Yaaay I forgot how good a month this was. I need to get out of Nebraska, possibly forever so that I can go and have a much happier life in Tokyo. Unfortunately I have no real plans on how to do that currently, so I'll just recap and become lost in the flashback. Enjoy.
1/5/07
This New Year was kicked off with an awesome trip to the Tokyo Tower to watch as they released thousands of balloons at the stroke of midnight. There was giant fire burning, I hugged three or four random people, which I guess could be seen as an interaction with the locals. It was a spectacular event, and difficult to top. We then proceeded home where we drank too much playing video games from the early nineties and collapsed in a heap. I learned this week that Japan too loves to have really awesome sales and campaigns at the start of the year, because I keep trying to spend money at McDonald’s but they keep giving me more coupons for free hamburgers. Perhaps they in some way find pity on me, an American, and are stereotyping my love for burgers. Much like we sometimes do to black people with fried chicken. Whether or not its racism I really can’t bring myself to care. These burgers are delicious and free. I also learned this week after conversing with a man at McDonald’s, that the mascot of said restaurant’s name is not in fact Ronald in Japan. His name is Donald McDonald, and as lame as that sounds I guess it was easier for Japanese people to remember, and so it stuck.
That’s a blurry photo I think looks cool but will require explanation. It’s the aforementioned balloons going up into the sky with the temple and Tokyo Tower (the blurry yellow thing) in the background. All of the balloons had notes attached which contained wishes for love and peace to God, or whomever they believe resides in the sky. That’s all for this week, sorry for the lateness, I didn’t know how long Blackboard was going to be down.
1/12/07
This week in Japan things got very interesting. The first day back was a gimme. We got there, there was no class because of a coming of age holiday, and we went out and watched a Japanese chick flick based on a comic book which was wholly depressing. It was the sequel to Nana which came out last year and I watched shortly before coming to Japan. In Nana 2, the main character (Nana, can you believe it?), who had terrible luck with love in the first one, hooks up with this guy from her favorite band, but he ends up being a dick and she breaks up with him. Then there’s this guy who hangs out with her all the time who is really funny and good friends with her roommate and they get together. But then all at once, you find out she got knocked up by the first guy, who is an ass, but who then takes responsibility and offers to marry her. This ruins everything with the nice guy, her roommate and her life, and that’s basically where the movie ends. It was bad enough they had to change the main character’s actress to someone not as good but then an Empire Strikes Back ending on top of it. Totally put a damper on our day off.
The next day we got to Ambition Hall and the first thing we were greeted with was a woman from the high school asking if we could help out. As this turns out, we’re now going to be helping out full-time with the high school English classes this month as two of their teachers are on sick leave (pregnancy, but I’m hoping it wasn’t by some douche in a popular rock band). The classes aren’t that terribly demanding but its just the level of freedom and authority we’re given in them is slightly alarming. In junior high we didn’t do much more than read sentences in English and walk around the room to see if the kids were doing their work. Here we are basically allowed to freestyle teach the lesson. So far I haven’t gone much off script. I’d often thought of how I’d teach a high school class, mostly in high school when I was bored out of my mind. However, now that I can do all of these things, I’m reluctant to do them out of knowledge of how much Japanese dislike anything against the grain. It’s really problematic, and I don’t know if I should push the envelope, even a little.
I pondered on this Thursday evening on a bike ride home from the post office. As I was a pondering, I noticed outside a convenience store a truck with a wheel in it that looked like it could have steered a pirate ship. This excited me, and I couldn’t resist knocking on the man’s car window and asking him if he’d sell it to me. I was informed, as expected, that it wasn’t his and he was just moving it for someone. I went home nonplussed and overall bummed out.
I learned that unless you’re a pirate, freedom doesn’t necessarily mean freedom from society and it’s oh-so-coveted status. At the end of the week McDonald’s released the Mega Mac, a Big Mac with two extra hamburgers on it. It wasn’t as filling as I had hoped, but it was as unhealthy. Enjoy my pose. quo.This week in Japan I had a number of interesting things happen. Firstly, at school, no sooner than we started to get in the swing of high school classes the recently pregnant teacher returns and relieves most of our duties. Not that it made much of a difference, as most classes were again cancelled so that the stress factory known as the Japanese Education System could perform another series of tests to make the students freak out. It’s ironical that the more the students at this school have to work, the more time we get off as interns. This lack of activity kind of reminds me of when I was in high school.
Elsewhere, I play video games in an arcade in Matsudo when what should happen but I am approached by some dude pulling no punches with his Japanese asks me to be his rival in beatmania IIDX. This is the only music game at the arcade I’m not good at, and never play because there are always lines of people 5 or more strong lined up to do it. Nonetheless I agree, hoping I can hang out with him and maybe pick up on some more fluent speech. We arranged for two days after, but when that time came, it was again dismally cold and rainy so I ended up just staying in a practicing for a time when I might challenge him at a level which isn’t so retardedly low.
The following day we went to Wendy’s, which I had not gone to in many months. It was delicious. It was Wendy’s. What more can I say?
1/26/07
This week was kind of uneventful at work. We went to every period high school class until Thursday, when we found out we got a half day and then Friday off. Wasting no time we went to Kashiwa just down the tracks and drank large quantities of red wine, as you do in times like these. I tried to play video games, but my vision had been compromised and it ended poorly. Then we thought it was a great idea to stay up all night doing karaoke on a whim. This was great fun, and although I could barely speak at the end, we found a way to convey our regret to those whose task it is to clean the karaoke rooms every night. This is made out of part of the some 250 used Kleenex and shreds of toilet paper we had left scattered about. The letters read “sorry!” in Japanese.
This would have been funnier if, not two hours after leaving, I discovered I’d left my apartment key in the room as well and spent the whole morning exhausted out of my mind trying to get it back so I could sleep in my bed. After failing and wasting around five dollars in train fare, I passed out at Nick’s and woke up with the brilliant idea of going to the school and asking. I did, and they had a key. Thus ending my brief bout with homelessness.
The following day I went and nerded it up in Akihabara again and after buying so many figurines I almost made myself sick, decided I needed a drastic change and got a haircut. I honestly thought I had gotten past any sort of shock, cultural or otherwise here. How naïve I was, little did I know in less that twenty minutes I’d be smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee at 8 o clock at night while a man trimmed my eyebrows during what I thought to be a routine haircut. I talked to them about basic haircut details you are more or less forced to cough up during the time when they have scissors to your head. I waved goodbye to all of my precious hair as I watched it fall to the ground. They shampooed my hair twice, recommended brands of cigarettes to me as well as hot girls and how it would be no problem for me to get them. I had heard it all before, but the atmosphere simply shocked me that everyone was smoking inside the hair salon simultaneously. My mind blown, my hair gone, I bid them farewell and on the way home giggled and watched two cats hardcore fight in the street while I ran my hand through what used to be the slightly girlish locks of hair I had once had so much pride in. Currently I fail to remember why.
It's funny to think this is now stimulating reading because I distinctly remember hating the fact that I had to keep this diary at the time. I was very absorbed in the activity of staying the hell out of my apartment for as long as I could I suppose. But because I am severely nostalgic for the country these days and by popular demand (by one person, but whatever, thanks Picca) I now present the rest of my poorly logged and much neglected Japan diary:
[sidenotes: things I didn't include originally because I was writing to a professor but that I think should be stated are placed in italics like so]
12/1/06
This week, another series of things occurred and happened to me while I was wandering around a foreign country. Firstly, I was excited to find that my favorite nihilistic comic book, Death Note, had at last come to Japanese theatres. To see this movie, however, was about 14 dollars, give or take, so I merely took this picture in front of the posters.
Shortly after, as I was browsing random comic
titles, I decided I’d made a major breakthrough about the Japanese people. They
seemingly do not believe in copyright laws, because I have seen on more than
one occasion almost blatant plagiarism, be it in music, television or comic
books. Now I’m not very good at getting the scoop, so I don’t know what the
actual rules are, and despite my enrollment in the college of Journalism, I
really don’t read the news or watch tv that often. However, I do have eyes, and
ears, and its not uncommon for them to see and hear things in popular media
with ideas from other series, or copyrighted American music that there’s no way
in hell they could afford.
It’s not that it irritates me as much as I let on, but I was happy this week I could find out something new and different that I hadn’t already confirmed. It’s becoming very familiar here now, and more and more difficult to think in terms of a slack-jawed Nebraska boy who has knowledge of nothing but suburbs and a vague interest in anime. There are some perks however, to someone used to the system of Tokyo life. Last night we sailed the high seas of the Joban subway line to go see our friend Kengo for a night of unfettered drinking and frivolity.
The partying took place in Kita-Senju, and we did have quite a time eating and drinking until midnight, at such time did we decide to karaoke all night. I was unaware such a thing existed, but it seems you can get a bargain by going from midnight to 5 am. I have only just now recovered from this. Even so, it was very fun and the guys who ran the place were so excited to meet Americans they gave us the Dragonball Z figurines they had at the front counter. It was my first time back to karaoke since I came to Japan this time, and the singing was very therapeutic for me. However by 4 AM I was a combination of drunk and exhausted that can just utterly destroy some lesser men’s will to live. This compounded by the fact that my voice was completely gone from singing for four hours straight, caused me to pass out in the booth. To be honest the trip home is kind of sketchy, but an experience to be certain.
That’s it for this week, stay tuned for our insane adventures next week when we journey across Tokyo to the now legendary Kenshukan!
12/8/2006
This week has really been a lot of running around. There wasn’t a lot of school this week, all the kids were in testing and so we usually left at noon, if we were asked to come at all. On Wednesday I spent my day off randomly communicating with people around me. This is something very atypical for me. More often than not I don’t approach or talk to people I don’t know or haven’t been introduced to, and especially not when I’m alone. However, as much as I usually find such actions creepy, I couldn’t help but try to speak the language I’d been studying for so long with someone else. I had about a fifteen minute conversation with some girls at the arcade about Pop’n Music. This is a game I recently started getting into on my PS2 but I knew almost nothing about the arcade version. It’s probably the one music game Konami makes that I’ve never seen stateside. I suppose that could be due to the fact that it’s almost completely without English and more than that, difficult to operate for beginners. Being a beginner myself I thought I’d find out some things about this game from its chief demographic, which is apparently high school girls. I won’t go into the details, because from here on, it gets so nerdy you’ll probably be baffled and more importantly bored to tears by esoteric terms and nonsense. Point being, communication achieved.
On the way home I stopped at a park and used the swings. This is because when you swing, it gives you a sense of joy. That is why children do this all the time. It then just so happened that children began to gather in that very spot, and I joined them in climbing trees and they all told me their names which I of course quickly forgot because there were at least 12 of them. The tree was very peculiar and completely stripped of its bark, which made is very easy to climb all over. It was a very nice park, and I’m sure if I return to it in the spring, when it has leaves, it will be even nicer.
That night I bought lots of unnecessary snacks and stayed up far too late with Kengo and Nick watching DVDs of American sketch comedy. We met Kengo last year and he taught us many things about Japanese comedy, but it was hard to reciprocate the culture lesson at the time as we had no DVDs and foreign comedy was a bit sparse, as might be expected, in Japan. Fun as this was it wreaked havoc on my sleep schedule and I ended up going to school the next day on 1 hour of sleep. How exactly I made it through this day is a mystery that no one shall solve. After about 8 hours of midday napping I was off to the arcade again for some old school Dance Dance Revolution, as illustrated below. Here I am choosing a song.
There is also, to be told, the adventurous return to Kenshukan on the day that this year’s students were about to leave. However, we made a grievous error and went all the way across Tokyo on the wrong day. The real final day is next week, so I shall continue my story at such a time that it has already occurred. That’s all for this week, Justin out!
12/15/06
This week, school was almost completely non-existent, with both Monday and Friday cancelled, and all the children burnt out on testing. The question was raised more than once to me, why it should be that school continues here after exams for two weeks rather than just ending the semester and giving the children a break? Suffice it to say, no one was in much of a mood for English speaking or, I’m guessing, any subject this week and this was very apparent just being in the classroom. Even so, there were many card games and other such learning tools that the students tolerated, but there was not much interaction on my part. It was only after school, in the meaty part of the week, that things began happening that I feel are worth truly mentioning.
Nothing especially amazing, mind you, but here is a brief overview of the week. 30% playing Gundam and music games in my loft while looking up words I couldn’t understand. I’ve taken a severe handicap by buying games with lots and lots of Japanese that I would ordinarily avoid. However, since I am here to study, and cannot escape my lust for video games, I might as well challenge myself to wrap my brain around more complicated sentence puzzles than “Don’t underestimate me!” and “I will defeat you!”, which are generally all that come up in the fighting games I’ve dabbled with in the past.
25% Cooking. This is probably the biggest challenge and headache of all. Not because I can’t cook, but simply because a typical Japanese apartment kitchen is not spacious enough to make anything more than instant ramen, and maybe fry an egg or two. So basically I kept trying to use the cutting board to cut up an onion but it kept falling into the sink, and I had to rest the other ingredients I had on the washing machine because there’s nowhere else in the vicinity other than the floor. Nonetheless, I saved lots of money for all of my work.
28% Adventuring. I traveled around and met my good buddy Thomas Hughes in his native Meguro. Below is a picture of its inherent splendor.
With Thomas we journeyed, as promised, to Kenshukan again for their last night of fun and drinking in a foreign land. We got to experience vicariously their sadness, while maintaining a status of more than a little removed, as we will be here a great deal longer. It did upset me that we can’t spend more time with them now, we all bonded whilst drinking as much beer as a human being can in two hours. In the morning we went home, and I took a walk through Matsudo and enjoyed the simple pleasure of being in Tokyo. Then, when I realized I was hungover, I changed plans quickly and went home for a nap. That concluded this week’s adventure. And don’t check the math on my percentages, it’s perfect. THE END.
12/22/06
This week in Japan was our last week before Christmas break. Because of this many things at school were much easier. But as I studied my Japanese this week I began to more completely realize just how ambiguous the Japanese language can be. Linguistically I can’t fully explain, because it’s not only the language, it’s the culture of Japan, and their obsessive aversion to confrontation that is vexing me. I talked with Tyler, one of the high school’s English teachers who has been in Japan since high school. It seems that this perception of what some might deem cowardice was not just an inkling that I had in my head alone. However, as reasonable and experienced as he might be, Tyler is a very confrontational person. It’s easy to understand how this culture would wear on his nerves more than most. Japanese never want to refuse or say anything negative. They do not wish to offend or make unnecessary trouble. These values, although noble, tend to lead to an exaggerated and oft times infuriating ambiguity in their communication. For example, when asked to do or attend something they might not want to do, the answer “chotto” is given. This literally means ‘a little’, but it is used as a kind of ambiguous refusal, which could be expanded to mean ‘that’s a little difficult’ or more bluntly, ‘that’s not really something I’m going to do’. This is only one of many many sub textual levels of communication Japan is operating under. I understand a little, and I myself find it, at times useful when in a tough spot where I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. But as someone who values clear and direct communication, that’s a little bit, well ‘chotto’.
To give an example from my personal experience, this week a group of girls we knew last year came to our apartments. [Sidenote: These girls are Nick and I's confusing love interests from the previous year at Kenshukan] It is still unclear as to the exact meaning of their visit, whether it be to reminisce, drink, I really have no idea. Nick and my history with these girls is rather complicated, and would take me far too long to explain. Our literal spoken communication with them, however, has not been. Everything has been subtext, and I haven’t understood any of it. It’s not a class that is taught, the silent unspoken thoughts of Japanese girls. The night began and ended like any other with them, we talked of very trivial things, they giggled a lot, we drank, and eventually they went home. If I was a simple-minded person with no other thoughts than those dealing with hanging out with fun people, these girls would be super awesome. Driven to deeper trains of thought, however, I must wonder what exactly occurred that night? Were they flirting with us? Are they mad? I wonder what’s been going on with them for the last year.. I can know none of these things. It is all conjecture, and I guess I’ll just have to live with that, as it’s almost impossible to breach more serious conversation topics with them. Their deflection techniques are far too strong.
The last interesting fun thing I would like to mention happened just last night and is why this journal is late. I found via the fantastic Internet a club in Roppongi featuring one of my favorite DJs who goes by the name TaQ. I was very excited and decided immediately that I must go. Finally a chance to enjoy Tokyo nightlife. Upon hearing about this, my ex-girlfriend Rieko [who also happens to be living in Tokyo for the duration of this trip, but whom I did not get to meet with much because her job is so crazy demanding] also asked to go. While excited someone else wanted to go, I had to wonder about it, as Rieko is not exactly the clubbing type, and if not for my incessant playing of techno CDs in the car with her, I don’t know that she’d have been into it at all. But as long as I had someone with me I wasn’t complaining. We got to the Warehouse (that’s its name, the club) at about 11:35, and the dance floor was a little lacking for energy, enough so that I was reminded of past wedding receptions in which I had to convince members of my family to dance. This was a process that took some three to four hours usually. Nonetheless, TaQ was there and I was satisfied with that. Rieko was not however, and of course did not want to dance. She wanted to listen to TaQ’s original pieces she knew. Of course, so did I, but I didn’t come all the way to Roppongi to sit up in the balcony, so I bought an overpriced Red Bull and vodka and began trying to shed myself of dignity. Rieko left one hour later, fifteen minutes after which, about 200 more people showed up and TaQ began to play the songs we both knew.
It was amazing to me that as the concert really began, everyone knew all the songs, they were actually fans, not just random clubbers. It is also important to mention that TaQ’s music is found almost exclusively in Beatmania IIDX, a Konami music game which is surprisingly popular in Tokyo, and because of which, almost 80 percent of the crowd (to my relief) were total nerds. I must also emphasize that I was the only foreigner there, in the front row, over six feet tall wearing a fedora. I was a little bit noticeable. Even so, I danced with them for almost 3 and a half hours, as TaQ played and mixed 2 entire albums(!), but I mean, I guess stamina isn’t such an issue for a DJ.
Afterward, everyone receded and/or left, and I, faced with a 500 yen price for a glass of water, got the hell out of the club. It has been quite a week and I’m sad to say I don’t have any good pictures. I don’t have a camera and I wasn’t with Nick as much this week, but I’m sure I’ll more than make up for it next time. Until then, this has been a long entry.
12/29/06
This was our first week of vacation time and because of my lack of Japanese friends, I haven’t really spoken much Japanese in the past seven days. I’m slightly depressed about this. The most I’ve communicated has been the slight murmurs of ‘arigato gozaimasu’ at convenience stores as I pay for my Fanta before slinking home to watch far too much television about giant robots. Activity occurred when our friends Marcal and Thomas came and we went on a mission to find a place called the Golden-Kai. During this trek through Kabuki-cho, I was decapitated and had trouble continuing with the rest of the evening.
Luckily we found a rather brilliant surgeon in a bar later that night, and he was sympathetic to our plight. He reattached my head and the rest is history.
Seriously, however, I had to ask numerous times how to get there, but Golden-Kai was a tiny street made up of various bars, which was interesting, but as it was 7:30 at the time, we became more interested in the Subway across the street. Turns out, can’t get the cold cut trio in Japan, but it was delicious nonetheless. A strange thing about Japanese Subway sub sandwich restaurants is that they don't ask you "what do you want on the sandwich?" they instead asked us "キライものはありますか？” or, "Is there anything that you hate?" I kind of wanted to answer, 'yeah, that question WTF ma'am??' But instead I said relish. The rest of the week was made up of video games and various trips to Akihabara to get more video games. That concludes this week’s glorious synopsis.
Again, that shouldn't have been written. Terrible idea, and even worse because you're picturing it now, and I even gave it a setting so you would know where the poop was located. Awful. I know, but I cannot resist you see.
I played some games. Some of them were fun, but some were not, and now I have to tell you WHY:
REPORT ON WHY
I bought Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion because it has repeatedly been so highly recommended and Walmart was selling it for ten American dollars. So you know WHat?? I took a chance. On romance. This game is pretty great. I used to hate Morrowind for its ridiculous melee combat but it turns out it's not at all unintuitive if you're playing on a console instead of an ultra-janktified laggy PC! At first I was happy you could play the game in third-person, but after like an hour I actually prefer the first-person controls! They're great and it makes it super immersive! If you're drunk its an adventure for you just walking around outside and fending off stray wolves and angry crabs.
Something that is lame however is that I spent like forty-five minutes creating my characters face only to find it's way too small for his body and is still the ugliest thing ever. All the characters are pretty much. That's sort of annoying that I have to look at all sorts of disgusting Lion and Dinosaur people all the time, but since I'm always in first-person mode, my own ugliness doesn't really bother me.
The first time I watched someone play this game they showed me the awesomeness of how you can just take anything and everything from anyone's house and go sell it for cash. This got me pumped to be a master thief! But!! The game WON'T actually let you get away with stealing most of the time. In fact, the authorities are incredibly super-human and know EVERYTIME I take an apple from someone's dresser. Not that they really come after you or anything, but if you want to be in a guild or do like, anything legal at all like talk to people in a town, your criminal record prevents you from doing this.
I know this is pretty much holding up that crime doesn't pay, which is a good moral value to have, I agree, but fuck man! If it prevents me from doing half of what I want to do if I do it, why even let me do it at all!? That's mega lame. So lame in fact that I actually am taking time out from leveling to proclaim to the internet my dissatisfaction.
Other than that though, the game is more or less amazing so I'll digress.
Game number 2 is like shit in a biscuit that you didn't know was going to be there and so you bit down on it hard and felt the SQUISH. This game is called Bad Company, and it is boring as fuck. SO they start you out with like a gun, in a war. So already I'm dissinterested and wondering why I even downloaded this demo. Then there was some dialogue about how this team is a ragtag Sandlot, Mighty Ducks, fucking ghetto underdog squad of misfit soldiers but they're gonna stop the enemy. After being laughed at for using real military terminology with my sargeant, they give me a gun and now I can move around and shit in first-person.
Now, the graphics in this game are quite good. So good in fact, that I began to feel the inevitable loathing feeling that I might get if someone actually sent me to go fight in a war. I don't want to be there, I don't know who I'm fighting and everyone around me is retarded. I used to think I hated FPS games as a rule, but I don't think that's really it. I think I just hate guns. Guns and war are now as boring to me as sports and sport-related video games. I didn't even know where the enemy was attacking from and I tried to hide behind stuff (much like I would in an actual war), hoping my teammates would successfully shoot whatever was attacking. No such luck. Now, the game is on easy mode. I thought to myself 'surely if I just run out there I'll see the enemies and be able to just finish this and move on right?
I must be really stupid because I lost about 89% of my health just looking for my enemies but the only ones I could see were the people who were supposed to be on my team. So I tried to kill them, just because I could see them. Failed, game wouldn't let me do it. At that point I basically deserted the armed forces and ran out of the combat zone where naturally I was killed by rogue artillery.
I don't really want to play video games for awhile now...
Here is more of my Japan diary:
11/24/06
Week II Synopsis
This week
began with a mountain climbing adventure. It was splendiferous and wouldn’t you
know it, we had to wait it line to climb about 80 percent of the time because
there were that many children climbing with us. At the top we found
civilization, and Cherry Coke, and I took many videos of our climbing in
action. It was really a great chance to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather for
November. The next two days were a stark contrast, as it rained without stopping,
and my shoes absorbed as much of it as they could. That’s my shoes’ special
ability you see, being able to soak up so much water that it’s as if I was
constantly wading in shallow, but very cold water. I walked to get some ramen
on Monday night in the midst of his abysmal rain and found the atmosphere to be
very quaint and homey. I watched the weather forecast with everyone at the
restaurant and ate some very cheap, very delicious ramen.
That week at school was much more laid back. I think I’m finally getting adjusted. One interaction that stuck out in my mind is that of one with a high school teacher whom I barely know. She had just transferred in and I’d heard some complaints about her but nothing specific. I had seen her wandering about before, and she seemed very flighty and high-strung but I never took much notice. This Wednesday, however, she ambushed me and took me on a tour-de-force of craziness. She barged into the break room as I was just leaving and immediately demanded we have a talk. She then proceeded to tell me that everyone in the school was racist against her (she’s Filipino but legally she’s a Japanese resident, I know she insisted on showing me her credentials), and demanded to speak with Mr. Green. I was very much hoping to get out of this situation quickly, because although she seemed to have dire issues, she seemed perfectly fine with unloading all of them on me, a completely uninvolved intern. I was going to Mr. Green’s class anyway so I said we could go together and got up to leave.
At that point she grabbed my hand with both of hers tightly, and insisted we go hand-in-hand. Her eyes have this intensity to them that is really hard to contend with, so I just went with it. On the way over she took the longest way possible, speaking about several different subjects, none of which I had any knowledge of, completely without segue, and then every now and then would whisper common facts about the way Japanese schools are run and give me a knowing nod, as if to infer there were some great conspiracy going on. This went on for what seemed like a year, as she refused to let go of my hand. Finally we got to Mr. Green’s room and he talked to her for about five minutes, repeatedly dismissing her, and then finally she left, and he turned to me and gave me the ‘Oh-my-god-what-is-wrong-with-her-eyes’, which I was happy to receive, as I was partly thinking I might have to keep this insane story to myself for the next few months.
There’s nothing that really tops that. The next day we had off and since it just happened to be Thanksgiving we thought we might celebrate with the only other Americans we knew. Before that though, we journeyed to Akihabara to pick up a new Nintendo game designed for an age demographic we completely weren’t a part of. I have played almost nothing else since then. Today we went to setsumeikai, a day in which parents of 6th grade or younger children come and see the school to decide if they should enroll their child/children in this illustrious private school. John had to give a speech, in English, which I don’t understand. I mean certainly the parents can’t all speak English, and he can give perfectly fluent Japanese speeches, but then there are still lots of things about the English program here that I don’t claim to understand at all. That’s it for this week, look forward to my exciting adventures next time!
This blog needs more cinematic twists. It also needs to be written in consistently. However only one of those is liable to happen. There are a few things I need in my life right now: I need an arcade-style Pop'n Music controller, I need a girlfriend, and I need direction. I'm more or less certain the first one I can set as more of a short-term goal. I could use any and all tips pertaining to the other two, however.
Something disturbing is happening to me lately. Every time I am in a situation where I am not 100% into the conversation, my brain keeps throwing at me the momentously terrible idea of "why don't you just throw in a random sentence that has the word 'poop' in it". Something surprising like "I'm probably going to poop on your car later". But just because I find this so immensely giggle-worthy is hardly the point. I can't actually say things like this around people! But once it's in my head I just laugh about it for longer than is really appropriate, and then I have to wonder "are these an example of the coping skills I've come up with to deal with adult conversation?" That somber, and utterly unfunny thought usually shuts me up. I just oft times enjoy marveling at my internal struggles that no one else will likely ever know of.
I could summarize the events of this summer... but it's not really worth it. I'd rather look upon this period as an abstraction, and so it will come to be eventually in memory. What is important is that I continue to live, and that there are still those people who support my continued existence.
ALSO!!!!!! I found the entire diary I wrote for the 5 months and however many days I was in Japan last year. That is a much more interesting plot arc! I will serialize it and sell the rights for MILLIONS!! Have a taste!!
11/17/06
Diary Entry 1
This is the first of many illustrious recountings of my adventures in Japan. This week is the second week I’ve been here, and to be honest I’ve yet to come across much culture shock this time around. It’s my third trip to the country of Japan and for the past year since I returned from Senshu I’ve watched almost nothing but Japanese television programs. So many things are different, and if I may insert opinion, better than Lincoln. First off, melon soda. Doesn’t exist in America, I’ve looked. It’s a bit rarer this time around, and honestly all of the soda is much more expensive, which poses something of a problem for me as it functions as my lifeblood. But after two weeks, to be honest, the dollars feel like quarters and even though deep inside I know I’m spending more, the soda tastes that much better because it creates monetary value in my heart. I often ask about where I can find Bubble Man, my favorite candy drink, and it seems the Japanese people do not share my sentiment for it. However, this is fine with me, because Japan continues to sell it.
I bike to Matsudo station frequently now to play video games, eat at Yoshinoya, and browse manga at Book-Off. I have never been more pleased with my location, but it's a little difficult to make friends aside from John who is, while very fun, not Japanese and thus no fun in a way because I really just want to speak Japanese all the time. But again, it’s only the second week, and John’s been great thus far. I’m in a great deal of flux day to day due to the fact that I’m not used to doing so many things all at once. I usually keep a diary, but while I was in Lincoln I was lucky if I could come up with one memorable event for everyday. Here its kind of hard to even keep it all in mind at the end of the day. Of course I have a terrible memory, so that doesn’t help me much.
The most interesting interaction I can think of offhand would probably be the first week when I was walking out of a convenience store, an old man fell right off his bicycle and Nick and I spent 2-3 minutes helping him up. He seemed very embarrassed. Well that’s all I can think of offhand at the moment, but worry not. There will be a much more detailed and interesting retelling of these and other stories on my blog once I successfully figure out how to make one.
-Justin
You may wonder like I do why I only capitalized certain words. Well I could analyze and break it down but A.A. Milne never had to explain when he did it so neither will I. If you didn't read Winnie the Pooh as a child that might have looked like a quasi-intellectual literary reference but sadly I can't really make those. I hate reading books. I can't seem to bring myself to care long enough to get through an entire book. Watch me now describe summer backwards so I can easily segue that last concept:
Today I went with Yellow and Red to Barnes & Noble. I wish someone would bottle the fragrance of that store so that I could smell like books all the time. Other than that, awful time spent there. Yellow bought 6-7 literary classics, including Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. And I'm sorry, I know it's all influential and thought provoking but that book is over 1000 pages in like 6-point font single spaced. That's too much. Condense, honestly. I - prefering the term 'visual minded' to 'intellectually inept' - perused Frank Miller graphic novels I had no intention of buying. I feigned the sense of friendliness they are accustomed to, but I was not having a good time at all. I don't know when it happened, but I am losing closeness with those two very quickly. I'm glad my friends who have graduated college aren't all married with kids and all, but honestly, I can't abide their sense of fun these days. I feel so trapped in Lincoln, I don't know why I came back. I am not supposed to be messing around here like this. I am not supposed to be playing GTA4 for seven hours a day. This is my training period, and I need to exercise self control before this all ends like it usually does with me just finding the easiest way out of the situation at the last minute.
Summer, so far, has been a happy vacation with dental surgery mixed in. Insurance was running out so I had to go to the dentist again. I have like forty-seven cavities and extensive tooth decay because I still eat like I'm ten. Now I'm torturing myself trying not to indulge in my greatest vice, sodie-pop. I am not doing terribly well so far, because my self control is terrible. I don't go to a whole-body doctor either because he'd likely tell me I have Diabetes or Gout or something. Better to be blissfully ignorant of impending doom than waste your life worrying and rationing I always say.
Was there a point here besides rehashing events? Shut up, it's not rehashing, it is Chronicling. But yes I did have something I was going to convey, some kind of reflexive thought to put up for later musing. What was it again? Oh yeah. My brain is a booby trap. I have booby trapped my own brain so that now I can't seem to break this pattern of behavior. This is so annoying to me I can't begin, but I wonder if it's just me sometimes. I usually just go about procrastinating for the purpose of lowering the stress levels of doing actual work and it's worked really well in the past. So what is so different now? I have to ask. I don't dislike myself and I think I'm pretty great most of the time, but I am constantly failing at everything recently. Usually, this signals that it's time for a drastic change, but I still lack any real drive. Utterly pathetic, that I can't even make a serious attempt at what I really want.
If anyone can give me some hints or clues on how to bring this out, or if we're just doomed to be habitually the same thing gradually changing but not ever really changing over the course of our lives. Is there some kind of spirit journey quest I can go on? Can it involve backpacking across Europe or living with monks in Tibet? I'd be more apt to pursue these actions if I didn't think I was secretly wanting to go just to get out of doing more schoolwork and facing the reality that exists in the here and now. Is there a psychadelic drug that would alter my cognitive thoughts to the point of being able to achieve all that I want to achieve? Am I even capable of being the person I want to be, or are my habitual thoughts too deeply-seeded now at this late stage in life?
Comment as much as you can. But I already pretty much know the answer. It is a lame answer, but I have to say it: "The answer lies within yourself". I guess if I truly believe in freewill and the human potential to self-evolve I can only come back to this. It all works perfectly in theory, but self-betrayal is such a bitch. Maybe if I watch I Heart Huckabees again I'll achieve clarity. Ironically, the previous sentence is a perfect example of the one preceeding it. I am a man of words and not of actions. Ideas ultimately bring about nothing without follow-through. Until I can deaden the stigma of action as being too stressful and best saved for later, I cannot hope to conquer any of this.
Now I wrote way too goddamn much about absolutely nothing. Did you even read that?? I did, I just re-read it. I seriously should shut up, how can someone so in love with their own words hate to read? It's arrogant when you think about it. It's like I'm saying that the words I write are the only ones worth writing. I don't actually feel that way, but maybe it's just because I don't trust anyone but myself.
Someone break this cycle. I implore you, I have no one to turn to. I need to trust in other people to help me up, so give me something to go on here. I'm just another lost soul trapped inside a bubble of ego and trust issues! To consciously let the shields down is completely disarming and goes against most of my better judgment. But if I don't take some risks soon I could be in here forever, endlessly reassuring myself that it's safer this way. The rest of humanity isn't something to be feared or quantified from a distance, it's the hope that can save us from ourselves. Right?? Communication is the only way out, but who can we trust?!
This is way too intense, I realize, but damn I've really got some momentum here right now. I desperately need someone who I can believe in. I need more people on my side, and the first step toward that is admitting what the fuck your side really is, so this is it. No bullshit. No fancy joke sentences with parentheses. Someone else catch this drift, I can't move forward alone. Inwardly the mind only spirals toward insanity, countering itself with what it knows to be the next logical step. But that step isn't at all logical, we are all lying to ourselves to try and justify why we're doing what we're doing. Without outside advice from another mind we can't hope to find the real answers of what we're looking for.
Aaaaaaand I've taken some deep breaths. It feels all epiphany-like now, but will it be in the morning?? Yeah probably not. I'm the one who hates the idea of putting these thoughts up on the Internet in the first place and here I am lobbying people to flock to me for aid. It kind of reeks of hypocrisy. Backtracking... fantastic. I guess my AT Field is back up. That stands for Absolute Terror, people. And just because it was named by a man who probably doesn't have a full working knowledge of the English language, doesn't mean it's any less significant. Fear is what's holding us back from each other. Laziness is the evil within us that begs us not to change, or move off of the couch.
For all of my fancy words however, I can't come up with a single practical application of how to defeat either of them. So I'll end with a plea to the rest of humanity: Don't pull any punches with me. I expect you to and react in disbelief because of it. Phrase your words to me as harshly as you can so I'll know you mean them. In return I'll do my best to take the hit, and respond with understanding and compassion.
Okay, look. I love Lost. It's like the most mainstream thing I like. The other being video games. I've played games since I was 5, and lacking the wisdom of experience I played through all kinds of terrible, wretchedly made games bought from bargain bins and given to me as a substitute present for polo shirts and other superfluous items to a child. I really thought I was getting the better deal at the time. Now I'm 24. I don't mess around with no-name third party developers or movie/anime-licensed titles with no depth of gameplay. I thought I was done playing from the bottom of the barrel. But that show... it's so mysterious. Imagine what secrets might lurk behind that mediocre gameplay... I must know!!
2 Days Later: So, I have wasted a total sum of 8 or so hours playing Lost: Via Domus. A game known to be bad even before I got it, but the thirst for Lost clues and the fact that the creators for the show actually told the developers all of the island's plot twists. I naively assumed at first before playing that the game developers would use this secret knowledge to make the game fully part of Lost canon. That even if the gameplay was laughable and the graphics abysmal, I could at least take comfort in the fact that I would be discovering possibly useful facts about the show that might make something, anything make sense finally. Just a disclaimer, the desire for obtaining these secrets must be deeply, deeply ingrained within you before you should even attempt to think about playing this stupendously complete failure game.
It doesn't start out so bad. I mean, you get to relive the beginning of the series and save the main characters from the newly crashed Oceanic Flight 815. Without doing any preparatory research online, you might actually assume at this point that the game is somewhat engaging and non-linear. Surely open-ended exploration of the mysterious isle would be the imminent next step.
But before we get to how that fails utterly, let me tell you a little about who you are playing as. I don't know about you guys, but when I played Kingdom Hearts II my favorite character was Roxas. 'Some people' think Roxas is a 4-5 hour slap-in-the-face to pretty much everyone playing the game. He has barely anything to do with Disney, or for that matter, even the plot of the game. However you get to play as him for a ridiculous amount of time and watch annoying superfluous cinemas of him interacting with his unmemorable friends and doing menial, slightly enjoyable but ultimately annoying, mandatory subquests. Barely any of which has much to do with Sora. Who's Sora? Who really cares who he is, he's played out. The real hero (to me in my extended sarcastic mocking) is Roxas. He's all the best parts of Naruto and Bleach (those of course being the filler arcs where drama and character development are almost completely non-existent). Now, if only someone could make a game where I could be a filler character who no one cares about for the ENTIRE GAME!
Guess what. The fucking did. It's called Lost: Filler Arc, and it's the secret real title for this game. Did you want to play as one of the characters from that show you like? Didn't think so. That's why we made sure that he has absolutely nothing to do with anything on the show, and more than that, doesn't really even have a personality. He doesn't need one. He's too good for it. You play a man with a completely forgettable name who ironically has amnesia. Do plane crashes cause amnesia? Shut up. It's a magic island. Question nothing.
Your main character is very undistinctive-looking, and since you wake up in the forest with that famous 'dilating-pupil' shot, I assumed I was playing as the Sora of the show, Jack Shepard. The face looked very incorrect, but I hadn't expected much from these graphics to begin with. Oh but wait, then I fucking met Jack, looking much more like himself. But the fact that he's essentially an NPC with some terrible voice actor copy made it a much more saddening surprise. The next annoying surprise was when I found that only six of the original cast of the show (none of them main characters) provided voice talent. The rest of them (there are a lot more characters) are imitators who give a range of sub-par (Hurley) to 'DBZ Funimation dub' (Locke) levels of performances.
Now, gameplay. I almost put quotes around that word. Your main character, who turns out to be named Elliot Maslow is a photographer/journalist. Basically a rough archetype of the douchebag-y main character of Dead Rising. 'That game was pretty fun' you're thinking, 'what other gameplay features have they taken from that game?', you wonder.
To be fully blunt, pretty much none. Taking pictures with the camera can be kind of fun with all of the island's mysterious features, right? Well it might be, if you were allowed to keep any photos you take. Elliot has unlimited film, but only wants you to capture about 11-12 monuments throughout the entire game to unlock game secrets. However, you won't even enjoy those moments, as it was apparently deemed unnecessary to add the feature of being able to look at anything you photograph more than once. Therefore, if you just go around taking pictures of things you think look cool, or even things that you think are actually pretty important and want to look at later, Elliot will mutter 'No good', or other equally disparaging remarks because he's a professional photographer. He only wants very, very specific Polaroids which he apparently throws away immediately after taking them, trading them instead for the surely much better unlocking of the game's secrets.
I'll keep you in suspense as to what they are for now. First let's recount my waste of 8 hours. They start you out picking up water bottles and things you find on the beach and trading them to Locke for torches to enter a cave (which if you were confused by the concept of trading, are all given monetary values in American dollars). You don't need light to make it through the cave. It's ridiculous easy. What you need it for is the fact that if you ever stand in total darkness for more than like, a second, you will be instantaneously killed. By what? Are there graphics for this? I don't see why. Lost doesn't need to explain things concretely to you, neither should it's video game. You can curse the gods of fate and redo the entire last part again. Yeah you have to listen to Locke's horse of a voice actor again too.
As the game progresses, the camera does have one other function. Periodically, Elliot will remember a flashback (OMG just like the show right??) by having blurry memories of the past and making you capture a vital clue to the plot by taking a picture of it at just the right time with your camera. Logically, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and basically, it's not really very fun either. But Elliot's flashbacks turn out to eventually be possibly the only juicy tidbit of this game (albeit a far removed one), as they concern Alvar Hanso, founder of the Hanso Foundation. Hanso is said to be the Dharma Initiative's benefactor as was told in the Swan station's orientation video. However, he has never actually appeared on the show. Classic Lost, never give out any information that actually relates to the plot. Even so, it's not the worst or even the most irrelevant flashback the show has ever done.
Eventually you actually get some payoff and you can freely walk around Season 2's 'hatch' and mess with the alarm system to see that awesome neon map of the island Desmond's buddy drew on the blast doors. You even get to discover the never-before-seen giant magnetic turbine that's powering the Swan station (this reveals no secrets, but it looks pretty cool). Then you turn the thing off though, rendering the Swan station harmless and creating a massive plot hole. Don't assume that the game cares about this though. Other than about two or three fully explorable areas of familiar environments which the game merely warps you between, there aren't a lot of fun places to go. Actually the word fun shouldn't be in the previous sentence at all, because it's not fun and there's barely any places to go. You will find yourself back at the dumb beach a lot begging the other castaways to trust you even though you have no memory or proof of your identity. Sometimes you have to run across the forest terrain evading the black smoke with your trusty compass you find that reads 'Via Domus', which magically points the way home.
Wait. Let me re-qualify that sentence. 'Forest terrain' is code for 'one very small simplistically rendered forest map', 'evading the black smoke' means running into a tree hiding place, one of which is located every three feet. And finally 'trusty compass', which really seemed like it should be useful for getting through the map quickly, cannot be seen during gameplay ordinarily but can only be looked at for a few seconds at checkpoints, and even then it doesn't point the way home. It points to other checkpoints. So the path of a linear forest turns into a zig-zag confusion bonanza. Also whenever you have to hide from the evil black smoke (that's about every three seconds) in some trees, when you come back out it randomly loads from a different position and camera angle so you have no idea which way you were facing. That's how you annoy me for an hour and a half with as little programming as possible.
The rest of the game's elements never amount to anything. The electric-box puzzles kind of seemed out of Myst. They were a little creative, but the rest of the game's lack of fun made me cheat and look up the answers. The compass is never used outside of the aforementioned headache forest map, squandering a perfectly legitimate gameplay/plot device. The trading of items isn't even really needed except to buy a gun. A gun which, although you can aim like RE4 with a laser scope, doesn't need to be fired more than three times total throughout the whole game. Shoot a door. Shoot a guy. Shoot some dynamite. Those are your only opportunities. There are no enemies whatsoever in this entire game. Nonetheless they let you make an ass out of yourself and carry up to 150 extra bullets (It comes with 15, unless you go back and unload on something useless I don't think you can even empty the first clip). The rest of the plot isn't even worth mentioning. Eventually you make a deal with the Others to ruin the remaining validity of this filler plot by involving main characters in a final-never-happened-in-the-show-confrontation at the Black Rock. It's not even worth it to explain in detail how retardedly easy the final boss is. You just have to stand in a certain place and shoot the gun once.
After that, you have a minute and a half to get through a Pitfall-esque obstacle run to your boat that will require that you jump AND duck to avoid creative obstacles (tree trunks) in your path. When you win, (you will), John Locke and his terrible voice actor meet you at your boat. I was really, really hoping he'd blow it up as soon as Elliot got on. No such luck. But no matter. In my much-better ending, Elliot's useless compass points him away from the correct heading while leaving the island and he dies from that crazy time sickness Desmond got. If you watch his flashbacks, it appears he indirectly killed the only person who could have been his constant. OOOPS! SPOILERZZ!! I have now saved you all 8 consecutive hours of hate..
Should I reveal the unlockable game secrets too? After listening to my twat of a protagonist repeatedly complain that I wasn't taking pictures well (even of the things he wanted me to) for a good portion of the game, I returned to the start menu to see what secrets I had unlocked.
Original Art from the game's development. I think almost 10 of them! YEAH, I FUCKING SAID TEN. This is apparently Ubisoft tapping into this new "replay value" idea that newer games have now. I think after I beat the game, I spent upwards of ten full minutes mystified that I had actually considered the idea that these unlocks might not suck. Then I spent the next twenty taking a shower because I felt cheap, and the three hours that followed slowly comprehending how sad my life is that I actually made time to beat this game.
Yay uninstall function! With the proceeds from selling the game I was able to purchase a smart polo shirt.
P.S. Dear game developers, if it's still profitable to make another Lost game, (which I'm sure it is) I humbly suggest you abandon the whole 'play-the-show' idea and just make it a 2D fighting game like Guilty Gear. Honestly, at least two or three people get punched in almost every episode, it would be a cult classic instantly. Think of all the possible characters! You wouldn't even have to get the actors to provide voice talent, just use audio from the show for their tough talk before battles. And so many good mid-bosses: Rousseau, Ethan, Mikail, Tom, Michael, the list goes on...
Either that.... or actually render me the entire island and let me sandbox a little in that Dharma van with Hurley. Let me hunt some boar. Let me relive the actual plot I enjoyed and leave easter eggs scattered everywhere rather than an elaborate shit-in-my-mouth plot that barely makes sense. That is all.
I guess to do one of these 'looking ahead' kind of end-of-semester things you have to look back, as there is nowhere else in time I can look semi-clearly. I remember when I was in eighth grade, someone who was a few years older than me telling me how great high school was and how you "discover who you are." Those words stuck with me. I was excited, even though I thought I had a pretty good grip on myself, I was still recovering from the socially disabilitating status of moving schools in fifth grade. I remember I desperately craved an identity (naively assuming this was a universal definition, I probably just craved social acceptance).
When I got to high school, I did end up socially blossoming quite a bit. But I had so many different cliques I was running with simultaneously, none of them could meet. Well, it's not as if they literally couldn't, it's just that they wouldn't have liked each other. But they all liked me. That made me feel fake, like I was just using them for friendship and saying what they wanted to hear, even though I genuinely had fun with all of them. I had friends that fit almost every one of my interests, but I couldn't bring myself to affix an identity to anything. I thought that the girl who had said those prophetic words to me was merely deluded, and that the only way to find identity in high school was to co-opt someone else's. I mean, I did that. You sort of need to for survival, but inside I knew it wasn't the truth, it didn't identify me as a person. I would be different from all of these people, I would evolve into something unique.
But my charm only increased as the years went on, and by my senior year I found that I could say absolutely anything to underclassmen, especially freshmen, and they would hang on my every word. It felt good, and I loved it. They saw me as something that I was not, and it was so easy for me.
I used to regard that as my best year, because as soon as I entered college the world collapsed on itself. Aside from my closest friends with whom I could be comfortable, I had no social identity again. There were innumerable sums of people and I was just so exhausted by social output I ended up not talking to anyone and staying in my dorm for weeks and weeks. And now I was already supposed to be an adult, so it was doubly shameful that I found myself lost in self-doubt. A lot of things have happened since then, and of course time heals most wounds, but I still feel incomplete.
The thing that survives and still nags me the most is that retarded little voice in the back of my head that tells me: "You're not who you pretend to be, you're not who they think you are." I know that there's no truth to it, it exists because I continually refuse to find solace in the qualities of another person and accept them as my own. Well not good ones anyway, if it's something I find annoying or detestable about a person I'll immediately personalize it and think "well I can't be mad at them, I'm the same way." All of this is flawed thinking. I need to move past it and change myself somehow. I need to evolve, but I can't do that if I'm still lost in doubt.
So my essential resolution for this year is to quit worrying needlessly about things that I'm much too mature to even care about. I don't have to be searching for identity, I've known it all along. I just need to be confident in that and move on with my life.
It would also help a fuckton if I could sleep at reasonable hours and reattain balanced thought patterns. Sadly, this will not occur tonight.
Alright.. this is going to be a little 'stream-of-consciousness'. I foolishly did all my homework in the first three hours of work, leaving me with a five-hour window of nothing to do. I'm not generally a bored person, but I am quick to fall asleep. So this is to keep me awake and entertained for a few hours.
I have a pretty great idea for a musical. Okay, well I mean I've had it. I frequently pitch this idea to my friends but they can't sing so only feign interest in it. But it is of utmost importance that it be realized. This idea is Mega Man the Musical. I found out after having this idea for like a month that it was not fully original. There's a group called the Protomen who have an entire album which is a Mega Man Rock Opera. I wish I could say that the quality of it is subpar, but I'm pretty in love with it. They took all the essential drama you didn't even know existed in a 1980s Capcom NES game and seriously put it to music. These men perform on stage wearing motorcycle helmets, which is awesome. Here I will attach a picture:
The only way this dream could ever come to fruition would be for me to make highly influential friends in the theatre department, make Aaron Weiss who is a keyboard genius move back to Nebraska and write like 10 more songs, and then of course build plastic costumes for eight robots and a maniacal Dr. Wily and a stage that spins on a rotating circle in the middle of it like they used it Les Miserables. Totally doable.
I told my sister this idea excitedly and she just went "Won't happen. You won't do that." I hate her grasp on reality and the fact that she just says these things openly to me. If Mega Man still has a fanbase in ten years I swear I will make this dream come true. But no matter how I write it in words, I just can't seem to sell anyone on this yet...
Oh well, I have successfully enjoyed two hours. I really wish Cartoon Network would show something other than Inuyasha, I am so sick of hearing about Kikyo I want to strangle her. WHY isn't she dead? It's not a tragic romance if she continues to live and annoy me in every episode. I hate this show. Television is so completely failing as an entertainment medium anymore, I can't express that enough. Why do i major in broadcasting? It's truly a wonder to me.
THE END
Okay, so I'm still like 80% disappointed in myself for essentially squandering a full week of down time to do the tidal wave of homework that continues to approach and I keep surfing or... doing something that involves waves. Honestly that metaphor doesn't make a whole lot of sense I wish I hadn't wrote it. The point being, that despite being wholly irresponsible just going to the arcade almost everyday, I had a ridiculous amount of fun. So much so that I still can't bring myself to feel bad I took advantage of all of it.
I am a very irresponsible, lazy, creature of habit. I also don't like to say such harsh words like that about myself but realistically this is an unquestionable truth. I like to dig a ridiculously big hole of negligence and see if I can do everything at the last minute, and currently I am working on my largest to date, it seems. I might have finally gotten a leg up on the damn thing if I only spent a few days of break concentrating on term papers and the additional distance courses, I might be in a reasonable position now. However I'm afraid the call of Pop'n Music was far too strong!!
It wasn't as if I spent all of my time playing video games, I mean I have a life and stuff. I am unable to live the nerd-dream-life of absolute devotion to obtaining money for games and technology, I have an unnatural attraction to human interaction, and it has plagued me at every turn. But overall for the better I would imagine. With my nights I drank with friends I hadn't seen in months, and it was good.
Twice during the week I went out impulsively when my friend... um, Blue (blue is the best color) told me that there were going to be meetings for the sketch comedy we were trying to pull together. Honestly, I really upset my family with how quickly I had to abandon dinner plans, but this is a real professional-type film studio I'm working with. And it seems that with a just few good words from Blue to this committee I was placed on the team to write and produce a show! So I hope my family understands, my sister especially is kind of unstable because she is a true hikikomori. She knows how to devote herself to study, and will probably graduate before me despite my being two years older. She is a health-conscious vegetarian, which places most of her tendencies at polar opposite with mine, (I only eat pasta and candy) but we get along because we have similar points of perspective on life. Plus we can quote all the same movies.
I ended up having one last dinner with the family Thursday, which ended up with my mom and sister and Jay my step-father engaged in political debate. I'm fine with political debate, I mean I have opinions, but it's as if these people are arguing simply to hear themselves talk. So i just eat and listen, and occasionally tell a joke. It's so easy to make adults laugh, I know all the weak points. I just relax and enjoy the ambiance. The house is large, a mansion even. My mom moved here a year ago after she got married. The both of them are big-wig administrator types for Nebraska colleges, so they can afford this type of lifestyle. I, however, don't fully trust it yet. They gave me a guest room and everything but I barely unpacked. This isn't my home anymore, motion-sensor lights all over the backyard, piano, they even have a maid that comes once a week. I don't feel comfortable there. The house I knew is now lived in by my sister, and occasionally I will come see her. But she is like a crazy person about her privacy, and you have to call 2-3 days in advance to reserve, then hope she's feeling okay about it on that day. Have I completely lost focus?
Yes. I have. But even in realizing this, there is no catharsis. I am here, watching the hours tick away before I have to go back to class again. Lame. I'll have to study and bide time until something else interesting happens.
Yeah that's right. I'm fighting sleep. This is SURVIVAL people I had to do this to stay awake or I will be fired because consciousness is like the only responsibility this job has. I wrote this exciting adventure that I've been toying with in my head for years that I'm sure has occurred to you too. I'm amazed that the idea of Fox, Goku and Ichigo together on the planet Mars hasn't been copyrighted already. I really got lucky on this one. And now finally the first chapter is sort of done! Ohhhh sweat and tears, and dozing off and waking back up again. It's been a journey. Obviously there are huge plot twists in store and I've already twisted the character of Fox beyond recognition so rejoice! This story is called
THE DAY MARS WAS DESTROYED (no sleep, really not kidding this was my last alternative)
Son Goku thought he was pretty fucking awesome. One day he was flying around in his spaceship and getting terrible mileage because he had once again cranked up the gravity to over 500 times that of Earth in a needless attempt to train himself. However as he was flinging his 6-ton body around the walls of the spaceship, something surprisingly went wrong. It blew up and he died in the vacuum of space. This was so tragic, but it took King Kai another four weeks to actually sense that this had happened and telepathically tell Krillin to go find the dragonballs and come up with another loophole in logic to bring him back to life before his family finds out.
Death means nothing to these people, thought King Kai. However he then remembered he lived on a tiny planet hovering somewhere above Hell, and that death didn’t really affect him too much either. He then thought of a hilarious pun which was hilarious when he said it, but if I try to translate it into English it would just sound lame. So I won’t.
Meanwhile, the evil Garlic Jr., who everyone was hoping is dead, is not. He was sent to another dimension to plot evil schemes somehow. His only hope of coming back to this world was to somehow trick a human into opening a dimensional wormhole (which sounds a lot more complex than it really is), but how could he reach out across the universe from inside this vortex filled with nothing but meaningless existence?
Kurosaki Ichigo was noticeably irritated. As usual, seven or eight of his class members had been replaced by Shinigami who had followed him back to the human world because something was “amiss” or “not quite right” about spiritual activity. Yeah right, he thought, Ikkaku clearly just came to get laid. You can tell he’s not paying attention in class. None of them are paying any attention, and then they act like this is just some cute situation we were thrown into on account of evil spirits existing in the world. That is complete bullshit. There are ghosts following me everywhere, and the general consensus among them is that the most irregular thing happening is that a whole bunch of unemployed Shinigami are abusing the Japanese school system. Again.
Not one of them could pass for a teenager. Rangiku is the only one the other kids don’t think is creepy, but I’m sure if Renji had tits that huge no one would really care about his demeanor either. Renji has tattoos on his fucking FACE, for god’s sake. The only one who actually passes for our age is Hitsugaya, but I’ve seen the hom