06:00

Since Monday, I have been busy.

My boss called around noon that day and told me he had finally gotten into my town and that the new guy would be here shortly as well. The movers had already arrived with the new guy's stuff and I needed to go down and let them know that they guy with the apartment key would be there soon.

The new guy is named, Toby by the way.

As it turns out, Toby has broken the mold and is not like 80% of all other foreigners in Japan. He is actually kind of normal and since his arrival we have gotten along very well.

Anywho, after Toby got all of his stuff moved in and settled a bit, we decided it was time to find dinner. So my boss, Toby, and I set off to get food. While walking toward the area of town that has most of the eateries and restaurants, we passed a very good yakitori place that I love but it seems like the place is never open. The three of us decided that yakitori sounded good and so we went inside to eat all sorts of chicken parts cooked in all sorts of ways.

With the eating came the drinking. Before even going into the restaurant, we had already had a couple of beers each and while eating we tacked a few more on as well. We also had a drink called ume-shu that was tasty. It is a liquor made from the pickled plums I am so fond of, very tasty. Anywho, by the time we were done eating we had all had a bit too much to drink.

Which probably led to my getting the flu. I had already had a bug of some sort before that night but after the yakitori, I got hit hard by the flu and it still has not left me. So I have been sick for a few days now and it kind of sucks but what do you do? Last night especially, after Toby left to go to bed, I went to sleep too but it was more of one of those deep sickly, fevery, sleeps where you dream weird dreams and wake up at odd intervals. I think I may have had a fever and it broke while I was asleep because at one point I woke up and was super hot but not sweating and then the next time I woke up I was drenched in sweat.

One other thing of note happened this week. Two nights ago, while walking back to the train station, I found the Japanese equivalent of a $50 bill. To celebrate my good fortune, I called Toby and took him out to eat at a ramen place near the apartment. The new people are really strapped for cash when they come to Japan so I have been trying to help Toby out a little here and there. I figure if I treat him well, he will treat my replacement the same way. It is very strange to have another person to talk to now. I have found it is also somewhat tiring, though that could just be the flu too.

Well, I am going to tie this up. I still feel loopy and I need to get to the bank to see what I have in the way of money, seeing that I got paid today.

A Fair Day, Nothing Great

2007-10-21T05:54:00.000-06:00

Today, like the past few days, has been pretty boring. There isn't a ton to do in my town and I don't have the most money in the world to spend on train fare to leave it, so I sit around in my apartment and stare at the computer screen most of the time.

Yesterday, I noticed a sign that stating that a fair was being held this weekend so I decided to check it out today. After riding around town for an hour trying to figure out where the dang thing was I figured out it was in the one place I didn't look and that there was a shuttle going there every half an hour. Since I had been riding my bike for a while and the shuttle was free, I jumped on and was wheeled off to the fair.

This fair was like one of those Fall home expo things and so it wasn't horribly interesting. I did get to look inside a 2008 Nissan Skyline 370GT and that was nice, it was the equivalent of $40k USD but it was nice. There was also a flea market thingy and I looked around it too.

At this point I should mention that I was the only white guy there. I am used to that by now but what drives me up a wall is that being white makes me a target for every ambitious sales person and marketing rep trying to hawk whatever it is that people sell at these things.

I had a couple of guys try to speak kind of sort of English to me and try to convince me I needed some obscure British pop band's vinyl records. They also tried to sell me a sweatshirt and pair of jeans and when I told them that both clothing items were a little small for me, their girlfriends laughed at them. After a few more seconds of playing around with them I broke free to see what else was around.

I found the food court and there wasn't anything special there that I wanted. No Baby Castellas. After the food court I went into the expo building and was again the target of every booth in the venue. I was forced to play darts against some school kid. People attempted to usher me into their little booths to hear some sales pitch. Craft makers wanted me to buy one of their little wooden sculptures. The Sharp sales reps wanted me to buy an LCD screen. The phone people wanted me to buy a phone. And as I thought I was home free and basically running for the exit, a guy stopped me and wanted me to fill out a survey as to how the expo was.

As soon as I was out the door, I headed for the shuttle to get away from there as fast as possible.

A couple of days ago, my doorbell rang and the guy for Japanese Public Television was standing there. These guys annoy the daylights out of me. Basically, Japanese Public Television or NHK as it is called here is the same crap that American Public Television has on it, just in a language that I only understand half of the time. The difference is how the companies get their funding. In the US, they get a small government stipend and a bunch of private donations to keep them running and churning out shows like Bob Ross and Sesame St. In Japan, they send guys door to door who's sole job is to try to guilt you and strong arm you into paying them for watching their programming.

Last year, the guy came to my door and tried to get into my apartment. Seeing that I make a better wall than a window, he was unsuccessful but continued to ask me if I watched television and all while trying to peer around me to see in my apartment to see if he could spot a TV somewhere. I do have a TV, it is in my closet. I have never turned it on. Last year's guy wouldn't take "No" for an answer though and asked if I had a computer and if it had a TV card in it. He was smart but since he couldn't see any cable wires, he had to take my word for it when I told him no yet again.

This year's guy wasn't as determined and my Japanese was better so it was pretty quick. He asked if I watched TV and I straight up told him no and then went on to say that I didn't even own one. That was that. The funny part is this year, I do have a TV and it is a TV card inside my computer. But, he didn't ask about that this time so I didn't offer it up.

I guess if you say, yes, they get all cooky and try to force money out of you and put you on a payment plan to fund their "free" service. They also come during a time when it is most likely to be just women and kids home, thus giving them easier prey to fed off of. Can you imagine PBS trying to send out henchmen to collect from Americans? Can you imagine some of the conversations they would have? It wouldn't happen and I am sure not going to let them try it on me here either.

Anywho, not much else has gone on. I taught my last week in one of my classes before the new guy takes it over. I haven't met him yet but for now, I have named him, Adventure Monkey. If I end up liking him, I may actually call him by his name but until then, he is Adventure Monkey. I meet him tomorrow so it should be interesting. At least now, I will have someone else in this town to speak English to...as long as I like him and he doesn't drive me crazy like most other white people do here. We shall see I guess.

10 Things

2007-10-16T11:06:00.000-06:00

In response to Singe_ID tagging me for this, I am making a list of ten things that have made me happy recently. Here we go:

1. Today, is one day closer to me coming back to the US and seeing everyone and
everything I have missed for two years.

2. Everything is squared away and I am going to be coming back to my 2005 Toyota
Matrix XRS when I return to the US.

3. The trees are starting to change color which means that my favorite season is
here.

4. I realized Halloween is two weeks away today and that made me smile.

5. This week is my last week dealing with the demon children in one of the classes
that I am leaving in order to be the first teacher to start a new class in another
town.

6. Be it the fact that they actually like me or what I let them get away with, many
of the kids seem legitimately sad or concerned to see me go. Some of the parents
have also told me how disappointed they were when they learned I was being moved.
While I am not overly fond of most of their kids, I do appreciate the sentiment
coming from the parents.

7. I started playing the Sims 2 again yesterday, the evil and mischief is already
spreading. (^_^)

8. I realized today that despite all of the big stuff that is getting ready to happen
again with the move and lack of a job and all, I am not afraid. I am not afraid of
any of it. At this point in my life, I have more self-confidence than I think I
ever have. I am not afraid because I am naive, I am fearless because I know I can
win.

9. Lately, my Flickr page has been attracting a lot of attention and while I could
care less about the comments I receive, it makes me happy when people pick my
picture to add to their collection of favorites and it has been happening more
lately. Many people are also adding me to their list of contacts so they can see
all of the new stuff I upload. I may not be making money but at least I am seeing
proof the people like my stuff and that some of what I shoot may actually be good
looking to people other than me.

10. You know how sometimes you buy a pop and it tastes exceptionally good despite the
fact it is just one of the millions of Coca Cola beverages made from the same
recipe as all of the others sitting on the shelf. But for some reason, the Coke
you are drinking tastes really really good. That happened to me today.

If you want to do this on your own blog, go nuts. I am not going to tag anyone to do this but if you do pick this up, let me know in the comments so I can read it too.

A Taste Of Home

2007-10-13T06:24:00.000-06:00

When I came to Japan,I left behind a lot of stuff. One thing I was glad to ditch was the stress. Work. Car Payments. Cell Phones. Insurance Payments. Rent/Mortgage. The expectations of my peers. Constantly having to be someone and doing something. Just everything. I am starting to remember that feeling again and I don't like it one bit.

Last night, right before bedtime, I finally got to chat with the guy that has my car. We got all of the financial details worked out and as I type this, my car is now covered and resting happily in a garage, patiently awaiting my return. I am for sure getting my beloved 2005 Matrix XRS back when I return. This is excellent new and an excellent situation all around. Its the car I want for a dang good price and now I do not have to worry about finding a car when I get back.

With the car though, comes the fact that I am going to need to get an auto loan within a few days of me getting back to Idaho. Since banks normally like lending money to people with jobs, I am going to have to find something post haste upon landing. Whether it is working at a movie rental place or well...anywhere, I am going to need a job. Just the thought of having to immediately jump into a job that I will most likely not have for very long worries me. The fact that I probably won't overly enjoy whatever job I may get further dismays me a tad. But I need a job.

Jobs like to have a way to contact you so this means I will need a cell phone. One more thing to add to the list. Cell phones, like cars, like it when you pay their bills on time so this comes back to needing a job. Do you see where I am going with this? I am not going to say that the last two years have been a vacation but they have been pretty darned easy and now I am jumping back into American culture and all of the good stuff and bad stuff that comes with it. So much for easing myself back into it all.

So I guess the bottom line is, if you know somewhere, anywhere that needs a guy to do something and will pay to have me do it, let me know. I don't know how likely it is but I would like to have something lined up when I land. Will this happen, I kind of doubt it but with an employment rate as low as Boise's, I am sure I can find something to get the money flowing until something I really want to do comes along.

And because asking for a job isn't enough, if you have a spare house or apartment sitting around, let me know and I will take that off your hands too. (^_^)

The Mellowness of Japanese Steak

2007-10-12T07:27:00.000-06:00

In my pre-emptive attempt to woo and ahh the single women of Idaho, or any other state for that matter; I have started experimenting with cooking Japanese cuisine.

Last night, I tried to grill some rice balls using several different sauces and topping and the results were not what I was hoping. I think I figured out why though so I will try again soon. I also stumbled on a way to flavor steak that is very tasty and requires that the steak be wrapped over night while covered in a paste. The result is very tasty and very mellow. It is a Japanese flavor that makes it blend very well with rice and beer...especially beer and I have not ever had a steak with this mellowness and flavor. Overall, I would say it was pretty darned good. The beer was also good...so good in fact that I am having seconds right now.

Sunday or Monday, I plan on trying a new chicken recipe to see how that works out and I may also try to tempura lotus root and see how that turns out. I have had tempura'd lotus root before and it was quite tasty...though I may be allergic to it. Either way, barring that my through closes up and I die, I will post my the results of my further culinary experimentation.

Did I mention that that steak had a very mellow flavor? I think it was the sake.

This was pretty much me tonight...minus the fire...and people....and the red hat...and the Japanese guy. Ok, this wasn't me at all.

This Is So Stupid

2007-10-09T16:20:00.000-06:00

It is 7:20am and I am fully awake. Beh.

Somehow in my blissful sleep, another one of my loathed Costco dreams sneaked in. This time, instead of dreaming about a normal eight hour shift of boredom and semi-retarded customers, I imagined I was asking for my job back. This dream so aggravated me that I actually woke up from it...at 6:30am. I have not been able to go back to sleep and there is nothing to do at this time of the day. I have actually been tidying up my house. Since 6:30am.

Freaking Costco!