Juxtaposed in Japan

Monday, March 31st

Sooo... now what?

Current Sounds: Timberland - Apologize

So, after years and years (and years) of work, I've finally attained my dream of going to live and work in Japan. Hours of classes, books, one-on-one conversations, and we're here. In less than 2 calendar months, I will be in Japan. I can look back upon all the stuff I've done for all these years, and finally I can see what it's all led to. The whole time it's just been a distant light at the end of a tunnel, an assumption that this is where it'll all lead. Blind faith is a better way of putting it. Looking back on it, I can see the clear string that's connected all the choices I've hoped were the right ones. Not to be too self-congratulatory, but I have to say I've done a pretty decent job, all told.

Now all I need is to know...

Now what?

Ostensibly, from here it's 'higher education', 'family', and 'movin' on up in the world'. Are those dreams, or practicality issues that need to/should be addressed as one moves on in life?

I don't really know what I'm saying, actually. Just kinda rambling. I'm not complaining or upset in any way at the turn of events, far from it. It's great that after all these years, I'm finally getting to do what I said I'd do.

Hmm. Soon, I need to make a quick map with more detail as to where I'll be.

But this is all still 2 months off. For now, I have tests this week, homework to do, and papers to write. Oh, and application stuff to file for my visa.

Off I go, I'll write sometime later!
Jason on 03.31.08 @ 08:21 PM JST [link]

Thursday, March 27th

Adding some pictures

Current Sounds: Reel Big Fish - I Want Your Girlfriend to be My Girlfriend

Been a long week.. gar, and such. Nothing really exciting, just getting back into the swing of things; going back to work and classes. It really isn't so bad, but it's always less-than-fun to go back to all that after living it up and living free in another country. Alas, that's life!

Met all the new students, took some quizzes, did some homework, that sort of thing. This weekend I need to write up a paper for a class and prepare a debate in Japanese (about 5-10 minutes of talking). My topic is violence in media and its impact on people. Considering my partner chose to argue that it has no impact and that video games and movies don't turn young adults into crazed murder machines (which happens to be my opinion as well), that means that I get to go down with the ship and fight tooth and nail--crazed-reverend-style--while arguing that it is the devil's work. Should be interesting, to say the least.

This weekend I also have an interview for my teaching position in Japan so we can finalize everything. If all goes well, I'll be submitting all my paperwork, contracts, what-have-you so I can get my work visa. One thing of note, though, is that the starting date is about 10 days earlier now, so I should be going to Japan roughly 2 weeks after I graduate. Ah well..!

The most interesting thing--and this may sound stupid--is what alot of this will mean. While I'm certainly quite qualified to care for myself and have most of the skills necessary for such, I've never actually had to do all the grocery shopping just for myself. Never had to buy pots and pans for cooking, decorations for a house, bedsheets, dinnerware.. Yes, this will certainly be a different experience.

On a positive note, health insurance is mandatory, and Japan is relatively reasonable with that. Because we all know that if it was up to me, I wouldn't bother paying for it. That's just how I 'roll'... 'yo'. But alas, that won't be an issue. Also, I've learned that DSL internet access is possible from the apartment. This is most definitely YES. I must have the internets. I'll probably be offline (and generally, almost entirely out of touch) for the first month until everything is connected and I have a bank account (and can thus get internet and cell phone service).. but.. umm.. I'm sure I'll make a semi-concentrated effort to let people know I'm not dead (we all know how good I am at that!).

Anyway, I have pictures attached to this, under 'more..'. Click that to go see more of my Korean exploits. Not so many, but.. semi-representative of my time.

I should finish my homework and.. do something. Or sleep.
Jason on 03.27.08 @ 07:55 PM JST [more..]

Sunday, March 23rd

Back in the US of A

IMG_0459 (58k image)
IMG_0459

Left to Right: Hyunji (Korea), Risa (Japan), NaYoung (Korea), Me (America)

Just letting you guys know that I'm alive and.. alive. In America. Did I mention my disdain for flying for 18 hours? If not, let it be known that I'm not keen on flying for 18 hours. I felt relatively okay upon coming back and no real jet lag, but was really tired from the lack of sleep all week and not sleeping on the flight (for some reason or another, I can't sleep on planes, trains, etc). So upon laying down last night, I slept about 13~ hours. Oh, so long..

I have a paper due Tuesday that I haven't done any reading for, some prep work that needs to be done on Tuesday, and work tomorrow.. but otherwise, all's relatively okay. Until I have time to get some more pictures up and such, here's a token picture from Friday, my last full day in Korea. I'll get up something more distinctly 'Korean' (instead of a cafe/ice cream shop) soon!

Gotta go..!
Jason on 03.23.08 @ 08:12 PM JST [link]

Thursday, March 20th

[In Korea] Running around in the Orient

Hey! How's it going?

I'm sitting here, in Korea, drinking Korean Mountain Dew, dressed and ready while Risa and Hyunji are behind me doing makeup and such to get ready for the day. I could make a few choice comments about the fairer sex 'never being ready on time', but really.. I don't want to get killed.

Thus far, it's been a really busy trip, but in a good way. I've been to two theme parks in the past two days, went to a sauna, about every shopping district that can be found, on many, many subway trains, been approached by old and young Koreans alike to say a few English words, went to two palaces, and generally just ran around. Most days we leave around 11am and get in between 11pm and 1 am. Lots of walking.

Today is my last full day in Korea, so it's gonna be busy. We're going to meet another student who used to come to the school I work at (and left in December), and the four of us will go shopping. Later, I'll meet up with 4 of Hyunji's friends and we'll go out somewhere for the night.. probably won't be back until 1am or so. Long, long day. But with only 6 days on the ground in Korea, I think it's important to pack in as much as humanly possible. Which, I assure you, we have.

As for photos, I've taken over 250, so I'll go through those when I get home and put 3 or so online, then get to work on actually putting up a more substantial collection soon after.. I'm quite happy with most of them (though there are also blocks of photos where I got bored of standing and started taking pictures of just about anything).

I go back to work and school on Monday, but there's nothing intense or of interest to do.. just normal school work. At work, we have orientation, so I get to run around, meet 35+ new people, shake alot of hands, laugh alot, and generally play nice. Also, there's a girl there from the same school as Risa and has been told about me, and I her, so I guess we should meet and have lunch so she feels not so lonely about America. Yeah.. I'm nice like that.

Or so I say.

Overall, I feel good about things. It's nice to just get away from it all, have no responsibilities, and just run around for awhile. But I could never live that way.. I want to do something constructive. So.. back to school, then graduate and move abroad. Exciting? Dunno yet.. we'll see.

As a side perk to all this, I'll be giving some photos of my trip here with the students from the English school to one of the teachers in charge of the newsletter this week. So, I'll appear in it, along with a writeup of my trip and how the students are moving on. Kinda fun..

Later!
Insecure on 03.20.08 @ 03:52 PM JST [link]

Sunday, March 16th

Alive in Korea

Just wanted to let everyone know I'm safe and sound here in Korea. We went running around Seoul yesterday, which is not only huge, but amazing in how it goes from Western-Modern buildings to a huge temple right in the middle of the city. That's just a sort of strange cultural artifact that you can't really witness in the US, especially not in Arizona.

Today, Risa and I will go running around looking for a huge market/shopping plaza. Hyunji is in school, so our resident Korean is MIA. We will strive to get by in our limited Korean, but most likely will resort to Japanese (which, ironically, is more useful here for doing business/bargaining/buying stuff in these markets than English is). Oh noez!! What shall I do?

Could be worse.. at least I know Japanese (and therefore have options).

Anyway, I'm gonna go, I'll write later when I have a chance. Busy, busy week.. sleeping about 5-6 hours a night, but that's better than oversleeping since I'm only here for a short time.

Later! I'll see if I can get some pictures up!
Insecure on 03.16.08 @ 05:01 PM JST [link]

Thursday, March 13th

[At Work] One day to Korea!

Current Sounds: Cruel Angel's Thesis - Evangelion

At work for just a little bit longer and then I head to Korea bright and early tomorrow. Pretty exciting, huh? I have my bags already packed and pretty much everything is ready; I just need to charge my electronics (digital camera, iPod, PSP, etc) and stuff those last minute things in my carry one bag. When packing, I always err on the side of "I'm going to be massively board on this plane", so I have a PSP (for movies and games), iPod (music and more movies), a novel, and a book on Korea. In total, it's an 18 hour trip, and 13 hours from CA to Korea.. blah. With any luck, I'll be able to sleep for at least part of it.

Midterms went all right.. I think I did okay on all of them. I don't know that for a fact yet, but I should find out when I return from Korea. At the very least, this means I don't have to worry about having to study or anything while I'm on vacation. As for what I will do, I still have absolutely no idea. But, I'm sure it'll be fun no matter what. I'll be able to see two friends I haven't seen in 3 months, so it can't be bad, no matter what we do. I'll endeavor to take many pictures.. but we all know I'm kinda sketchy when it comes to that. And even when I do take many pictures, it's at least 8 months before I put them online. But on a positive note, I'll probably take many pictures of buildings! So, hope you enjoy looking at architecture. Apparently I do!

Not a whole lot to say, other than that. It's been a really busy week between studying for four midterms and work. Then there are students leaving, so I went out to dinner and played pool for a few hours with some on Tuesday, and then there was a birthday party on Monday and another on Tuesday. Busy, busy, busy.

"But," you interject, "you didn't need to go to those parties Jason!".

Pssh. Details. If we allow for the manipulation of the meaning of 'need', then I cite that I did (namely, because one of the people is a friend of mine, and I knew the other people fairly well).. so yes, so much to do, so little time.

Regardless, the week's over now, and my future is full of Korea, Korean food, Korean things, Korean friends, and stuff that people do in Korea. Oh, and a Japanese friend who will be IN Korea, but that kinda ruins my list. I always do hate the day before I leave, though, because suddenly I just don't want to travel. I think it's my great disdain for the actual act of traveling that bothers me so much. I get so terribly bored and I hate sitting on airplanes for 18+/- hours. I like going to new places, but wow.. I'd rather avoid the whole 'getting there'. So, yeah, definitely not looking forward to losing an entire three quarters of a day to airplane-ing.

I have a great photo from last weekend with me riding an elephant, but unfortunately it looks like you'll have to wait a bit before I actually will be around to upload it. Sorry.. I'm sure it's awesome, and you'll all have to miss out just a bit longer.

I'm tied between whether I should sleep tonight or stay up most of the night, power nap, and then push my way through the day so I can sleep on the plane and get adjusted faster to the time difference (I arrive in Korea around 8P on Saturday). No matter what, I'm pretty much out of luck.. we'll see how I'm feeling at 'oh-dark-thirty' tonight when I make that call.

Right now, I'm just really hungry. I should really eat lunch, but.. I'm cheap, and didn't have a whole lot of time today. I'll eat dinner soon, and then.. yeah. Fun! I think that's about it for now, so I'll get going. Enjoy your time, those of you who are spring-breaking.. For those with finals, that really, really sucks, but good luck. And for everybody else (those of whom do NOT have lives revolving around testing and studying), umm.. avoid spring-breaking college students. They scare me.
School on 03.13.08 @ 03:29 PM JST [link]

Monday, March 3rd

Quick picture

Current Sounds: Aiko - Asupara

Here's the lab, decorated for St. Patrick's Day. In total, that's about 100ft of streamers (50' green, 50' white), 50 feet of green clover garland, some static clings for the marker board, and of course.. a hat.

By some odd coincidence, I was wearing a green shirt today.. please don't assume that I'm dressing up for this Irish holiday for 2 straight weeks.

Anyway, the picture was taken today at work. As usual, click it to see a larger version (of course, the original is 5x the 'larger' size, but I figured I'd spare you all the gruesome details). If nothing else, I'm festive. Gotta make sure these people appreciate American traditions, regardless of if I actually celebrate these holidays.

IMG_0056 (50k image)
IMG_0056
Jason on 03.03.08 @ 09:50 PM JST [link]

[At work] So.. much.. studying..!!

In 11 days, I'll be getting on an airplane to go to Korea. In 12, I'll actually be in Korea. Got a new SD card for my camera so I can take more pictures, since I won't have a PC to offload to while I'm there (I can now take about 1,250 pictures, on the highest setting. Useful? Who knows!). Seeing as I have 4 midterms next week, the rest of this week and the weekend will be a full day of nonstop study-awesomeness. Not exactly what I was hoping to do (I've been studying every weekend and most of the week for the past 3+ weeks straight).. but I suppose no one really asked me, you know?

It'll be nice to see people again, and to take a week off and not have to worry about anything other than what we want to do today. I think the joy of vacation isn't so much where you go or what you do, but more where you don't have to go, or what you don't have to do. I enjoy more the idea of living freely for a period of time, not worrying about the details or a schedule rather than what it is I actually do.

Except sitting around. I hate sitting around and doing nothing.

Kinda short, but I should go. Still sitting around at work, and studying tonight.. blah. I'll write later, and ideally post some pictures this weekend.
School on 03.03.08 @ 02:12 PM JST [link]


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