An Update

Aren't all blog entries updates? (Shaking of head and jowls with a pfffppfew)

Wow. I don't know what to write. I don't know why I came on here. I guess I felt I needed to write something about being in Japan. My camera was stolen. Stolen at a nice onsen, Hana no Yu in Fujinomiya. I have to call the place back to see if it turned up. I was pretty pissed for about an hour and a half. I lost all the pictures I've taken over the past 3 weeks. Which actually wasn't a lot of pictures, since I haven't been taking much, but it was the ones I took with Will and Mike when they were here for the first day of their 68 hours. And I couldn't take any after that. Mike will have to tag me on facebook for you to see pictures with them. It was really awesome to see them. I can't believe it's been almost 8 months since I saw Will - that it's been 8 months since Steve's wedding. That is crazy. I was in Japan not even 5 months before I came home for a visit last time, and now I've been out of the country 8 months in a row. Crazy crazy crazy. What am I doing here?

It's really warm outside. Tomorrow it will be September. I'm sitting inside my apartment in shorts and a t-shirt with all my windows open and 2 fans on. I'm a bit shiny as well.

I'm seeing an increase in my Japanese abilities. It must come in waves. In levels. I went a long time without seeing any improvement. (Maybe it had something to do with not studying or speaking Japanese for 2 months.) I'm not scared of speaking Japanese anymore. Even if I fail to communicate, I'm not afraid to try. My confidence was greatly boosted with Will and Mike here because I was able to get them around - order food, ask for directions, call a taxi company and get a ride...have some short conversations with people asking about us, etc. I called and talked with the bus company that was picking people up for the Mt. Fuji Climb to find out exactly where the bus would be waiting. Furuyasan's advice from the beginning of our lessons together was to talk to people in Japanese - at the grocery store, at the conbini, waiting for a train. I never felt confident doing that before, but now I feel comfortable saying anything just for the practice or just because I'm a human being and they're a human being and I've got something to say or ask. I'm able to hear Japanese a lot better now, and I'm actually starting to remember vocabulary that I pick up in various places. The Japanese I hear is starting to register more quickly in my brain. Before I would have to listen to something spoken very slowly, then take that sound and run it through my data bank of recorded vocabulary found in the deep reaches of my brain, translate it into English, and then I would understand. Now I can hear something and either it makes the switch into English very quickly, or maybe I'm even understanding in Japanese. I'm excited about studying again (even with a sopping wet lesson book - story to come later, maybe if I have the time to type it all out).

I'm really trying to put on a good attitude. I had to argue with myself in the shower this morning. I was wanting to feel sorry for myself because I missed out on the AJET Fuji Climb since I was too sore from climbing it on Wednesday night. I wanted to feel down, and then I said, "no, I will be happy" and then I said "but I don't have anything to be happy about, so it would be wrong to be cheerful today" and then I said "life is a good enough reason to be happy" and then I said, "I can't argue with that." So I stopped arguing with myself and I won.

I bought new glasses. They are cool, clear, plastic, Japanesey ones. I had gone last weekend to look and couldn't decide between the cool plastic ones and a pair of frameless glasses that were much lighter and more comfortable and more professional looking. I wanted to pick the frameless ones, but my desire to look cool won out. I really don't like glasses in general because of that professional look they give me. I've been going the past year without any glasses at all, so it's not like I'll be wearing them much anyway. Plus I'm getting lasik surgery when I get back from Japan so I won't need glasses after that at all.

Oh yeah, I took an eye exam and bought glasses all in Japanese this past week too. If you think it's a harrowing time at the eye doctor's in English, think about trying to do those tests all in Japanese. Brian Regan's sketch on glasses comes to mind...

Ok. I got lost on youtube while I was searching for that Brian Regan link. whoops. Time got away. Tomorrow is my first day of school for the new term. I'm not ready for school to start. I have to start making lesson plans again. It's late (12:25am as I'm typing this now - hey it's September!) but I'm not tired because I'm excited with life and life's possibilities. I need to start each morning with time - time to talk to myself (not the creepy schizophrenic kind, just the morning pep talk time) and time to talk with God, to relax and start the day. And I need to get sleep before that. Ok, I'll start that tomorrow night. But seriously, there are so many things to be happy about and if I just take the time to see things that way.

I have many stories to tell you. So many stories about the everyday extraordinary that I find here in Japan, stories about the beach and the mountains and friends and people and the things they tell me and the things I see. So many of these stories will fall down on me as I'm sitting in the States years from now. Maybe it will be a plate of noodles or a misunderstood word or a trip to the mountains, but something will set it off and I will suddenly be rushed back to these moments of life here on this island, so many miles from home.

Now I'm going for a walk along the ocean. I have too much energy to take to bed with me, I don't think I could keep my head on the pillow.

For now, goodnight.

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This month's pep talk

Ok. I've decided to be happy. I'm putting all of the crushing weight of heavy thoughts down, nothing needs to be tragic or dreary or even crucial. My perfectionism can bite it - I'm going to have fun. I've been saying this to myself the past 4 months and now maybe I'm starting to believe it: What's the point of doing this if I don't have fun? I'm done griping about my schedule and work, I'm just going to enjoy what I'm doing. If I'm doing something that must be done, that's fine, it doesn't mean that, therefore, I can't enjoy it. Put a silly grin on your face, Luther, and you'll start having fun.

And talk to people. Even if you can only get as deep as 1 sentence or 1 question. Just do it. Don't shy from anything. There's no point. I already know that when I'm back in America I'm never holding back if I have something to say, something to ask. I'll do it just because I can. That girl behind the counter at the coffee shop, the gas attendant, my pastor, police officer, mayor, guy behind me in line at the ATM - if I got something funny to say, a question to ask, it's coming out. Now in Japan, I'm in a different culture and a different language but heck to that! I'm still going to try my Japanese even if it makes no sense whatsoever. There is no good reason any more to stay quiet.

Make friends. Invite. Don't rot in your apartment. Coffee. A drink. Atami beach. Book shopping in Shizuoka. Check the Shizuoka guide. Concert. Museum. Temple.

Don't be a turd.

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Next

Year Two

August

Shizuoka

I moved into town. Took a 3:30. Didn’t get there ‘til Four. My mind raced around nothing, grabbing to the little pieces that were wisps, waiting for something to materialize. I was fallow and realized this happened some time ago. I beat the road, looking for cigarettes. The machines had since gone Taspo – you now needed a card to buy from them, even though the beer machines were left open to the world and open to the teens. Cigarettes were a bigger pull I guess. You looked cooler taking a smoky drag, more than a cool pull. Sunday. Where had Saturday gone? I always wish I had more time, always kicking myself for not starting earlier. Less than eight hours ‘til the last train. Had this been eight, I could have had the whole day. Hell, I could put in my day and still return to the sun and a messy apartment, maybe with a reserve of motivation to clean. I was living between work weeks, weeks spent away from home, my Japanese home. In this day I realized that I wanted my home back home – over oceans and half a continent – to the sweet center of the northern world where my ancestors settled, having crossed that opposite ocean. I stood on the dirt outside the station, stood on an exposed root, looking down. This was Minnesotan soil – I pictured the woods in my periphery, green and hollow, leaves lined parallel, seeing water through the gaps and sun behind it. The soil was beaten low, maybe trampled by that summer’s campers, all putting their tent in the same spot, the door facing the southern sun.

I could write, I knew it, if only I had a plan. I could play, I knew it, if only I had the drive, the discipline. The stick of a benny addict. Or the observation of a man with an eye. But I was seeing maimed, almost half of my senses gone. My nose didn’t work and my eyes only saw the inside workings of myself, those tired and worn from a year overseas, away from home. I could talk to anyone now, I knew it. I would ask all the questions that popped into my head.

God, I loved – loved every girl that walked by, yet I knew I was settling for Japanese women, their faces now softening to my eyes. I know I’ll end up with a Minnesota girl, blond hair and blue eyes with a smile of wintry beauty, a beauty that warms in the summer and turns to golden brown, hair that lightens with the brightness of her laugh, tanning in rolled down shorts and freckled shoulders, looking at me sideways as she lays on the lawn. Soft white eyelids, like silk on my lips. You don’t have to explain anything to your own kind, you just get each other. Someone who knows the grip of Cheez-its, the foul of lutefisk, the lethargy that comes with the sound of an organ playing somber Lutheran hymns. It sounds strange to you, but isn’t it so normal? Such a part of the grind? Heaven knows it and heaven is soft and bright – a soft edged whiteness drifting above it all and settling down upon the sharp-tipped world below, dulling its points and blurring its edges, the grey melting into rubbed charcoal into cream into white.

Run away and marry me. I will love you forever.

Pictures!

Spring Break Period of Life

Clam Digging

My Parents' Visit

With my parents in Nara and Kyoto

With my parents in Nara and Kyoto 2

Parents around Shizuoka and Tokyo

Last days with the parents

More pictures from this spring

Leaver's Party pictures

Writings on the Ocean

The humidity does many things in summertime Japan. Some are destructive – I have already lost 2 shelves, a necklace and a pair of shorts to mold, and who knows what else I’ll lose. I have my dehumidifier running in my closet right now. It also keeps me in a nice shiny glaze and soaks my sheets at night. I have to run the fan to dry my bed during the day.

The humidity does some very beautiful things though too. Like when I’m biking to school and look up into the hills to find their tops erased by clouds, smudged out against the white sky. The ocean too seems to be born out of the mist, its giant waves generated just out of sight before being sent to shore. Standing on the beach tonight I could see it all in perfect moonlight, the humidity having settled down above the water. The man on the moon was singing his high sad note and the melody played along the moonbeams before being turned to pure liquid on the waves. The waves tonight came silently and didn’t sound until they beat upon the wavebreakers. I felt no bigger than a pebble tonight, standing there peering over them. The waves were just the right size so I could imagine myself standing at the edge of a lake looking up at the water lapping on shore. I wondered what kind of a sound those waves make to tiny ears.

I cannot forget you ocean, and I cannot look away. You’re magic- you don’t exist and you spread everywhere, beyond what my mind can fathom. I think I could lust after you, I would have run away to you if this were a different century. Ocean, take my thoughts and sail them over your belly; scatter my dreams and gather them on your other side. Hold me shallow and take me deep, deep to where my darkest unspoken fears lie sovereign and language knows no words.

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hmm

How quickly novelty wears off. You know, some things are only cool because they’re new. You put up with them, no, you enjoy them and appreciate them because they’re new. But when that is the sole quality on which they stand, they will inevitably crumble. Time in its sure march renders them ridiculous and intolerable. A love based on novelty is doomed to fail.

I’ve fallen out of love with obento.

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Read the post before this one first

Woah - I just watched a video of Phil Wickham's song True Love on GodTube. It's a really great song and I'm about to go download it as soon as I type in here. It made me realize that I forgot the reason why I even began to write my last post. I originally had wanted to comment on Dawkins' last statement in the God vs. Science debate. Here it is:

"My mind is open to the most wonderful range of future possibilities, which I cannot even dream about, nor can you, nor can anybody else. What I am skeptical about is the idea that whatever wonderful revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have dreamed up. When we started out and we were talking about the origins of the universe and the physical constants, I provided what I thought were cogent arguments against a supernatural intelligent designer. But it does seem to me to be a worthy idea. Refutable--but nevertheless grand and big enough to be worthy of respect. I don't see the Olympian gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the Cross as worthy of that grandeur. They strike me as parochial. If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed."

As a Christian, I do believe that God is so much bigger than what any theologian or human being can propose. Most of the time our words and actions as Christians do the exact opposite of showing who God is, much less so even coming close to giving an accurate portrayal of just who the creator is. Words fail when it comes to God. Human argument falls flat. Analogies are insufficient. Our understanding is left wanting. Yes, God is incomprehensible. The Answer is more than we will ever be able to describe, more than we will ever know, more than we will ever realize. My only hope lies in the everlasting, all-encompassing, always active Creator and His Son and His Holy Spirit to reach the lives of my friends and the people I know, to direct the message of salvation and hope into each of their lives.

Job 36:29
Isaiah 40:13
Romans 11:34
I Corinthians 2:16

How awesome and incredible is that?

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