Top 10 from Japan in 2008

After 4 months I understand, that I do not know everything about Japanese culture, but there are a few things I have learned :

1. Culture is a machine that takes all of its components to work.
2. Language is more than words, context is everything and context is apart of culture.
3. Toilet seat warmers are the way to go
4. Listening is key
5. Anything is possible
6. Doing that which scares me the most directly contributes to my personal growth and happiness.
7. There are many ways to skin a cat
8. There is a time and a place if you make one
9. If it looks like chicken skin on a stick and it takes like chicken skin on a stick, it’s chicken skin on a stick.
10. Life doesn’t stop when you move to a foreign country (maybe just as you know it)

Somebody got a special package in the mail

Heyyo!!!  Yay me Yay me!!  I got a care package today from the loveliest woman alive, M(r)s. Katie Stover!!!  What a treat!  This package not only included flossers for which I have been desperately waiting for but a variety of other thoughtful gifts.  

1. Reese's peanut butter cups

2. "Signed" photograph of one sexy model, none other than Hugh Dancy himself (Katie you treat me so good)

3. The MOST hilarious comic strip of Dilbert yet.  I cannot wait to get back into corporate America.  

4. A gorgeous post card that is now sitting on my entryway shoe holder below the poster of my two leading ladies, Alice and Josie.

5. A movie to tide me over (my internets is slow...WTF and I can't watch thing at normal pace...aaannnoooying)  Good choice to Katie.  Wit.  A scholar who gets cancer and realizes that life is about kindness and not the pursuit of knowledge....hmmmmm.....I don't know what to think thousands of miles away from my family during the holidays while I'm on my own personal quest for internationalization and personal growth.....but thanks.  I only cried for about 30 minutes into after I watched it.....alone.

I am soooooooooooo grateful for the thoughtful gifts.  Its fun to get stuff in the mail especially when I know it has been in the hands of someone I should be drinking a vat of wine with right now.   My tidal wave of culture shock has moved down the road for now.  I am settled again and happy to be alive.  

I ventured out to buy some cheap food and put together my own udon dish, I spoke quite a bit of Japanese with a teacher at school and sang White Christmas with one of my classes.  My whole plan to Vietnam and Cambodia is planned and booked.  Wait for it!  I am.  

Katie - you are amazing and I couldn't have begged for a better older sister.  (so thanks to my parents too.)

a little bit like the sky is falling

I know I haven't checked in for sometime now, and everything I have posted lately has been about some ridiculous dreams that have not a whole lot to do with the day to day in Japan. But the tide has turned and life is different. I am different, noticeably, to myself especially. I am at the bottom of the barrel for high spirits these days. Seems like all I want to do is wallow and I don't even have a good reason, except for the fact that I just can't have it my way when I want it all the time I suppose. I'm in Japan and I want to be here, maybe more if Japan had a Stumptown and a Mcmennamins, though I would NEVER suggest it because then it wouldn't be Japan. They also speak a different language here, in case you wouldn't have guessed and though I have nothing against it, I find myself a little depressed about it. I am apathetically tired of not being able to read things or know what they mean. I suppose this is the low point of culture shock. I've been warned.

Fortunately I have some pretty amazing people in my life right now helping hold me together from afar. Which that in itself almost makes living here, away from them, intolerable. Having said all this - I need to say, I wouldn't change coming here for the world. I love living here it is amazing. I just think there are some things we don't have control over...the feelings that wash over us sometimes. Right now I'm in it, whatever it is - maybe it's growing pains. Whatever it is, I know that I will come out of it happier, more self assured, satisfied and more knowledgeable about myself. At this point, I know myself well enough to also know that this probably won't be the last time I am at a lull but at least I know to just enjoy it...because today is a gift. I feel myself wanting to drift into the darker side of life but I won't allow myself. I will however allow myself to lament about the fact that its cold, they don't use heaters in school, my pockets are stuffed with those heat pockets you have to shake them to get warm, it always seems to rain on the days I DON'T have my umbrella or rain boots, I am broke, I am going to Vietnam without solid plans and hate the idea that I have already spent money before I have actually done anything - airplane tickets just hanging out waiting to confirm validation. I have a test due this week for a Japanese course I have been avoiding and now I have to CRAM to get it in which I don't want to do but for some reason I have to because I started it (paid for it). Um....what else, oh ya....Christmas is coming and though I feel fine about not being at home I miss it terribly and seeing my sister's Christmas tree up and in full effect with her children around the kitchen table makes my heart ache. Oh the pain, sweet suffering....let it be my choice and dear god let it be not in vain.

that would be a great sentence for me to stop at, and ponder and let you all ponder as well but we already know the answer. Of course it's not. So I'll end with a few things that sometimes help me get through the day :

1. Let it be
2. Aint nothing gonna break my stride, aint nothing gonna hold me down, oh no, I've got to keep on moving.
3. Que Cera Cera, whatever will be will be, the future's not ours to see, que cera cera.