Shortlisted!

The JET application process is a big fat multi-tiered layer cake of bureaucracy and paper pushing, and it all culminates the day results are released. Applicants are placed in one of three categories: (A) Shortlisted aka "Welcome to Japan;" (B) Rejected aka "You fail;" or (C) Alternated aka "We're going to drag out the waiting game indefinitely, welcome to hell." I got a message at a JET-related website (which I may or may not have nearly 26,000 posts on...) a couple days back from someone whose cover letter essay I proofread back in December announcing excitedly that he had been shortlisted. Great job, slugger!

I can't believe it's been three years since I received notice of my applicant status. Like 9/11 or my first clubbing experience in Berlin, that moment is burned into my brain all flashbulb-like. I was at Pizzeria Uno of all places with my best friend and this Chinese dude who was explaining that Shanghai girls uniformly fall all over themselves when he walks into a room (unlikely). Got a phone call from Walter saying JET applicant results were out. He was alternated so I was nearly certain I had either been alternated or rejected, but after having him check my email, it turns out I had been shortlisted! I was beside myself with excitement but naturally had to downplay it so as not to rub salt in his gaping wounds. The minute I hung up the phone I yelled "I'M GOING TO JAPAN, OH MY GOOOODDDDD" in an uncharacteristically girly squeal, and my friends were happy for me.

Walter ended up being upgraded from alternate status a couple weeks before I left the United States. Prior to this great news there had been crying and stressing over the possibility of a future, and it was always lurking there shitting on my parade. Similarly to the "shortlisted!" phone call, I remember it perfectly. I was driving to the bar with a friend and nearly swerved off the road when he broke the news over the phone. Just another excellent notch on my already-charmed life. I celebrated a lot and probably shouldn't have driven home from the bar that night.

It's really fun to think about all this, now that I've got just over three months left in Japan and the next big mystery is imminent. Why is it so much easier to wax nostalgic over the past or to fantasize far into the future than to concentrate on the present?

Initiating a breakup.

I think Austin is going to win. I really love the idea of it and no matter what, there will be more going on there than there is in Albany, NY.

Not that there's anything wrong with "The 518," "The ToC," or "Smallbany" (a modest sampling of its many monikers) - on the contrary, I really loved growing up there and I had loads of nice friends, a great nuclear family with a big house with a great park literally in my backyard. Since Albany is the capital of New York State, there were internships to be had at the state offices downtown, some music festivals, and smatterings of interesting nightlife.

I suppose I realized I'd outgrown my pond a bit when I went home to visit last summer and felt like I had managed to do everything there was to do in the area in two weeks. Most of my friends from childhood are married, engaged, parents, soon-to-be parents, or otherwise domesticated. Some moved to other cities and states, and quite a few more simply grew boring and useless to me. My parents hate the high cost of living and the snowy winters. I found the lack of Thai restaurants indicative of many things.

(Universities and colleges in America are ranked informally by their percentages of Jewish and Asian students - the higher the percentages, the more expensive and competitive the school. I use a similar system to rate cities. Cities with lots of Thai restaurants have lots of arts-conscious 20-somethings who have passports. People like me. Albany has no well-known Thai restaurants and only a small handful of Indian places. Manhattan/Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Boston have at least eight of each on every block.)

Walter will be coming to Austin too. There we intend to recreate our present perfectly betsu-betsu (separate, individual) lifestyle - each keeping our own apartments and doing our own things, forming our own circles while having loads of adventures together. Our relationship and our bond seems unshakeable today, but if for some reason we don't make it as a couple, it's not like there's any shortage of cute single people around. Austin is consistently ranked as one of the best U.S. cities for young singles. Single girls make good girlfriends. Everybody wins.

My parents will probably move to the area too, since as I mentioned they are not fans of winter and in their mid-sixties are becoming a bit fragile for heavy-duty shoveling on a steep driveway in icy conditions. Dad's from rural Tennessee and Mom's from Dee-troit; they're both already sort of out of their elements in suburban upstate New York. Austin is still Texas, but compared to other major cities it seems, on all accounts, more foreigner-friendly, at least toward atheist liberal types. I've been doing some research; housing is affordable compared to NY and they should be able to find a tiny house or condo near downtown to grow old in.

In the past, my breakups with boyfriends have all been fairly straightforward, like ripping off a Band-Aid that was sort of falling off already anyway. I think saying "smell ya later" to my hometown will be like that, too. I'm ready for change and coming off of a three-year stint abroad, if I don't immediately flood my senses with more excitement and change, I'll wilt like a corsage after prom night. I'm so excited for this.

24.

I'm "officially" 24 now. I was born at 2:15 p.m. in Korea. Japan and Korea are in the same time zone and it's after 2:15, so I really can't be telling people I'm 23 anymore. A bit sad really as this marks the beginning of my mid-twenties, though mother insists I started the mid-twenties at 23. I'm not too concerned though, I fixed a good portion of what was wrong or broken in the past few months and feel good about how I'm living. When I turned 23 I felt despair and confusion when the clock struck midnight, but 24 feels hopeful and happy.

Tonight me, my suitcase, carry-on bag, and a big bag full of Christmas presents will go to Fukuoka City and meet up with Walter. We will eat cake and enjoy being together for クリスマス in Japan. My first Japanese Christmas. And then on Sunday morning I'm off to Germany. Europe still feels magical despite the fact that this will be my 7th trip there. I just can't help myself.

Too much nostalgia.

Related to the last entry about cataloguing one's life experiences using playlists and albums and songs: when is nostalgia detrimental to living in reality?

It occasionally occurs to me that everything I get excited about falls into one of only two categories: remembering something epic from the rose-coloured days of yore and getting emotional about how great it was, or anticipating some major event in the future such as major weight loss or a vacation and counting down the days. What's so unbearable about the present that daily life revolves entirely around time traveling to better times? Everyone says it's better to have goals and aspirations so that you don't stagnate entirely and flounder aimlessly through life, which I can't disagree with, but I do wonder sometimes.

I suppose these are the things you think about when you live your life on autopilot from weekend to weekend. I'd like "LIVING IN JAPAN" to become magical again, please.

Music fanaticism.

I love music. I obsess over my "currently listening to" like a teenager. I play the violin whenever inspiration beats laziness. I am going to play creative nu-metal covers at an upcoming gig. I take karaoke ever so slightly too seriously and get mad when people ruin the vibe of the song in question. I would actually commit murder to see Kraftwerk perform in a live setting. Perhaps most importantly, I may never outgrow the adolescent tactic of using songs to define moments and emotions in my life.

Everyone has different methods of cataloguing their highs, lows and middle grounds. I just happen to rely primarily on the dates on digital photos to keep accurate timelines, and on songs and bands that feature prominently in remembering.

The Horrible First Heartbreak was "Cut Here" by The Cure.

My First Scandalous Affair was "Beating Heart Baby" by Head Automatica.

The Great Pants-Peeing Psilocybin Adventure of Boxing Day 2008 was "Electric Feel" by MGMT.

Stupid Bout of Really Awful Depression in Japan was "In der Palästra" by Sopor Aeternus and the Ensemble of Shadows.

etc forever.

My mother doesn't give a rat's tail about music. While she is familiar enough with relevant songs so as to narrowly avoid the "pop culturally autistic" moniker, she has no interest in music as a form of entertainment on a daily basis. There is never, ever music playing at my parents' house. Music is just something dad does when he's driving solo. I had to find the joy in enjoying and obsessing over and loving music independently of my family, though I give them lots of credit for encouraging me to pick up violin.

On the "fandom" end of things, it all started with Limp Bizkit. Arguably the worst band ever to become even marginally popular. I fell in love with Wes Borland, but I would have let Fred Durst take me to bed if he'd asked. I obsessively read fan websites about Wes Borland - the best was "Obsessy With Wessy," hosted on Angelfire - memorized his favorite food, color, shoe size, all this stupid bullshit. I actually think I cried once or twice thinking about how frustrating it was that we might never meet and he would certainly not fall in love with me. I was just an overweight teenager with acne, had no boobs to flash at concerts like some of the other female fans did, but I loved him with all my heart and then some. With this unstoppable love came a fervent fanatic addiction to Limp Bizkit as a musical entity. I owned every album up through "Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water" (which was obviously bought the day it was released) and I memorized the chugtastic guitar riffs, lead AND backing vocals, and the ins and outs of every song. I went to the bathroom six times before the opening act came on the one time I scored arena tickets to see them (I remember the date - it was December 11, 2000). This went on for some time.

Ten years later I look back on how silly it was to be so obsessed with Limp Bizkit and feel jealous of my younger self! If I were that passionate about anything, at this age I could conquer the world.

Why can't I quit you?

I'm going to Germany again. This will be my fourth time in less than three years, and I have not lived on the western half of the Eurasian landmass for any of those three years. I'll be there over the New Year holiday in Frankfurt and Berlin. As if that weren't awesome enough, I will be accompanied with three of my best friends from Japan, who all happen to be English and therefore already nearby for Christmastime. To say I'm excited would be an insincerely understated lie.

It's funny how any given place represents different things for everyone. For a friend who will be joining me in my travels, Germany is synonymous with uptight boring people who wear socks and sandals. For plenty of Americans, the first things that come to mind are Nazis, shit porn and Oktoberfest. For me, it is (incorrectly) a futuristic haven of minimal techno producers with cool names, power plants, Kraftwerk, and kinky shit. I studied the language rather casually and by this point speak extravagantly poorly - just well enough to survive, file a police report, and say "tee hee" to cute strangers.

Obviously it is just a country, with all sorts of variations in language, dress, geography and politics. In my short but sweet times there I've watched the sun rise over Berlin on New Year's morning after in the company of a druid, danced the night away at a pro-Israel/USA communist squat, and I've also been yelled at by a cranky middle aged woman on a train for having my feet on my own seat.

It's these mundane occurrences that become "unforgettable experiences" and define how we think of X locale, and this update exists solely for my own purposes. I'm including a few photos from the prior three trips that I find particularly nostalgia-inducing or representative. Enjoy!

A chilly pond by Ravensbrück concentration camp memorial site: Brandenburg, March 2008

Revelers at Icon, first "real" clubbing experience in my lifetime: Berlin, March 2008

TV tower in Alexanderplatz on a snowy New Year's Day: Berlin, January 2009

Summer flowers on top of a mountain: Baden-Baden, August 2009

Maren, a notably excellent Couchsurfing "coffee or a drink" host who introduced me to some lovely people: Munich, August 2009

My dad is a badass.

Last night dad called and we talked. I was in the middle of watching Forrest Gump for the second time in one month when he called and had just finished the scene where Forrest and Jenny meet at the big anti-Vietnam protest in D.C. I asked him how realistic that scene was, and he said "very" and proceeded to share his experiences.

Dad went to said protests when he was a college leftist in 1967. After he transformed from a Young Republican with a crew cut to a long haired liberal with a ripped up draft card, he was one of the most radical students at his school (Albion College, a moderate-conservative Methodist liberal arts school in Michigan). He got in some trouble with his classmates for questioning the authority of the school's decisions regarding curfews for women but not men. When he went to the D.C. protests, he brought along a gas mask and carried a blackjack in his pocket to defend against the evil wills of cops and soldiers who wished to crush the resistance. He drank beer in the back of the van and smoked pot outside and brought only $10.00 for a whole weekend. He schemed and plotted how to storm the Pentagon and upon returning to Michigan wrote an extremely positive article in the school paper about the experience. After the Kent State University riot incident, he was absolutely convinced that the U.S. was going to Fascist Hell and flirted with the idea of joining the Weather Underground.

Then he married my mom, they didn't talk about politics, and now he reads Dostoevsky for fun. He still doesn't trust cops.

A Scottish memory

This is the first photo I ever took outside the United States, taken from on top of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh at the end of May 2006. Edinburgh was my first international destination, the first of several stops on a "Best of Britain" package tour with my mother. The evening of the day this photo was taken, I wandered across the street from our hotel to "The Globe Backpacker Bar." It was my first time legally being in a bar, and the first legal alcoholic beverage I purchased. Being naive and 19, I ordered a Guinness, and within five minutes had friends for the evening: soldiers serving in the (now-defunct) Royal Scots from South Africa.

A German memory

Delirious with the flu and a cough racking my entire body in Heidelberg, Baden-Wurttemberg, August 2009. We had spent the day with my mother sightseeing, climbing mountains, and downing a few beers at an Irish pub. She hobbled off to bed in her old age, and we sat by the bridge getting reacquainted as we had not seen each other since the year kicked off. It was a chilly night and you wrapped me in a rain poncho and then made fun of me because I looked ridiculous. I coughed and coughed like a terminal lung cancer sufferer and you took me to a shot bar to drink chocolate rum. Spirits were low as I had to see my mother off in the morning, and my fever was steadily rising.........

A French memory

Sarlat, Dordogne, France, early June 2008. A rather modest sized city smack dab in the middle of duck confit and foie gras country. Pristinely maintained cobblestones that hurt the feet, more than one's fair share of slow moving tourists who are only there to buy olives at the market, a well hidden medieval shop with friendly (and very nerdy) employees who are more than happy to share mead and wine samples with young female customers, and an interesting underbelly ice cream shop that doubles as a shot bar for addicted young people during the wee hours. A tattooed guy wearing leather chaps and gauged ears plays bagpipes at the main square several times per day. At Bar "Les Iles," Renaud flirts like the devil, and there is a half-Japanese waiter at a neighboring bar. Beware of the too-friendly American expat woman who will demand your email address.

Night driving in the mountain pass to mend a bruised heart and back

You know this would be a great place to get murdered.

You mean a great place to murder someone?

And then we passed from questionable civilization to none at all, just us and the heart heavy trees bent like grandmas over the road. Lurching and jerking we sped over mountains in the most inconveniently twisted path imaginable.

This is the shit Japanese postcards are made of!

Like the "Japan's Nature" ones?

Yeah!

It is so wonderful to be out here in no man's land like this. If we died up here no one would ever find us, would they? We could pass in a head-on, since the road is so narrow and curvy that staying in one lane feels like an unnecessary chore.

You know you're lucky I don't barf in cars.

Please don't barf.

Every so often while making a turn you can catch a brief glimpse of where you are - somewhere, lost forever, in some vast coniferous mountain range.

This is what the Black Forest is supposed to look like!

The Black Forest?

It's a real place?! I thought it was just the name of the cake.

DUH I've BEEN there.

It's like nighttime in here, with the setting sun behind rain clouds and thick fog like the Tenerife disaster takeoff you'd never know what is happening in the real world. Nor do you particularly wish to return to a place with houses, supermarkets, schools or hospitals. It's disappointing when you reach the summit because you know you're on your way out.

Oh we're halfway there. Now I can use my brakes again!

Oh.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Returning, after nursing a bruised heart with rich food and a fat man who tried to order our friend a pizza. It's pitch black, foggy, raining. This is better than primal, perhaps primordial. We are listening to "Fantasy" by Mariah Carey.

You know, with the music video and everything, this is strangely fitting.

At this point I don't ever want to leave. I can't see shit save for the plant debris on the road and the road reflectors but I know I am in a forest and right now a forest is the only place I want to be.

Bunny!

We switch to "Orion" by Metallica and then a string of Clan of Xymox and A Flock of Seagulls songs because I have totally hijacked the music. On our way down again it's disappointment all over again. I don't want to go to work tomorrow. I want to stay on this road forever.

childhood diaries, big laughs

At the risk of my own neck, I am posting an excerpt from my Minnie Mouse diary of yesteryear in which I fantasize wildly about slaying my gym teacher.

May 21, 1995

Dear Diary,
Crap, shit, fuck, ass, bitch, bloody, hell, poop, brain infected, butt sniffing, bubble butt, fart factory, BLIP! I hate school! I wish Mr. ***** would spontaneously combust and get electrocuted by the devil! I wish he would go through the worst agony ever! I hope he was killed by the Unabomber! I'm not sorry at all. He hurt me, and now I want him to die in pain and go to hell, and take ***** with him! I wish he'd drop dead, and I hope he's having a heart attack! I want him to get beaten up and tortured till he dies! I hope I never see him again! I'd like him to retch the rest of his life! I wanna kill 'im! I hope right now, there is a dagger in his throat! I hope he dies right now! I hope he is burned up and the ashes are destroyed! I hope he has A-bombs exploding in his house now! I hope his family escapes but he is trapped! I hope no one gives him the least bit of mercy! I want him to be whipped and cut up and made into man stew by Friday and Robinson [Crusoe]! I hope his funeral is cancelled, and people make fun of his tombstone & he breaks every bone in his burning body! I hope he's dead already! I laugh at his death!!

I HATE HIM!

DROP DEAD, MISTER POOPHEAD!

Merry Christmas everyone!