Entries this day: Happy_Summer_Solstice!__(and_my_brother's_birthday!) State_of_my_Life fred's_birthday gotta_have_faith hitomi_planning_nihongo

Happy Summer Solstice! (and my brother's birthday!)

Happy Summer Solstice! (and my brother's birthday!)

Hello from Tokyo!

Super duper thanks to those who have supported my recovery from the shoulder
breaking antics; the hospital(s) are now all happily paid.  My debt now is only 1/3
of that when I left college.

Interestingly, the cost of hospitalization from this incident is almost exactly the
same (not counting inflation) as when I cracked my skull (literally) while skating
back in 1993.  Therefore, I can issue this Insurance Company Alert: I cost $4000
every 13 years!

- - - -

Jesse, my friend who is hosting me during recovery, teaches English at a local high
school. I recently visited all six of his classes, as a show-n-tell of sorts. 
Showed the x-rays, told the story; we had the students each draw a comic strip of
the story.  ("please use lots of English!")  Most of them are really great!

(( Unfortunately, due to super-strict privacy laws, I cannot post any of them on my
website (without a large set of approvals) ... sigh ))

- - - -

A month ago, I had basically chosen to do a visa run to Korea. Soon after I made
that decision, Hitomi offered to loan me the money to visit Bali for a visa run.

Wow! Bali.  From Tokyo, I'm less likely to go to Bali than Korea, so...  I'm goin'
to Bali!  I am bummed to give up the chance to see DruDaddyG in Korea, but I know
we'll stay in touch as we have since we got to Japan 3+ years ago.

That's the short update; thanks to everyone who's been supporting me!

    Love Love
     - Rob! 

State of my Life

9:26am JST Wednesday 21 June 2006

State of My Life Address

1. Summer Solstice is my favorite day of the year! I love summer; I love the sun; I love the most daylight hours possible.

   It's ironic, then, that I have been inside on my computer for days and days. And living in a country where June is a rainy season.

2. 21 June is also my brother's birthday.

3. 21 June is also the day Wende and I planned to get married. In some parallel univii, we are celebrating our four year anniversary.

4. I am in Japan, living rent-free in Jesse's apartment, using rent-free Hitomi's computer, healing nearly-pain-free my left shoulder, which is still in a brace (1 more week) after I broke it in Hakone on 29 May.

5. Been working diligently on images, an image viewer to allow viewing of images on my site via tags, events, locations, or dates. It will be released as freeware when it's done.

   So far, I have a framework that throws exceptions (Error.pm), knows what tables are needed (next step will create those tables upon admin login), uses CGI::Ajax for asynchronous coolness, uses Javascript tabifier and tooltips, and can tell if we should be in admin mode or user mode upon displaying the main screen.

   Long way to go, but good framework, and hopefully one that will allow me to redo my journal entry indexes (by tag, event, location, date) as well.

6. To that end, I have just set up ~/.emacs to add

   <!tags: >
   <!events: >
   <!locations: Tokyo, Jesse's>
   

   to the top of each journal entry to make the indexing process easier.

   My idea now is to fill this in for all future entries, and past entries as I feel the urge. When it's time to index (the massive initial load and then each time I upload thereafter), snag those keywords into the db and then (probably) remove them from the file, though that would be a good(?) backup of the information.

7. I'm using Hitomi's laptop because she is super considerate, and knows how much I like working on my site. It's a PowerBook G4, 12-inch screen, and Japanese style keyboard with the @ and " keys mixed up, the * and + keys in the wrong place, the _ and = and ' and many others all in messed up places. It drives me a bit crazy, but is well-better than being on a Windows machine.

   My HD also died in the crash, and Hitomi said she would try to get it fixed. Haven't heard anything back on that, but I think (in this case) that is actually good news.

8. Hitomi and I are going to Bali (24-29 June) for my visa run. I have basically released the idea of working in Korea. It may still happen, but my visa-status is not tied to going there.

9. I have also released the idea of working in Japan. This life of being a bum is pretty appealing.

   (But,)

10. After a bit of a mental meltdown a few days ago, I recontacted my personal coach Kim Sawyer to get back into the process of designing my life with purpose instead of just getting what is handed to me. Part of me doesn't really want to do the work, but one little step at a time, I intend for a bigger part of me to get it done.

    I expect that process will give the answer to where I will work next.

11. (I can argue both sides: I am deferring the decision to an outside source, and I am deferring the decision to my own higher source, with outside guidance.)

12. Yesterday was Ma's birthday! She is in St Louis at GA. (not Georgia, General Assembly of the UUA)

13. Semi-foolishly, I have been on this computer so much that I'm getting symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. But, tonight, when Hitomi and I meet to finalize Bali plans, she will bring the Mini-DIV to VGA adapter that came with her computer, so I can put her computer as a keyboard in my lap, and use Jesse's terminal as the screen.

14. If I had a bit more money, I would buy an external keyboard, but I plan to put that off until I get a new computer. (But why?)

15. According to my Google spreadsheet, I am in debt 653,418±ß or $5,736.45.

    Basically all from my little Hakone crash, but definitely a portion due to not working in 15 months!

16. Though not 100% abstinate, I haven't had sexual intercourse since before PB52. So that's 5 or 6 months now. Definitely a recent record for me.

17. I've gotten well-sidetracked in chat-mode (with Calder); I think that's it for this entry.

fred's birthday

3:53pm JST Wednesday 21 June 2006

D'oh!!

I got sidetracked in a religious discussion with Jesse, then Michael; it was supposed to be just 15 minutes so I could call Fred at midnight as his birthday began, but I completely forgot. Now it's been 2 hours and fifteen minutes.

Meh. I'll still call him.

gotta have faith

4:07pm JST Wednesday 21 June 2006

Just spent about 3 or 4 hours talking to Jesse then Michael about religion and spirituality and beliefs. Michael listened quite carefully to me explaining my entire belief system about God and stuff, and pointed out a few apparent inconsistencies, which I must admit are pretty apparent.

I was like, "well, depending upon who gives me feedback, I'll get different answers: bible, koran, etc etc."

He was like, "I won't say the first step is The Bible."

"What, then?"

"Faith."

When I asked what he meant, basically, my paraphrase of his paraphrase:

Know that I cannot live an optimal life without input from God.

Know that God is willing to be my constant advisor if I wish.

Hmmmmm.

- - - -

Then I looked in terms of Vipassana:

Perceive reality in its infinite detail.

Experience that nothing is permanent.  Relax.

Hmmmmmm.

hitomi planning nihongo

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