"Summer has come and passed, the innocent can never last..."


Still, in Japan it's still muggily, suffocatingly hot and I'm just really glad I got air-conditioning. Got through my first 2 weeks of teaching now... mainly self-introductions. I've been assigned to 2 schools; Shikino Junior High for all but Tuesdays and Kuniyoshi Junior High on.. err.... Tuesdays. (Come to think of it I really could do with pics of my 2 schools. Bare with me and I'll edit them in later!)

EDIT: Still no pics of my 2 schools but wanted to share this little story from today at Kuniyoshi. You need to know Japanese to get it cos I'm too pure and noble to translate it (but corrupt enough to find it funny!) I was in class with the ichinensei (so 12-13 year olds) taking them through "who is..." They had to write down the example sentences I was making. i used a textbook example: "Who is that girl...? She is Mako" and the kid infront of me, though he didn't know I saw him, wrote down "she is manko," then turned round sniggering to show his friend before rubbing it out and inserting the right name! I don't think he saw me sniggering either... (end EDIT!)

Anyway, junior high means awkward adolescents, Japanese style. Most of them are quiet, be it shyness, sulkiness, disinterest or trying to be cool. There are a few live-wires who are good fun though. They all know how much I like Star Wars now, that I have a tattoo and that, along with Matt and Calex, I dressed as a ninja and ran through NUFS! Among other things. A few students have approached me to chat and I've had my first "David, I love you!" The boys have taken to imitating my salute/wave too, which is pretty hilarious to them and I've been given a couple stickers from some girls, one being of Stitch (from the Disney movie "Lilo and Stitch") dressed as a Jedi. I am quite happy to be doing this for a living right now and feel I'm getting settled pretty well. I'm sure I've got a lot more to face but all is good right now. It doesn't suck.

Figured I'd make with a few pictures. Can't get a decent static view of my room cos it's too small so my previous post's video'll have to suffice. However here is the outside of my apato. Leopalace Maison et Trois (we assume from the katakanisation) Room 109, soon to be Room 104. Long story involving bugs...

   

... And my trademark meal, cooked for the first time since I got back. Just add rice. Which I did.

Anyway... ya'll should recognise this place:

Woohoo! My local Saizeria! It's not quite as conveniently located as at NUFS but it's barely a 5 minute walk away and happens to be part of my route to and from Shikino so I've become accustomed to dropping in after work for a doria or pizza or somethin'...

Here's Takaoka-shi, at least part of it, as viewed from the rook of the local Aeon Shopping Centre. It's somewhat Nisshin-like in that it's considered inaka by Japanese standards but seems pretty middle-sized town to Western-types. There's 4 of us stationed here from Interac including myself. Apparently the local Board of Education decided JET was too pricey and have cancelled most of the JET contracts in the area. I've finally managed (after getting lost a number of times) to acclimatise my lamentable sense of direction to the main areas I need.

I could really do with a bike though. I really want this one but it seems to be a promo model, on display for some Coca Cola competition which involves One Piece cards. I can't even work out if you can win it. It's bugging me cos it's exactly what I want and yet I can't find anything like it anywhere else! You'll notice it resembles Matt's old bike at NUFS quite a bit. I had quite a bit of bike envy going on, I admit. Matt's was way more comfortable and way cooler than those girly-basket jobs!

Talking of Matt we've got a long weekend coming up so I'm gonna head down to Toki on Friday to spend said days with him and Dani. We've an epic weekend planned, inclusive of a trip to NUFS! That is gonna be kinda weird. I'm really looking forward to it but am kinda hesitant too. it's gonna be a pretty emotionally mixed up experience. Excitement, nostalgia, sadness... definitely gotta be done though...! Recent events show the return of yet more NUFS Kids to the Japan fold. Balex and Jeremy should be here by the end of next month, both stationed around Tokyo. Our forces grow ever stronger and it's gonna be so awesome when we can all get together again. I just wish we could reclaim I House now, as ours forever...! Hmmm... I gotta admit to a slight feeling of loneliness over the past couple of days. Now I'm actually in Japan it's like I can almost touch that world we lived in at I House but it's always gonna be a little outta reach. I've sat in Saizeria alone eating a doria, I've snacked on those cookies we loved but with no-one around to share them with. I've sat alone eating my meatball and rice stir-fry where I used to do so in an I House kitchen with everyone nearby... It's a whimsical kinda sadness... nothing depressing or in anyway dampening my overall jubilation at being back but now and again I can feel what I once had, like a shadow of joys passed. Reminded that I'm not there anymore, with everyone...

OK, let's laugh at something now. This next pic is entitled "You Know You're Back In Japan When..."

This is a pachinko place near my local su-pa, Saty. The full thing reads "keep your emotion get exciting pachinko and games." Yeah!

Anyway, that'll be all. I have to be up at 6:30 am tomorrow to catch the bus to Kuniyoshi. That part I could do without...

See ya later. Peace Out! "It takes a lot to get home... But it's ok when the light is always on..."

'Kay... I guess I've left this long enough... First update from Japan on
it's way. Right now it's Friday evening, about 9:25 pm (at present time
of writing,) 1 week after I actually got hold of my Visa and could
finally commit myself to the fact I was returning to Japan. The flight
was long and arduous, as flights across half the world tend to be, but
I did get to see Spiderman 3, which final year workloads robbed me of
the chance to do when it was released earlier this year. Verdict:
errrmmm... ok! Yeah, just ok. It was definitely not a patch on the
previous 2 films which is a shame cos it had so much promise...! The
worst thing was definitely Peter dancing...! Why would Peter's "dark
side" start dancing like a total dork? Really coulda done without
that! The Sandman just felt kinda flat after how awesome The Green
Goblin and Doc. Ock were and the attempts to make him sympathetic are a
bit too deliberate. Venom's role is pretty limited (Sam Raimi didn't
really want him in it and it shows... and it probably had all the fan
boys in tears when he referred to himself in the singular) and
generally not much really gets to happen cos so much is trying to
happen at once! Eddie Brock is played nicely (I really felt sorry for
the guy,) and the best parts of the film are definitely the arc between
Peter and Harry. It pushed all the right buttons... if only it coulda
developed properly and been given adequate screen time!

Awright... enough about the in-flight movie! I arrived in Japan at 9:00
am and it was really bloody hot! I was met by Makino-San, an Interac
rep. who helped me back to the hotel in Kanayama from where I headed
straight out into Sakae to eventually meet Matt. The idea was I go to
the Mac Store and e-mail his keitai from
there but it soon hit me that after a year and a bit, and never having
possessed the best sense of direction, I had no idea where the Mac
Store was! In the end I found a random electronics shop and e-mailed
from there, resulting in Matt and Dani heading from Osu Kannon to meet
me at Oasis 21. We wandered the city a bit, taking in a couple of
shops, a Robot Museum and some festival activities. My next few days
were consumed with training, taking up most of each day until Wednesday
evening those of us bound for the further reaches of the Chubu region
headed out. There are 4 of us stationed here in Takaoka, which is a
pretty outta the way place by Japanese standards. Incidentally I'll be
teaching junior high, not elementary like I had been told at first. Not
sure whether I prefer it this way or not...? On one hand elementary
kids are all excitable and innocent where junior high are likely to be
awkward adolescents... however junior high requires less actual class
time and less individual responsibility for the ALT.... and most
importantly no singing and dancing
(which was pushed for elementary during our training and had me itching
all over because, for some reason, I get really itchy when I feel
excessively embarrassed!) So there are pros and cons to each.

I've spent the last few days visiting the 2 schools I'm going to.
Shikino JHS is a pretty big place and seems quite up-scale for a
Japanese school. That's where I'll spend 4 of my 5 days. Tuesdays I'll
go to Kuniyoshi JHS which is much smaller and a lot further away. As of
now I have a self-introduction to prepare for both schools and a speech
to give the students and head teacher of Shikino. Domestically I've
purchased most of the essentials including a keitai, futon and rice-cooker plus a small amount of food and drink including wheat bread, minna daisuki na "scorn," those little chocolate chip cookies we so often snacked on, the
obligatory CC Lemon and some lemon tea! I have the weekend to prepare a
speech for the entire Shikino student body (in Japanese) and a
self-introduction for both schools about me and my country of origin. I
was just scouring the web for Harry Potter pics when I got side-tracked
on J.K. Rowling's website which I enjoy perusing sometimes... Huh!
Calex shares his birthday with Voldemort...! Anyway here's my apato as scene from my cabin-style bed:

Basically I'd describe my place as a larger,
more up-market version of a Proxy apartment. Small entrance hall with a
sink and stove and a door leading to a small bathroom then the main
room complete with a raised futon area
and plenty of storage space. Best part is the internet comes as part of
the rent and (though there was a little set up problem) was fully
operational when my... errmm... "self" arrived...!

All of this "Back In Japan" stuff couldn't fly by without an unhealthy
dose of introspection on my part (...and the title of this post becomes
painfully clear...) Everything was so familiar and yet so lacking in
that vital part that made it what it was. Like visiting an old home
after all your things have been moved out or an old school where none
of your friends are anymore... I have to admit... even meeting up with
Matt... it was like I had woken from a coma with amnesia and couldn't
quite remember who he was or even who I was, though I knew we knew each
other. I reckon this stuff will all get easier over time and I'm
certainly ready to jump into Japan again with both feet... but no
matter how many times we say (or other people tell us) how it's "never
gonna be the same" you don't appreciate that until it hits you
that it really actually isn't "gonna be the same!" I have found myself
wondering, at least for the first few days, what I was doing back
here... Wondering if my hope that some essence of NUFS would be
innately woven into the fabric of Japan had brought me here only to
find a familiar yet empty house I once lived in... The ferocity of
those feelings soon passed and I don't regret being here. It is good to
be back because I do like Japan. It's just NUFS, our NUFS..., I loved. I
don't mean to put a downer on the future returnees... it's early days
yet and there is still the chance to spend holidays together and the
like to rekindle the flame... but there is a heavy place in my heart
where I'm walking to the Higashiyama line, riding it to Hongo, climbing
on a bus to that last stop before the familiar walk past Lawson's,
Yeast Paradise, Aoki and Kahma, Saizeria and finally through the doors
of I House. Part of me feels like when I die there'll be a flash of
light and I'll be stepping off that same bus and making that very same
journey to that very same place.....

Wow. Long update... Really long update. I guess there was a lot of
ground to cover... There's gonna be a lot more to come. I could really
use some sleep now...

Peesu. Rabu. "I will be chasing a starlight... til the end of my life... I don't know if it's worth it anymore..."

I have a question! Why does everything I do end up going right to the wire? At first I thought it was just cos I'm a disorganised, spur-of-the-moment sorta person... but it seems even when I do organise myself, work hard, cover my bases etc. everything still ends up in a mess! Almost like someone up there won't let me be responsible and get things in order...! Whether I like it or not my character was written to be a last minute, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type and that's how I'm gonna stay, dammit!

Getting to the point; I had booked my flight to Japan for the 23rd (aka: "tomorrow") and was told I'd have my Certificate of Eligibility sometime this past weekend... by Monday at the very latest! Long story short, I didn't. I got it today! Appro po I've rescheduled my flight for this Saturday (25th) and will be heading for London tomorrow to get my Visa sorted. Concordantly I've been really bloody stressed out! Again! Also we still have no internet at home cos the service providers suck making contact and coordinating plans with Interac pretty difficult. Still, considering I was worried about getting to Japan and having a job at all at least things seem to be back on track. I'll breath easier once I've got my Visa sorted tomorrow though... and I'm not gonna fully relax until I'm safely off the plane and through Japanese Immigration...

So I'm really leaving soon... (I think... I hope!) I'm not feeling sad... I know everything important to me here will remain with me in some way and still be here for me. There's still an emotionally exhausted kinda feeling hanging over me though. There's no question in my mind that I want this... I can't even say I'm apprehensive... I just find myself wondering if I'll be able to readjust to Japan again... much like I wondered if I'd ever readjust to here when I got back from Japan last year. Man, it feels like a lifetime ago! Nothing feels quite real yet... It's been pretty trying, getting here. I guess I'm still not sure what to expect... Ah well... I'm really drained and there ain't much more to say... Unh! I finally got a haircut. Sorry, no photos yet. You'll have to get the gist from my Simpsonised profile picture! Guess I'll be in Japan next time I update. I have been told my apartment is gonna be internet-worthy so hopefully I won't have to wait around to get connected but I'm not gonna assume anything...

Later Xangaland! Fight The Power! "It happens too fast... to make sense of it... to make it last."

(23/08/07) EDIT: Please disregard any optimism found in this post... My turn to say "I told you so" Rob! I just got back from the embassy in London where I was told it would be "impossible' to process a Visa that quickly, regardless of what I've been told... so now I am left with a very, very tentative scenario which sees me having to return to the embassy tomorrow (and tickets to London are not cheap) to pick up my maybe, possibly, considering-my-fortunes-this-past-year-there's-no-fucking-way-it'll-be-done Visa! I should warn you at this point that cheery optimism will not be well received... Very, very not!

........................... "... and now I look a fool for thinking you were on my side..."

OK, so technically the title to this post should be in vowel-less pseudo text speak... but I ain't doin' that. I never do that. Not for my Dad, not for Pete Wentz, not for anyone!

I've been planning this update a while now... and it's gonna be long, I'll warn ya ahead of time. Something dedicated to the home and friends I shall soon be (at least physically) leaving. At least I hope I'll be leaving... Turns out my Certificate of Eligibility has been delayed, meaning my Visa shall also be delayed, meaning my arrival will... you get the picture. At present I'm set to arrive a week later than first expected, on the 26th. This means I lose out on a week of chilling at my (Interac-payed-for) hotel in Nagoya and catching up with Matt in the evenings, whilst he's in Nagoya on teacher seminar-type stuff. I'm trying to avoid thinking of any worser-er case scenarios right now. I just hope and pray I'm in Nagoya by the 26th...! As if that wasn't enough we've lost our internet connection at home (hence me not being online lately) meaning I have to venture up to my bro's house to check my e-mails, sort my work stuff, update my Xanga etc. Not sure when we can get reconnected which is a real f***ing pain!

OK, let's to be reminiscing! This would be St. Paul's Church of England First School, which I attended from age 4 to 8. I've noticed that in recent years every one of my schools has taken to putting up spiked metal fences around the perimeter. Kinda sad...

There's a pretty huge field behind the school where I remember playing Transformers and Thunder Cats and He-Man and whatever other 80's cartoon/toy franchise we were into at the time. There was also a jungle gym which we were never actually allowed to play on. Naturally I played on it anyway. I still stand by the logic of my 6 year old self: what's the point in it being there if we don't use it?

Next up; Stockingford Middle School. My...err.. middle school. 8 till 12, I spent my days at this place. It was probably the most significant of my 3 schools as it was where I met all the friends I am still friends with now. It was a pretty old Victorian era building and had been a school just as long so naturally was rife with ghost stories and legends ranging from bricked up doorways said to be the tomb of bad kids from times gone by, locked up for eternity by evil headmasters, to the haunting of the school by same evil headmasters. The age of the building and the atmosphere gave it a certain Hogwarts-esque character, in hindsight. Definitely my favourite school.

Had to stick the camera through the same spiked fences to get this picture. It only shows a small section of the school. On the other side of the main building there were more modern buildings and, again, a huge field where we had upped our game to Visionaries, Ninja Turtles and by our final year, Street Fighter 2. Still wonder why I always played Leonardo during our TMNT period. He's such a dork! Either way, good times.

From 12 to 16 I went here. Alderman Smith Secondary School. It's pretty different now and has the same Fort Knox-like security. As a secondary/high school full of smoking, drinking, teenage pregnancy-ing proto-chavs (the term "Chav" was not yet in use but, if the burberry cap fits...) this was naturally the time when my friends and I were deemed weirdo outcast types. At the same time I was being hounded by teachers for not living up to my potential, in detention and on report a lot, being a general misfit from the perspective of peers and teachers alike, except among my majority-intact friendship group from middle school. It was this time that I developed my anti-authority, conformity-resenting side. The side that relates to Anakin when he's being dressed down by all those dogmatic, platitude-spouting, sanctimonious, self-righteous Jedi..!

Again, you can't see much of the school itself. Can't get a good view of it, with all the paranoid security crap! There are loads of other buildings but all you can see here is the main hall building (the brick one with the chimney) and Radnor Block (the big, beigy yellow one,) the languages and performing arts building. We've started calling it Ragnarok. No reason... All in all this school was characterised as the scene of my sulky teenage years of indignant rebellion against "The System" and feeling out of place, like somehow I just didn't belong and that no-one understood me... To be hurt, to feel lost, to be left out in the dark... Still, when we sat our exams and got out... things were cool. For those who are up on Harry Potter, in Order of the Phoenix, the chapter "Snape's Worst Memory," where James and Sirius gave each other the thumbs up in their exam, Nathan and I did exactly the same thing in our Biology GCSE back in 1996!

After school we all went different directions, though most of us ended up here. North Warwickshire and Hinckley College. Nathan and I both did a diploma in Art here but I stayed on another 2 years to take A levels, so was here from 16 to 20.

It was a cool place. Gone was most of the crappiness of school, it was a pretty easygoing, cool environment. I kinda lost direction here though. The art thing didn't work out and my first venture to university after I left led to a pretty crappy time in my life. By 23 I managed to get back on track though, heading to UCLan and eventually NUFS too. I sometimes wish things were different, that I hadn't lost so many years... but if I had done things differently I probably would've lost the good experiences I've had too. All in all I guess things just happen how they are meant to...

This place used to be pretty important to us. There was a park here where we hung out a lot during the summer we left school. Now the park's been bulldozed, by the looks of things. Frick!

Another pretty important place to me. The house I grew up in. We lived here for 7 years, until my folks got divorced, from age 5 to 12 for me. Chris and I have never stopped viewing this as "our house!"

The rooftops of my hometown, Nuneaton. I've always had a love-hate relationship with my town. It's pretty underwhelming and incredibly chav-infested... but it's still the scene of my early life and the setting for a lot of great memories with friends. It just shows that people make a place, I guess.

Arbury Woods. Another old haunt of ours. The road leads to an old gothic manor house that's still owned and (possibly) occupied by some local Lord or Lady. It used to be the home of the author George Eliot (real name Mary-Ann Evans) who was born in Nuneaton, something the town won't let you forget! We've never been sure how far you can legally walk before you're "trespassing" but that hasn't stopped us exploring these woods at night. There's a whole load of ghost stories about Arbury Hall and woods; a "Grey Lady" (seem to be a lot of those, ghost-wise) who haunts the woods and, our personal favourite; a clown that juggles knives! I imagine the clown thing is more an urban legend made up by school kids but it's hilarious. I hate clowns though...

There's a couple more photos in my photoblog. I've also put up a couple of videos in my videoblog. A quick tour of my house (my Mum's house, technically) and Nathan and I on a jaunt in Arbury Woods. I'll probably get in at least 1 more update before I leave for Japan but for now...

     

... Peace and Out! "Get up, get up, come on, come on, let's go. There's just a few things I think that you should know. Those words at best were worse than teenage poetry..."

Actually I've only read the blurb so far... I'm gonna save the actual reading for my traditionally assigned slot; 11pm to whenever I get tired. If my reading of previous Harry Potter's is anything to go by I'm gonna get a lot less sleep over the next few days!

When I was 12 my Dad got me for Christmas the first 4 volumes of "Musashi," a mostly fictional novelisation based on the life of Japan's most famous swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi (and ranks fractionally under the Harry Potter series as my favouritest read ever!) It's an awesome story that I recommend to anyone who doesn't suck! Anyways, I read them and was hooked but had to wait til I was 16 to get hold of the 5th and final volume. That summer just happened to be when I finished high school... I finally finished the story that had captured my imagination for 4 years and at the same time finished my own story. Life, it appears, is not without a sense of irony. The same summer I graduate university, the Potter series reaches its climax. It was the same with reading the last Musashi, with watching the credits roll on Revenge of the Sith and Return of the King, that's it! I'll never read a brand new Potter again, just like I'll never see a brand new Star Wars film again. Excited to know how everything wraps up but sad that it's over. Life's kinda the same. I'm really excited to be going back to Japan and yet I just spent the last weekend in a long, long time with my Dad. My little bro, Rich, turns 11 next month and it hit me how, by the time I'm back for good, he'll be 15 or 16. I'll try to get home once a year but I'm gonna miss some pretty vital years and it's a little heartbreaking... I'm not having second thoughts or anything... but it really has hit me that, whilst my immediate future is definitely in Japan, it's not gonna be as easy to leave as I thought...

So, I got my placement. I'll be teaching elementary school (7 to 12 year olds. Balex's nightmare!) in Takaoka City in Toyama Prefecture. I'm due in Nagoya on August 20th where I'll be staying for a week and a bit's orientation and training whilst my apartment gets sorted. Toyama borders Gifu to the north and is a little further from the Nagoya hub than I'd hoped but things may be better this way. As awesome as NUFS was that story ended last July. It's no good to try and act like it's the same cos it's not. People's lives are different and the level of closeness and familiarity of NUFS is probably not possible anymore. I'm not exactly happy about it but... I accept it. A bit of distance will keep things in perspective, I guess. Besides, it'll be good to have another piece of Japan to explore and to play host to the NUFS reunion-type shin-digs! Also, pretty near the Japanese Alps so I can hopefully get some quality snowboarding time too! (For link, click on the Buddha!)

Less than a month to go. One story ends, another begins. I'll probably have finished HP 7 by my next update so, for those of you who'll wanna talk about it, that's when I'll start wanting to talk about it. Or I'll just tell you! At least with stories you can start them again and relive them whenever you like. You can't really do that with life.

Peace! "Cos I want it now... I want it now... Give me your heart and your soul..."

I was hoping the robes would be cooler... I was hoping for real hoods and not silly loops of red and silver that keep falling off your shoulders... I was even hoping the mortar boards wouldn't look as silly as they do... To be honest I felt like a douche-bag... but here we are. Graduated!

Laugh it up, fuzzball! Anyway, we did the thing... sat in a large hall for a good couple of hours waiting for our moment to drift across the stage in our dorky-looking outfits with our fake diplomas in hand (real ones are in the post!) to shake the hand of the Supreme Chancellor (or something like that) and listen to a bit of music and a lot of talking! It wasn't really as boring as I'd been expecting and the day did give us the chance to get together and say our farewells to Amano Sensei! A weird mixture of relief and sadness...

Our class, a class no more. (Yann still had his robes on cos he was half an hour late turning up to the post-grad shin-dig and we'd all ditched them by then!) Incidentally I've nicked these photos from Kate's Facebook as I had no digi-cam of my own! She has more where these came from... I'll put more pics up on my photoblog as soon as I can get hold of them. And Amano Sensei was right about my UCLan Fencing Club-awarded tie. It doesn't work with my suit. Whatever! Like I'm some fashion-stuff-know-about guy...!?

I know I've been late in updating here but life is just kinda boring right now. Except, well, the Interac job! Most of you will know already but I've got the Interac job. I've signed the paperwork and am just waiting to hear about my placement and when I'll head out. It's still not guaranteed but I am being put forward for a spot in Nagoya and I reeeeeeaaally hope I get it! It'll just make travel and seeing people way easier being in/near a city with a Shinkansen and airport and... it's Nagoya! I don't know anymore than this at present which is why I've held off updating about it but most of ya'll seem to know now anyway. I just don't like getting too excited until it's all signed, sealed and delivered, ya know?

So other than that I've been cinema-ing this week. Missed out on the Spiderman + Pirates of the Caribbean double whammy due to that whole annoying Final-Year-At-Uni business but just caught Die Hard 4 (point oh) and Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix! Verdicts? Die Hard: good, old school, smash-mouth action movie! Nice banter, good fun... and a pretty cool French Parkeur-mercenary character! Harry Potter 5: Very good. Extremely good, I'd say. For me, the best one so far. OK, let's get the old reviewers cliche out the way first; "it was darker than the previous one!" Yeah. Everything's always "darker than the previous one...!" But, ermm... it was. Inevitably it loses a lot by having to condense a 700-and-something page book into a film of around 2 and a half hours but it pulled off the core plot really well. As well as could be expected, considering the amount of cutting that had to be done. And the Death Eaters looked really cool! But ultimately it really pulled off the book's themes of paranoia, government and media spin-doctoring and battling oppression... And, of course, the stuff that really moves my INFP soul; all that loyalty, integrity, love and friendship stuff! Looking forward to Transformers now...!

Graduation, job-related news and brief and unnecessary film reviews aside, that's all for now. I'm planning a photo-laden mega update some day soon... just as soon as Nathan and I can get out with a digi-cam! Later people! Oh and... Kate drew this for my Graffiti Wall on Facebook. It literally made me "lol!" (Feels nice being the drawee instead of the drawer...) Peace Out!

It's true that life sucks sometimes... Much of this past year has been pretty sucky. Returning from Japan, leaving and missing so many people I care about, falling back into life in a rain-prone university town in the north of England, being thrown into the academic blender of final-year projects, exams and dissertations. In short; do you ever feel like breaking down? Do you ever feel out of place? Like somehow you just don't belong and no-one underst... *ahem* Yes! Anyway, that is not how life has been this past week. Life has been frickin' awesome! Wednesday I had my interview with Interac. Co. and it kicked ass! Jeremy was right about everything; it was the most relaxed, cool, easygoing interview ever! I was told after the interview I would be getting the strongest of recommendations and I'd be hearing from them, hopefully offering a position, in 2-3 weeks! Thursday I was called up by my university and told I'd been awarded the grant I applied for a few weeks ago. £900 grant! Not loan. Grant! Friday I finally got my results! I passed. I've been shitting bricks about failing most of this past year but now it's over. It's oveeeeeeerrrr! I ended up with a 2:2 which is fine by me. If I'd have been more on the ball this past year I'd have pulled out a 2:1 but I've just not been on form. Uni was done for me after we got back from Japan. All that matters now, as Kate rightfully put it, we're BA Hons! We never have to go to Uni, sit exams, do presentations or write essays and dissertations again and that feels so good it's palpable! Until I try to take the Nikyu that is but I'm gonna forget that for a bit...

Today was my Mum's (cough*56th*cough) birthday so Chris and I took her out for dinner. I had swordfish. It tastes like... fish. Yeah, so regular life is... getting kinda boring. My friends are working mostly during the week, though Nathan and I have hung out a lot on the off days, video gaming, watching films (Hot Fuzz rules! Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer is OK. Entertaining but nothing special,) the usual. Other than that I've been replaying FF10 and slowly started learning to play guitar. I've been working on the 3 "A-Family" chords and the transitional fingering between them, but the guitar's in bad need of a tuning! I'm taking it slow and I've had to force myself to play right-handed but I'm happy I've finally made a start. I've been trying to get some temporary work with HMV, hopefully. Starbucks, slightly less hopefully! I'm really (really) glad to be done with Uni but I'm feeling restless... When my friends aren't around I'm just kinda sat around the house, not feeling like video-gaming or guitar-playing and just kinda waiting for something to happen. Things are starting to look really, really good with regard to getting back to Japan and I'm really looking forward to that. I'm still hoping to hear from JET and will hold out as long as possible, but if Interac offer me a place and JET haven't by the start of August I'm going for it! No way I'm turning them down for a "maybe" from JET. There's graduation in 2 weeks now, which I think we'll be able to have a bit of fun with. I mean, we get to wear long black robes with hoods...! Long black robes with hoods! If you know me at all you should know exactly what I'm thinking...!

It may be a bit dead, sitting at home with nothing to do but I finally feel like my life can begin now. I seem to have weathered the storm, come through it and the sun's shining bright! Hey, I'm happy! Right now I'm not angsting or brooding over anything. God is in his heaven, all's right with the world.

Peace out! Much love! "So here I am, alive at last... And I'll savour every moment of this"

So The Used aren't friends with My Chemical Romance anymore, since they got all popular an' stuff! I hate it when bands I love fight... You used to be such good friends guys... It's like my parents' marriage...

Anyway, relaxing as it's been being home with no school and no job (and sadly no money either...) the pressure cooker has just been turned up to lava-hot again... And we all know how I feel about lava... In light of my financially challenged status of present I've been searching for summer work, but not wishing to sit around and wait on a JET upgrade all summer I've put in a few applications with some other English-teacher-type workplaces in Japan too. One being Interac, the company that Jeremy will be working for! They e-mailed me yesterday to offer me an interview... this Wednesday! Holy flurcking shnit! They really don't hang around, huh? The interview is gonna be an hour long, 5 minutes of which involves an introduction in Japanese (which has me breaking out the dictionaries and textbooks for the first time since the final exam) and a short "class" exercise where I have to teach imaginary 5-11 year olds about numbers, colours or days of the week! I opted for colours and have a bunch of ideas rolling around but nerves, pressure, stress.. my head ASPLODE!!! (Picture scene at the beginning and end of Total Recall where Arnie and the Latino chick are on the Mars surface...  ) Much thanks goes out to Jeremy who has been providing me with experienced advice via Facebook and Rob who briefed me on general ALT procedure via a skype-to-landline phone call yesterday!

And this couldn't be better timed as our results are due out end of this week! All results will be posted on the department noticeboard at Uni on Friday and arriving in the post the next day. This sure is fun...

"So pardon me while I burst into flames..."

(Gah! House computer..! I wanna use my laptop...!!!) Errr.. yeah! I'm home. My brother, Chris, picked me up this past Saturday. He's now moved in to his new house (which I shall dub "Crisis Core" on account of 3 Chris-named people living there, and to get in an FF7 reference) leaving his former room empty and very... orange! (My Mum redecorated it to be a guest room!) On the up, he has left me his acoustic guitar so I can finally start learning to play, hopefully! (Dead Man's Click/Clique... could be a reality...?)

It was a sombrely emotional final week in Preston. Balex left on the Friday of the week before last followed by Kate on the Sunday. I then had a week on my lonesome before my bro could fetch me which I used to hang out a bit with the fencing guys and reacquaint myself with Buffy The Vampire Slayer via TV Links! During our evenings Kate, Balex and I have been taking in some Buffy so, with a week to kill, I plowed through at least 3 seasons' worth and reminded myself just why I loved that show back in the day! And it kept things from getting depressing... Though Kate kindly offered to have me stay with her family in the nearby Lake District (and that I should in no way feel intrusive) I thought that a week of staying there and eating their food would be just a bit, well... intrusive..!

Most of the fencing peeps disappeared throughout the week leaving Steve and I to head out to The Warehouse (a rock/punk/indie/emo nightclub, not Kate and Balex's dorm) for a last night out. I've never been big on the 'going out' thing but a bunch of nights out with fencing buds in 2nd year really got me enjoying it, so long as there's good music and friends. The first night after I arrived back in Preston this (academic) year we went to The Warehouse so going again on my last night seemed fitting. 'Specially as I've not been out at all in between!

I've been getting pretty fired up over the prospect of being back in Japan in a couple of months... 'specially in light of seeing Holly's pics from her stint over there! My pulse starts to race when I think about seeing Matt, Dani, Calex and Rob again... getting all orientated with Calex, running and working out and just hanging with Matt like we used to, getting to know Dani better, being there to celebrate Matt's birthday with him, jumping back into the karaoke fray... even simple stuff like getting milk bars and a nikuman or karaage from Lawson or shopping at Aoki or Apita again... then I break out in a cold sweat at the prospect that I've failed and could lose all those possibilities in a heartbeat. The results come out end of the month. C'mon! End my suffering! I'm just trying not to think about it too hard. Focus on other things. Like, hey, we're all a year closer to that Fuji reunion which I hope none of you have forgotten about..!!! (Stern face!) I can't say how much I look forward to that week (maybe fortnight, huh? How's about it..?) The Fuji climb, the Star Wars marathon, the relentless karaoke... but most importantly just being with everyone again. As family. I'm not just saying all this vomit-inducing, hallmark-esque mushy stuff... I've really been feeling it of late. I miss everyone.

(EDIT) In contrast to Matt sticking a bunch of music videos he hates on his Xanga, I'm putting up one of my faves again. "Everlong" by the Foo Fighters, one of my favourite songs and the video's hilarious! Enjoy! That's an order soldier.

Peace Out! "If everything could ever feel this real forever... If anything could ever be this good again..."

Tried so hard... got so far... ya'll know how it goes! Exams are over. Uni is over. At least, I hope it is. I can't say I'm confident of graduation, to be uncompromisingly, brutally honest. The last exam was terrible, at least for me. 3 hours in which to write an 800 character essay based on boring graphs, a translation of an A4 sheet of Japanese and a Japanese newspaper article we had to read and summarise in English. The essay went ok but took me at least half the entire exam time... the translation was badly done and choppy and the newspaper article... I couldn't make out shit! The best I could do was pull out a couple of words here and there and generalise what it was about based on the headline and diagrams. In a word... fucked! 

I went to see Amano Sensei after. She told me she strongly doubted I could have failed and checked all my work. Basically I have performed pretty badly this year... passing everything but just barely. In spite of Amano Sensei's (and most of you guys') reassurances I just don't feel that good about graduating. I'm not even sure I deserve to, based on how ridiculously poor my Japanese really is, even after a year in Japan! I know I have a habit of exaggerating my weaknesses. That's not the case here. I am terrible at Japanese. I have a decent memory for Kanji and write them all pretty, like. Big fucking deal! I screw up saying arigatou gozaimasu even though I said it a million times in Japan. I can't seem to take in vocab, can barely manage a decent conversation and misunderstand just about anything I hear or read. I hope and pray I have scraped enough to graduate, even if it is with a mere 3rd class degree. I am not particularly one of life's overachievers. Not destined for anything special, I don't think. I already have 2 best friends each holding 1st class degrees... the path of my life has always been to fall behind. I pull myself through, I don't shine. I won my 400 metres races in school sports competition. I was 14 the last time I did that. I've managed to underachieve ever since, often cos I lack real motivation and don't work as hard as I should, but even when I do I seem to fall behind... 

EDIT: Check this link out Rob sent me. Does it remind you of someone...?  http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2007/05/anakin_syndrome

By now I have probably lost your interest as you accurately appraise this post as a bunch of self-pitying crap! Actually, I'm not feeling very sorry for myself... It's more self-contempt. Any failures, I've brought on myself. It's not like I mean to shirk my work, I just always get caught up in the things that are of greater value to me... Especially this year. Returning from Japan... all this Uni stuff just felt so... depressing, trivial, hard to focus on. Having lived the dream how do you go back, ya know? As Marcus so eloquently put it in an e-mail a few months ago "it's like descending from Mount Olympus to live with the mortals again!" University feels like a cage now and Preston...? Let's just say it's very, very... mortal! Thank God I have good friends, here and at home. Talking of home, I'll be back there by the next time I update. My Ma decided eventually to stay put so I have been de-homeless-ilised. I'll miss the nightly film and video gaming with Kate and Balex and the fencing I had to all but give up but little else. I'm done here. Well, see ya'll later and thanks for your support.

Sad face goes here!   "Falling in love... was the best idea I ever had..."