Entries this day: State_of_My_Life

State of My Life

9:18pm JST Saturday 10 May 2003

State of My Life Address

1. I'm living in Japan! I've been here since 27 March 2003.

2. Significant events include:

   1. Navigating without direct human help my way to my apartment from Shinjuku

   2. Losing my hotel key on my second day here (and finding it that same day)

   3. Being handed a practically free Japanese instructor, Koko.

   4. Being handed a free bike for the duration of my stay by Koko's mom

   5. Coming home to find said bike towed

   6. Signing up for 7.5 hours per week of Japanese lessons.

   7. Losing my wallet while trying to recover the bike

   8. Intentionally, deliberately, choosing to start over with a new wallet. "Fuck the loss. Move on."

   9. Getting great help from Koko canceling bank cards, getting new ID cards. Getting help from Koko's mom recovering the bike.

   10. Finding the bike towed *again*, but not as far away

   11. Learning where to park the bike without fear of towage

   12. Benefitting from Japanese lessons.

3. I've noticed some things including:

   1. I don't have to go back to the US after a year.

   2. I can really truly live on my own in pretty much any country in the world.

   3. I really can learn Japanese.

4. Part of me is considering learning Chinese as my next language. I know Tyler has done it; I believe I can do it.

5. I've signed up on www.findateacher.net to begin expanding my income streams away from just working at Nova. I should be able to make twice as much per hour tutoring this way.

6. I've created a white board calendar on my wall which currently monitors my schedule pretty easily, including three basic things:

   1. work schedule
   2. study schedule
   3. workout schedule

7. My workout schedule is pretty simple: Do twice as many pushups per day as the date. Today is the 10th of May. I did 20 pushups this morning. Next month I'll bump it up to thrice as many pushups per day as the date. I won't go past that. 93 pushups is plenty for one day.

8. I'm proud of how well I've been studying.

9. I'm happy that I've not jam-cram-packed my schedule with stuff. I'm willing to add tutoring (making moolah) to my schedule, but that's basically it.

10. My room is kindof a mess.

11. I've developed a way to teach some prepositions in a systematic way that I believe is pretty accurate and hopefully quite helpful:

    TIME
    IN (big)	months years	in July
    		in 2002
    		in March 2003
    		in August
    ON (medium)	days	on Tuesday
    		on July 15th
    		on Friday 21 June
    		on Monday
    AT (small)	hours minutes	at 4:15
    		at noon on Tuesday
    		at 8 o'clock
    		at 6AM

    LOCATION
    IN (big)	cities prefectures countries	in Japan
    		in Kawasaki City
    		in Yokohama
    		in the world
    AT (small)	houses buildings stores	at my house
    		at Nova
    		at Kawasaki station
    		at the police box
    ON (touching)	anything	on the table
    		on the ceiling
    		on the wall
    		on the floor

12. Work at Nova is not so bad.

13. I'm proud of myself for beginning the process of becoming self employed here and not just living at the mercy of Nova and how much money I can make with them.

14. I'm proud of myself for engaging the world around me, but not doing it in a desperate frenzy of socializing (read drinking and sexing to forget (read cover) all my problems) out late at nights and such.

15. Sometimes I wonder if I could learn more Japanese by being "out in it" but I imagine that I'll learn enough as I engage the world more carefully.

16. I'm really proud of myself for charging forward despite any obstacles. Overall, that's what I seem to be doing.

Thank you for your support.