Well, I've got an expected 4 days off and not a whole lot to do.

My Thursday class is canceled and I've no classes Friday. Last week I finished the last of the baito(job) work I had, which disappointingly, was about only 3 hours total(in 2 sessions), last term I clocked 10 hours. I am transcribing some audio tapes by a Linguistics Professor, just simple exchanges, speech acts; complimenting, requesting, comforting, etc. Half of the recordings this time were from children, which, of course, made them very easy to transcribe; simple and slow speech. He's a charming and sincere guy by in addition to being awkward in a standard Japanese way, he's really wiry and jumpy. Note: if ever you make a comment to a Japanese colleague in which some modicum of complaining, perhaps even the slightest notice of something being less than preferred, BEWARE, everyone will drop what they are doing and jump on the problem with chaotic zeal. It's better not to mention things sometimes(most of the time). I was listening to dialogues directly from a camcorder with headphones (on which every button was labeled in japanese, can you believe the Japanese have two words for headphone! headphoneヘドホン and earphoneイヤホン). I realized every time i pressed rewind or any other button, the beeping was not coming from my headphones but from an onboard speaker on the camcorder. So I'm pressing buttons a lot and I think I should probably acknowledge how annoying that must be. I admit what just struck me and say how annoying that must be. Of course they don't admit to it being annoying but instead both of them(grad student and professor) are now standing over me looking at the camera and making various offers of what to do. We can transfer the data to a computer!(which they admitted they could not do earlier that day). I try to calm them down and say "If it doesn't bother you it doesn't bother me!" Slowly putting them at ease I get back to work, in a small office, with an erratically beeping camera.

That's just an introduction to the baito. Today I'm requested to come back and add the introduction to each dialogue on the tape by the professor that last time I was told not to include...which should take me about 10 minutes, but he'll probably give me an hour of credit for. He has 2 PHDs from British Universities, but he's most likely just keeping his study tighter by having native English speakers transcribe the data.

The rainy season is here, but even this weather is spotty. Today the sky is 90% clear and there is only rain in Okinawa and the west of Kyuushuu. I'm awaiting word form a friend as to whether we'll try to do something fun in Tokyo or not, so I'm not really sure what I'm doing today. If all else fails I'll go to the Gym.

Alright, time to make my standard Yakisoba lunch.

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?

My last post was only 2 days ago!
I think I am writing more to establish habit but I do feel a bit of inspiration.
Something I did gave me a whopping headache this morning. I woke up with my alarm, somewhere around 7 1/2 hours of sleep, groggy and sedated but hopeful. I took a cold shower which didn't help much and decided zazen would put me to sleep instantly so I opted to make breakfast first, which is never as good as zazen first. As I made breakfast my mood declined rapidly as I lumbered around the narrow kitchen. When I had finally finished making breakfast at a record slow pace I just wrapped it in ceran wrap, placed it in my closet and fell back asleep. I had felt tired all of yesterday so I sensed something coming on. A cup of coffee or two after breakfast and I felt physically genki but the headache had worsened. I took a few aspirin and laid down for a few minutes. I tried zazen and within a minute or assuming the posture, I felt the center of the pain in my forehead come into sharp focus and get dramatically worse in just first minute. Abandoning ship, I took another aspirin, covered my eyes with a sleeping mask and laid down to a radio podcast, unable to move to much without further aggrivating it. Luckily it was 65degrees today so I opened the windows to get fresh cool air, cigarettes, and diesel.

Had a great tutoring session with a British friend I met here, who is level 7 in Japanese(I am 2 here). A long late lunch with two cups of coffee int he second floor f an oddly European cafe near Waseda.

I went to the convenience store(next to my house) and bought my favorite can coffee "zeitaku espresso". The Ojiisan working at the counter, who is always cheerful with a slightly senile smile always on his face, asked me how long I'd been growing my hair before I knew what hit me. This is strange because most convenience store staff fill the time you interact with them with rote polite expressions so there is no time to insert yourself or anything unique into the interaction(it's rather boring). But he sees me there quite a lot(it's next to my apartment) so it's not so surprising.
I got home, dimmed the lights, donned my bass, and played along with Curtis Mayfield. I had turned off the computer screen to maintain the low light, put on the Superly soundtrack(excellent bass tracks for every song), but then when an unexpected song came on, I realized my player was on random. I couldn't catch it very fast so I realized it was "Miss Black America" whose bassline allured me. I figured, I like this song too, I'll just figure it out by ear. It took 20 minutes or so because it's no easy song, but I felt my hands become light over the bass as I nailed the verse break and then the interlude bass solo. I miss playing music.

It's late evening now, I plan to make it down to the neighborhood sentou(public bath) where there is a hot tube with herbal waters which make my skin oh so nice. My rice should be ready and waiting in my suihanki(rice cooker) so now it's time for the exact same curry I made last night.

skipping class to take back my time

My last post was Sept.18, 2009.

I'm not sure what I have to say exactly, but I am lucky to have this time again to say it. I'm not going to Japanese class today, I have two other papers that are more important to finish up. But they aren't important either, I'm regurgitating a few websites about a sociologist to form a biography and outline of ideas. I don't know if we even mentioned this man's name officially in class and we only brushed up against his ideas indirectly, even though we were supposed to have well understood them. This class is a joke, as are all my classes here. But I know I have to be a student here so I just resolved myself to get through them and not spend too much time on them. At least they are easy grades. But not going to class today, and waking up at 6:20am, a habit I have spent the last week beginning to cultivate, I am therefore fully awake, meditated, with a good breakfast and a clean room, in other words capable.

I had some extra time before I had to edit those papers. I decided it would be a good idea to play bass before I got started, maybe I should do this everyday I thought? I thought about how I spend my time and what I can do with it. The morning is a time of quiet where I can cultivate my habits and not be rushed to do anything. Just pursue thigns as I need to without any other demands or responsibilities to attend to. This is the time I always fantasize about; all those things I want to get good at, I just need to do them everyday! But where is that time everyday? Even waking at 7, I have just enough to shower,shave, meditate, cook breakfast, eat, dress, and pack my bag for the day before Japanese class. That is the minimum I need, anything less is sliding back. This life is like momentum. You have to cultivate it constantly or it withers and it's like an atrophied muscle everyday.

We had to make New Years Resolutions in Japanese class and I was reminded of a fun kanji compound I wish I could live up to
早寝早起きる
early-to bed-early-to wake
It has a certain emphasis when you can put the characters right next to each other, they become this one thing that you can do.
Or from Benjamin Franklin,
"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
It's simple, it makes one prepared for each day, progressing forward each day, the sense of which is one of the most essential to living a happy life, that your activities are cultivating greater good in ones self and the world.

I know I am an old man, and I could still live otherwise, but I am frankly very disheartened I see myself as generally alone in wanting to live this way amongst my piers. Especially perhaps being in Tokyo where there is so much available that it's easy to cut sleep to make new Japanese friends and drink. Even my girlfriend chides me for wanting 8 hours of sleep everynight,
若い！ You're young!
Young? Does that mean simply because I won't die cutting sleep I should do it? Do I want to be grumpy, stupid, tired, and incapable all day so I can stay up a little later? It's a shitty trade off and I see no reason to do it, I am not a child anymore, I have to move into manhood. She herself sleeps between 3 and 6 hours during the week, but she has co commute over an hour each way and take the time to put on all the makeup the girls here feel they need to, leaving her little time to relax. I know the feeling, when you work full-time, when you get off you just want to drink, relax, and not do anything. That and she hate's her job she feels she's been trapped in for 4 years.

I know perhaps as an exchange student, you want to meet as many people as possible, practice your foreign language, see the new country and what not. All of which you will run yourself ragged doing. I guess I feel it's a little greedy and can easily be superficial.
When I first got here, every night I could, I was out drinking with the Japanese kids and most exchange students I know did the same, we were enthralled by the new experience, getting to use Japanese, and by how happy everyone was to meet us. I knew I was running on something other than sleep and food, I was running on experience.
All well, the diatribe need not continue.

I don't think anyone much reads this, but if you figure I owe you a letter or at least a postcard by now, you're right. I've been leary of the postal system, but I have a letter already written to send to my aunt that is long overdo, so hopefully I was soon overcome my fears.

Yours truly,
Taylor

Found a new home

Adventure in Tokyo trains today, took an hour and a half detour by mistake today on a main underground line in Tokyo. Saw the police manage rush hour traffic; shoving the last stragglers into the already bursting train, making sure the doors didn't smash any fingers. Just showed my host family pictures of my family back in Ohio. My father looks like Richard Gere!
No sweet potato liquor and baseball with host poppa tonight, I came home late. We watched a tv show where a panel argued for which historical figure would win in a fight. Then, actors dressed as the two combatants and smack talked each other to charge the show. Sorta brilliant, really silly.

I had a bought of loneliness today. Since we arrived we were surrounded by the international communication club throughout our orientations; being guided from our hotel to the classroom, shown where we could eat lunch, talked up mercilessly, showered with kindness. But now we are with our host families, all very kind souls but 60+ and speaking only Japanese. I had to turn in my class registration form at Waseda(my uni here) today(They still use paper for registering classes!) and so I went into downtown Tokyo(Shinjuku) on my own. On the train, even as a gaijin(foreigner) with curly brown hair in a land of black and straight, people don't look, or if they do, only for a second. The only way through this experience is through complete yielding. We use language as ways to explain ourselves and maneuver through sticky situations but in a difficult foreign tongue you are defenseless as a child. There is no obfuscating or even basic maneuvering; I am an awkward shy manchild doing my best to exist in a world full of adults who talk fast. Seeing so many faces go by, none of which I could really talk to reminded me of the alienation I felt in Germany. It is a necessary part of the experience but it must be broken up lest I start to crack at the seams. My mind drifted to girls, that sweet floral smell of girls. Kasumi from the international club, who was my assigned "buddy", whose smile melts me that I find my mind drifting to over and over. Most girls here are gorgeous, all are dressed to kill, just without the ego.

I wondered if I should keep probing the feelings, whatever they were, with calm breath and open mind. I figured replacing noise in my head with other noise wouldn't really address the problem, but I eventually opted for my ipod anyway. It gave the feeling a nice flavor. Luckily I soon ran into my friend Grant who is also on exchange at Waseda. He's been to Japan before and is a real resource as well as a wise friend to talk to. I was very grateful, reeling in my mind in to address the task in front of me, instead of the nebulous abyss of my mind.

The subway mishap wore me and the feeling out and all energy was devoted to the very immediate concern of getting home in rush hour Tokyo.

Okaasan(host mother) prepared a huge delicious dinner, a whole fish, rice, vegetables from the garden, miso soup, and meat. I'm stuffed, content, and droopy eyed, now to shower and to bed.

In Transit, In Portland

Once again that sweet strong balanced coffee stumptown is flowing through my veins, back in PDX. Staying with cousin Greg in his cave of a house. I've noticed people in Oregon keep their houses pretty dark, I was the only one who would turn on the light in the kitchen no matter what, maybe reflex, but I swear it helps. Greg is stubborn guy, which means I either have to really challenge him or just hope his way of doing things will work. But truly entering into that dialectic I feel little sense of choice in the situation. I tend to trust people. From the wisdom of causes and conditions I know that all conditions, of people and situations, have apt causes, conversations that base their point of interest and humor around, "how could it possibly be this way, this is so random, blah blah." really don't engage me anymore. Sometimes they can be quite entertaining, to go nuts with deductive reasoning, but I know there is a reason, or a cause rather, and by calling it "random" you simply state you don't know while ostensibly saying there is no cause. I know language is about expression and I try not to be too literal, because I think people use the word "random" in their own sense, not the strict "without reason" meaning.
I had a good chat with my mom and vented some of my greg frustrations, I feel better. There's no sense in making enemies, I won't see greg for a year, it would be silly if I couldn't just leave on good terms and enjoy my time with him while I'm here.
Errands to do, I used my blogging time talking to my mom so I've gotta go now!

High-Minded!

There are many lessons I know in my reason, the things I can discuss with others that we can both agree on pretty easily, ah yes of course!. Often they are steeped in spiritual understanding, sometimes lessons gleaned from the day to day. How little we actually understand about the conditions of other people's lives is a frequent one for me. Just Yesterday Ejo, Zen priest of the Eugene Zendo, talked about En, or causes and conditions. When you see anything, a person, a bird, a stone; you must also realize you are seeing infinite causes and conditions that have shaped and actually created this thing. If you see me, you see my mother's concerned look, my hometown's old brick italian architecture, my high school's non-air conditioned classrooms, and my grandfather's proclivity for diabetes. When we look at ourselves, we are able to see many of the causes of our condition because if we have become astute observers, over time this observation will help snuff out the causes. However, when we turn to others, when we see a condition, we often presume to know the causes. Then we give proscriptions or judgments and from those standpoints we can impose right and wrong.

Saturday, in Yoga, the man next to me had some of the weakest postures I'd ever seen, and I'd seen him before. Just going 50% into the posture with limp limbs, constantly fidgeting. His effort seemed so impotent, I kept wondering, I've seen this guy come for at least a year and he has some of the weakest postures I've ever seen, how come? Judgments and annoyances follow quickly. I presumed to know when I hadn't even spoken to him. I tried to put him out of my mind and focus on what I was doing and let him do what he needed to do. But still, over and over would my attention would land on his effort and I would rip him to shreds in my mind with insults, which I don't even want to mention. When I would realize I was needlessly wasting my energy in a negative way, I would try to pry it off, succeedingly intermittently, but the conditioned mind always returned to what it was used to. Perhaps my own misery being taken out on the world and others as culprits for my condition over the years has taught my mind to blame others and criticize them and resent them.

After class, as I laid on my mat in the yoga room on the verge of a mighty headache, he started talking to me as he left the room, which was odd because usually silence is maintained, but he went out of his way to talkt o me with no initiation from my end. Turns out, he has swine flu. Yea, no shit, swine flu. Swine flu and he's coming to 105degree yoga for an hour and a half. It put me in my place very quickly. What wasted energy of mine creating tension and resentment in my head on false assumptions I had just spent.

Oh yea, and again, we don't know why other's are as they are, but the real point is that they are so for a reason. Or rather, there are conditions than have brought to this person to be as they are. It's not our duty to criticize for how they are but only to help when we can. The next point is that "helping" is an acquired skill, it takes patience and restraint. In my experience and from what I've seen, people learn best from their own experience, from their own drive to change or learn. So what you can really do is be pleasant and lead by example, lead by your own realization and wisdom. Another way to say this is, You can't answer a question that has not been asked. As in your advice and proscriptions will do no good if the the instructee isn't listening. This is hard for my judgmental self. I have been trying to just listen and be pleasant, be insightful, be helpful. Often I work myself into a shitty mood when i try to advise or argue with someone. Now when arguments come up, unless they are going pleasantly I usually just try to defuse them because what will happen the vast majority of the time, is that we won't agree, we'll resent each other and we won't have learned anything. More important is to maintain your composure so your ears remain open and you can try to understand why the other person feels that way, their causes, and then maybe you can see into their perspective.