spring break

I have foolishly forgotten a pen of any sort so now I'm stuck with only my computer to work and study on. Therefore, an off-line blogpost.

Starting to feel a little too adrift in this 2 month spring break, in this experience. A year is long enough where I'm really forced to acclimate, replacing all the things I get from my usual American life with japanese substitutes; Doing a yoga dvd my mom sent me instead of 3 days a week at a Bikram Yoga studio, there is no way I could afford it here, walking and taking trains instead of riding the bike(trying to fix that, need more bike buddies). eating rice and curry instead of mexican and pizza. drinking mediocre coffee instead of Northwest finest, always going out instead of spending time in my own dwelling to meet people, everything being far away instead of close. Noise and diesel on the street, seas of people. seeing the same color hair on %90 of people. Having a girlfriend instead of being single.

When I get struck with thoughts and memories of being back in America, I feel a little shot of excitement in my mind as it starts to spiral off into day dreams. Gotta cut it off at the root before it suffocates like Ivy. The novelty is long gone, it's just different now, some I like, some I don't. If I could take a week break and live my old life in oregon, I'd take it. I'm little tired of the big city. I miss the trees and people of the northwest. I want to ride my bike up Spencer's Butte in Eugene and barbeque at Jeff's house afterwards.

I miss my close friends. I miss the grittiness of Americans, drowning in the sea of refinement and complacency of Japan/Tokyo.

What delusion, gambare.

Trying to right my sleep schedule, it slipped to waking around noon, bed around 5.

Listening to DJ Krush, a japanese guy named Hideaki Ishi, who is actually a big player in world hip hop, he was going Instrumental hip hop before most people I think of as starting it, his 1994 albums sound totally current. I'm knee-deep in his 1994 "Strictly Turntablized". I'm glad there is more to modern Japanese music besides J-pop. Don't get me wrong, Enka, koto, and shamisen are bad-ass, but the mainstream pop culture is so gross. I know, I know, that's the same in America, but here I feel a little less able to swim against the stream and find the authentic stuff

I found a "baito", a word shortened from "arubaito" which is the japanese version of the german "arbeit", or work. But here it means strictly part-time job, a real job has a different name. I'm helping a linguistics professor at Waseda, I'm proofreading transcripts of English dialogues from video. It's no sweat and he's grea tto talk to. He got his masters from Lancaster, UK, so his english is stellar. I may even do grad work with him later, that'd be rad.

Well, I should sign off and finish my current baito assignment and study a bit.

Anyone want a letter and a souvenir?