What is necessary? Really necessary? What can I afford to lose? What is holding me back?
I am asking myself this as I go through my apartment, packing things into boxes. It all has to fit in a minivan. Right now, I'm worried. I've packed CDs, DVDs, and many books. There are still many "things" around.
Do they stay? Do they go?
In the small, precious space that I have, both in the minivan and in my suitcases for Japan, what bits of my current life will transfer, and what will I leave behind?
I'm still not sure.
On Monday I got the news: I'll be living in Yanai, Yamaguchi. Three junior high schools and one elementary school.
But before I get there, there's sitll a lot to do. Packing. Moving. Flying. Settling in. July is going to be busy.
Still, even if it's just the tiniest bit scary, I think I'm going to enjoy it.
It's waaaaay to hot out today. The photo is of a goose family we came across when we went to the zoo last month. Aren't they cute?
After a lot of waiting and wondering, I finally got the job offer. So, in theory, I'll be moving to Japan in mid to late August. I'm not sure where I'm being placed, but I'm hoping it's down south.
Right now my life is filled with packing and sorting, wondering what to keep, what to store (I have limited storage space), what to sell, and what to toss out. I need to start making a schedule or I'm not going to be done in time. It's...really unnerving.
Still, I think everything will be okay.
I'm still trying to get over my cold, so I rested today. It was really nice.
I drank tea, I played with the cat, and I read books. Multiple books. It was the greatest luxury I've felt in a long time.
Well, graduation has come and gone. I was sick during all of it, so it passed in a blur of family and friends and fights and Kleenex.
( p_q)
Still, a big moment has passed and now I need to look to the future.
"Future" is such an ominous word, isn't it? There's so much "future" and only so much we can do to direct it.
Where do I go? What do I do? What kind of "future" do I want?
I have to think of all this now and I'm not quite sure that I want to.
( p_q)
Still, a big moment has passed and now I need to look to the future.
"Future" is such an ominous word, isn't it? There's so much "future" and only so much we can do to direct it.
Where do I go? What do I do? What kind of "future" do I want?
I have to think of all this now and I'm not quite sure that I want to.
On some level I am aware that watching sentai and buying sentai toys is silly....
...oh well.
Today, as I sat in Spanish class, it struck me how mono-cultural Americans are. True, it's called a "melting pot" over here, but that's old language. Now we're more like a lake with bits in it - bits we don't acknowledge or merge into the master-culture. It made me think about how I live and how I want to live.
I'm an American. I'm rude, elitist, and a consumer to my very core. That's a bare bones definition of what it means to be American these days and, really, you'll only disagree with it if you are an American, living in the mono-cultural way.
I speak two languages, Spanish and English, and would like to pick up Japanese (working on this one)as well as perhaps a bit of German (was working on it but gave it up).
I'd like to go live in Japan for a while, then maybe South America, then...somewhere else. The thought of sticking to one place, forever, feels a bit like a trap.
Someone asked me, though, if I wasn't proud of my culture, proud to be an American; didn't I think it was the best place to live, etc. I asked her if there was a reason I should feel proud to be this over that. The way I see it, I was born here and, yes, I was born into a lot of very nice circumstances, but I was also born on a very large Earth. It seems a shame to stick to just one corner of it when there's so much more to look into.
I'd like, if my willpower permits, to live across cultures, forging a self that isn't particularly this or that, but rather a sum of all the things I've found that are good about people. If that means finding words that aren't American, or customs that aren't American and eventually brining them back home, I don't think that's altogether a bad thing.
See, the way I see it, we spend a lot of time thinking about things as "foreign" and not enough time thinking about how different customs could benefit us. If we - and by "we" I mean the entirety of the global community - stopped being so concerned about what does or does not fit into our particular cultures, we might just stop being bastards to one another.
Just sayin'.
I'm an American. I'm rude, elitist, and a consumer to my very core. That's a bare bones definition of what it means to be American these days and, really, you'll only disagree with it if you are an American, living in the mono-cultural way.
I speak two languages, Spanish and English, and would like to pick up Japanese (working on this one)as well as perhaps a bit of German (was working on it but gave it up).
I'd like to go live in Japan for a while, then maybe South America, then...somewhere else. The thought of sticking to one place, forever, feels a bit like a trap.
Someone asked me, though, if I wasn't proud of my culture, proud to be an American; didn't I think it was the best place to live, etc. I asked her if there was a reason I should feel proud to be this over that. The way I see it, I was born here and, yes, I was born into a lot of very nice circumstances, but I was also born on a very large Earth. It seems a shame to stick to just one corner of it when there's so much more to look into.
I'd like, if my willpower permits, to live across cultures, forging a self that isn't particularly this or that, but rather a sum of all the things I've found that are good about people. If that means finding words that aren't American, or customs that aren't American and eventually brining them back home, I don't think that's altogether a bad thing.
See, the way I see it, we spend a lot of time thinking about things as "foreign" and not enough time thinking about how different customs could benefit us. If we - and by "we" I mean the entirety of the global community - stopped being so concerned about what does or does not fit into our particular cultures, we might just stop being bastards to one another.
Just sayin'.