Gyoza and window shopping

Went shopping with Saki in Harajuku yesterday. I haven't been down there in a while, and it was nice to walk around. The weather was great, so when we got there I took her first to Yoyogi Park to see the dancing Elvis' and take pictures of the falling leaves.

Then we walked back over to Takeshita St. and listened to Saki reminisce about how much she used to go down there when she was in junior high. Come to think of it, that whole street was more or less entirely populated by junior high schoolers.

And they were all eating crepes. Every single one of them. It's like some sort of unspoken rule around here that if you're in JHS you must eat crepes like there's no tomorrow. If you see a crepe stand, you are morally obligated to buy and consume one. Damn kids just can't say no. Not like I don't understand the attraction, they're freakin delicious, but, I mean, come on.

I also saw all the little decorations for sale that I see adorning my student's pencil cases and bags. Now I know where they come from.

I looked around for a jacket, but it was hard to find one that really fit my needs. Or my chest, but that's another story. I found a couple that I liked, but, then I start flip flopping over whether I should actually buy it. I certainly can't actually afford one now, not after the fiasco with my eye last week. But then, do I want a casual winter jacket, or a jacket I can wear to work? *sigh* Oh well, I'll figure it out sooner or later.

Normally I hate going shopping, it's just an endless stream of clothes that aren't really that great, being sold to me by clerks that aren't really interested in helping me find something that looks good. Actually, helping my date find something she likes, I very rarely actually look for stuff for myself, and even more rarely are sold anything by the staff. They tend to avoid me like the plague, unless it's to bounce a salespitch off the boyfriend to get to the girl. Most of the time, the staff only ever say to me "That's not gonna fit you," or "That's too small for you." Which, though probably true, is frustrating. What do tall Japanese do when they go shopping? Yeesh.

But this time around was somehow a little bit more tolerable. Maybe it's cause we had a fantastic gyoza lunch. That's always a good way to start.

Critical Thinking: Seasons

Throughout the history of humanity, cultures have been fascinated with time, the cyclical nature of its passing, and the significance of points within that cycle.

The calendar we use today, the Gregorian calendar, starts in January and ends in December. But it wasn't always this way. It used to start in March. That would explain some of the oddly named months we have:
August was originally Sextilis in Latin, the sixth month.
September (the seventh month)
October (the eighth month)
November (the ninth month)
December (the tenth month)

Actually, go back far enough and there wasn't even a January or February to precede March, it was just March-December and then the nameless period of winter until March came back around.
But alas, I digress.

Why, now that we have a calendar that actually covers the entire year, start the year in January? Why not February? Why not July?

With a little thought, most people will make some association between the seasons. Actually, what they're really thinking is that it has to do with the solstices and equinoxes.

Most cultures (Northern hemisphere, mind you) tended to start things off on or around the Spring equinox, which is in March, and when you think about it makes some sense. It's when things start to grow again, it's officially lighter than darker. At least in theory it ought to be getting warmer again. Things have reached their balance point, so, let's start from there. Right?

But here we have this calendar that says the new year starts after the Winter solstice. Why start a year when it's freezing cold outside(or blazing hot)?

Though I can't say for sure, I'd imagine it's a difference in perspective. If you think of the solistices as -1 and 1 in terms of temperature, alignment to the sun, length of daylight, etc, then then the equinoxes are 0. Zero is kind of accepted as the starting point.

But that's only if you're middle-centric. Some people define things by their limits rather than their average. Rather than start when everything is average, start at the extreme.

I've identified a couple things as factors in deciding when to start a year, if you're going to base it off of the earth's position in the solar system, and not some other arbitrary thing.
1) Do you view the start as the balance point, or the extreme?
2) Do you go by the point of change or the point of perception?
Then, in addition, which balance point? Which extreme do you start from? What factors affect this decision?

Let's think about this in a little more detail.
1) Do you view the start as the balance point, or the extreme?

Like I said earlier, if you think about the equinoxes as 0, and the solstices as -1 and 1, then you're likely to chose either Spring or Fall as your starting point, since we tend to want to start from 0. This kind of creates the idea that the start ought to be the same as the point where, if the length of the days were static and had no fluctuation in temperature, it would be. It's taking the global average and saying, whenever that happens, start there. The earth has reached/returned to balance, let's start something new. Then it's just a matter of which one to start by, since there are two. I think as soon as you do that it becomes subjective, a cultural or emotional preference. Do you start when things are starting to get warmer, or when things are starting to get colder? I think in general, we tend to want to call things a beginning when numbers are increasing rather than decreasing, and as such we might be inclined to choose Spring over Fall.

If you prefer to go by extremes, then you say, the December solstice is the absolute shortest day, and the July solstice is the absolute longest, and the equinoxes are just the halfway points in between. It says, from this point the days are done getting shorter; the days are done getting longer. So, from this day forward, days will start to get longer or shorter, so let's call this the start. The same, awkwardly, cannot be said for the temperature, which, thanks to the laws of physics, lags a little bit, but I'll touch on this in detail more a bit later. Then, it's just a matter of which one to start by, and I think the human psyche tends to associate increase and elongation with growth and therefore beginning, and as such prefers winter over summer for the new year. Even this though, shows the subjectivity of the observer, as after the summer solstice, even though the days are getting shorter, the length of night is increasing, yet that increase is thought of as less of a beginning than its daytime counterpart.

2) Do you go by the point of change or the point of perception?

I think most people have noticed by now that the solstices are by far neither the hottest nor the coldest days of the year. In the northern hemisphere, August tends to be the hottest month, a month or so after the solstice. Late January/February tend to be the coldest (statistically it's January but my toes tend to disagree). This is despite the fact that the solstices are in July and December.

There are a couple factors that influence this, namely to do with inertia, or at least, the tendency of things to remain the way they are. In summer, even though after the solstice the days are getting shorter, August is still very hot because of the residual heat. When it's already hot to begin with, it doesn't take that much to keep it going. Same with winter. Even though the days are getting longer, it takes a while for the extra energy bombarding that part of the earth to build up to the point it can really make a difference.

Think about it this way: if you tie a ball to a rubber band and swing it one way, then start to swing it the other, even though the point at which you stopped exerting energy in one direction and started exerting energy in the other has passed, the ball continues to go the original direction for a little bit, until the residual energy runs out and is overcome by the energy being exerted to propel it in the other direction. The temperature does the same thing after each solstice, and it takes about a month to catch up with itself.

So, if you say that the year should start when the change starts, and the days start to get longer or the days start to get shorter then you'd want to go with summer or winter. But if you say the year should start when the reaction becomes noticeable, when the ice starts to melt and the flowers start to grow, or the leaves start to fall and the air starts cooling off, then you might want to go with spring or fall.

Then, it's just a matter of deciding which of the two to start from, and to do that you have to identify the cultural/psychological factors that affect such a decision.

The question:
In what month would you start the new year?

Identify the factors that influence your decision.

Would you start in winter, spring, summer, or fall? Or should some other factor dictate the start of the year?

How would you, if at all, identify the start in the cycle of seasons? How did you come to choose that period?

Do you tend to define a system by its average or its limits? Why do you prefer that system?

Which has more significance to you, the seasons and their weather, or the length of the days? Are these factors in your decision?

How do you think cultures in the past have chosen when to start their calendar year? Why do you think they chose what they did?

How do you think living in the opposite hemisphere would affect your view on seasons and the new year? Should calendars remain arbitrary, or relational to the season where the person is?

Backlog 3

In June, well to be honest my memory of June is a little fuzzy, I can't really remember anything special going on in June, but I'll try to put something down anyway.

June....June...hmm. Ya. Got nothing. I'm sure I did something interesting...yeesh, this is embarassing. An entire month of my life, and nothing memorable enough to clearly remember 4 months later. Hmm. Guess we gotta skip to July.

*EDIT* Wait! I remembered! Starting in June, I became a member of Megalos, the gym that Saki and her family are members of. I decided it was finally time to, if only once in my life, get in good shape, and have a body I could be proud of. That, and, I suppose it's fair to say that I'm getting to bear near that age when I should consider taking better care of myself than I have in the past. So, Monday through Thursday after work I'd head straight to the gym, and I gotta be honest it's a weird feeling. Especially after hating on meatheads for so long, the last thing I've ever really wanted to be was that guy that goes to the gym and talks weights all day. So, I decided that, as with apparently all things in life, some degree of compromise was necessary, and I started working out. I don't want to get buff, I don't want to lift record weights, and I don't wanna be cocky about it either. I just wanna get some muscle tone and lose some of this gut. Well, the gut is dietary, so, I guess the point of the gym is just to get regular excercise. Anyway, ya, that's June. If I remember anything else, well, I'll just edit it in later. *EDIT*

On July 5th Richard and I went to try our hands again at the JLTP (Japaense Language Proficiency Test). Both of us navigated the maze of alleyways and residential sidestreets that made up the neigborhood near the test site campus, and somehow, as if by sheer luck or divine providence, found the place in time to take the test. After the first section, vocabulary and kanji, we both stepped outside to consult about our impressions. We both had the same look on our faces, that of the sheer exhaustion that only comes with spending a long time looking at a midterm or final exam and not knowing what on God's green Earth is written on the pages. It was hard. Much harder than the test we both took in December, even though we failed that one too. Richard looked about ready to give up and go home, I had to prod him to stay.

We finished it up though, and I think, at least for me, the last half of the test went much better than the first. The same though, cannot be said for Richard, unfortunately.

As it turns out, I passed the test this time around by the same margin with which I failed the test last time. Richard on the other hand, got the worst score of all the many times he's taken the test, and I wonder about the effect that's had on him. Maybe it will finally encourage him to study, or maybe it will discourage him and he'll give up. Maybe nothing will change at all. Who knows. But it appears that the time I put in studying in the months between December and July paid off. So now I am officially a Level 2 speaker of Japanese.

I'd be more excited about it except that for all intents and purposes you have to be Level 1 to really do anything. It used to be that you could get a job that required Japanese if you had Level 2, but increasingly 1 is needed to get anything halfway resembling normal. So, I guess from here it's back to the books to get ready for that nightmare of a test.

Backlog 2

Let's continue with the backblogging, yes?

May was the month of Golden Week, the famous set of consecutive public holidays that make up the Japanese equivalent of spring break. Er, late spring, pre-summer break. Now, I would say that I look forward to it, and that it's something to be excited about, but the thing is, the way things work around here, anytime you have a holiday, the entire country jumps on the opportunity to make up for lost chances to do anything. I think most people figure that on a regular weekend, you can't actually do anything meaningful. That and most people work 6 days weeks around here so a Saturday to Sunday trip is usually not do-able. But when Golden Week rolls around, it's a mad dash to go somewhere, anywhere, and wherever it is they (read: the entire country) choose to go, it's almost guaranteed to be exactly where you were thinking of going.

There's no avoiding the traffic. No matter the highway, road, alleyway, footbridge, whatever you decide to take, you're screwed. It's gridlock, 6am-10pm. The early risers get out on the road and maybe really can make some good progress, but they've only got about an hour before the entire rest of the populations joins them on the road. It's a controlled stampede. A very, very slow moving stampede. I figure if you lived outside Tokyo and wanted to visit there on a holiday, you'd have no idea there was such a thing as a traffic jam. You'd be going in when people are going out, and going out when people are coming back. But, sadly, no one seems to do that. Actually, I'm glad they don't cause I'd be tempted to throw things at them while I'm taking a walk on the shoulder for lack of anything better to do.

Take LA rush hour, extend it to and entire day, and expand it to every road in the state of California. That's basically the scope and scale of it.

Now, after reading all that, I'm sure you're thinking I had some miserable experience over Golden Week getting stuck in traffic, but to be completely honest, at the moment I can't remember for the life of me what I did over Golden Week. It's entirely possbile I did nothing at all, since Saki was working the whole time. Who knows. Sorry!

Backlog 1

I see my last post was in April, so since I'm free for the moment here at school I think I'll take a moment to update what's been going on in my life. So here is the first installment of what I'm sure will become a long and epic set of entries catching up on the past few months.

April marked the beginning of the new school year, and also the beginning of an emotional jounrey with Saki, exploring the effects her hormone therapy would have on our relationship. All in all, looking back, there was really nothing too major, but there were a lot of times when I ddn't know how to handle things. It took a lot of confidence, and I learned a lot about what it really takes to be there for someone. I leared that, to really support someone, it isn't just being around, it's being strong, and by that, I mean being the confidence and calm you hope to impress upon the person you're supporting. I learned a lot about myself in the process, and I think I have become better at controlling my own inate fears and insecurities. I can't say I'm not thankful, honestly, to have had this experience.
Saki has more or less recovered from her surgery, which she underwent to remove an endometriotic cyst that had formed on her left ovary, taking about 66% of the ovary itself with it.



Thought I never mentioned it here, in March, I said goodbye to one of the best friends I've ever had, Greg. He decided to go back to Oregon at the end of the school year to go to graduate school and make something more of himself. He decided in the end that the company for which we both work had no real opprtunity for advancement, and as such, made the hard decision to return home in pursuit of his future. I wish him the best of luck in that of course, and hope that at some point in his journey his road leads him back here, seeing as it appears I'm going to be here for quite a while.
But, as will prove to be the case increasingly over the next few months, last man standing gets the riches, and as a result, I inherited a great deal of Greg's old stuff, including but not limited to a loveseat, futon set, 5.1 surround speaker system, cutlery, a massive DVD collection, and, though it was partially mine to begin with, a Nintendo Wii, complete with a couple of fun games.

At this point, Ty had moved out as well, having moved in with his newlywed wife Aco in Bunga, a suburb of Kashiwa. Everything Ty left behind became more or less mine as well, including, but not limited to, the cat. "The cat comes with the apartment," he says. This'll come to play a little later on.

Somewhere along the line I got some new suits as well.

That's backlog 1, March/April.

Perseverance is a good thing, I think.

So recently I've been teaching Saki's dad English, we meet once a week or so, and instead of the traditional, sit around at a table and have a fixed lesson thing, we've decided to take the, let's play drinking games and get you acquainted with how people actually talk in the real world approach. It seems to be going alright, I have paper and everything there so I can write down things that we've all said so we can look back at them later, but the thing I like about it the most is that we get to play drinking games together, and that's something that works to bring us all closer together, because drinking games, aside from getting everyone involved righteously drunk, also serve to help people get to know each other better, which is something that her father and I desperately need to do.

It dawned on me the other day, while I was talking to Saki about how humorous it is that her dad, who speaks absolutely crap English, wants to learn English, that the reason for him wanting to do so has nothing to do with what he originally said about making a promise at work that he would learn conversational English to help out the business. See, at first, I thought he just wanted to learn English, but then I came to understand that he wants really to learn English that can be used at the dinner table, or at a bar, and slowly but surely, I think I've come to understand the reasoning behind it.

It's dawned on Saki's dad, herein referred to as Tomoaki, or Tomo, that there's a very real chance, in all reality a pretty much guaranteed fact, that I'm going to marry his daughter. And that means, moreso than speaking to me directly, that he's going to have to have drinks with my dad at some point. I mean, I'm sure it's on his wish list to be able to communicate freely with me, but I think, from a father's point of view, what he wants is to be able to create a connection with my family, and connect with my father, as only two fathers can, brought together by the seemingly random selection of the universe in having their offspring wed. This brings a smile to my face every time I think of this, and I'm really glad we decided that Saki would be there every time we study English, so that not only can he have someone there to translate if absolutely necessary, but so that she can learn some English at the same time as well.

I had dinner over at their house last night, for the first time in a couple months. I was really worried that I was in the doghouse with her mom, after getting stuck in the middle of a fight between Saki and her. But, we were civil for most of the night, and I did my best to involve her in everything I could. Eventually of course, she had had enough to drink to start bringing up the same issues that she's always had with us dating, at which point Tomo bolted faster than my cat ever has. But I tackled it head on, especially when she started bringing up Nova and my relationship to Saki. I asked her straight up, how Mike is doing, and we had a brief discussion about how I think that there is no fundamental difference between Mike and Takae hanging out, and Saki and I dating. I finally came to understand why it is that Takae thinks it's against the rules for me to date Saki; apparently she thinks that back in the day when they created the rule that students were not supposed to hang out with teachers, that it was created to protect the students because the teachers were by and large out to have sex with the students ,and that made teaching them very awkward, as opposed to the reality that they made the rule to keep students from getting free lessons by making friends with the teachers and then hanging out with them outside of Nova. I think it was good that we got that cleared out and out of the way, but I suppose there are going to be a few more conversations to that end in the future, just to make sure that we both know where we are coming from. I want her to know that I have the best of intentions and that she has nothing to be worried about i my dating her daughter.

Anyway, I'm glad that we got a chance to talk, and by the time I left it seemed that we were alright again, like nothing had happened, and honestly I think she and I are on better terms now than when I showed up. I think I've made progress, and I'm really happy about that. After a few more times of her getting drunk enough to come out with what she's really thinking, I think I'll finally be able to get on an even level with her, and really start things over ther way they should be.

I think it's gonna work out. I think I can do this. I'm just going to have to really put some effort in and not give up. The more I persevere, the more I show them that I really mean this, the more I think I'm going to be given the chance to prove myself. Nice.

OK, back to watching Lost a little more before raid time comes along.

Stuck in the middle with you

I was put in the middle of a fight this evening, between Saki and her mother.
I could go on for days as to why the fight happened in the first place, the underlying issues, the real fight they were having, what her mom is really angry about, but then this entry would single-handedly outlength all others combined.

The bottom line is, they had a fight, and I was standing there the whole time.

What the hell am I supposed to do in that situation? I can't step in.

What makes it worse, is that then, her mother looked at me, as I admittedly glared at her with straight up loathing, and asked me if I understood what they were talking about. Which I did, entirely, more so than her. She then told me I should think more about Saki's condition, having just gotten out of the hospital. I won't get into the details, but it was a ridiculous thing to say to me.

The thing that makes it worse, is that I can't say anything. I can't do anything. I can't fight with her, she's my girlfriend's mom. We're not married, and it's not my fight. But as if it weren't bad enough that she fought in front of me in the first place, then she had to not only drag me in, but ask an incredibly condescending question, and then, to top it all off, talk to me like it's my fault. Knowing the whole time, there's not a word I can say back. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

We wound up going to a manga cafe to eat our dinner that we had bought, and we laughed about how we felt like homeless people seeking shelter from the winter in a place like that. We dicked around on the internet for a while, and I think being there together really helped Saki.

But I worry, that she has these feelings that she's being forced to bottle up because she lives with her. And that scares me, because I don't want the same thing to happen to her as happened with her mom. I don't want her to be a slave to feelings she was never allowed to talk about. So, my job is to be there to help her let those things out, before they become a toxic poison inside her. I hope I can do that for her. That's my only goal.

Wall of Text

I think what I talked about in my last entry really had an impact on my outlook on things, for the better.

I started thinking not on what was wrong, or how bad I felt, but what I could do to make things better. I started thinking about what I could do when she came over to help her have a good time, to help her relax, to enjoy our time together as much as possible, and when I started thinking about that all of a sudden my perspective shifted and I was looking forward to seeing her again.

And so, when she called, I asked about her day, and her oral surgery that she had just finished, and invited her over to enjoy some quality time with me and the some crazy rabbids (sic), courtesy of my new Wii. She cheerily said ok, and when she got here, I noticed her haircut, she noticed how long my hair has gotten, and we both had a good laugh saying that we both look like we went back in time, she to when we first met (her haircut is exactly the same as 2 years ago this time) and me to basically high school, minus the blonde.

I made her chicken soup for dinner, a first for me, and a success at that, and we relaxed, goofed off, competed against each other, and had a good time.

I've discovered, which come to think of it should be pretty obvious, that the mood of our getting together is exactly the mood I bring into it. If I come into it down, it's down, if I come into it with pep and excitement, guess what? Yea, peppy and exciting. So, my advice to myself, to focus more on the positive, and creating a good atmosphere, really seemed to work.

Ty made a comment to me last night before going to bed that most likely, my fears and concerns were founded more in the fact that I just missed her like crazy, and my longing to spend time with her fueled my funk. He's probably right.

I'll take this time to remind myself once again, of the Fundamental Attribution Error, which is so prevalent in our evaluation and decision making processes. People tend to be vastly unaware of the effect their environment and outside forces are having on their feelings, observations, and actions. This needs to be considered more carefully and thoughtfully when looking at a situation.

Having said that, it's very difficult, as I'm sure you can all attest, to take feelings that you have, based on emotions rather than logic, and use reasoning to attempt to override them.

Here's a conversation I'm sure we've all had with ourselves or someone else at some point:

"Paul is being such a jerk."
"He's probably just busy."
"I dunno, I mean, he's been so snappish."
"He's under a lot of stress now, in his new position. He's got big shoes to fill."
"What did I do to make him be so mean to me?"
"Most likely it has nothing to do with you, it just comes across that way when you interact with him."
"I just feel like he's out to get me."

Right? Something like that?

Anyway, the point is even though I'm aware of the FAE, it's damn hard to do anything about it. This, most likely, is due to being completely unware of the actual factors influencing my behavior.

See, there are 4 types of information, as pointed out by a self help session leader that my parents brought me to one day, not because I needed it but because they did, and thought it would do me some good. Well, for all I know I do need it, but that's another story. Anyway...

There are 4 types of information subjective to a person:
Things you know you know
Things you know you don't know
Things you don't know you know
Things you don't know you don't know

We tend to grossly, grossly over/underestimate the sizes of these groups. The primary cause of the FAE, I assume, is that the size of the 4th type, things we don't know we don't know, is so disproportionally large, and environmental factors generally all fit in to that category. Either that or things we don't know we know. Perhaps I've noticed all these things, but consciously I haven't put those pieces together. I might know all the factors that contribute to the situation, but either not aware of them at all or have failed to make a meaningful connection.

Most likely though, the causes are based in things that not only do I not know, but have no idea I don't know. I can say, work could be a factor, but I don't know for sure. That's something I know I don't know. But there are a whole slew of things that I haven't come up with or thought about that may or may not contribute, and thanks to the incredibly complex filtration system set up by our brains, I probably would never come up with either.

Or maybe, I know exactly why things are how they are, but I simply choose to ignore them because I have some kind of preference for what I want it to be. That of course raises the question, why the heck would I want my relationship to be in disarray? That calls for some introspection.

Get Over It

No matter what it is, it seems that the answer to all life's problems, especially ones regarding interpersonal relationships, seems to be that.

Eek, I'm blogging from work. I think in some way that makes me a bad person. I should be working, but the thing is I only have two classes today, and even then there's no prepatation for them and I know exactly what we're doing. The bad thing is the phone is on my desk, so teachers stand in front of me a lot. Hmmm.

Anyway, I've been thinking about the funk I'm in regarding my S.O. recently, and after talking with Ty a little and reading what some other people have discussed, I've decided, much how I'm sure she would tell me as well, that I'm just thinking about it too much. There's a surprise.

The pattern in her behavior I'm taking issue with isn't new, it's not a recent development, so why all of a sudden should I find it unacceptable? I'm the one that's changed, why am I taking issue with her? Doesn't make sense, so.

She's not the call, talk on the phone all the time type. I never see her on the phone basically ever. She texts people, but it's not really anything I should be worried about. There's no problem with her not calling me all the time, she doesn't call anyone really. Tadaa, no problem.

If she's the type that waits for the guy to call, that wants the guy to make the decisions, the type that was raised with more conservative traditional relationship values, then you could say, from her point of view, I'm screwing this up royally by basically not only faulting her for doing what she thinks is only proper, but putting her in an impossible position by essentially demanding that she violate those norms for me. All of a sudden I'm boxing her in, adding stress to her life at a time when she's already got so much, because of things at work.

It's my job, as her boyfriend, to do everything in my power to take away her stress, to help her feel relaxed. I thought about that last night when I had a brief moment of clarity. She comes to me to get away from the stress of her life, to help it go away, and now I'm adding to that stress. Why would she come to me when I'm doing exactly the opposite of what I'm supposed to? No wonder she's going to the gym instead of hanging out with me. The gym doesn't create stress.

So, if I want to be happy in this relationship, I need to be more aware of the factors in play, and do my job as her boyfriend better. I need to be the oasis in her life again. And I need to take the reigns and start leading the way, because maybe what she wants after having all that weight on her shoulders, is for someone to carry her just for a little bit.

I think I can do that.