Entries this day: Fred's_suggestion Fuuuuck

Fred's suggestion

8:18am JST Friday 2 May 2003

Fred commented on my journal:

> Soon as I got into work Steve was all, "what's going on with your
> shoes?" cause I'm wearing some oh-god-say-it-isn't-so!!! light brown
> leather shoes. Man fuck that. I lied something like, "oh, I didn't
> have a chance to get home and change; I chose to be here on time than
> to have my other shoes." Bite me.

Dude, I have to make the hateful suggestion.  Your coworkers at Nova
probably don't read your journal yet, but IMO you have to assume that
they will eventually as they come to know you, since it's such an
integral part of your life.  You have to assume that eventually,
uncool people will read your website, and, eventually, people will see
how much you disdain Steve.  Steve is not he kind of guy who will
support your freedom of speech, and may have the power to mangle your
career.  

I can't suggest any more that you "be a good boy," because clearly
Steve is a micromanager who isn't capable of letting you make
decisions for yourself.(*) I can only suggest that you find a way to
get away from him as soon as possible, because the longer you work
under him, the more you will hate Nova specifically and your Japan
experience generally.  None of us want that.  Find the cool important
people and impress them.  See what magic they can work for you.  In
the mean time, I think you should make private the things you say
about him, lest they make trouble for you in the future.  I know you
hate to censor yourself, and I'm sure you've done an admirable job so
far--I'm sure that in your private journal there are things so
poisonous as to get you fired.  I think you need to go further and,
yes, censor more.

I've been thinking of suggesting this ever since you started talking
about Steve.  This entry seems to take things a step further than you
really want to go.  

(*)I suggest that you think of it like this:  His criticism of you
simply demonstrates his own inability to be a good manager.  He
comments on every little detail the same way Karen does because he is
incapable of helping people grow the way you have been doing for six
years and counting.  I know it grates upon everything you base your
life upon, and I'm sorry.  

I hope you are getting enough satisfaction from your interactions with
your students to overshadow your boss' poor management skills.  

Love,
g

Fred is certainly far wiser about office politics than I; for the past several years he's been studying/teaching in so many different universities' upper eschelons that I can't quickly remember them all.

This ultimately comes down to a cultural shift (journals online) and the question just how much is too much as applied to each person's specific case.

One side of me cries "free speech, beeotch!" and wants to censor nothing. There are actually quite few private entries in my journal nowadays; the private ones are fun AIM chats and the like (my definition of fun).

When I look at the overall larger huger picture, I see myself in Japan for a year, and my journal online for way more many years than that. For some reason I am driven to lay it all out here, and am allowing myself more freedom to do such. Really, I want my journal to become really wildly popular (of course! who doesn't dream that?) and actually generate some sort of income for myself. (*)

(*) mostly I want this to happen organically. There are times when I consider the latest amazinge money making scheme (not like "add your name to the top of the list," but like "get $5 every time a friend signs up for paypal" (or some other apparently reputable company)) but ultimately I have turned down all these. I'm open to the idea of someone saying "hey man, I love your site; here's a million dollars," but I want that reason to be for me. It's like Eddie Murphy's (main) character in _Coming To America_; he didn't want the girl to know how wealthy he was, he just wanted her to like him. Wait. It's not like that cause I'm not heir to a nation. .. But I know what I'm trying to say.

I want my journal to be my own creation and my own representation of my own thoughts (as any good journal should be). I try not to write to an audience (though I know it happens) and I'm getting better at that, for truly I want two possibly conflicting things:

.)

Shit I just forgot both of them.

I want to write whatever I write, and I want people to love *exactly* what I write. Not because I write it for them, but because I allow people to glimpse my world. I don't try to create conflict just so there's something juicy; I just live my life and the juicy bits come up. And I still just write in my plodding "and then I did this. and then I did that." style. Slowly that's changing as I learn ways to express my emotional state.

Ironically I gotta go to work. Maybe I'll get back to this.

Short version: I'm not censoring. I think I can last a year and not tell anyone lethal in Japan about my journal.

Fuuuuck

9:01 am JST Friday 2 May 2003

Oh my god. As I was blabbering on so eloquently about why I love to blabber fully blabberfully on my site, I forgot about meeting Ayana for tutoring today. She graciously let me cancel this meeting for no charge, and graciously said that I'd have to pay next time I cancel with no warning. I'm supposed to be in Shibuya in 30 minutes.

Ponder ponder ponder... An idea is to go there now and carefully measure how long it takes me to get there. Cointoss says....... no.

I absolutely will get a whiteboard to use as a calendar; that's the technique that's organically developed ... shit that is *ridiculous* that I carry this computer around and don't use it as a calendar! And it's a Mac for god's sakes that should be easy to do!!!!

The hardest part is training myself to write in here.

Ironies abound that I'm compelled to write all the events that occur, but not write all that I have planned. 'swat it boils down to. Okay fine. Move on.

I'm going to the 100 yen store to get a whiteboard.