upswing

Picture a golfer in slow motion: the ball has been struck, its compressed shape reverberating from the recoil, the clipped grass dancing in the sunlight and catching the back-breeze, the club's blade rotating crisply and evenly... that's where I'm at. The upswing.

I have been here long enough to identify a shape on the culture-shock scale. I was excited and fresh in the first few months here. My positive attitude slowly dissipated in December, and by the week before I returned I was crying in my bed at night. I'm sure it had to do with the realization that I was going home and that I had missed 5 months of my loved ones' lives. When I returned to Japan the shock of realizing that America had been a vacation rather than the 5 months in Japan created a numbness that carried me through about 2 months until my degenerative culture-shock disease began to take effect again. I found myself frustrated in April and down right sarcastically scornful by April's last week. I felt bad because my parents were here and had to take the brunt of my poor attitude on more than a few occasions. I told them that it wasn't them, it was just me being fed-up. I remember describing it like this: The first several times that inconvenient or crazy things happened I was like, "haha, isn't this funny? I'll write a blog about it" but by the 20th time, and the 30th time and the 40th time it's just grown old.

I'm no longer seeing this world from just an outside perspective. Shizuoka is my home now. I'm part of it. I want a life here. I don't want a tour.

I think I'm happier now too because I'm again seeing some growth in my language learning. I'm starting to pick up more words, and new things are jumping out at me. Things that have always been there but I haven't been able to identify them. Like riding on the train. Before every stop the guy in the back would make some announcement that just sounded like a garbled stream of noise. Then I could understand "tsugi wa kambara. kambara desu." Which meant, "next up, kambara. This is kambara." Then I could pick out the words "hidari" or "migi" which mean "left" and "right" and gathered from those words that he was talking about which side the doors would open on. Then I could understand "wasuremono" which means "forgotten items" and then all of a sudden in like 2 days worth of time I found I could understand the most of what he said. "Tsugi wa kambara. Kambara desu. Origuchi was hidari gawa desu. Wasuremono wo hirotte kudasai." "Next up, Kambara. The exit doors are on your left. Please don't leave anything behind."

I think it's also my attitude. I'm assuming the best now and have ditched my sarcastic attitude. This country isn't out to get me, nor is any individual living here. I have a scooter and a real, rightfully gained and hard fought for license that makes me feel more like a human being. I feel in control since I'm am making choices rather than allowing myself to be happened to. There is nothing good in allowing myself to feel like a victim.

I'm content with God's good plan and am slowly and deliberately reminding myself of his power and his understanding that surpasses any pea-sized thought that squeezes itself out of my brain.
I have had some struggles recently seeing his sovereignty and cohesive and comprehensive grip on the world and its turnings. But then I started thinking, if God is powerful enough to create the universe with all its stars and planets, and to summon these things simply by the words of his mouth, then he also must have the authority over the powers of this world and the self-proclaimed powers of its inhabitants. A God who knit the world together, who knit a human, breathing and thinking body together, has it together. I can trust that.

It's easy for me to see the long run, but it's harder to constantly live in that truth day to day. That's probably why they say you should have a quiet time each morning and to feed yourself with God's Truth, found in his word, daily. I haven't been doing that and I know my life is less for it. Heck, not just my life but those lives that surround me as well.

The plan right now is to be a diplomat. A gaikoukan in Japanese. I think I'm going to take a day off work and schedule a tour of the US Embassy in Tokyo here soon. Then I'm going to look into getting an internship at the embassy or one of the consulates. Eventually I will take the Foreign Service Exam which is quite difficult, choose the Diplomatic route and hope to beat out 2 out of 3 qualified individuals for a 5-year training session as an FSO. One year of training and two 2-year posts in different places in the world with 1 post almost guaranteed to be a hardship position. Then after that a re-evaluation and hopefully an assignment where I realize a career. That's the plan.

Well, I should take my tired body to bed. I am excited by life right now. I'm thriving on the upswing. Keep my jaw relaxed and put in my 8 hours tomorrow.

.