Something found

Though the images is not that good, I was surprised to find it (I took it when I went to Korea in college). Well, anyways, i thought i would post it... why not, im just sitting around while its a monsoon like weather outside... So much rain, and i was going to go out running today, maybe i still will, and get some weird looks from people as i do so (why would you run in this weather!!, why not?) Well, either that or i will clean up the one room i use in this overly expansive apartment, its such a waste....shit....

Premonition for the ghosts of the past

This is a small tidbit and insight into my daily interworkings... While i sit at the BOE... They call me, to dance, a beautiful dance. Its as if they are paying homage to the technology and chaosopoly of industrial culture... All bow before it, its quite scary sometimes, i want to cry... but the tune catches me in the herd like mentality, FORWARD PROGreSSS!!!!

So i guess im bipolar...heh

Well, after being called rude today, and then falling even further into the depths of my own self delusion, I was asked to help out with setting up the chairs for this welcoming ceremony we are having on monday for the new teachers/assistants.... That made me feel a little less like a complete waste, and then Mika came to the BOE... I was nervous to talk to her at first because i didnt know if she was bussy or what, but i just said fuck it and said hi to her as she was coughing... We only had a 5 minute conversation, but it was great to actually speak to someone, everyone else at the BOE was probably surprissed that i said anything at all... But talking to her, i could understand what she was saying more clearly than anyone else at the BOE, i guess if you know someone its easier to comprehend what they intend...heh... but it made me feel not as suicidal as i was earlier this week... It was a nice change of pace....I felt good after that for a moment, and the superintendent asked me what we talked about (as if he felt supprised by the events). But she told me to hang in there, and said that she would understand if i wanted to relocate....Sigh... If only i could see her and her family every day, i would probably get along fine up here... Well, at the end of the day i missed my bus, the first time since i have been here, and had to get a ride with naoyuki (my go to guy at the BOE/supervisor). On the ride back we had a somewhat decent conversation... He said that all he did was work (I guess that's why he is seems somewhat of a stickler sometimes), but I said somewhat jokingly (after I told him about my weekend, and that I am going to Tokyo next weekend) have a fun weekend (though he will be working for it all), he said "what are you talking about?" and I said "I don't know, but after work you should party or something" (remember this is in Japanese, as are all of the conversations, so the translations are approximate reconstructions of what happened, but good enough I find). But it was funny, he seemed to get a kick out of it, though I can tell he dislikes me to a degree.... But anyways, mika just sent me some haiku's in Japanese trying to get me motivated... heh.... I cant thank her enough... Wherever the wind blows, ill land somewhere, be it a regrowht here, Tokyo, Nagoya, or the other side of the world..... I don't feel quite as alone as I did this morning... But then again tomorrow is another day, but not at the BOE!! \(^0^)/ Off to morioka I go, and to get some things ready for traveling to Tokyo next weekend... I need to get my shit into gear, but I have for a long time... Suicide, and self-loathing keeps on haunting me and pulling me into the depths of myself..I must seek into the abyss, not for anythign solid or an essence, but rather to understand the void and its infinitude and multiplicity, to learn to see my limits yet be not content with them for that would accept a static barrier... Well, here goes nothing...

Heh...formalities...

Ok, i got a gift from one of the sensei`s that is leaving. I said thanks, in a quiet and half dead voice lacking confidence... I cant hold up any more it seems, `un, hai, un, domo, un` i get headaches, yet do it when i listen to people or talk with them on the phone...just like walking into the stores and hearing a million `irrashyaimase` in chant, its like a fucking robot factory of greetings sometimes, its insane..... Im sure english has enough parallels (you might have to look for them in different areas and strech your imagination) that im uncongnicent of since i was brought up in the environment and learned to ignore my own ideosyncratic ways and mannerisms out of being embedded in them. But my supervisor told me afterwards `chyantto arigatoo wo hanashitekudasai` (ie correctly say your welcome for getting the gift), though i did when he wasnt in the room and i received the present...But he assumed im a rude asswhole, or i assume he does...And I am for the most part, out of either apathy, self doubt, or whatever.. It feels so stiff, like something you have to do, void of all actual feeling... at least thats how things are coming to look more and more.... I couldnt last a week in an american corporate setting either, so its a matter of setting.. I dont know, this is kind of a blog with many biases, but i guess i can be honest with myself and say they are there..

Feels like its slowly falling apart

Today, when i went to work, i was still down (last night i just fell asleep at 9 or so... there were things i wanted to do.. but i just said fuck it after piano lessons, i managed to play somewhat decently considering i havent touched a piano for i dont know how many weeks... But i can never follow here when since i dont think in terms of do,re,mi,fa,so,ra,shi (i was tought in alabetical terms, and its stuck with me and i have not put any effort to trying to subsume what i am used to with music... though i assume it would be easy to do so..but i just got lazy.. Anyways, i still cant sight read worth shit... I usualy just do imitation by watching when she does it and then slowly go over the peices in my spare time writing in the notes above the letters... I guess i have had too much time thinking in a specific world view that changing it is hard to do...ive become too entrenched, i guess i could say the same thing with english...though the latter is giving way at the same time that my japanese is.. so its like a big void, or feels that way... Anyways, at work this morning my `go to man` at the board of education told me that he cancled my reservation (like what? there is going to be one more seat, i wouldnt have had anything either way and its more food for everyone else, which is how it would have been). But he said i was rude and that i needed to tell him earlier, but its ok because i dont know how things are done in "japan" (heh, i think people would be upset to some degree if i decided not to go, but i guess it might be more acceptable since i dont drink or eat any of the food), but its still a "social entrance fee" to show your ties with the group.. One peice of the puzzle just started to fall, i can feel others going in tandem... I was contemplating giving up and not going to piano lessons last night.... I dunno, but anyways, i tried to redeem myself and made everyone tea for the morning, but everyone has special cups, so i dont know which is which.. But everyone said thanks, and will continue on... One of the other workers at the BOE told me to try and hang in there since the vacation was almost over and i will have classes in a few weeks.....Fuck... I think i enjoy one on one teaching much more than classes... You can get to know someone that way, dedicate attention to them, and usualy (from meeting with foreign students at UWM and helping them with english, and just be someone to have a good chance to talk with) its much more laid back and a friendly atmosphere. So im a rude ass at work, i think i give myself until the end of May or June, or until i can find some job and an appartment in kanto/kansai... chances are i will feel like a fuckup there too, but hey, it will be a change. Im just sitting at my desk working on my resume and endless kanji.

hmmm..

Shorly after i wrote that last post i kind of started to break up inside... I told my supperior at the Board of Education that i didnt want to go to the Sobetsukai tomorrow, i made a lame excuse and said that i didnt think i would be able to eat anything there...So he made a call to reserve a special meal for me...After the call, i just said in the most pathetic voice, umm...i still dont realy feel like going to it... he just kind of stared at me as if i was a heritic or something... but at this time i was full of doubt, suicidal thoughts, dont know what the fuck im doing... i could stay here and have it easy, not wory about isolation, save, and just chill.... But i dont think i can do that.... I just cant.... I cant relax here, unless im around Mika and her family, but she has been sick and its been over a month since i have seen her and the kids.... maybe after the new school year starts i will feel better about things, but given how things are now, if i had someplace to live somewhere else in japan i would just pack up and walk away... I was saying to myself all day long how much of a failure i am in comparison to what i wanted to accomplish... I constaly fuck up conjugations, never speek, know that i should if i want to get good at communicating, but have curled up into a shell so i can eat myself alive....i guess going to the elementary schools was a plus because the kids seemed to always enjoy my company....but maybe they didnt, i dont know, im being overly critical right now of everything i do....But i had the most pronounced suicidal visions today at work, something that hasnt happened to me since high school, I feel just as isolated then as i do now....how the fuck did i get through college without falling back into this? I guess i always read to keep me occupied, and i felt that i could learn japanese, while now i just feel that im a fuckup with everything.... ehhh.... my supperior at the BOE told me that he thought it would be a good idea if i take a break and go to tokyo next weekend.... he could totaly see right through me and probably knew that i was teatering on the edge of my own mental abyss... I enjoy doing this to myself, or something along that magnitude, for it has happened in the past, and is continuing.... I guess i felt there was a chance that i could change, a chance to become the infinite, to dream... I lost that somewhere....but i guess thats assuming i had 'it'.

HENGE

Im a fucking ghost, and abberation... I wanted to help move thigns around (it seemed quite pointless most of it though, but whatever), but for the most part i wasnt asked to do anything, and when i did try to do something i just got strange looks. I helped when people asked me to...fuck i hate myself, ive given up on this shit i think....) Maybe i will last until the end of may, i need some time to get things set for relocatingg....but it might just turn out the same wherever i am... The experience today made me not want to go to another sobetsukai that i was invited to tomorrow, i usualy try to go to the ones i can to make it appear that im trying to create a group atmosphere..I just gave up, fuck...thats all i can say right now is fuck.....another day with maybe 2 words spoken and 4 spoken at me...fuck...im a ghost...

Arggg...Snow again....

Heh....i dont really have much to say this early, but alas, snow comes again.... shigh, im in the land of eternal clouds..Rain/Snow, every day it seems, though its an exaggeration, but still.. it feels that way.

Sobetsukai

So, today at work, while being totaly silent, i sat and studied japanese... i felt i actually did some progress in remembering kanji since my previous post.... heh... like i said probably bipolar or some other magical term that the drug industries invented...Anyways this weekend i might go to sendai or morioka with the seishun 18 kippu, but i will leave two days on it for the following weekend.... I dont know what i will do in sendai, other than walk around, but i think if i do go to morioka, I will get some cooking ingredients since i feel like cooking something that i have not in a while, but i need to find the ingreedient list for what i wanted to do... I used to have it memorized in college, but alas, living by myself and being overly self doubtfull leads me to do become apathetic about cooking... Anyways, we had a sobetsukai for the workers who where relocating. I thought it was going to be an experience that would only reassure my insecurities and isolation here. The event started out meager enough, i got a special meal request of kappa/kampyo/ume maki and inari-zushi, and i feel i am a burden on those around me...As the event got started we had the normal formalities of everyone filling everyone elses cup, yet i was the only one drinking oolong tea. These nomikai's are expensive.... There are 6 going on this week, i said i would go to 2, but i might skip the one on friday since thats allmost worth a ticket to tokyo. But its part of the 'be in the group' charge... everyone becomes equalized, everyone (well with the excetion of me and some designated drivers) gets drunk. But something that usualy happens at nomikais that i have gone to in the past happened again... People open up and talk to me... If anyone wants to talk with me, i am more than willing to talk with them, and actually eager too... But usualy people come to me with a degree of aquwardness....As if because they dont speek english that they cant communicate at all with me (though i admit some of the 'hogen' here just passes over my head from time to time, i can get the jist of most conversations and talk about basic stuff, without being a neitzschie or Shakespear, or whoever you will choose as a representative of someone who can control and effectively utalize a large corpus of linguistic devices to construct amazing narratives/expressions.... One of the individuals i ended up talking to told me how he stayed in nishiwaga for most of his life im assuming (well he didnt say that exactly, but that he went to one of the elementary schools i teach at, so i am only making an inference..). But as he talked, he wanted to try and speak english, which i said was fine (though i usualy replied in japanese to try and clear some things up). But in the process we had quite an interesting conversation... He told me, after i expressed my feelings of isolation and how i am considering going south, that everyone here had a fairly deep respect for me, and that most people wouldnt have the courage to just get up and try and position themselves in a culture(s){i must add [s] to stay away from a totalizing singularity with the singular} without being fluent in the languag, and that most of the people wanted to talk to me but were nervious to do so since they could not speek english.... I told him how i found it hard to try and talk to people even though i want to internalize/construct a form of japanese that i can control at my volition (yet i didnt realize at the time that i was probably speeking more fluent, and i could sense it to a degree...). He mentioned how he would feel the same way if he was in america, and continued to compliment me on my japanese (umm...i want to say its the same steriotypical comments that everyone gets if a foreigner says 'domo' or anything), so i basically said i felt as if my japanese sucked (in japanese) and that my mind has become (or i guess i should have said always was) messed up and over cluttered to the point of where i cant think or remember like i could in college... Well, it was interesting none the less.. After that another guy that i dont know at all tried to speak to me, we ended up talking about food prices in Iwate and agriculture.. But it had its earie silence, as if they were refraining from asking me (and myself the same to them) things, due to to some invisible barrier....i.e. my lack of being fairly fluent in japanese, or just the oddity of trying to speak to someone for basically the first time. Well, then the end of the party came, and i could see my 'go to man' at the board of education was totaly wasted, he cant hold is liqor well i think (i.e. his face was bright red and he barely had his eyes open...and had this errie smile that kind of freaked me out...but it was interesting to see them all let go from the ridgedness of the workplace, if only for a few hours..). At the end of the event, everyone gave their little 'prep' chants that somehow remind me of a throwback to some aspects Showa militarism, though thats much to simplistic, anyways, its kind of interesting to see these chants they give (heh.. well i even think the 'prep' rallies that were held at my H.S. were quite fascistic, under a specific definition of the word that i probabl only use.). Well, anywas, there was a second part to the night, and everyone was going karaoke, but i kind of felt like going back early, and wasnt up for singing (i had done so before, and i guess i just wanted some time to think, which is probably bad for me to do right now if i am left alone enough...) So i decided to go back, but almost forgot my bag on the way, while my 'go to man' rememberd it (just more of me doing little fuckups all over the place, im totlay a hetakuso....[peice of shit] my memory fails more rapidly, i feel im always making a fool of myself... sigh... oh well... ehh.. im kind of tired now... will check out to see if there are places in tokyo i can work. right now im looking at ECC and GABA as places to get a foot in down there and some income to feed myself..i dont know ow that will effect gaducate school pans, but we shall see i guess....

and rust...

I spent the day studying kanji again, i keep on feeling like im in one of those rotating wheels that hampsters/gerrbals are in, constantly covering the same ground and not making progress at all.... I had a breif moment where i tried to express my feelings about the trip to some of the teachers when i went to ask for a few days off in may.. I always feel i am a burden since my vocabulary is so limited....It is as if i am taking random stabs in the dark most of the time...just random sa/ra/seki....ect...come to mind, i have some of the connections in a vague sense, but my mind is collapsing, i cant remember things i did yesterday....ugh...i have a nack for defeating myself sometimes...But i think i have made up my mind to move.....I dont know where quite yet, all i know is somewhere south of Iwate.....But the strangest thing happened to me, after i made a phone call when i was walking back to the BOE, some kids came out and said`mashu sensei kita!` and kind of ran out while i was on the phone still on the phone, something about that made me smile and not feel like a complete waste of space.... i dont know... something made me smile if only for a moment to then relapse into a feeling of isolatedness upon reflecting the situation at hand.. I enjoy seeing the kids, but it leaves me hollow sometimes..im rusting away, more rapidly than before the trip, if the trip was an abberation, a chimera, it was so worthwhile... I might see if i can set up an interview in Tokyo, though the metropolis will have its own chimeras that will eat me alive im sure....at least i can do it in the proximity of a multitude of others crushing against the cement pavement.

The big comedown.....heh, that was fast...

Pictures from the phenomena.... i just choose random ones from the over abudance of masturabitory romanticism with everything i encountered, yet the most important, valuable, irreplacable parts of the trip i couldnt bring myself to objectify in a picture.... For i fear of doing so because they are too precious to me, though i am a hypocrite and have gone against this, at least it sounds like a good excuse for not taking pictures of the people i met..... The people i met and talked to, my friends in Nagoya, meeting someone from UW Milwaukee in Nara, the 82 year old staying at the Shukubo with me in Koya, walking around with a guy from Ireland on my second day in Kyoto, and the further depths of the bizzare in kyoto....kyoto....i cant speak of these aleatory experiences any more.. I would like to write about them, but i will leave my memories....sweet memories...though they occasionaly stab at me and help construct chimeras, i would not dare try to replace them..... ahh.. the question of representation, my favorite....the abyss of the representable....

Ok, either im bipolar, or i dont know what to make of things right now.... I went to work, the weather was dark and ominous outside... my emotions and the weather seem to be as one, the skys open and my eyes see to the horizons, the snowstorms come and i cramp and contract into a cold dead ball of snow...Anyways, sitting at the board of education, listening in, everyone is having their going away parties since people change schools/work locations every so often.. I just cant help but feel that i am a ghost, I some of the people moving are teachers i enjoyed talking too (no matter how breif) but the formalities and structures seem to overturn my thoughts into insecure apathy. I was sitting at my desk in the morning trying to study kanji, and i realize i have no formal method of doing so, since i have felt that i am a complete waste of space (once again...time alone, nobody to talk to, and if i try to i feel like i make an ass of myself, and usualy inconvenience those around me... but i did send an elaborate message to Mika...and she seems to understand completely....I was breaking up inside.....sitting at the desk i actually had tears coming down my cheeks (or almost)....and felt ashamed of doing so in the office.... Ahh...yes....that good old alienating feeling, we musnt break the social convections of hiding our emotions to a degree.....I feel like letting go, Just taking everything and moving to the Southern parts of Japan.... While everyone here has a degree of kindness to them, i am mostly a ghost to most of them i would imagine (though i cant speak as if i can see things from their perspective...). I wanted to smash my head, rush of emotions... euphoric high, goodbye....this is the big comedown.... only two days after my return..... I need to look into myself to find if i want to go on... All i look forward to is heading out to tokyo in a couple of weeks to see what currents i get caught in....Maybe ill interview for some jobs there or something....Though time is nill....i can still dream...even if it is chimeras....the dream has turned its head like the god janus... the dual head, the spirit of revenge, of bad consciousness...

Redemptive nostalgia (a prelude, and omen for aleatory encounters)

hmmm....ok, so i came back from this trip.. why did i come back...thats the question i ask myself now. constantly moving, meeting new people, getting to just traverse the horizons, seeing my own limits play out in front of me every second. I often feel like searching for something, i dont know what, but the isolation here was making me feel like i could implode at any minute... Self loathing, apathy, all crusshing down on me like a weight of a thousand miles of condensed matter rushing from the sky. Each day the weight would get more and more. Seeping through my poores, wishing for something else, a realized dream turning out to be the retrospective nostalgic lust of an ignorant youth for something that probably never was, yet it also has keept me going. Mika, Ruka, Kanae, Kakeru, Shinichi, and Nobu....though i could speek to them and have opened up myself as much as i can do for being an infant who has yet to internalize the conceptual metaphors and in general corpus to articulate anything other than basic sentances, i still felt a bit lonely, as if seeing them only made me loathe the time i was away.. The search for something to hold onto, as much as i want to be detached sometimes, the will to want, to need, to search for something has become more pronounced after this trip. I dont know how it all occured, but i felt a rejuvination. More so than the places i went, which while impressive aesthetic experiences with their own place in my synaptic storehouse, the people i met just smaked me in the face. Such a stark contrast, i guess i took the initiative to talk to people since im basically sitting at a desk pretending to do something interesting all day every day in Nishiwaga.....but enough....i just broke...So many aleatory meetings, how bizzare.. I shall refer to my situation from now on in the aleatory conjecture, and now that is what i seek... Being an aecetic, while something i still cling to a bit, has warn thin on this wasteland of a mind....I hereby resound that I will not fear the chimeras in my mind, though that is easier said than done.. I felt a breath rush into me like...well i cant draw any analogies right now, but in kyoto, just a meger 2 days, i felt that the bring of cognitive implosion burst into a phenominal experience of immense porportions....IM still going off a buzz without much sleep for the past 78 or so hours....I fear\know that my reconstructive memory is playing tricks on me... I seriously dont know what i want to do, or if what i am feeling is only the prelude to a massive drop...At least i can anticipate the fall...but for now...the infinite nihilism and horizon of now....can i dare speak, content.....but what is it that i am objectifying as my contentment...what is it that strikes me...i am being vague on purpose for i fear that which i feel....but dont dare pitty me, for your pitty shall kill both of us. I have a sense of resoluteness about me now...but again, the feelings...want to rush out of me... being bottled up here has had its toll i can tell. I feelt the comfort of symptomatic aleatory intrigue... two people talking, so odd sometimes, finding another that can make you feel less dead, alive if for even the encounter.. Feel somewhere relaxed...I look forward to seeing things develop, wherever the torrents of the world carry me and my volition propells me... Moving, my vision is constantly blurry, but at least i can take a chance to embrace the aleatory conjecture..... I can say just to speak, just to relate, just to share the conjecture.....how?what?why?when? time enough for those questions to destroy myself in a mound of doubt....all i can say is that, for a brief moment, i felt the winds of redemption, of wanting to relate, to communicate, to be....being in becoming.. the dialogic principal..... i apologize to those whom this doesnt make much sense to, but i need to write this flow of thoughts down....i need to externalize, if only to self-fufillingly assure myself that it was all not a dream... maybe it was... but what a magnificant dream it was....if meloncholly follows, i will feel forever gratefull(though the kind without a subject, some fill the void of the conjecture with a diety or an essence, but i shall refrain, though im not sure what to make of this feeling....heh....damn.). thus the nostalgia will eat at me, yet make me feel cognicent, as if i had some degree of composition, every moment, every limit, every infinite horizon..... what is this.....rather, which is it that consumes me? the geneological question is asked, the subjects multiplicity is implied in the latter question...which, which one.....i slip back into the regress of silence for lack of a better medium to materialize my connections.... All i can say is thank you, to the individual(s) who shall go un-named, for making me feel alive again, though my presence carries a burden with it wherever i am i feel, i just want to leave a small memo.... I apologize, but the words have come to re-vert back into a private dialogue... nobody will probably read this, but i just had to get a epistemic overflow onto some other medium... I apologize, to myself and everything, the subjectless spin of thoughts... Though i will fail in my mental constructs and affordances given my schematic inclination to self destruct...I can try something, try once, just to let go, just to seek the limits of myself and embrace the memories and infinite futures...Thus my redemptive nostalgia...sweet and bitter...