Tearing

I know what’s my problem. I’m tearing between 2 worlds. Two mindsets, two lands, two languages, two physicalities. I'm being stretched, tortured by these polarities. In my apartment I’m home but the outside is strange and scary. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to break this. I want it to snap. I need to exist as 2 separate beings in both places, I cannot stretch myself between the two, the tension is too great. How do I cut the line? And when I cut it, how do I live so that I hang on to both mes? Do I set aside an increment of time? “Ok, for this half hour I’m in Wisconsin. For this half-hour I’m in Minnesota. For the next 36 hours I’m in Kambara.”

I think I just make the most out of every moment, realizing that I do exist in 2 places. There are going to be unique and crazy thoughts because of this. I’m going to find myself in places I never imagined. I should commit my mind to whatever task is before me, in whatever spectrum it may be. Make a decision, and enjoy being in the place where it brings me.

Choose responsibility.

Make a decision.

Do not waste any time wallowing.

Live cleanly.

Absorb your surroundings as you enjoy them candidly, and then know that you are a part of it.

Realize that people surround you everywhere.

A smile reaches across all cultures.

pics

First few weeks back in Japan:

http://uwec.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119757&l=787b6&id=59501063

Aa...bla!

Thought stream, lazer beam, whipped cream, eau claires...

I haven't written in a while and maybe I'm ready to explode, maybe the moment will pass a la "lost in translation." I need to see that movie again now that I live here.

BTW I'm listening to Cracked Rear View right now... first CD I ever bought.

Something caught my eye the other day as I was biking to school- something that I never want to forget nor do I think I ever will. It's playing in my mind now, those few precious seconds of time, vivid and candid. I was passing a group of students on their way from the train station and I looked left and saw a man lifting a crate of freshly caught sakura shrimp. Behind him stretched several yards of black drying tarps with hundreds of square feet of shrimp already laid out for that day's drying. I remember thinking to myself in that moment, "This is how I want to remember Japan." I can't explain it I guess, other than the brilliant way my pictoview was displayed, cutting and fresh to my morning eyes.

I'm caught so physically between home and here. Living in my apartment, existing in this room with my English books, my English thoughts, my English facebook... I said this to Will over break when I was home - I often feel like I'm going to walk out of this apartment and hop in my car and drive over to his place for a visit. Then I realize he's 10,000 kilometers away and I can't do that. Then I walk out of my house and see my rusty bicycle in my parking spot, hear the words I can't understand and feel my small world stretching slowly from my feet.

I signed on for another year. It's official. I turned in my signed contract form to my supervisor this past week. I had already decided my second day in Japan that I would sign on for another year. One year is not enough to spend in another country, and looking at it after 6 months I still feel the same. What have I really learned here in this brief period? I'm not saying I've learned nothing, far from it. But I think I need more time to really flesh out some deeper meaning. Certainly practically I need more time here to learn the language.

I spent 2 1/2 hours this Saturday evening in Starbucks studying Japanese. It felt good to be there, it felt like a corner of America pulled up to these shores and tucked in around my sides. I slept in its aroma and dreamed of home.

Time Change

I changed the time format on my computer so it should read my time of posting. I had tried changing it earlier, but it didn't work, so I'll have to watch it for the next few posts. All previous posts are behind by 16 hours.

*edit* Oh woa, no way! Blogger changed all the times automatically, so they all now say the times of publication in my reference frame. (Except for the first few which were published from Chicago).

I live on the ocean

"I live on the ocean"
by Luther Flagstad

I live on the ocean, yeah the ocean

Where the land meets blue

And the mountains kiss the sea.

My time waits and radiates

A love of that’s ancient and grey.

I sing to the ocean, yeah the ocean

And take another drag.

Where moonshine tastes like sweet rice cakes

And reflects off the wavetops to me.

I smile for the ocean, yeah the ocean

With its roaring surf and unknown deeps.

The sun it soaks into me.

My bicycle takes a hundred wakes

And keeps on lickin’ and tickin’.

It’s over now for a thousand hours

Till heat grabs me and bakes.

I stand by the ocean, yeah the ocean

Who dares defy me with her.

I know it and then it scares me again

Till I go begging on knees.

I fancy the ocean, yeah the ocean

Please take me down someday.

For there’s no other tow I’d rather pull

Than the final one left for me.

Grandpa

Ok wow, I just spent the better part of my late evening watching "vlog" posts on YouTube and I've realized that I am way behind. Maybe it's the fact that I'm 24 and from the baby boomer generation for the Internet or maybe it's the fact that I hate computers, but wow am I behind. Just today I figured out how to make links go through words that I type (they turn blue and get underlined!) and I thought I was cool. And now I'm watching "vlogs." I had never even heard of the word before this evening.

I did get a computer camera for my Birthday this past November, so maybe I'll have to dust it off and try it out sometime soon. I think it would be pretty cool to jump on the video blogging train. (hee hee...vlog).

Whaling

Here's a great article on the Japanese position.

This article describes my stance on this issue as well. Currently the Japanese are hunting whales under the classification of research with approval from the International Whaling Commission. They are continuing to test for numbers in order to make a final decision on reopening commercial whaling. The Japanese are going about their whaling in an appropriate and responsible manner. There is no threat to the sustainability of the species they are hunting. The Minke whales are at "Lower Risk" status, and while the Fin whale is "Endangered," the Japanese fleet is only taking a planned 50 per year from a population estimate of 50,000.

The efforts being made by the Greenpeace ship near Antarctica are a waste of time and ideology. If Greenpeace were really concerned about the environment and the sustainability of our species through the preservation of foodstuffs they would be reallocating their energy to the issue of bluefin tuna depletion. Greenpeace has published a report on the increasingly dire situation but more needs to be done.

If I'm left scratching my head over Greenpeace, I'm fearful of groups like Sea Shepherd. Sea Shepherd also has a ship in the Southern Ocean, but this ship is not intended for protest only. It is there to seek and destroy Japanese whaling ships. The leader of this group, Paul Watson, has rammed ships in the past, and he is trying to do it again. These people value the lives of whales over the lives of humans, and they won't hesitate putting people in danger if they think it will help save the life of an animal.

Other groups that I've found on facebook and the internet are downright despicable, and I won't quote them here because they are unnecessary, illogical and offensive.