October 15, 2004 - The Daily Grind

Getting acclimatized in Japan involves reexamining our daily routine. For example, grocery shopping involves walking through the covered shopping streets, malls, and roadside stands to find the best deals on each item. The variation in price is outrageous, so it pays to shop around. Each shop has its own specialty or bargain. Next, the food is quite different, so when we crave a bit of home, it's like a pilgrimage to find just the right item. This morning, I had 1" thick slice of white bread toast (6 pieces per loaf) with 'peanut butter' that actually seemed something like peanut butter gelly. Eeek. We bought a coffee maker that cooks the hell out of the local mediocre drip coffee, then continues to cook the hell out of it as it sits in the pot. Speaking of hot, our clothes dryer doesn't seem to use any air. It heats up just short of igniting, and spins the laundry without circulating the air. It comes out steaming hot and still completely wet. Another new daily routine. hanging the laundry on the balcony to dry, just like all the neighbors do. On a positive note, the rice is excellent, even without a rice cooker. It's quite expensive (about $4.00/pound), but seems to be an entirely different breed than we get in the states. Worth every penny. The high cost is related to limiting rice imports in order to preserve Japanese farms. Again, worth it. I'm walking my butt off over here every day, checking out the entire town and the hillsides. It's pretty cool. The locals don't seem to notice foreigners much, which makes it possible to not feel like a total freak. Our house is quite nice and we can walk to the waterfront or up into the mountains from our front door. Pretty cool. We took a 10-minute train ride to a local wind-surfing/jet-skiing beach a couple days ago. Paddle-boarding (sitting on top of a padded surf board and paddling with your arms) seems to be popular here also. White shell beaches. nice.

October 15, 2004 - The Path

I am at a bit of a decision point - I have two possible paths to travel regarding language study for the next 6 months (the following year will be devoted to thesis work): The balls to the wall, eat, drink, and shit Japanese language for 8+ hours a day - This will leave me as close to a native speaker as I will ever get, and with no life outside of the classroom... -or- The leisurely path, with only 3+ hours of language a day - This will leave me with enough language skills to stumble through the remainder of my time here (maybe) and the rest of my day to do with as I please. I've just about convinced myself that the leisurely path would serve me best. It will allow me more time to focus on architecture (this is where the dreaming part comes into play) and with that extra time I will be able to accomplish all sorts of wonderful things that will land me a super job when I return to Seattle. The only hitch is that the reality of the leisurely path will be more like sleeping until noon, scraping by in the "easy" language class, and producing absolutely nothing that will land me a super job when I return to Seattle. Furthermore, perhaps the true reason I am considering the leisurely path is because I harbor a deep fear that I'm really just a lazy ass, and the balls to the wall path might be beyond my capabilities. As I write this I can feel myself digging my heels deeper into the leisure camp, in fact, it appears as though I've made up my mind. So for now, and until the point of no return tomorrow at 1:30, I'll feed on the blissful yet severely delusional idea that I will be able to create and maintain a personal schedule of grand achievements through wise use of my free time as I travel the leisurely path of Japanese language study. It is more likely that after six months I will have gained little knowledge and largely forgotten what I spent my copious amounts of free time doing. For now I will try to ignore those thoughts and will, if needed when the time comes, do a fine job of burning the whole failed 6 months out of my memory such that I can maintain a firm belief that I am an accomplished individual. The great irony is that I was set on taking the "balls to the wall path" and it appeared as though it was (and maybe still is) going to be denied to me because the class might already be full. After much pissing, moaning, and pulling what strings I could to get into the class, I started to investigate the alternative "leisurely path" and now believe it to be my best course of action. I have come to wonder why I ever had any desire to go "balls to the wall" in the first place. This puts me in a funny place. I hope that no one stuck their neck out (or got bumped) so that I could get into the "balls to the wall class" which it now appears that I'm all set to turn down.

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