Talk Is Cheap Even In $5 Words

Getting to this in a minute

It looks like this post is going to work a lot like the way the last one did, in that I started with an idea, it blew up into something gigantic and I'm coming back to the start to throw in some anecdotes before I get overly self-indulgent.  

The one thing I am a sucker for here in Japan are the seasonal products, especially when it comes to chu-hi's.  If I see 限定 (limit) written on a can, I feel compelled to buy it.  I had the above chu-hi (mikan, my dictionary defines it as "mandarin orange," but I'm not sure that's what they really are) yesterday and it was delicious.  I then went foraging for food this afternoon (i.e. taking my primal instincts to the conbini) and saw there is also a 限定 that combines two of my favorite Japanese chocolates: Meiji chocolate almonds and Meltykiss.  Naturally, I bought a box and have since eaten about half of it while watching Point Break, which has to be one of my favorite movies I've seen in recent memory.  I've actually seen a lot of movies this year that I loved because they feed straight into that part of my brain that's a 15-year-old boy: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Kick-Ass, Drag Me To Hell, Re-Animator, etc.  I don't know why it's taken me so long to see Point Break; Pegg, Wright, Frost & Co. did a brilliant job of parodying it in Hot Fuzz.  Now that I've watched it, it has just about everything I love in a movie: crazy plot (someone throws a fucking pit bull in one scene), early 90s excess (including the hilarious clothes), action, explosions, shirtless dudes, and Patrick Swayze.  And of course Keanu Reeves in his full "whoa dude" phase before he got all sad with his beard and sandwich.  It's also apparently directed by Kathryn Bigelow who just won the Oscar this year for The Hurt Locker... huh.  I can see how she and James Cameron were once married after seeing Point Break.  The 90s were pretty good to Lori Petty too; I kind of want to watch Tank Girl again.  And Gary Busey!!  Dr. Cox!!  And there was a line about Patrick Swayze's character going to "Patrick's Roadhouse"!!!!!  Amazing. 

ETA: Instead of cleaning my apartment and then doing work as I planned to this morning, I decided that The Ex-Presidents' line-up needed some updating:

 
From left: Martin Van Buren because he had the most epic facial hair in American history.  Ronald McDonald may have never officially lead a country, but he is the mascot of a global marketing machine and he's been haunting my dreams since I was a child.  Naturally The Iron Maiden would take over for Reagan since they were bestest buds in the 80s; also, no one makes a ball sac shrink in fear like Margaret Thatcher.  And Ozawa may have yet to actually lead a country, but look at that mug.  Could you imagine having that yelling your face to get the fuck down?  I'd pee myself.  Also it'd be a very effective form of birth control.

I guess I could no longer call them The Ex-Presidents.  I'm going to go with The Battle Axes. 

As for the rest of the week, it's been full of nothing but work.  I've basically taken this entire day to unwind because by the end of yesterday I was literally passed out on a couch at school at the end of the day.  It absolutely makes me miss the grad lounge a bit because those couches are much more comfortable  - no matter how gross - than anything we have here at IUC.  I woke up with such a cramp in my neck, but at least I felt a little more awake.  I had two presentations to make yesterday, and I didn't exactly make it easy on myself.  I presented on two of the research papers I worked on for grad school, one on the first textbook controversy in the 60s and Ienaga Saburo, and the other on Japanese ODA policy to Africa.  For the second one, I relied on sweet ass graphs like this one of net disbursed ODA to Nigeria:

 

Yeahhhh, that's the stuff.  Sorry UW people, I know I've bragged about this one before, but I still look at it and I'm like WHAT?  I spared myself the effort of researching  for these speeches since I've already done it (though I am curious to know if the MoFA has published any new stats on disbursed ODA... I'm  just too lazy to check into it now), but translating into Japanese (no matter how poorly) took forever and all the brainpower I had.  Then actually having to present it in front of people (TWICE) just about short circuited my nerves.  It took me all week to get both presentations together on top of working on more application stuff.  I still have yet another presentation next week and 3 applications, and there's still another week and a half of class, but I'm throwing myself over this finish line if I have to.

I hadn't stopped to think about it until this week, but we're pretty much at the half-way mark at IUC.  I can't believe how quickly time flies.  This also means I need to figure out what the hell I am doing with myself over the summer and into next year.  I have a lot of anxiety about this as well as I haven't a clue as to what's going to happen.  I am only applying to 5 schools and I think I have just as good a chance of getting as I do of not.  It won't be the end of the world if I'm forced to get a job (earning money for a change would be pretty nice), but it will mean I'll need to be more creative about my prospects for next year.  It should come as a surprise to no one that this gives me extreme anxiety, but somehow I imagine I'll survive.

The last little bit I've got is from last night when I attended an event hosted by IUC.  I'm still a bit confused as to the event's actual purpose; I originally thought that it was a fundraising opportunity for the school, but the audience was made up of primarily high school girls who presumably aren't digging deep into their trust funds to help teach Japanese to a bunch of graduate students.  Anyway, my sensei delivered a presentation about what exactly IUC does and the teaching methodology the senseis use to help us to deliver our language skills.  Once again, the Japanese people showed very little interest in me; I'm trying to be accepting of this, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of studying Japanese?  So that I can actually speak to people?  If I didn't want to use my language skills in daily life, I would've studied Latin or ancient Greek.  I think it's my general demeanor, and I also wonder if it's at all interesting to hear about a Japanese American trying to get in touch with their roots.  I know I'm bored of telling that story because I've already said it so many times, so I imagine it's just as dull on the other end.  But either way, it's still frustrating.  Apparently I have just as much trouble connecting with people in Japanese as I do in English...

Hold onto that thought for a second, because you'll be hearing a whole lot about that after the asterisks that are coming up.  I've got one last amusing story before I leave you to my self-excess.  If you read my last post, do you remember the story about getting totally confused at the conbini?  If not, in brief the clerk wanted me to pull a card in a lottery for a free product, but I instead first tried to throw in my receipt, then a 100 yen coin before having to have the clerk physically demonstrate what they wanted me to do.  I felt like a jerk.  Well, in my sensei's presentation last night he was explaining the importance of context (CONTEXT!!!!!1!!) in understanding Japanese.  

"I have a student that told a story in class about how they were at a conbini buying food and when it came time to check out..."

I heard "student" and "conbini" and was like "oh shit."  A few of us IUC students were laughing because we knew he was talking about me.  He looked right at me at the end of his retelling, "Yes, it seems this student is here" and looked right at me.  I hid in my hair.  I knew I kept it this long for a reason.  Aoki-sensei had laughed when I told the story in class, but I'd since forgotten about it. I'd like to think that the story itself is just okay, but it's my storytelling abilities that make it memorable.  And this is place to segue into the next section.

*     *     *     *

Has anyone else ever woken up with the need to write?  It could be about something very specific, but most of the time for me there are some mornings (and yo, even though it's Saturday, I was up at 11 and that's technically still in the AM.  As a side note, I actually slept without an alarm clock last night, which these days is a delicious indulgence) where I wake-up and there's almost a cramp in my head from that muscle screaming for a stretch.  This feeling is generally accompanied by an urge to sing, so my apologies to my neighbors if they can hear me rocking out.

It comes out in different forms; recently, I've take to Facebook and think of something to write for a status or commentary to something ridiculous I found on the internet.  This generally doesn't take much time, but it's an outlet and from what friends have said, I'm glad that I can also give someone else a laugh.  I used to keep a diary, but I haven't kept up with that in several years because it was too self-servicing.  At least in my experience, you never sit down to write about good things that have happened to you (because seriously, if it's so good why the hell are you sitting alone with a pen instead of going out there and enjoying yourself?), but instead when you're sad, frustrated, angry, upset, or any other host of emotions that you may not be able to express very well to other people, but you sure as hell can swear about for several pages.  And that's exactly what I did: I'd just bitch for pages and pages about some perceived injustice and sound like a 16-year-old girl with a bad case of the-whole-world-is-out-to-get-me-itis.  It rarely made me feel better about whatever it was that was bothering me, and on top of that the writing was junk.  At the height of my diary-writing (probably the last couple of years of high school into college), I also thought that these entries would be things I would want to come back to at a later date to reminisce or even for insight; I can't even read some of it any more because it's insufferable.  Apparently there are limits to even my self-obsession.

And for awhile there through college, I attempted my fair share of creative writing, but I remain unconvinced that I'm any good at it.  For the most part I stuck to short stories and poetry, and it was mediocre at best.  It's not like I ever showed anyone anything that I wrote, and though there were teachers who claimed I had some skill, I assume it was all relative.  When you're reading the short story assignments from a classroom of 13-year-olds, the one person in that group with a basic grasp of English grammar and can throw in a few descriptive words will sound good to you.  As such, I haven't written a short story in years, though every once in awhile I'll throw a few lines of poetry to the wall to get practice with expressing an idea in as few words as possible.  I can already tell that this post is going to be another monster, and if it's any indication of how long I can go on about things, I am very long-winded and I think it's a good exercise for me to not write in giant run-on sentences where about half as many words would've said the same thing.

Sometimes I wonder if people are as obsessed and as frustrated with self-expression as I am.  I don't mean this as any kind of compliment to myself; to the contrary, I struggle with my natural tendency toward insularity and it's been a disorienting shift in the past couple of years from avoiding social contact to actually wanting to go out and talk to people.  People I've met since entering graduate school don't seem to believe me when I tell them that 2 and 3 years ago I almost never went out with friends, and when I did it was after I basically had my arm twisted away from computer games and the TV remote.  I avoided big groups of people because I was stricken with social anxiety so painfully that I found it impossible to speak.  I'd burn with embarrassment; I assumed no one wanted me to be there.  

It has been a sharp 180 degree turn, and on occasion it will flash in my mind that if my 22-year-old self could meet me now, she'd wonder what the hell was wrong with me.  And it is certainly telling this blog has become my writing outlet because unlike before, I am writing for an audience.  It doesn't matter the size (though in looking at my stats, there are more people reading than I ever expected.  I thought it'd just be my mom - it'd be pretty sad if you couldn't get your own mother to care what you have to say - and a stray couple of bored friends).  I actually want people to hear what I have to say, whereas before you'd basically have to pull my tongue to get just a sound out of me.  Of course, this medium also has its limitations.  Since everything on the internet is going to outlive us, there are certain topics that I won't mention here even if I am mulling over the events and emotions in my head.  This just isn't an appropriate space.  But by the same token, knowing that there is at least one person reading forces me to focus and try to cut out as much stray bullshit as I can and  make the posts as interesting as possible.  See, I do need other people's approval from time to time.  And also to attempt to be less self-servicey, but I've already written for a straight couple of pages just about ME ME ME ME ME and am certainly going to write even more, so clearly I'm not quite over this phase just yet.  Probably never will be.

Why the written word?  The answer is simple: I have control over it.  When I went to that event for IUC last night, the students that volunteered to be there talked to groups of the audience and explained our interests in Japan and what we're getting out of being at IUC.  In these types of situations, you inevitably get asked a lot of the same questions, and one of them is usually "what is the most difficult thing about learning Japanese?"  I invariably say it's speaking.  Even though I feel like I have improved a considerable amount since September, I still have to fight with myself to say something during class (a lot of the time, it comes from people not doing the homework - and in a passive aggressive side-side note, this is really starting to piss me off that these people bother coming to class.  If you're not going to try, don't waste my fucking time - and wanting to break the awkward silence after no one answers a questions asked by the sensei).  I try as I can, but I'm still uncomfortable with it.  And it's not a Japanese thing.  It's just speaking in general.  When you're talk, you have that split second to decide what you should/shouldn't/want/don't want to say, and if I can't make up my mind, I just say nothing.  It's so easy to say the wrong thing or have someone misinterpret you, but not saying anything also carries the same implications.  With writing, I can take my time.  I can go back and edit.  And people also don't like reading things closely, so I feel pretty assured that half of the people who loaded up this post won't even see this sentence.  But the point is I have complete control over every word here, whereas with speaking I can't even fully remember what I said the second after it comes out of my mouth. Circumstance, company, and emotions all influence what you're saying at any moment.  Though that's true of everything I write, I can edit later with a clearer mind and bowdlerize those sections that if I had been speaking would've embarrassed the hell out of me and I'd relive that moment of humiliation for days on end.

And then there's the whole other topic of body language, but I'm not even going to touch that.  I'm still trying to learn what exactly I'm supposed to do there, but it sails right over my head.  I'm pretty good at reading other people, but as for my own body language... let's just say my conversation in this area makes me look William Jennings Bryan when using my mouth words.

But why exactly am I writing all of this right now?  I don't think I woke up with the need to write an exposition on my own problems with self-expression, but rather all of that... stuff up there^^ is the background I think necessary to understanding why I keep this blog the way I do.   It's not say that I have an overarching scheme behind my posts, but there is a certain mentality that is in the background.  I originally meant this to be entirely about  living in Japan, learning Japanese and general observations about travel, unexpected events, and people, but it hasn't quite panned out that way, huh? I mean, that's a part of what I'm doing here, but I'm much too much in my own head to let that be the only thing. 

I think what's bothering me is something else.  Even though this is a difficult topic and I am still debating internally whether I can actually talk about this over the internet, I'm just going to come out and say that this time of year is particularly difficult for me to get through.  The whole "holiday season" is an emotional minefield (heh, I just spelled that mindfield), and I'm still not particularly good at navigating through.  It's kind of like this scene from Galaxy Quest (after about 1:10 in this video; apparently you can see the whole movie on Youtube, and if you've never watched, I suggest you fix that situation by watching it right now):

At least in American culture, there is a lot of emphasis this time of year on family and togetherness.  Unfortunately, it just ends up putting too much pressure on people and it becomes like play acting a Hallmark card just to get through the day.  But more than that, this time of the year more than any other I end up doing more reflecting on what's happened and what's changed, which is exhausting.  There's so much to remember and so much to process that you feel yourself crumble under the weight of your own thoughts.  This time last year I remember I had just finished The Corrections and I lost it when one of the characters started succumbing to their battle with Alzheimer's because it made me think about the decline of my grandmother whose birthday is on December 3rd.  (And yet another parenthetical aside: where the hell is my copy of Freedom?  I ordered it like 3 weeks ago.  Amazon Japan, you fail)  And despite the fact I rebel against the pressure to act as though my heart and head are aglow with Christmas warmth and my hair smells of gingerbread, this will be my first Christmas without family around and I can't help but think I'm letting people down by not being at home.  It's quite impossible for me to go back; money is tight and the dollar is showing absolutely no signs of getting much stronger against the yen.  I can't afford it.  I don't have any family pictures of Christmas on my hard drive (we're not really a picture-taking kind of family), but I do have the one I included at the start of this post that sticks pins in my heart every time I look at it.  It reminds me of all the things I've left behind every time I pick-up and move again.  Granted, I haven't been that many places, but I think about what good the wayward life did my dad and I realize I don't want to go down that road. 

But in any case, I will be here come Christmas day.  According to the poll I took last week, people think that I should drink red wine and eat fried chicken, which sounds like a fantastic idea.  While do that, I will probably watch my version of Christmas classics like these:

*DON'T WATCH IF YOU'VE NEVER SEEN DIE HARD

Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com

(I also have a thing for Alan Rickman, obvs.  That voice!)

And of course, this:

I think we may be hosting an orphan's Christmas this year for the IUC students that are sticking around for winter break, and I will insist we watch at least one of the 2 of these.  I may have an easier time convincing them of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, but who does not love John McClane or Winthorpe eating a piece of salmon out of his dirty Santa costume?

When I start hitting the references hard, it means I'm trying to avoid digging any deeper, so I think I'll should start tying up this post up in bows.  I'm pretty sure how that's my conversation works; instead of saying what I am actually thinking or feeling, I either make a sarcastic joke or reference something so as to deflect from feeling vulnerable.  It's very effective.  But ultimately, this may not be a blog about Japan, but it's pretty clear how Japan has changed my thinking.  I often make the joke that Japanese is just another language for me to be awkward in - which is true - but it is something more as well.  When I was lying on the couches yesterday at IUC, I recall that I as I was about to drift into sleep I had some LIGHTBULB moment where I thought I uncovered a truth behind the role of language in our lives.  Of course, I don't remember it any more.  It was probably as logical as any other thoughts I have just before I fall asleep.  Does anyone else experience that moment where your normal thoughts about daily life start melting into your subconscious no longer making any sense and you realize you're about to fall asleep?  Anyone?  Maybe it's just my head.