Q: How do you make God laugh?

A: Make a plan.

An unfortunately not-so-funny joke from my friend Chris. But I'll try anyway. The game plan:

- Continue working my part time jobs (for the city and for the bookstore)
- Save as much money as possible
- Keep looking for "big girl" jobs, ideally one at a library or something internationally-related
- Move out of my parents' house A.S.A.P., for my own sanity, I don't care where to
- Perhaps eventually go back to school for a M.L.S. (Library Science), maybe on the East coast?

I feel like I would do well in a librarian or public service/consulate-type position. That's what enthuses me at this moment in time. Other than that, a place to live, a cell phone, and independence would be nice.

I'm gonna keep on truckin'. One day at a time. Hopefully someday sooner than later I'll look back on these days as a past hardship stepping stone to bigger and better things.

幸せ...

Things that make me happy, no matter where I am:

- books
- coffee shops
- getting lost in a good book while sitting in a coffee shop with a hot cup of something
- browsing for beauty products
- good friends

I'm back and I'm restless. I want so many things, but lack the money and focus to do them. I want independence, a routine, exciting and cultured diversions, financial stability. I want to be connected and disconnected at the same time. I want to enjoy being 25, young, and take advantage of all the possibilities life has to offer me. I want to know who my soul mate is. I want to feel at ease. I want to stop taking everything so seriously and just enjoy life. I want everyone who doesn't matter or who brings negative energy into my life to disappear without regret, attachments, or consequences. I want the comfortable, peaceful, fullfilling, fabulous life I envision but cannot seem to make for myself. I want to feel like I can do anything again.

For now, I will made do with, embrace, be grateful for the little pleasures in my life.

One Thing at a Time

When everything is changing and there are a million things to do, I have to slow down and take comfort in constants. For example, no matter where I go, there will always be pretty flowers and tasty sweets. Remembering this gives me a little comfort during this time in my life, where it feels like everything I worked so hard for is slipping through my fingers and the future is uncertain.

Pictured here: a couple of flowers from the gargantuan bouquet I received on my last day of work at school and Japanese warabi sweets with kinako powder.

Everything is going to be okay. Take it one thing at a time.

Packing

We have a three day weekend in Japan right now, Monday being 海の日, "Marine Day."

This is my last completely free weekend in my apartment. I seriously can't believe it.


I've been putting off packing as long as possible, just because I love this place and packing up makes it seem like it's not mine anymore, and reminds me that I can't really just relax and enjoy living here anymore; I have to get ready to leave in exactly a month.

The goal is to finish the majority of my main packing and cleaning up this weekend, but it's so difficult. How do you pack up 3 years of one's life/accumulated possessions/gifts from friends/precious memories into a limited number of boxes? All of which you will have to send home at a hefty cost? I talked to my parents today and even though I knew this, my dad reminded me to only pack the things I really needed, not to bring home things I can get at home.

But the thing is, the more I clean and pack, the more I realize it's hard to throw things away. One of my goals is to seriously streamline my possessions (they're just things, after all...) but when monetary value, i.e. hard-earned money that I've spent, and memories are attached to these possessions, parting with them becomes really difficult. I'm trying hard to be as ruthless as possible, but sometimes I wish someone could just come in here and burn everything in the apartment, just so I wouldn't have to see everything and deal with it. I found that if I'm not looking at the stuff, I don't think about it and don't remember it. I swear to myself that I have to cut down on the things I buy from now on. Shopping for things is the same, I think: if I don't go out window shopping, don't look at magazines and new fashions on the internet, I don't crave shopping and don't need to buy anything. Damn advertising and ever-changing merchandise! I guess the solution here is to just stay holed up where I live and never go out, right?

I have currently filled two boxes with only clothes. I wish I didn't care so much, I would just get rid of everything. But for some reason, I worry about whether I will regret throwing things away later (it's happened before, especially with clothes), or whether the things I own can be considered cool and unique, and so I should bring them home. I wish I didn't care what I wore, I wish people in general didn't care about fashion, in cases like this that require paying to ship things across an ocean. I even went online to see what kinds of things people back in the States are wearing right now, so that I would know what to keep and what to get rid of, isn't that ridiculous?

When I get home, I'm going to try to cut down on the amount of possessions I have stored in my room at my parents' house as well. New Goal: Own less possessions, Be less materialistic. When it comes to clothes, have a few set outfits and let those few outfits set the tone for your style. I am going to simplify. Less is more. After all, it's just stuff, right? When I die, it will all get thrown away anyway, right?

Japanese Love Hotels

Apparently love hotels are recession-proof!
Interesting article from the BBC:

Love Beats the Recession in Japan

Recession or no recession, it looks like people will always need somewhere to get it on...
I guess I know where my investment money should be going then!

It's so funny to read this article when I live here in Japan, I see love hotels all the time and can understand the necessity for the concept: apartments are small, extended families live in one house, privacy is difficult to come by. Overall a good idea, if I say so myself! Pay by the hour, no contact with a human being staff member needed, get a cool room with a theme (supposedly there is a Christmas-themed one somewhere here in Kumamoto...but I think that would ruin the holiday and scar one forever). Only in Japan...?

I am doing 43 things.

Well actually, only 15 right now...but I learned about this useful website from a friend of a friend:

43 Things

You can list out the goals you have in life and keep track of them, share your progress, and check it off the list when you achieve it! A really nice way to organize one's goals and keep motivated.

Hope I can do it!

WOW.

The New York Times, Vows: Erika Fredell and Ted Skala

Today...

...I received my airplane tickets home. Has it seriously already been 3 years in Japan? COMPLETELY SURREAL.


When I think of 3 years, a million memories rush through my mind, all those new adventures, all the places I visited, everything I've seen, everyone I've met, everything I've learned, all the dizzying highs and heartbreaking lows, the accomplishments I worked so hard for, and how much I have irrevocably changed and grown. I remember very clearly flying to Japan and landing in the Tokyo Narita Airport, going through a whirlwind high-class orientation, flying to Kumamoto, and driving to my new home with my new superiors. It's so clear, and really doesn't feel like that long ago.

And despite the fact that I am soon to return home to a broken economy, to go back to living with my parents for a while, with no particular job lined up, very little money saved, lots of credit card debt, and a million anxieties about returning to a place I've been away from for 3 years (but felt like a blink of an eye), I feel a strange calm about the prospect of being able to slow down for the first time in a long time, properly digest and meditate on the past 3 years, pare down my belongings with the newly acquired insight of a woman who has come to realize that life is transitory and so are material things, get a job (any job that doesn't involve teaching), save money, and get my life in order. I feel very ready to finish saying goodbye to my life in Japan (properly, of course) and start the slow and sacrificial process of getting myself financially stable.

I have a feeling this will not be the first and last time I live abroad though; I realized/decided tonight that I need to live abroad again, at least one more time, so that I can compare the experiences, continue to grow, and keep the adventures coming. This blog is not called "Wanderlust Annals" for no reason; despite being broke, it really is an addiction. There will always be somewhere to go, something new to explore. As one of the speakers at the Yokohama Returner's Conference I went to in March said (something that has stuck with me and rises to the surface when I find myself in emotional tatters or bittersweet nostalgic reverie clinging to Japan, this cherished nascent experience: "Japan isn't everything...there is a big world out there."

Tibet with Natalee, The Trans-Siberian Railroad through Russia and Mongolia, anywhere in Europe, other destinations that I haven't even thought of yet which fate has waiting for me...here I come. I just hope that Japan doesn't feel like it was a dream, as it has every time I've flown home before, touched down, and walked through the gates at SFO. I don't know why it feels like that. But, for the record, it wasn't a dream...it was 3 years of preparing me for the rest of my life as an adult and international citizen. There's no going back now.

Thank you, Japan. ３年間お世話になり、本当にありがとうございました。心からの感謝は、言葉になれない。

"Happiness lies less in our circumstances than in what we make of them, in every sense."

My friend Jon sent me this article today after we talked briefly after a meeting at the Board of Education, talking about how Jon didn't miss America at all really, and how it took until my third year in Japan to get homesick for the States.

There are a lot of things I miss in the States, mostly friends and family, food I like to eat, memories of places that I love and things that I have done, but there is a certain peace, a calm simplicity that I feel when I'm in Japan. Everything seems quieter, even chaotic situations seem organized, simple and natural things are celebrated in their own special way on a daily basis. While I'm excited to be going back to the States, there is a chunk of my heart that is filled with a buzzing and frightened anxiety...I don't want to lose what I have discovered here.

So this article Jon sent me...he said it was really funny that we were talking about what we were talking about today because he found this article soon after. I say it was funny, because when I noticed the article was written by Pico Iyer, I was catapulted back 3 years to my senior year at UC Santa Cruz. I worked part-time at the campus Baytree Bookstore while I was studying, and in the weeks before I was going to graduate and leave for Japan, the man who was in charge of the actual book section (not textbooks, but novels), Thediki, came up to me and handed me a book by Pico Iyer, The Lady and The Monk. He told me that I should read it before I went to Japan, that it was a good book and might be good preparation for my trip. I ended up not reading it until I went to Japan, nibbling at it in chapters as before-bedtime reading. I remember it was a good book, but I think if I read it again now, I would appreciate it so much more, especially after living here for 3 years. When I first came to Japan, I was caught up in the whirlwind of a new country and new experiences, busy being a social butterfly. In the course of three years, I have settled down, found my niche, found comfort in a quieter and more solitary lifestyle. I told Jon that maybe this is a bit of stretch, but I wonder if all this is a coincidence, or fated to happen? Though the event of receiving the Pico Iyer book from Thediki three years ago and receiving the article from Jon today are quite separate in time and space, the timing is too impeccable; the book was received before I was about to embark on a new adventure, and the article was received when I am in the process of wrapping up this three year long blessing of an adventure. In between those two events, I have heard not a single mention of the name Pico Iyer. Strange...

Here's the article Jon sent me, from The New York Times, by Pico Iyer:

"The Joy of Less"

I hope that I can find (or create for myself) a similar peace and happiness at home as the one I have had in Japan; “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

A Lazy Saturday

• Woke up at 9:30, beautiful warm day with a breeze.
• Went to my shodou class with Miyuki from 10:30. Wrote 南十字星 (The Southern Cross). I felt very relaxed and focused, and I think I did pretty well today.
  
• Slices of watermelon and beautiful purple-blue あじさい (hydrangeas) from Miyuki.
  
• Leftover eggplant and carrot curry with rice for lunch.
• Spent the rest of day tidying up the apartment, cleaning out clothes, enjoying being at home.
  

I love my apartment and all the shades of brown and green in it: beige textured walls, pale yellow-brown tatami with sage green border trim, golden-brown raw wood beams, grainy wood flooring, lime-green kitchen tiles, mint-green curtains with dark green dots, mint-green couch, bed and armoir that match the wood beams. Feels like my little natural safe-haven. I'm going to miss this apartment a lot: the space, the warmth, the freedom.

I realize now that when I go home and get a place of my own, I need natural surroundings, fresh fruit, vegetables, and flowers, artistic hobbies, and warmth and light. I think it's what makes me feel the happiest and most centered.

I love Saturdays like this. <3

久しぶりですね。

It's been a long time since I posted to this blog. I originally wanted to update this blog properly to the present date, but I think it might be near-impossible. So I'll just pick up right where I left off. I'm now in my third year of the JET Programme in Japan. I originally had chosen not to recontract, but after a fantastic and very moving trip to Cambodia with the "voluntourism" organization PEPY during which I had a lot of time for thinking and soul-searching, I changed my mind and decided to stay a third year. However, I changed my mind after the deadline and ended up having to transfer from Uki City Board of Education to Kumamoto City. It was both gut-wrenching and a blur; I had to say goodbye to two years of setting up foundations and relationships in Japan, but it was even harder because I was still in here, just not with the people and in the place I had come to love in Uki City. It was a blur because having to move and get re-acculturated at new schools was insanely stressful and made me feel like I was back at the bottom again. But I'm glad I did it. It didn't feel completely right to leave last year.

Nor does it feel completely right to be leaving this year either, but as my friend Natalee put it, "if I don't leave now, I don't know when I ever will." All of the friends I made from my first year here are leaving too. I remember when I first came to Japan and everything seemed exciting and perfect and on a pedestal. Last year I had a yearning to stay. This year I know I could stay if I really wanted to, but I feel more ready to leave. I didn't want to hate Japan (I don't think I ever could), but I wanted the rose-colored glasses to fade away, which I feel like they finally have. Now, three years on, I can see Japan for everything it is: the good things, the bad things, the things that are completely unique to this country, the things that I realize I can never have or do in this country. Japan is a phenomenal place, and the idealism I had for it has finally ground away into the both positive and negative reality, which makes me love and respect this place even more. But it's time to go. I will be finishing my contract in August and going home. It's a completely bittersweet feeling: I love Japan and know I have an amazing life here. I love the unselfish generosity and kindness of the people I have met and am grateful for all the things I've learned about others, life, and myself. I love Japanese food and the way Japanese people really enjoy eating. But I feel ready to move on, for a few reasons. I would like to decide what I'm going to do for the future, since I can't be an ALT forever. I promised my family I would only stay in Japan for 1 year, and it has turned into 3. And although there are amazing days and amazing students, I am burned out of my job. I read an article today that made me realize one of the reasons why:

Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading Aloud

A bit of a tangent from the article itself, but it reminded me of things that were important to me that I had forgotten about...the meaning and beauty behind words when strung together as stories and poems, and as the article says, how the words come alive when read aloud.

At my job, I'm often asked to organize fun games that will make the students like English, and to have the students repeat the soul-less textbook after me so that they can hear my pronunciation. While reading this article though, I realized why I need to move on from this job: in the strict, exam-driven Japanese junior high school system, I wish I could encourage the students to read aloud and struggle with the words themselves and introduce them to English in context, but there seems to be no time, and I'm not sure if there's any interest. As for myself, I never learned any language just by playing games...At the very least, we can remember for ourselves the "lost art of reading aloud."

So while I will miss Japan, I will miss my beautiful apartment, and the exciting exoticness of living abroad, it's time to move on and find a job that will utilize my skills and interests to their full potential. At the JET Returners' Conference I attended in March, one of the speakers, a JET alumna named Anne Koller said wisely, "Japan isn't everything...there is a big world out there."
She's right, but it will still be hard to say goodbye. Who knows, maybe I'll be back someday if it's in the cards. In any case, I'm excited to see where life will take me next.