Life After Japan
The first few days were difficult. There was a strong sense of unreality in being back here—I kept expecting that any minute, I’d wake up in my dorm as usual, eat my breakfast bento, and head to school on the subway.
 

Unfortunately, being back in Texas was the reality, and I had no choice but to accept it. It was hard, though, especially since I didn’t have a steady schedule to return to yet. Though there were things I needed to do—unpack and repack for Pittsburgh, celebrate two birthdays—there wasn’t any particular time I needed to be up and dressed or in bed. I never deal well with this kind of unstructured existence, and jetlag left me feeling fatigued and a little moody as well.
 

Of course, it isn’t all bad. I was happy to be reunited with my family. We e-mailed a lot and they kept up with this blog while I was abroad, but it’s still not the same as getting to talk with them in person. It was also nice to be in the same timezone (or close) as a lot of my friends and to get to chat with them in real-time. Being able to read newspapers and watch the news (and TV in general) helped me feel more connected to the rest of the world as well. And, yes, I do admit that having Internet access 24/7 again is nice, even though at first I wasn’t sure what to do with it—I really had gotten used to only having about an hour a day at most.
 

Also, especially because of my sleep schedule constantly changing and therefore spending many hours lying awake trying to fall asleep, I did have a lot of time to reflect on things—especially the changes that have occurred since I left for Japan in June. In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that I don’t think my personality’s changed, and I still hold to that. My goals and interests also haven’t really changed, aside from the fact that I’m now more determined than ever to fulfill my dream of working and living in Japan.
 

One of the biggest changes is that, at the start of the summer, when I realized that I am halfway done with college, I was really freaked out about it. Though I’ve had my share of ups and downs, I was thoroughly in love with the college life and couldn’t imagine wanting it to end. But since my summer in Tokyo, I’ve done a total 180. It may have been partly because of my spending so much time with my Korean classmates, all of whom have already graduated college, and realizing that the post-college life is not half so bad. At any rate, all of a sudden, I can’t wait to graduate and be done with college.
 

Another change that I anticipate is a change in my priorities. When I tried to go over what awaits me when I return to CMU, I realized that the prospect of the thing I usually look forward to most—the many clubs and activities I participate in—no longer excites me nearly as much. I don’t dread it, but I don’t feel nearly as passionate—and while half of me hopes that the passion will return, half of me argues that it’s okay. After all, my priorities ought to be finishing my Design degree and, if at all possible, getting my two minors as well. In a similar fashion, while I was going over what would happen if I don’t manage to test out of even a single semester of Japanese (which, unfortunately, is a possibility because I did not cover all of the grammar they cover in IJI) and whether I can still get my minor in that case. It should be possible, but it may mean giving up my opportunity to take Chinese language classes my Senior year, which I’ve always been planning. However, I now realize that, although I truly am passionate about learning Chinese because it’s part of my heritage and I think it’s the most beautiful language in the world, it is not nearly as important to me as learning Japanese—and so it would be acceptable to give up taking Chinese my Senior year if that’s what it takes to finish my minor. I realize that I may have been thinking of college as a smorgasbord perhaps a little too much.
 

In terms of more minor changes, I find myself interjecting conversations and actions with, “In Japan they…” I suppose this is not unexpected. It is human to make comparisons, and since I am not generally a great conversationalist, I am enjoying the opportunity to be able to share some knowledge and experiences that other people do not have.
 

Most of these are cultural differences or oddities I didn’t mention in here earlier because I planned to compound them all in one entry at some point. Since I never got around to it, I suppose now’s as good a time as any.
 

·         Japan really is “Opposite Land”. Not only do they drive on the left side of the road, but pretty much anytime we’re right-oriented, Japan is left-oriented. For example, you stand on the left side of the escalator and pass on the right.

·         Mom said she had heard from someone that no one talks to each other on the subway. This is fairly true, but moreso in the morning. The average person in Tokyo does commute a pretty long way to work/school every morning, so on the morning trains, more than anything else, you will find people sleeping. In the afternoon, you will occasionally find people chatting quietly, though in general, the subways are very silent. It helps too, though, that you are pretty much required to have your phone on silent, and you’re not allowed to talk on your cell phone while on the train/subway. Personally, I kind of like the silence. I like taking this time on the subway to reflect and review my day.

·         The Japanese love Louis Vuitton. At least one out of every five women I saw in the city would be carrying an LV bag—yes, I have tested this theory. It’s not unusual to see men carrying LV bags, either. And you can find Louis Vuitton stores everywhere.

·         It really is very socially acceptable to drink, and to say that you like drinking. Even our teachers, when introducing themselves, would say things like, “On the weekends, I like to go drinking with my friends.”

·         Smoking is very, very common, much moreso in the U.S. It is also much more common among men than among women. However, Tokyo does have a law where you can’t smoke as you’re walking—only when you’re standing still. They actually generally keep to this rule. The Koreans break this law all the time, though.

·         Tokyo is very, very clean, but you’ll hardly ever find any public trash cans in the streets. I’m not sure whether it’s the Japanese traditional custom to take your trash home or an effort to make the city appear cleaner. (After all, overflowing trash cans are not a pretty sight.) Anyway, it’s kind of a pain in the butt, for example, when you’re walking and eating ice cream and need to throw the bowl away afterwards, or something, but there’s no trash cans. After a while, you do learn where you can usually find them—outside a konbini there will often be a couple of small trash cans. But until you figure this out, it’s easy to walk for blocks without seeing a single trash can.

·         Speaking of trash, the Japanese are really gung-ho about recycling and separating trash. EVERYTHING gets separated and recycled appropriately. Even the aluminum cap from your yoghurt or dessert pudding gets separated from the plastic cup and recycled. Even when we got lazy, our dorm mother would go through the trash and separate the things we’d put in the wrong bins.

·         People marketing their stores, restaurants, and products in the streets is very, very common, and streets tend to be very noisy because of all the people yelling about their products and services. Restaurant staff will try to stop you as you’re walking to get you to look at their menu. People marketing stores or products often do this by giving out flyers or useful little freebies, like paper fans or little packs of tissues. I was personally a big fan of the tissues. They always end up coming in handy.

·         At stores, if it’s raining, you either leave your umbrella outside or wrap it in a plastic bag before taking it inside with you.

·         At large department stores with multiple floors, you usually have to pay for each item on the floor where you found it.

·         While in America the trend has been toward more casual dress in the workplace, Japan is still very much a country where men have to wear suits to work, regardless of their job. I have to admit I am quite a fan of this. In my opinion, men look their best in a nice suit, so while in Tokyo, I was constantly surrounded by eye candy.

·         Women, too, dress up. Shaunte often complained that she always feels underdressed in Tokyo. Part of it is, though, that women do dress pretty conservatively. Naked stomachs or bare shoulders are very uncommon. Shorts are very rarely worn, either by very young girls or by teenage girls obviously going for a slightly risqué look. Capris are acceptable, as are regular blue jeans, but skirts and dresses are a slightly more common sight.

·         Weekends and holidays are really the only time when you see families on the train and subway. On weekdays, it’s really just the older generations going to work, or schoolchildren going to school by themselves. So, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the Japanese are still marrying and having babies. It’s very obvious that the birth rate is in sharp decline, though; I’m fairly sure I only saw 3 pregnant Japanese women during my entire stay. (Yes, I counted.)

·         Though you’d think people in Tokyo would be used to seeing foreigners, since it’s such a famous and touristy place, foreigners will often find themselves stared at like you’re some rare animal at a zoo. This is especially the case among the older generations of Japanese; the younger generations don’t really do this, so it obviously has a lot to do with the attitude toward foreigners when people were growing up.

·         Japanese girls love American men. Pretty much anytime I saw an American guy who wasn’t either with an American girl or part of a larger group of Americans, he was on the arm of some Japanese girl. They just snatch them right up, apparently.

I’m sure there’s plenty of other things I could list, but this is all I could come up with off the top of my head. At any rate, I’m sure that whenever I do go back, I’ll add to the list as I go. But we’ll get to that topic later.
 

Unfinished Business
There’s a few pictures and things I failed to post until now, either because they needed to be scanned or I didn’t have time to upload them all. Anyway, now’s the time when I try to clear up all this unfinished business.
 

First off, here’s some photos from when Susan & I met up in June and did “print club”, where you pose for cutesy/goofy pictures and then decorate them with smileys and text and sparkles and all kinds of other ridiculousness. Although I am hilariously bad at posing for photos, I think the end results are quite cute, so I scanned them in for everyone to enjoy:

Also, here are the videos I took at Ueno Park a couple of Sundays ago. They’re nothing too special, but they show some of the street performances and random entertainment you can find when you go there.

Plans for the Future
I had already mentioned that I want to look into getting an internship in Japan for next summer. I had also mentioned this to Takahashi-sensei before leaving, and she told me to check out Temple University’s Japan program because she said that they help their students find internships with both Japanese and multinational companies in Tokyo. So, last Friday, since I didn’t really have anything better to do anyway, I began to do research.
 

It turns out that what Takahashi-sensei said about Temple is true, but the service is only offered to participants of their study-abroad program, since the internships are for college credit. Temple also doesn’t have a summer program—just fall and spring.
 

That’s when I returned to an idea I’d had since coming to college—studying abroad during the spring of my Junior year. I’d given up on this idea because I was worried about not graduating on time, but at the beginning of the summer, I’d made a detailed spreadsheet of my graduation requirements and my progress so far, including which courses I still need to take which semesters. It turns out I’m still well on-track and shouldn’t have to overload ever again. In addition, spring semester of my Junior year is the one with the fewest required classes—as well as the semester I least look forward to. I don’t like the projects they do in Typography IV, and the only other classes I’d need to take are a couple of Design electives (and spring semester of last year, they did not offer a single elective I was at all interested in) and at least one Japanese class. I don’t have to take any CS classes, and I was planning not to. After this semester, I’ll have only 2 required classes (electives) left for that minor, and I’ll have a better chance of getting into the classes I want during my Senior year.
 

This means that it is actually very possible for me to go abroad in the spring, so long as I can find a program where I can transfer my credits and use them toward my Design graduation requirements. Temple’s program is probably out of the question because, while they do offer art & design classes, they do not have a high-level typography studio that I could take in place of Typography IV. Aside from that, I don’t believe I could use my Carnegie Mellon financial aid, and the cost is too high to pay out-of-pocket.
 

However, I did a little more research. My friend Robin had mentioned that a couple of students in her year had studied abroad in Japan during the spring of their Junior year. I discovered that they’d gone to Nagoya Zokei University—Zokei translating roughly into “Art & Design”. That would explain why their credits transferred. So, Nagoya Zokei is a possibility—but I was a little dismayed, because in the end I’d like to be in Tokyo, just because I know the city well, I have a few friends, and I just generally feel comfortable there.
 

Further research, however, led me to discover that there is also a Tokyo Zokei University. They even have a lot of exchange students come from abroad to study there, so a lot of their classes are taught in a combination of both Japanese & English. In addition, because they don’t have a study abroad program but have exchange agreements with other schools, if I can persuade the CMU School of Design to make an exchange agreement with Tokyo Zokei, I believe that I could use all of my financial aid.
 

The interesting thing to note is that the Japanese school year for university students runs from the beginning of April until the end of January. So, if I do go to Tokyo or Nagoya Zokei, I would be going to school from April until the end of July—and would be off from mid-December until at least mid-March. This would give me ample time to still do an internship, likely in the U.S.—with the added benefit of having less competition for sought-after summer positions.
 

So this definitely seems like an option I want to pursue—especially because, for reasons mentioned earlier, I’m not particularly looking forward to spring semester if I do stay at CMU. However, there is much that is up in the air and questions that need to be answered. Would the CMU School of Design be willing to make an exchange agreement with Tokyo Zokei just so I can study there? If they do approve it, is it true that I can use all my financial aid and all my credits will transfer? What will I have to do to apply for Tokyo Zokei? In Japan, even art schools have special entrance examinations.
 

I’ve already scheduled a meeting with my advisor for 2pm this Friday, so I’m keeping my fingers tightly crossed for a positive response. I feel like it shouldn’t be impossible, but it’s quite possible that there are other obstacles or objections. I don’t really know. But I’m really hoping for the best.
 

If it turns out that it isn’t possible, I guess I will go back to my original plan of trying to find an internship in Tokyo for the summer. I’d prefer the study abroad option though, just because I feel like it would be easier to arrange overall and because I really do want to try to avoid being at CMU next semester.
 

Anyway, so that’s where my plans stand at the moment—and, as I hinted in my last post, this is the reason why this likely isn’t the end of this blog. If I do go back to Japan within the next year, I will most likely reuse this blog, and in the meantime, there might be periodic updates on my progress in getting myself there.
 

So, as before, this is not the end. This is not goodbye—simply a “see you later”, because I am determined that there will be a ‘later’.

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What if someone very close to you owns up to something done in the past? In all the years we have known each other, it boggles the mind learning of something so important just now.

I couldn't classify that incident as a mistake. It happened before I came along.

Thinking things over, it hurt a lot. It just stings cause the revelation came only now. I thought about our past together and the numerous opportunities she could have disclosed this to me. I thought about the future we would have together, considering this development.

It could have changed things between us forever.

Then I learn it wasn't true and that it was all just a test.

Bummer.

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Men are born to succeed, not fail.
- Henry David Thoreau, American author, poet and philosopher (1817-1862)

Well, heck, that sounds simple enough.

So why doesn't it work?

Because to succeed, a person must have the tools to succeed and the attitude that the goal is possible. In other words, a person needs a good work ethic, something to do and the means to do it.

Easy again.

But most people settle for less than what they are capable of, then either overwork to benefit their employer or underwork in the mistaken belief that only partial success at work does not equal only partial success in life.

If the original statement is correct, then why are most people not feeling successful, fulfilled and personally complete?

We don't teach to success of the individual. We teach success for the nation. We teach that success for corporations is good. We teach that our working to keep corporations successful is good. We teach that spending every bit of income we get is good, that it should make us happy and keep the economy rolling.

But we don't teach to individual success. That is, we don't teach to success of the individual on a massive, nationwide scale.

What we do teach individuals is that they should have the skills to satisfy employers sufficiently that they will keep us employed. We almost never teach entrepreneurial skills because that would be counter to the benefit of corporations.

Ask most teens why they will continue with their education past high school and you will hear "so I can get a good job" more than any other answer. In other words, "so that I can get a good paying job." Hopefully, one that will not disappear when the employer downsizes because it has not forecast future markets correctly and has lost money, so needs to cut staff to show more profit or minimize losses to satisfy its shareholders.

We don't even teach our children what it means to be successful, other than that they will be happy being constant consumers. Which few are, really. Again, ask a teen what it means for an adult to be successful and the answer will most likely be related to a secure job with good income (with which to buy lots of stuff).

It's not my purpose to teach you what success is. I know what it is for me. But it took me a few decades of searching to learn.

You need to learn what success is for you. What it really is. What it really means to lead a fulfilling life.

Then teach it to every kid you know.

Schools don't do this. Their purpose is to train employees to be good workers and consumers.

Corporations control the curriculum. If you doubt this, check the name brands on all kinds of products in today's high schools and even in grade schools. Including in text books.

First you must learn what success in life really is. Then teach it to others, both adults and children.

How many people, on their deathbeds, have claimed that they should have worked harder or that they should have spent more of their money in order to make their own lives and the lives of their family members better? Corporations want us to believe that we should follow that line of unthinking.

Learn, then teach. It's what we are supposed to do. Corporations took that responsibility from us because we walked away from it ourselves.

When you teach children what is meaningful in life, don't report it to your employer. The employer won't like that. Just do it in private.

A recent study (actually several of them) showed that large corporations were set up to be sociopathological (amoral, capable of violence or spreading fear without feeling guilty). It's part of their corporate ethic.

This is the power that will control the destiny of your children unless you change what your kids believe.

If you don't like it, do something about it. Talk it up. Social change happens only when enough people believe that children should be taught differently. Every socially acceptable norm of today was once a radical idea. Then people talked about it.

So talk. It's easy.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to have a time scale, content and methodology for teaching children what they need to know to lead successful lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

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Sometimes I wish when you're stuck at a fork in the road that you could get a glimpse of both futures just to see the out comes. Or that you could go back to your past just for a moment to see what would have happened if I had gone the different route just to see if I'm the right place now. Just to know.

Am I?

I am so Tibby from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 movie it's not even funny...scratch that I am Tibby from the  first movie, only in the first movie I am a mix of Lena and Tibby. Also yes I did read all the books. Summer and I went to see it today and she forgot to tell me to bring the tissues....

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I stumbled upon one of those things we will definitely use in the future. It's only a matter of time.

I'm talking about Eco Toilet, a friendly incinerator that will burn all our "content" and turn it into white dust. Believe it or not, we won't have to use septic pipes with it. You will only have to close the lid, and everything else is automatic.

The propane fueled burner will burn absolutely everything and turn it into ashes. The family of four will create only one cup of white ash after 18 months of use of this toilet. Unbelievable.

And the best thing is, you can use that ash and put it in a flower bed. But if you are not that kind of a person  :) simply throw it in the trash.

If you want to find out more about this Eco Toilet...

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Ok, whats a colour for stress?!

adfjkshfdnfdlkfmiogjflg,

i'm totally abusing my keyboard, but i don't care.....my fingers are restlesss.......

i'm getting my uni results........well my A-Level results, that determine if i get INTO my uni tomorrow....oh wait, GMT says 00:04....so today.....

dfsdjkfdghdfjkgnfdklgmdfklg

who am i to restrain my fingers?

fdjkghdfuigjfdklgjfldgj

my philanges are the 10 small fat outlets of stress.....and who knew that i was a home for the massive colony of butterflies that made a nest in my stomach....

jkgsdfghiofdjgkflgmfd

oh geeeeeez! i'm so worked up! why o why out of all the british unis i've chose, i've had to go and choose one that wants ABB grades for my first choice??????? and why o why did i have to choose a second choice that i don't actually like?!

it just seems like i've made so many wrong choices over the past 2 years...mistakes that are important.....mistakes i shouldn't have made...mistakes on which my whole future is now dependent on..?! it seems like i haven't yet grown up or matured yet....why is this personal development taking so long?! i'm 18 for bum's sake!

the biggest mistake......mucking up the exam period.....seriously kids....people say this, because its bloody true, exams are damn important! you know it, i know it, and yet i'm a stubborn conceited person to listen and do something about it...

fdnhgfkjgfiodjgmfkl

arghhhhhh what am i gonna dooooo?....what if it isn't all peachy keen and fine, and all goes pear shaped instead?! i have no back up options?! well there are apparently, but i don't wanna go with that, i wanna go with me first choooooiceeee!!! *whinges*

i can't do this anymore...i've mucked up big time....

sdaftgfhdjbvfajgqvmo we;kpto abnfkl;d

sorry to ramble...but this actually helps...u know what.....

~X~

i'm scared

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I know that I recently became engaged, but I think I am falling in love again. Launched last November, Songza.com entered my life for the first time this morning. After spending the last three hours searching and pushing the limits of Songza in search for the most obscure songs I could think of, I was pleasantly surprised to find the rarities were for the most part there (no Lazy Farmer though).

Songza (founded by Aza Raskin - as in Apple's Jeff Raskin's son) is laid out in a very simple fashion (the design could stand to be a bit more compact) that is easy to navigate and allows users to quickly search for and listen to music directly on the website. The site is legit. If an artist has any of their songs played, they will receive compensation based on the number of plays. After a little bit of research, I found that the bulk of the music on the site comes directly from Youtube videos. They extract the audio from the video in real time to stream on songza.com giving the site the ability to provide its users with the unique tracks from their favorite artists. Songza didn’t stop with Youtube and they will continue to expand in the future by teaming up with more music search engines. Recent partnership with Seeqpod augmented Songza’s 15.5 million tracks to 23.5 million.

Simply type in a band or song and a list with up to 50 results appears. When you click on a track you are provided with the options to play the song, rate it, add to your Songza play list, and share via Twitter, email, link, and embedding into your website. I recently got on the Twitter kick and have found the sharing feature really useful for sharing music with others.

All in all a great website that has a lot of potential to become the next big thing. Songza is in a good position to become the first music search engine that offers the entire universe’s catalogue of music, not just a portion of it. And for free! With mobile devices like the iphone, Instinct, and the soon to come touch screen Blackberry and google phone, it is only a matter of time before technology is commonplace and fully integrated into our society. These devices can access the web and therefore these songs. Is Songza another possible candidate for the final nail in coffin of the record sale?

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I  joined redbubble late last night and uploaded some of my silly pixel-play and am already getting comments. Good comments!

I don't know anything about the site, and really need to research it, but they SAY people can earn money there, selling images............if it's true and not a scam, WOWEEEEE!!!!  Maybe I can earn a couple of dollars. Just getting comments is exciting. 

So I'm off in my own little universe right now -- Will be visiting soon. REALLY. I just need to stop giggling first!

If anyone out there knows anything, good or bad, about redbubble, let me know? And if you're there already, tell me and I'll visit your stuff.

Edited to add: I just discovered that most of my work is too few pixels to make something that would be sold, but that's OK. There are always more colors and ideas. I'll just make/take more images!

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Slowly, yeah, but surely it's creeping upon Sweden. The leave begin to fall and the days are getting colder and the nights darker. It rains more (yeah, it's actually possible) but when it's nice it's really nice. Soon the trees will turn orange and read and the colour scheme of all the nature that I can see will change. Birds will leave to go south for the winter and people will hide inside coffee shops and under blankets to keep the warm inside. People come together this season, together against the chilly nature outside and the darkness that comes closer and closer. 

To me there's something poetic about the fall. I like it, much more so than summer to be honest (because when everyone else thinks that it's nice summer weather I am going nuts because it's to warm). Perhaps it has to do with the fact that a new year of school has always started this time of the year, but the autumn feels like a place to start over. In the darkness of the evenings and nights you can be whoever you want to be. There's a romantic vibe to it, the air is filled with fantasies that only this season could inspire.

It's serenity in it's purest form. A quiet and still autumn night. Yesterday I walked home from a friend at about 10.45 or so in the evening, and I couldn't help but to walk very slowly. My mind's set free in a way, walking there in the dark by myself, not a person or a car in sight and all my thoughts can run free in a way that they normally can't. It's a peaceful state of mind, even though most thoughts right now are negative ones, to be able to see clearly like that. The darkness is what does it, and the tranquility, and I think I have felt like this pretty much my whole life (no, I was never afraid of the dark, not even as a little kid). 

I don't know why it is like this, but I like it. The black sky seems so big and the falling leaves symbolises the end of one thing and the beginning of another. It's a promise of something new and different, and just as the trees will grow new leaves I know that I will come out fine in the end of the change.

This fall is one of big changes. Big worries perhaps, and I am sure also of a lot of good things. Staring out at the sky and the stars I can almost understand how different my life will be in a very short period of time. Walking there at the sidewalk yesterday I didn't feel sad or worried, even if it was thoughts like that that swirled through my mind. I didn't feel exactly happy either, but perhaps melancholic. Yeah I know that might be a very close relative to sadness, but actually it wasn't¨t an entirely unpleasant state of mind.

See my head fills with hope and fantasies in the autumn. Hopes for a great new year (yes, my life goes in school year still) and fantasies about meeting the one that'll sweep me of my feel in the middle of the darkness. It's the hardest being alone in the fall (exception: Valentines day) but these thoughts is a comfort and they make it all okay.

Perhaps I am being silly, I don't know, for feeling that this particular season's so filled with magic, but I can't help it. I have the soul of a writer, the ever changing feelings of an artist, so perhaps that's the reason. Don't know really, but I have no desire to change it all anyway so it doesn't matter. The autumn's coming, and it promises me a new adventure bigger than anyone I have ever embarked on before. I am going to trust the stars, in the future I hope for when I look into the night, and welcome it with open arms.

Maybe I could catch a falling leaf? I have heard that it's suppose to bring good luck.      

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Ladies and gentlemen, here is Maggie Estep, narrating my life:

I'm an Emotional Idiot
so get away from me.
I mean,
COME HERE.

Wait, no,
that's too close,
give me some space
it's a big country,
there's plenty of room,
don't sit so close to me.

Hey, where are you?
I haven't seen you in days.
Whadya, having an affair?
Who is she?
Come on,
aren't I enough for you?

God,
You're so cold.
I never know what you're thinking.
You're not very affectionate.

I mean,
you're clinging to me,
DON'T TOUCH ME,
what am I, your fucking cat?
Don't rub me like that.

Don't you have anything better to do
than sit there fawning over me?

Don't you have any interests?
Hobbies?
Sailing Fly fishing
Archeology?

There's an archeology expedition leaving tomorrow
why don't you go?
I'll loan you the money,
my money is your money.
my life is your life
my soul is yours
without you I'm nothing.

Move in with me
we'll get a studio apartment together, save on rent,
well, wait, I mean, a one bedroom,
so we don't get in each other's hair or anything
or, well,
maybe a two bedroom
I'll have my own bedroom,
it's nothing personal
I just need to be alone sometimes,
you do understand,
don't you?

Hey, why are you acting distant?

Where you goin',
was it something I said?
What
What did I do?

I'm an emotional idiot
so get away from me
I mean,
MARRY ME.

I can already feel myself sabotaging myself from the inside.

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So, I applied for an internship with NBC for TV Development/Production on the West Coast. And they emailed me yesterday wanting to do an interview. Today.

An internship with NBC, especially if it involves the writer's room or production with a television show, would be the ultimate foot in the door.

So, you can imagine how tense I am, waiting for that phone call that is coming at 4pm today. I just want to get it over with. This very well may be the phone call that changes my life. Who knows? I might get there, do the internship, find a job within the industry and never come back.

I'm so jazzed, I don't even think it's happening. I hope I nail this interview. And if I don't get it, at least I know they liked me enough to take a look at me. I made it to the next step, and that's a big deal considering the sea of applications they get.

I'll let you know how it goes, VOX WORLD. until then, i'm trying not to curl into a ball and cry out of anticipation.

also, the twilight series rules my life.

that is all.

*GULP*

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Now that Italy is a bust and I have to hold off on grad school until the fall, Lyss and I are talking about moving in together next August. We want to find a 2 bedroom apartment in or around Boston with a T-station nearby for her to go to Boston College. Hopefully I will be making bank in the Spring and Summer and will get a teaching position down there. I'm sure Boston is always looking.

Just another something to think about. 

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Some of these quotes have attributions, some are from that famous philosopher and observer of life, Anonymous. A few are my own that came to me as I piloted my way through life today.
................................

Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future.
Faith is having the courage to dance to it today.
- Dr. Peter Kuzmic, theologian, Slovenian-born, citizen of Croatia

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.
- Dennis Wholey, American television host and producer (b. 1939)

Laughter is a smile with the volume turned up.
- Anonymous (Google's best guess)

People laugh because I'm different, I laugh because they're all the same.
- Anonymous (Google's best guess)

No amount of darkness can hide a spark of light.
- Anonymous (Google's best guess)

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
- Anonymous (Google's best guess)

Be like the flower that perfumes the very hand that crushes it.
- Anonymous (Google's best guess)

Last night I watched a movie that was so difficult to understand that I couldn't figure it out until the very end. Then I had to return it to the store. It reminded me of life.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

You don't have to win at life. Life is not about winning. Life is about playing the game and trying to influence others so that they win.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

They say you can't go back to your childhood, that the places you remember will have changed. Even if they haven't, you will have changed so that the you of long ago wouldn't recognize the you of today.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

When your heart breaks, it changes your life. But you had a chance to avoid the hurt. When a child's heart breaks, the child has no defences, no preparation, no means to recover. The reassembled life has no possibility to achieve it's former potential.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

If you hear a great piece of music and your day is not better for it, the problem is not that the music is deficient.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

No matter how much technology you have at your command and friends in your social networking site, there is no substitute for the gentle touch of another live human, for the feel of their breath on your neck, for soft whisper from their lips into your ear.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

Don't think you're ugly. Everyone is beautiful sometimes, always when they smile. Don't think you're beautiful. Everyone is ugly sometimes. The difference is attitude and confidence. Even movie stars are pretty plain looking without makeup. They believe they're beautiful, so that's what they become.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

We're all working on the mysteries of life without any clues. If we knew already, we'd be somewhere else. If we don't learn, we are no better than the simplest animals. If we learn but do nothing with it, we are no better than most larger animals. At least they teach their young thoroughly. Learn and do, or get out of the way and let those who want to be what they can.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who believe that every child should be taught the important lessons of life from the best possible sources.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

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[Cross-posted] Remember Xanadu? It’s become somewhat of a cult hit even though in 1980 it was considered Olivia Newton-John’s mega-turkey. Stylistically, it sits uncomfortably between the 1970s and 1980s, as though there was a vacuum in between the decades. In one scene, Michael Beck insists to Gene Kelly that ‘It’s the ’80s’, but you know that it must have been shot in 1979 and people had not rebelled against disco at the time.
   Of course, reality tells us that you can’t mark off decades so clearly: elements of the 1970s necessarily continue into the 1980s, and some of what we regard as 1980s style had their roots in the decade before.
   But by 1982 there’s no doubt that one was in the 1980s: Rick Dees poked fun at ‘Disco Duck’ on Solid Gold and even ABBA no longer could do number-one hits.
   While there aren’t clear decade-dividers, there is a sense among us, as people, to want to bring new things into each era. Who can forget the sense of optimism we all faced as January 1, 2000 came around, even though it wasn’t technically the new millennium yet? We saw the year number beginning with 2 and it was a big deal. All those science-fiction films predicting a new era in the twenty-first century brought with them a sense of anticipation—and those that didn’t forecast the end of mankind in 1999 suggested that we might be a nicer bunch in the 2000s than we were in human history’s most violent, murderous 100 years.
   Here we are in 2008 and not that much has changed. We definitely aren’t nicer; in western countries we might well be more paranoid. But these are, in my reckoning, not twenty-first-century issues. This is leftover business from the twentieth century that we have not sufficiently dealt with, and we still have the opportunity to do something about it.
   Terrorism and nutty red brigades were with us through much of my childhood but various western democracies thought they could turn their backs on them. Arafat’s PLO came to the fore in the 1970s, not the 1990s. The negative effects of globalization have been with us since the postwar period. As has communism in Red China, which has brought us the censorship that western media are only now, with days to go before the Beijing Olympics, making a song and dance about.
   Just as a new decade does not begin to be “felt” till two years in, a new century won’t be felt till, I reckon, its second decade begins.
   The twentieth might well have been marked by our arrogance and over-dependence on technology as the Titanic set sail. And as that century dawned, indeed we were bullish about globalization brought about by shipping routes and the British Empire. As the Titanic sank, we were reminded that we could never be over-confident about technology. We might have said a few years before that we had too much to lose from going to war, with the expansion of global trade, but humankind sank into the Great War with new innovations of aeroplanes and machine-guns.
   Yet humans remain optimistic as we head into the 2010s. I would say there are more Americans hopeful about Sen. Obama’s race toward the White House than Sen. McCain’s at this stage, regardless of the latter’s attack advertising—because Obama has not defined things well. There is a sense of casting off the twentieth century. You see the same in so many areas as people question the economic system, politics, and how we are exposed to global disasters through the media. You also see questioning of the media. All of this inquisitiveness seems to be happening on a wider scale, maybe sparked off by authors and thinkers writing in the last part of the twentieth century trying to lay some useful groundwork for the rest of us as their ideas got out.
   What sort of century is emerging? We would like to think that we can solve all the world’s problems because we are blessed with the ability and desire; yet institutions seem to constantly thwart our collective wills. Various individuals take matters into their own hands, be they international philanthropists setting up funds for poorer countries or bloggers trying to break the mainstream media’s deadlock on what we are allowed to know.
   Meanwhile, corporations try to feed consumers products as a substitute for Orwellian soma—not necessities which we should look at having, but unnecessary items that take us away from being true to ourselves.
   I don’t have the answers to what sort of century we will face. I know what sort of century I would like to face. One where people from all walks of life can realize their dreams, where people can receive the education they want, and where deceit and avarice are shown to be harmful to the collective good. One where imagination and innovation drive forward human progress, rather than impeded by society or corporations because they view them as threats.
   The answer might lie in examining the changes in style between decades. Were they the result of companies dictating fashion or some deeper change in the Zeitgeist, driven by many individuals?
   I like to think it was the latter. When the end of 1999 came about, I certainly was not told to head into town to see how crowded or fun Wellington city was. I just went. Something drew me to it.
   There is something to be said about people driving the mood of the planet, and how we still have a chance to shape the twenty-first century’s destiny as we cast off the negative effects of the previous one.
   We know where we goofed. We have seen it in the destruction of freedom or the greed of certain parties; we have seen it through a failure to understand other cultures or how institutions block aid from getting to the people. We know there must be solutions, and we now have a twentieth-century invention—the internet—where we can band together, make some noise and maybe generate real progress. We just need to wake up, realize what is useless in our lives, what we can do for ourselves and others, and get back to first principles. Technology, for instance, is here to serve us, rather than direct us into buying the next little toy to waste away whatever precious seconds we have each day.
   We might define the new century through new energies (hybrid cars are so last century—we can do better), through new ways of reaching people in need (which we are already doing through unprecedented dialogue), and through redefining institutions to turn them into agents of change rather than stiflng collectives of people.
   It’s through simplifying our lives and our directions that we can sense what we might want in the twenty-first century. Have a think—and maybe we can just put something out there into that Zeitgeist as this century really begins unfolding.

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@80+
A neat title.
Commands respect.

When Vinod was visiting, and said I
looking, well, healthy and better- I
felt happy.I
was fscinated by the life cycle and limitations of age, ageing and  aged
classification.I
was entering the restricted zone of
the 80+.
The life was measured in terms of
dependance on others, immoboloty,
existing vs living, and the most irritating of all, living at the edge
of life, with only past and no future,
 
 

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@80+
A neat title.
Commands respect.

When Vinod was visiting, and said I
looking, well, healthy and better- I
felt happy.I
was fscinated by the life cycle and limitations of age, ageing and  aged
classification.I
was entering the restricted zone of
the 80+.
The life was measured in terms of
dependance on others, immoboloty,
existing vs living, and the most irritating of all, living at the edge
of life, with only past and no future,
 
 

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@80+
A neat title.
Commands respect.

When Vinod was visiting, and said I
looking, well, healthy and better- I
felt happy.I
was fscinated by the life cycle and limitations of age, ageing and  aged
classification.I
was entering the restricted zone of
the 80+.
The life was measured in terms of
dependance on others, immoboloty,
existing vs living, and the most irritating of all, living at the edge
of life, with only past and no future,
 
 

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U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer had a simple explanation Thursday for why the country is so reliant on foreign oil: Congress is nuts.

Other comments by Gov. Charlie Crist called for more domestic oil production and disputed critics who say it would take 10 years to actually get oil if a moratorium on offshore drilling were lifted.

"I've talked to people in the industry and they say that if we let them start to drill, they can have it coming out in a year and a half. So I don't know where this 10-year myth came from, but it's something that's just not accurate," Crist said. "We're Americans. We have the ability to go to the moon, you don't think we can get a little juice out of the ground?"

While serving as North Dakota governor, Schafer chaired the Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Commission, which issued a report in 1996 that warned officials about reliance on foreign oil and recommended conservation, alternative fuels and increased domestic oil production.

"I've been sitting there since 1996 saying we need to do something about this and nothing's happening. This is a tragedy to this country," Schafer said.
----
This is what I've been coldly saying in the posts here on MarketEDU. That this country is sitting idly by, stagnating our technological capabilities all because of Big Oil Companies and those few in the government that have big oil interests ($$$$).

We need to get on with it already and move beyond oil and coal. Move beyond immediate profits in order to have a future economy and an actual future! Period!

Ever since WWII this country has sat back and just concentrated on the almighty dollar. Technological advances have slowed considerably. Also witness corporations who when in trouble, immediately lay off knowledgeable employees rather than innovate their products/services. Its all just short-sightedness which is a big problem for us here.

We need to R&D for the near and far future or we'll have no future. Act now and hope to prevent the horrors we are facing on this current road to ruin, or continue and create a dismal future for our children's children, and their children.
 
We need to act swiftly on alternatives and then improve those in order  to get on the right path to a viable future.
 
Otherwise those Sci-Fi movies we all love to watch will turn out to be the horrible future we may face. Notice how many of them show civilizations in ruins and a few bands of people scattered throughout the universe looking for a new home or waiting for someone else to clean up the mess we left behind on earth?

Hopefully, the only hope we have won't be for a Wall-E world, the story of a robot named WALL-E who is designed to clean up a polluted Earth.

-Future1investor

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so what would you do if, out of nowhere, you suddenly had 12 months to fill? a theoretical godsend or shamefully nightmarish!?

• train to be a scuba diving instructor and follow the sun beach to beach
  
• move to beijing and blag a job writing for the beijinger
  
• start that music label you know is in you
• build that beach house in zanzibar (PADI on the side?)
• culinary school
• watch 365 movies, read 24 books, write 190,000 words
  
• tennis camp
• find something to do in calcutta
• make short-form documentaries
  
• run 12 marathons
• snowboard instructor
• yoga ashram
• live africa, traveling to each country on the continent

filling in the gap:

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