sometimes i feel like i'm living in a parallel universe

time for some introspection.

being on JET is an interesting medium between college life and the so-called "real world". it's easy to view this time in Japan as sort of taking a break from my "actual life" to be in this weird reality in which I live & corrupt the minds of high school students in Japan.

sometimes when i'm alone in my apartment, or inevitably walking to/from a train station, or thinking deeply profound thoughts (jk!), my mind starts to wonder (re: worry) about the big black hole of uncertainty that is my future. without going into detail, all of the beasties that are my insecurities pop their little heads up and gnaw away at my mental/emotional sanity until i can't take it anymore and crawl back into the comfort of living in denial that i'm going to have to "grow up" at some point and figure out what i want to do with my life and what it will take to get there.

i don't know, i've always been so focused on the next step and "the plan": graduate from high school, go to college, start career, maybe marry, maybe persuade one of the sisters to be the surrogate mother to my children, retire, travel, die. but apparently life is not this simple and now that i've passed through the last concrete step in the plan (go to/graduate from college), i don't really know where to go from here.

thus, the new plan: live in the moment.

i've realized that even though this feels like an alternate reality and not really a part of what i conceptualize as my 'normal life', THIS IS MY LIFE. i'm in japan. i'm living and teaching and loving and enjoying and i should start appreciating it while i can because it's not going to last forever. this is quite a challenge when you want to control every aspect of your life but for my own sanity and peace of mind, i'm trying harder to NOT overanalyze situations/peoples' behaviors and, in the words of a very wise & equally adorable taiko instructor, "don't think, just do".

so now, because of my love of post-it notes (i think my life would fall apart without post-its/to-do lists/planners. like literally, i would collapse & wither away from not knowing what to do with myself), i have a post-it on my laptop which reads:

.take a chance.

--BREATHE.

relax. gowiththeflow. don'toverthink. relax.

let it be.

life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

all good things are wild and free.

yes i'm not really sure why i'm writing all of this on the internet but there ya go.

currently reading

So I've been reading Autofiction by Hitomi Kanehara. Finally! A book by a Japanese author that I am actually enjoying! I think a lot is lost in the translation process but feel like Kanehara's writing style actually came through in this book.

Autofiction is basically about a young woman who is obsessed with/paranoid about her relationship with her husband. You get to hear all of her internal monologues as she wrestles with her paranoia and attempts to rationalize her/others' behaviors. The novel is divided into 4 sections, each depicting the main character, Rin, at a different age (22, 18, 16, 15) so that the reader can see what events led her to become the mentally unstable person she is in the present moment. Not finished with it yet but so far I approve.

Kanehara herself is also quite interesting. She dropped out of school when she was 11 and left home. Her dad's a literary translator so she'd send him her work to edit. She won a really prestigious Japanese literary award (the Akutagawa Prize) at age 21 for her first novel Snakes & Earrings (which I have yet to read but i also supposed to be really good).

I'd also never heard of the genre "autofiction" before but it basically involves a fictional story written in autobiographical form.

* side note: attempting to stop the brain atrophy that is gradually occurring the longer I live here by compiling an ever-growing list of words (and their respective definitions) I don't recognize while I'm reading. I am hoping that I'll actually go back and learn these words but for now it is giving me some sense of initiative (not the word I was looking for but, due to said brain atrophy, my word choice is limited) in terms of preventing myself from becoming more stupid. Work brain muscles!

the bunny in my brain goes hip hop hip hop

yo brisbeezy: that's a shout out to you. ooh the good old days of watching even stevens.

update: it is currently rainy season (tsuyu: 梅雨) here. yesterday, it rained so hard that a couple of people died, 300,000 people had to evacuate their homes (125,000 of which were in Fukuoka & Saga), bullet trains stopped running between Kokura (in Fukuoka where I live) and Hiroshima (a bit more north) affecting 23,000 passengers...basically ef em el.
I wasn't affected too much although I had to go up north to Kokura for taiko practice (huge taiko festival is this weekend! Kokura Gion Daiko Matsuri- basically a 3-day taiko competition & festival where groups play (taiko) on the streets together as well as compete against each other--eeps! nerves!). All of the kaisoku (rapid) trains were canceled & the local trains were over 1 hour delayed and PACKED. Literally, NO MORE PEOPLE could fit on the train. Sardine status. People pulling the handlebars up above to pull themselves into the train before the doors closed. People running from car to car trying to find somewhere with a 1-person body sized space they could squeeze into. It was madness. Lucky for me, I had a seat and could just act as an amused bystander....bysitter. :)

and an ode to my sister:

The sandals of my soul go,
flip flop, flip flop
The bunny of my heart goes,
hip hop, hip hop
The rain in my soul goes,
drip drop, drip drop
The horsie in my heart goes,
click clock, click clock
flip flop hip hop drip drop click clock,
LOVE.

Alles Gute zum Geburstag

Yes, I realize this is early but I'm still scabbing internety-goodness so happy early 23rd! that is all.

'staches

i ❤ moustaches so so much. You could call it an obsession. Everytime I see a cheeky moustache somewhere, my brain/heart/soul does a little happy dance.

[beard revue]

[beard revue]

[beard font]

amazing. :)

reposting

I don't really have anything new and egocentric to post. Here are some hilarious findings via the interweb which have provided me with much amusement.

[fuckyeahamazing.tumblr.com]

[fuckyeahamazing.tumblr.com]

Okay, I'm pretty sure you're supposed to site where you get photos if you repost them but i can't remember where some of them are from. oops.

for h & candita

first of all I'M ALIVE!

secondly, here are a couple of things i thought i'd share with the world because they are amazing and i am currently obsessed with/intrigued by moustaches/facial hair and hipsters (respectively).

(^___^)*