Pop culture update

I'm really trying to avoid being one of those people who graduates from school and decides they've "grown out" of writing their own stuff. It's one thing to get too busy to do it, but 90% of people who shut down their accounts on Xanga/Blogger/Wordpress/etc. do it out of lack of interest.

Weak sauce, I say. If you want to bring down the number of entries, great, but I think few people have compelling enough reasons to stop being as expressive as they were before. It's cool that newer outlets are making people *more* expressive, too: my brother was never publicly read until he started writing Facebook notes and in just a few entries he's shown himself to be sophisticated, funny, and stylistically very talented. His stuff just screams "diamond in the rough," as if those same parts of his brain got used towards being a musician instead of honing his writing style.

I, on the other hand, have no excuse other than a job situation which is OK with me *reading* anything on a computer, but frowns upon me being communicative or expressive on work time, because that's a giveaway that I'm doing "private things" at work as far as my Japanese superiors are concerned. That alone makes me look forward to getting an American job in a certain respect.

Moral of the story: this blog ain't dead, and while I'm a bit short on epiphanies these days, I'm challenging myself to step up and be interesting.

So, in an homage to my older blogging days, here's what I'm consuming, and maybe you should be too:

What I'm listening to
Lots of hip-hop at the moment. In the last year we've had new albums from Common, Talib Kweli, and Lupe Fiasco, and they're collectively a bit darker, a bit funkier, a bit more grittier than their respective earlier records. But they're all good, so go get them.

What I'm reading
Wired.com is the best reading material I've come across in a while. It's a great mix of internet culture, tech news, and Silicon Valley Doings that's all written by a pretty accomplished collection of contributors. I especially recommend the Autopia, Gadget Lab, and Threat Level blogs within the site, and the online postings of magazine features each month.

What I'm playing
My game habits are thrown out of whack, since my multiplayer abilities are limited out here. If I were in the States, it'd be solid Super Smash Bros. Brawl. But instead, my Japanese Wii looks forlorn as I give more attention to my PS3 (and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue), and even more to my Xbox 360 (Halo 3 is still the multiplayer king). I'm looking forward to getting home so I can catch up on a lot of co-operative games and throw a gaming party or two.

In the meantime, I'm getting some rare single-player quality time. I finally finished the Halo 3 campaign. Call of Duty 4 was the best game of last year. Super Mario Galaxy is a 9 out of 10 - a massive improvement in recent Mario years, but it still doesn't outdo Super Mario 64.

Also, I did something I never do: I preordered a game. Grand Theft Auto 4, the American version, is to be delivered to my doorstep sometime in the near-ish future. I'm going to be massively sucked in.

Where I'm going
Mom's coming to visit me in Japan! It's going to be a whirlwind week and a half covering Tokyo and Kyoto, and long story short we'll basically be seeing everything that you can catch a glimpse of in Lost in Translation. We're even staying in the same hotel. At first, I was unspeakably excited about living like a rockstar with Mom for the trip. She hasn't had a vacation in something like 15 years, so it's all 5-star hotels and first-class tickets. If you know my mom, you get what's going on here. Then it hit me that it's pathetic to be excited for stuff that my mom's money is buying, and I should be much more excited that it's Mom and she's coming to see me. And I have gotten excited about it. I'm happy to be really sharing Japan with someone for once. Konnichiwhoa might be interesting to read once in a while, and the pictures might be cool, but it's a world apart from constantly having to explain things you see on the street, explaining random cultural idiosyncracies, translate everything from ads to restaurant menus to what shopkeepers say. And out of all the people who've had to put up with my Japan fascination, she's had to bear more of it than anyone - she paid for my degree in Japanese, and I had to fight for that. It's going to be an awesome, fun-filled, classy week and a half.

The story of my triumphant return

This weekend, I resolved to leave Japan at the end of my contract and come home. Here's the rationale, as I wrote to my old friend (and designer of this site) Emily:

Long story short, "the life" in Tokyo proper is for the rich, or for the people who work themselves to death enough to be rich. The average Joe in Tokyo actually lives in the distant suburbs. And for me, it'd prove to be only slightly less lonely than life out here in rural Japan. I'm still separated from my friends by lots of geographical distance, too much Internet distance to play most games together, and too great a time difference to be able to communicate with most of my friends save for messaging and email. And the girls I come in contact with are basically whores for foreign dudes, and the fun of that quickly wears off and leaves you longing for actual companionship in the times you're sober.

The job thing also became a major factor. I'm REALLY sick of teaching English and while I'm technically qualified to be a translator, my Japanese isn't where it should be to be any good at it. Meanwhile, back in the States I've got a vision for a marketing boutique firm I want to launch, and I've got a little experience to get on the road to making that happen (speaking of, I'm looking to get hands-on marketing experience in someone else's house first, so if you know anyone looking for an intern let me know :3 ). In the end, the prospect of a fun job and being nearer to my friends won out. If my career takes a different turn or if my biz miraculously turns profitable, then great, I can take a vacay to live The Life in Tokyo that I still want to some degree. And if I'm broke and miserable, then I'll come back here.

Honestly, I think I just needed more time to work things out. It's hilarious when people ask me "well why didn't you apply for a job-type change?" (meaning, I could keep my awesome salary and benefits and switch to being a translator.) And I always end up yelling at them for asking me, because the deadline for that was back in like January, and it's ridiculous to think I'd have that stuff figured out after 6 months on my first job.

I was in Tokyo this weekend. On Sunday morning, I was chilling out on a second-floor Starbucks balcony overlooking a city street lined with cherry blossoms in full bloom. In Japan, this is a rare treat, and the kind of picture that makes wall calendars. Even still, in my happiest of happy places, I had no problem calling home to Mom and saying "OK, I'm coming home."

I've abandoned you!

I apologize, dear snagger.org. I've left you feeling lonely for far too long. As one other teacher in my town put it, "It's a long winter."

Of course, he said that in reference to his womanizing advice on how to "keep warm" in multiple senses of the word. Truth is, at the root of it, it has been a long winter here. And the 10 weeks or so that filled up the bulk of winter damn near drove me insane.

As it happens, my region of Japan is split into two smaller areas: the San-In (san-een) and San-Yo coasts. In both cases, San means 'mountain.' They're different in that 'in' means 'darkness' and 'yo' means 'sunlight.' Guess which one I live in?

Hint: I admit I'm a bit of a hypochondriac at times, but I definitely had a basis for dianosing myself with Seasonal Affective Disorder by the end of February.

Spring is slowly coming to my area, which means the permanent dull grey of winter has been replaced with mere haze through which the sun still barely shines. But before spring fully springs, I had to be taught a small lesson about where I live:

There was a TV special a few days ago about Shimane prefecture (where I live) being the worst in Japan. And there's plenty of reasons why: lowest population density, no youth, no money, an agricultural economy, widespread poverty, the aforementioned 'darkness,' and the list truly went on.

By the time I saw this special, I had made up my mind: I was coming home. I spent the month of February in a panic about what to do next - where to live, what jobs to go after, what to pursue next. I'm the planning type, and the uncertainty caused enough stress to give me an ulcer. No, really, an ulcer.

So, as it stands, I'll be moving home at the start of August, with a teaching position closer to Tokyo as a fallback in case I can't get myself a job stateside. See you kids in summer - and I'll do everything I can to write again before then.

6 months down...

...and 6 months to go.

It's unfortunate that I'm counting down my time until the end of my contract, but I'm finding this particular part of rural Japan a bit short on the culture, fellowship, and all the wonderful things that are usually associated with the JET Program experience.

Such things happen; nobody's really at fault. It's just the place where I live.

So I occupy lots of time by thinking about what I'll do at the end of my time. Stuff I'm tossing around in my head right now:

1. Work at Google. I applied to two positions at Google, one in Tokyo and one in Santa Monica. I'd love either, but I'm partial to Tokyo. I still find myself very comfortable in Tokyo and I'm really pretty sure I want to live there. The things that I'd miss, if I left Japan, can all be found in Tokyo, and it's lots of small things like the stuff you see waiting for a train, or going to really obscure, hidden restaurants with your friends after work.

2. Teach English in Tokyo. I've got a connection for this, so I could do the same work I do now but, say, inside an hour of central Tokyo. I'd get to live in Tokyo like I want, but I'd take a massive pay cut to get there. I'd say it's worth it, but it'd be a pain.

3. Go back to Texas and start a business playing video games for a living. Basically it'd be gaming events outsourcing - the kind of stuff I did as prez of the Texas Gaming Association, but this time for a living. And I'd have a warehouse full of gaming hardware :D

What do you amigos think?

I miss people, and sometimes I think about how nice it'd be to come home and get a new car and an iPhone and be with my friends again. But I just feel like I'd constantly miss the buzz of being in Japan, and especially in Tokyo. I want to look for a serious girlfriend, and my odds are better when I'm in a country of fluent English speakers (it's hard, and tiring, to have serious relationship discussions in a foreign language). But I'd get to play games with Americans, which means I could play PC games again and I could play online games with my friends instead of people who are all up all night in the States and thus awake when I play. This back-and-forth could go on forever.