Entries this day: Overview Toilet dinner

Overview

10:56am JST Saturday 4 October 2003

I didn't write about October 3rd on the 3rd, because I left my computer at the hotel, but writable things happened.

It all started at Ginkakuji, where I saw two European women who didn't speak English. I wondered why I can't *not* speak English and began a downward spiral of feeling useless, esp. with being in a foreign country, but for goodness sakes teaching English and living with English roommates! That's no way to learn a language (and I've ranted about this before) but fuckin' hell it's really true. I tell my students the best way to learn English is to get the fuck out of Japan and when you're there, don't talk to Japanese. Am I heeding that advice? No.

But then janette is like, "so, *why* really do you want to learn another language? (3 more by 2010)?"

Good question. Because I'm embarassed to know only English, and I think people who know more than one language are really really cool. *I* want to be really really cool. That's one thing I really don't like about the US: only learning one language.

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Okay, but am I settled? Not really. Am I cool yet? Not in my mind.

I kept wondering what Eminem would say ("you've got one shot") and I fuckin' saw an Eminem lookalike on the mountain. I thought about Kim who said I like to build my own rules out of the tools I'm given. And if I can create the tools, so much the better. (( Then why the hell am I working at Nova where all the rules and tools are enforced upon us? I should be teaching English incidentally, not primarily. Okay, Nova was just a way to get me into Japan. If I don't cook up something big and different in 6 months, I'm out of here (failed) ))

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She asked me what are the anchors in my life. I came up with the following list:

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I imagined different types of lives for myself

crap I keep changing this as I write it from what I said yesterday.

One dimension is money related (make money doing something I love, or making money in a rut-job, or live moochingly)

(dimension of travel: stay put or move move move)

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I want to do something huge for the world. I've got this idea of bringing mkp(*) to Japan (why do I think that is huge for the world? Because in my imagination it could change the face of Japanese culture. Gotta keep track of this imagination in my mind. I have a preconceived idea of what amazingness could happen if I bring mkp over, and if I don't change the face of Japan, then I could feel like a failure again, even though I've done something pretty big.) and I wonder how exactly to do that.

I'm going to write to the author of Dogs and Demons. I'm going to write a volley to Kim to discuss my idea. (That will actually be first, before I start going bigtime.) Within a few months, big good things will be happening.

(*) mkp = Mankind Project

ps: we saw some cool stuff: Ginkakuji and Kyoumizu

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11:37am JST Sunday 5 October 2003

Okay, here are the three things I outlined for janette a couple days ago.

1) live in a place, making money in a job (like living in Tsunashima and working at Nova) (I know how to do this; I've done it in various places with various jobs)

2) live in a place, not really making money, but mooching (like living at janette's and just helping her around the house and reading Stranger In A Strange Land, etc every night)

3) live not in a specific place, making money somehow while I travel. This one seems more elusive to me. What product or service can I produce or perform while traveling? Travel writer? Ad hoc beat boxer? Truman Show star? Webcam on my helmet, writing my journal daily, riding my bike across wild places, sleeping in a new place every night? (That one sounds fucking awesome to me)

Toilet

7:23pm JST Sunday 5 October 2003

October 3rd may have been the day that we happened upon an unmarked free toilet when janette needed one and I had no idea where to find one nor where we were really.

"yo daw, there's a toilet." I pointed to a private residence by which we were walking.

Her "reeally?" Sounded like two things: she couldn't believe it, and she really really wanted it to be true. The effect of this sound upon my heart was oh my gosh I'm glad I wasn't joking.

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After that, we found a temple from the back, one with a long set of gates leading from a neighborhood to the temple up some hill. We climbed it, sat on a bench, "welp, we made it! (wherever we are, we are here.)" and then went down a different direction and found ourselves near Kyoto University.

dinner

11:24am JST Saturday 4 October 2003

Didn't get any pictures of this little sushi shop, but we had the place (and the attention of two women) while we ate and worked to communicate. We ended up eating 8 different types of sushi, hand made, on the spot. 6300 yen.

They were really nice, the sushi really yummy, the bar really small and cute with thick natural wooden counter. I don't know how it resists water and stains.