Entries this day: AM Class Fix-a-flat Voice_training Work

AM

8:11am JST Tuesday 6 May 2003

Last night Janette called around 10pm. I had already gone to sleep, and had earplugs in (to keep me sleeping while Matty and Frank are still awake) so it took me a bit to notice, wake up, answer.

Wow. Good to hear from Janette; I just wanted to cry at times, which I couldn't do for some reason; maybe cause really I was just talking to a voice on the phone and not a real live Janette.

Expressed to her the angst I'm going through in this transition from US to Japanese life - internet connectivity. I've got to wean myself off email and it's killing me - I don't want to "let my friends down" ... which I know is a concern not completely based in truth, but it's still there. I'm afraid to be alone; that's one of my deepest fears - afraid to lose my friends. Afraid that my ex-YRUUers will think I've forgotten about them, when really they still show up in my dreams (Jason called me last night in a dream (or maybe I called him)).

I wondered if this is a natural.. no it's natural for me, so it's natural.. i wonder if this is common, or predictable. I've got to release; oops my brain is in overdrive on tangents now.

* grand irony I've got to release right now when struggle only causes tightening

* I've got fans that I've never met! This is *exactly* what I've wanted, and I'm like shit! How do I keep them??? please don't leave! And I want to send everyone an email "thanks for reading my site; I really appreciate it! you're the best!!" but I can't realistically spend time doing that cause then I won't be living my dream, learning Japanese, traveling around, making my site worth reading in the first place!

((A friend of mine published a web zine called The Texas Gazette (I dunno if it's still around) but at one point she got featured as a site of the month on some high traffic site and *BANG* she got a million emails and she tried to respond to all of the emails instead of focusing on her publication. I'll never forget that story even though parts of me are tempted to tiptoe down that path.))

So.

I read and appreciate every non-spam non-forward email I get. Some of the forwards are good too. Right now my time is shredded by work, walking everywhere my bike won't seem to take me, practicing Japanese

Grrrrrrrrrr why am i making excuses?

I choose not to respond to all the emails I get. I still love you.

comments

Name: j

Email: dreamon412@ *redacted*

Subject: love and fame

Comment:
i like this line_ "i wonder if this is natural- no, it's natural to me, so it's natural"
i am glad i called you; i'm thankful you can talk to me about important issues in your transition.
"I choose not to respond to all the emails I get. I still love you." good choice
you express fear that you will lose your fans,more importantly ,your yruu'ers
if you do not respond to their emails in kind. you don't want to lose their love and interest in you. isn't your journal the way to let people keep up with you without having to address each one of us?
do people read your journal because they love you? or do they read it because it's interesting? initially, perhaps, it was affection for you as a person that led a reader to your site. if your site, that is, your writing style and the content(thoughts, dreams,rants,a day in the life diary,feelings, funny episodes, etc.),if all this did not have merit on its own, do you think you could maintain new fans' interest and even the attention of your old beloved friends?
this may be off the track. you were anxious about returning emails. i am talking about reaching people thru your journal.
here's this: how can you give and receive love in a way that keeps you connected to the one's you love and to the ones you don't know but who love you?
love= action,work
action of love =discipline, attention
attention=time, listening,responding with thought only of the other's growth
discipline=extending oneself in a healthy way so all parties benefit
this choice to love well takes energy. you only have so much energy. maybe you have to choose which few you can love well. the others will have to be content with loving you, not because you return their love (attention) but because of who you are. how you live your life. you may hold the feeling of love for them but cannot possibly respond to each because you are busy living your life that is so interesting( the texas gazette syndrome). and living your life in a free, conscious, loving , healthy way, is what makes it interesting and inspiring to others.
alot of this comes from my interpretation of -the road less traveled-and how it applies to your quandry
does it make sense? permalink

Class

12:32pm JST Tuesday 6 May 2003

Class was cool today; it was just Olivia and I there. No Karly-distraction nor Alicia.

One thing though is they use romaji a lot instead of ひらがな, so I try to ignore it when they write it. I'll ask for ひらがな next time as well. ひぐち, the younger せんせい (%) seems more aware that I use ひらがな instead of romaji. I appreciate that.

(%) Just at that point the train stopped at a station, and another train pulled up beside us (across the platform from us). A woman saw it, got off our train, onto that train, so I knew it must be an express train. I'm going to よこはま, a super big station, so I knew that an express would stop there. I joined her and thereby skipped like 6 stations. Awright.

1:05pm

Right now I'm at よこはまーほんこ Nova, about to attend the voice training. Good stuff I hope.

Fix a flat

1:06pm JST Tuesday 6 May 2003

After class I got .. oh *during* class (during break) I was tapped on the shoulder by ここ's mom and I didn't recognize her at first. She was all "yammeryammer" and I'm all, "um, hi!" knowing that a Japanese wouldn't approach me unless s/he was sure of my identity. I realized it was Koko's mom (have only seen her a couple times in this sea of Japanese faces) and she said something about the bike. I'm all, "oh yeah, it's great!" or some shit, not telling her that it has a flat.

Fortunately, the conversation didn't get to that point, but it did get to the point where she told me that Koko is at home sleeping, not feeling all that hot today.

After class, I stopped by a bike shop and the cat fixed the flat (two punctures in the tube, both by a single small piece of wire that he found still in the tire) pretty quickly. They have different styles of bike maintenence here. Well, at least he did. Using pliers instead of a correctly-sized wrench to get off the nut from the valve stem (and scarring the threads on the valve stem (threads on a valve stem!) and then *cut* off the nut to keep from having to unscrew it all the way), and never actually taking the wheel off the bike. That saved a significant amount of time, I imagine, since he didn't have to reseat the wheel nor fix the train nor any of that.

1470 yen. Fair enough. Just glad to have it fixed.

Voice training

4:16pm JST Tuesday 6 May 2003

Voice Training II was like a whirlwind of information being blown at us all at once. It could have been extended to a two day conference, but apparently Nova believes it wouldn't benefit from such an arrangement. So we go four hours and now I zip off to work four shifts.

I was smart enough to jump on the Limited Express train. This train stops only once between Yokohama and むさしーこすぎ. That stop does not include my station in つなしま. I get to be all sheeeeeewwww right past my station. hahahahah, non limited-express suckas!

- - - - -

A really funny thing about that story is that there's a direct line from Yokohama to Kawasaki. I took the line past my station, switched to a different line, went to Kawasaki.

---- = my path
==== = not my path

Yokohama  ==================== Kawasaki 
            ＼              /
             ＼            /
              ＼          /
               ＼        /
                ＼      /
                 ＼    / 
                  ＼  /
                   ＼/
                Musashi
                 Kosugi
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Work
11:08pm JST Tuesday 6 May 2003

Just now on the train after work and after chillin' at the kiosk
with Steve (!), Scott and Rich, some of the leader type people at my
school.  I dunno if Rich is a trainer, but Scott is; he was one of our
voice trainers today.  They traded some Nova gossip and drinking
stories, which were spawned after my explanation of why I don't drink:
"I heard all the stories in high school and I'm like 'why do you keep
doing it?'"

"It's pretty hard to explain," said one and went on to describe how
he basically gets drunk every weekend.

I also prefer saving money.

- - - -

Anyway, work itself was pretty good and short; I saw cute じゅんこ in
a different classroom, but I didn't teach her.  After all the classes,
あや came in and told me that one of my students said I was very polite
and a very good teacher.  How awesome to hear!  I've never heard
anyone else get such a compliment; it made me feel quite good.  I'm
glad Steve was there to hear it as well, and he commented positively
on it.

Even though the comments I write in the files are not always
amazing, I always at least mark the files to indicate what lesson
number I have presented to the students.  According to Steve, not
everyone does this.

comments

Name: j

Email: dreamon *redacted*

Subject: goodjobrob

Comment:

omedetoo 

 you are not missing anything important or beautiful or helpful or healing by choosing not to drink
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