Running the Race

A New Day

2007-09-21T14:29:00.000-05:00

I guess the recent demise of my blogdom can largely be accounted for by three factors: 1) I've had nothing to write, 2) I have been forced to write immense amounts in other genres (like the every-pleasant genre of "research paper"), and 3) I have been too busy with other, less-web-based interactions, like actually hanging out with people. Nevertheless, some of my dear friends in OK have convinced me not to give up on this blogging thing, so here I am back and better than ever. As Mark Twain would say, "Reports of my [blog's] death have been greatly exaggerated."

I think I've figured out one way for me to continue this blog thing without devoting an egregious amount of time. Inspiration comes in unexpected places. Every morning I awake with a song in my head, usually a different song, from what I can tell. I have no idea how the song gets there: It frequently is a song I haven't heard in months or even years. Nonetheless, there it is lodged firmly, sometimes intractably, in my mind. Let the chronicle begin:

Thursday (9/20)--Cold Day in July, by the Dixie Chicks (yeah, I have no idea)
Friday (9/21)--Elevation, by U2 (great way to start a day)

I'll keep you posted!

Mr. Norris

2007-05-09T13:15:00.000-05:00

I've spent the better part of the past year attempting to invent my own hilarious Chuck Norris joke. I've always felt a special solidarity with Chuck. He grew up in a small town in south-western Oklahoma; I grew up in a small town in south-western Oklahoma. He's a guy who looks pretty wimpy but could beat up Mr. T; I'm a guy who looks pretty wimpy and would like for people to think I could beat up Mr. T. In case you don't know, there are literally hundreds of hilarious Chuck Norris jokes out there. Here are a few examples:

-When Chuck Norris jumps into a swimming pool, he doesn't get wet: The water gets Chuck.

-Chuck Norris is so fast he can run all the way around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.

-When the Boogeyman goes to bed at night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

-Most kids wear Superman pj's to bed: Superman wears Chuck Norris pj's.

-Did you know Chuck Norris' tears can hear cancer? Too bad he never cries.

If you don't think those are stinkin' funny, then you just don't know what funny is. So anyway, I've been trying for while now to break into this world and bless the world with a Chuck Norris joke all my own. So far my efforts have been abyssmally unsuccessful. Up till today, my best effort was: "When Chuck Norris claps at the opera, everyone bows." I know, I know--pretty lame. But today while discussing Chuck Norris jokes with some of my grad school friends, another one came to me. It's not great, but perhaps it's a shade better than my last attempt. Ahem: "Chuck Norris doesn't take finals: He destroys them." Cheesy. Predictable perhaps. But it has just enough tongue-in-cheek to it that, if aided by a combination of two semesters' worth of sleep deprivation and the strange euphoria that comes with Finals Week, it might, just might, make a person laugh. So there's a little glimpse into my world this week. Peace out!

Blog is Dead

2007-03-28T13:27:00.000-05:00

Well, I have nothing to write, and neither do most of my friends, it seems (with Blakewell ever the singular, ever the stalwart, exception). So I've modified--ever so slightly--a little story from a guy I know. I'm basically just amusing myself here, but maybe you'll enjoy this as well...

Have you not heard of that madman who, with lit lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the nearest Starbucks, and cried incessantly, "I seek Blog! I seek Blog!" Those who did not believe in Blog were sitting around just then, drinking their mochas, provoked to great laughter. "Why, did he get lost?" said one. "Did he lose his way like a child? " said another. "Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? Or emigrated?" Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

"Whither is Blog?!" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? With whose sponge have we blotted out the sky? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying Blog? Do we not smell anything yet of Blog’s decomposition? Blogs too decompose. Blog is dead. Blog remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves? What was most cutting-edge and self-indulgent of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our pencil-pushing hands. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must not we ourselves become Blogs simply to seem worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever will be born after us—for the sake of this deed he will be part of a higher history than all history hithertoo."

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground; it broke and went out. "I come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering—it has not yet reached the ears of man. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves."

Maybe my prediction will be more accurate than Friedrich's.

Am I strong enough? Am I smart enough?

2007-02-18T21:44:00.000-06:00

On Wednesday nights, our church is regularly blessed with a large influx of underprivileged kids from our surrounding neighborhood. Last week, as I was sitting at a table with some of these kids, one of them mentioned how she was now attending RAC, which is apparently some sort of local remedial school. Neither I nor my fellow "adults" (2 college students) knew about RAC at that time, though, so I asked the girl what it was. To my question another girl (4th grader?) responded incredulously: "You don't know what RAC is?! Do you know ANYTHING?"

I of course laughed my head off. On the one hand, graduate school has done an admirable job of showing me just how little I know. On the other hand, having a 4th grader insinuate that I am devoid of any worthwhile knowledge is just funny. I guess in her world theology, Greek, and history just aren't especially apropos. But I went ahead and told her I do know a thing or two anyway. After all, I can drive, ride a bike, throw a ball, run and jump, tie my shoes, play some instruments, read, skip while chewing bubble gum... The list goes on: I'm quite impressive, I'll have you know.

A (Valentine's) Day in the Life

2007-02-14T15:09:00.000-06:00

As a means of giving you unconscionable voyeurs (jk) better access to the inner-most depths of my being, I will attempt to paint for you the contours of my Valentine's Day, and by that, I mean today. Please note: This is more of an impressionistic painting than a chronological narrative of my day. Please read accordingly.

Bitterly cold, gusting winds, half-hearted, playless snow,
and miles to go.
A text to sister2, later call to Mom, facebook greet my sister oldest, and (conveniently late) birthday card to sister young.

Facile essay finished, nothing school-wise left to do, friendly emails waiting. Still, I them do eschew.

Camped in warm and bookish co-coon, pondering life and means and ends.
Questions big and small enough, finding me and friendly nudging move.
Shall I wrestle homeless homeward? Give my life like Theresa great?
Or departing fortress-library, flip my collar and buy a smoothie?

But plans tonight, still hard scheming: Bible class with college kids.
Bring cards and candy for out-dolement. Small bit of warmth in bitter cold.
But then, I wonder, what be doing? after church-song is done.
If still emails I eschewing, perhaps a film, a book (no sun).

Future waiting, not foreboding, playfully usual, near, and tame.
Nearest plans are not emerging while sit, compose this blog most lame.

So I'll leave and find my windward, buying this and that, and thus:
Thereby making, winning, quaking one more day--today--well done.

Well, that's all I have to say about that. All in all, not a bad day. Not a bad day at all. I don't know the precise rhythms and motions when joy and contentment meet and dance. Who leads, who follows, how long they wait. But I hope this message finds you somewhere on that floor. And however you define it, I hope this Valentine's Day has been a joy and a success. And in that order too. (smiley face here) God bless!

Gittin' mysulf a' ay-jukayshun

2007-01-20T15:59:00.000-06:00

I'm long overdue for a post. So if anyone's still reading (this means you, Dad), I apologize. A two month sabbatical should mean I have lots to say, yet I feel remarkably blogless. It's not a general weariness with life or anything: I simply don't know what to tell you. But I'll give it a go anyway.

As you know, I am a graduate student, and one pursuing a seminary-style degree, no less. Things are going well, I must say, but I have observed a few dangers along the way, so let me share those with you as well as a few ideas on how to avoid the pitfalls.

1. Pride. Knowledge leads to pride. Period. Not that it's a strict inevitability-- locked in with mathematical precision--but a nearly irresistible slide nonetheless. Unfortunately, biblical, spiritual, and pastoral knowledge are not exempt from this vice. In fact, in some ways the study of "religious" things makes one even more susceptible, because it threatens to make a person feel superior not only intellectually, but spiritually as well. Fortunately, that's not the final word. We have quite a good safeguard against both pride generally and religious pride in particular: To spend more time practicing Christianity than talking about it.

2. Criticism. Key to our training as scholars is analytical thinking. There are plenty of facts to be accosted, no doubt, but in the world of academia, facts mean nothing apart from analysis. So analyze we must, and analyze we do. Everything. Other people, cultures, value systems, ideologies, churches. Again we find a unique danger for us seminarians: Because our "expertise" lies in the realm of things religious, we're especially prone to criticize many things that are or are nearly sacred, including Scripture or even Deity. If there is a safeguard in this direction, I haven't yet discovered it, though I suspect it lies somewhere in the direction of not allowing oneself to become too divorced from normal life--nature, non-academics, church, and spiritual disciplines.

Those are, for me, the two major pitfalls of seminary, and really education in general. The list is far from exhausted, but lest I be guilty of thinking myself too apt a guide (pride) or of focusing too much on things wicked and dubious (over-analysis), I think I shall end the list there. Perhaps some day I can tell you of the joys and good of a seminary education. Perhaps some day I can tell you in person. Till then, blessings.

Good question, Joy

2006-11-17T16:44:00.000-06:00

My friend Joy posed an interesting question on her blog: What about mixed motives? You're doing something good and you have some good motives, but you also have bad motives, which may even cut in and take charge of the good--what do you do?

Here's my attempt to "keep the conversation going" (i.e. to answer):

What you're talking about is tricky business, to be sure. I've come to think "mixed motives" (depending on how we define that phrase) are an inevitable part of life, especially Christian life. There's just no getting around it: We need others, especially the Other Himself. As C.S. Lewis once wrote, no one can claim to love God disinterestedly. We desperately need Him, and to deny it and come to Him saying, "I don't need you--I love you only because I choose to, disinterestedly" is nothing short of madness. This same God whom we desperately need is the One who has constructed the universe such that good actions, in the immediate, often receive good reactions and are, in the end, rewarded in grand and unimaginable fashion. So what I'm saying is that the whole universe seems to slide in such a way that good action are rewarded with good reactions--which naturally predisposes us to have mixed motives. All of this, in short, is what makes me think mixed motives are generally inevitable and generally okay.
Still, though, we must never let our guard down entirely. There are of course wrong motives for doing right things, and sometimes those motives can be so wrong, they entirely blot out any good native to the original act. For example, it is okay to enjoy the praise one naturally gets from maintaining so brilliant, articulate, and crisply-written a blog as, say, this one, but it is shameful and inexcusable vanity to blog ONLY for the purpose of making people think you are really smart, philosophical, or deep. (For more on egocentric blogging, check out the site of my dear friend, Gabriel Peterson. [jk, buddy, jk])
All joking aside, the danger is indeed quite real. Thus the guarding against alterior motives is a never-ending task. We must ever be wary.

How do we battle against mixed motives? Spiritual disciplines...

All right, the semester is long, and my sleep cycles are disruptive. You folks have a good night. Peace!

Holiday...

2006-11-06T18:02:00.000-06:00

I'm just on the outside cusp of the point in the semester where I begin to yearn for the holidays in earnest. I'm not yearning just yet, please understand, but I'm close. Very, very close. And I don't usually yearn for things, just so you know.

I tell you this for 2 reasons: It's exciting, and I have nothing else to post about.

Here are some of the things that I'm looking forward to about the holidays:
-Time with family and old friends.
-Watching football while being harassed by hostile females rather than hostile homework.
-Good food!
-Blake and Travis' revamped Christmas Music Album. (I expect to see some Mr. Rogers-ish photos on those album covers, boys.)
-Presents (giving and receiving)
-An end to the old semester, and anticipation of the new
-A chance to read for fun
-Christmas--the season, the lights, the spirit, the attitude (I hope)
-Playing ball with my nephews, and maybe their dad and granddad too
-The bracing cold, faintly promising something better... white and soft
-Sabbath

It's close, people, it's close. Just two more weeks of classes... God bless!

Life in the GST

2006-10-24T19:00:00.000-05:00

So I'm in what is known as the GST--the Graduate School of Theology. It's a community of sorts, with most of the members living within 3 miles of campus. Not only do we live close to campus, though, we also hover around it like gnats. At the library, the Bible building, the crazy new statue in front on the east side of campus--I'm constantly running into fellow GSTers. Considering there are over 100 of us, that's not too surprising. So the GST is a major part of my life these days (though not all of it), and yet most of you, my loyal reader(s), are completely unfamiliar with the GST. So here are some interesting factoids about the GST to give you a little glimpse into this major facet of my life.

1) One of the buzz words around the GST is "theological reflection." It's everywhere! I hear it constantly--every professor, every class. Sometimes I even dream I am Tom Cruise's character from "A Few Good Men," interrogating a Jack Nicholson-esque Bible professor. He says, "And then I want you to do some reflection on that." I ask, "Theological reflection?" He replies: "Is there another kind?"

2) It's a man's world. There just aren't many females in the GST, for obvious reasons; they're outnumbered something like 5 to 1. But the ladies we do have are dynamic, spiritual, smart, and interesting--so they do all right. And they really make it a nicer place to be. God knew what He was doing when He made Eve.

3) One of my favorite places on campus/earth (the two seem remarkably identical the longer the semester goes on) is the "Theological Reading Room" on the 2nd/3rd story of the library. At any given moment during library operating hours (and sometimes even when it's closed), a person can find at least one fellow grad student hanging out in the theology section of the library. It may be the single most important non-being in the creation of community among the members of the GST. Sometimes we even see professors up here!

4) More importantly, sometimes we see professors emeritus up here too. Most notably, I'm thinking of my college's legend of a professor, guy by the name of Ferguson, who "wrote the book" on just about every subject. Literally. In fact, he wrote the textbook that I read every week for my history class. Pretty impressive stuff, really. I mean, sheesh, if I knew as much as him, I wouldn't even have to take the class. We keep daring each other, on those rare and thrilling moments when he strolls by, to walk up and ask him to sign our books. Whew, what a thrill that would be... I'll definitely keep you posted on that one.

5) It's a staging ground. When I was in undergrad, I sometimes got the feeling that college was primarily an end in itself--a journey all its own, meant to go on indefinitely. That is of course pure fantasy, even for an 8-year-track person, but a powerful and pervasive fantasy it was too. Not so of the GST: Although it's a community with established, committed, very "there" people, I have yet to catch the faintest scent of the old lie. The GST is a staging ground, a place of preparation and peace, but one that looks beyond itself to the world beyond and to the One beyond, to the God who transcends all of our schemes and thoughts and dreams, and who has prepared for us things which "eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the hearts of men*."

*I couldn't use this kind of language in a paper for the GST because it's "gender-specific," an offense expressly condemned. There's a point to that kind of thinking, but sometimes it's just too much of a hassle, both in terms of energy and style. "People" or "persons" just don't have the right ring, and the whole "s/he" nonsense is anathema as far as I'm concerned. Thus, the occasional "man" is, in my book, a venial offense, if any offense even need be taken at all. That's my little isolated critique of political correctness. God bless!

Life These Days

2006-10-04T21:52:00.000-05:00

Right now my life is busy yet unremarkable. I'm working as a college minister, which has been challenging and rewarding. And the rest of my life consists of school--10 hours of class, 8 hours as a grad assistant, and countless hours reading, writing, researching, and praying.

On an interesting side note, for one of my classes I'm taking part in an accountability group that is striving to be perfectly Christ-like in our speech. The theory behind the group is that we will go out and wrestle with this task, meeting weekly to reflect on and share our efforts, thereby gain insight into what all our task--Christ-likeness in speech--really requires and entails. So far, it's been only a little productive, but we're still early in the process and haven't reflected as much as needed (not on my part anyway).

What else?
I'm progressing along nicely in Greek, though the process is a little more prosaic than I'd like. It's all about cramming in vocab and mastering paradigms--rather formal and lifeless things. Alas, I think my time in Japan has spoiled me, for there, I studied language (and a dang hard one at that) not with academic intentions, but with the purpose of communicating, of becoming conversational. In Japan I used books, for sure, but they were merely maps keeping me from losing my way on the exciting and precipitous terrain of the language itself. But now, it's only maps. Even so, part of me secretly enjoys the academic approach. Besides, once we actually start studying the New Testament, the language will come alive for me in ways impossible to all others, I'm sure--though I still won't be able to speak of lick of it!
Odd point about all this language stuff (then I'll leave it!): I could never really read anything beyond little-kid or textbook Japanese, and those poorly enough. When I did read it, I almost always had to translate it back to the language as I spoke it in order to understand. Now, however, I sit down and read textbook sentences of Greek, and my mind, with a little concentration, quickly translates to English. But if I hear it? Nada, nothing--can't understand a lick. And reading aloud is arduous at best. Same information, different approaches--and the result is drastically changed.

Well, this may have been my most boring post... ever? (unless you love languages) And it's utterly autobiographical and utterly true to my current life. Alas, I am a grad student, and I am a bore. But life is good. Next time I'll try to be a little more amusing!

My Hero

2006-09-18T15:42:00.000-05:00

Bob Stoops, head coach of OU football, is my new hero. He really is. His Sooners are currently 3-0, though the official records list them as 2-1. The source of the discrepancy? The low-down, cheating, no good, sons of an egg-sucking sea serpent refs in the Pac-10!

You see, on Saturday OU played Oregon (which is a good team). OU was leading 33 to 20 with 2 minutes left. Then Oregon got the ball, drove and scored a touchdown, making it 33 to 27 with a little under 2 minutes to go. Nice job, Oregon--that's good football. What followed wasn't, however.
Next, Oregon attempted an onside kick. They recovered it*, but only because they cheated: One of their players, in clear violation of the rules, touched both the ball and the OU player trying to recover the ball before the ball had gone 10 yards. The refs reviewed the play, watching a video that clearly showed the Oregon violation, then ruled how? No penalty--Oregon gets the ball with great field position! On the next drive, OU's defense gets called on pass interference, but the play was again reviewed and showed clearly, on replay, that the ball was tipped at the line of scrimmage, meaning pass interference is impossible. Whew! Good, so no penalty right? Wrong. Again the Pac-10 refs cheat and give Oregon the free first down and about 15 yards, which then propells them to a touchdown.

My reaction to all of this? Anger. In fact, I considered using my remaining funds from working in Japan to hire a hitman to track down some of those cheating refs.

Bob Stoops' reaction? Let's quote him in his own words, shall we? "In the end, it isn't going to change anything. In the end, I've got to look at a bunch of kids who fought hard and have a loss right now." No vengeance, no hitmen, no complaining--he's just moving on.

That's why Bob's my new hero. The guy's got class--way more than I would've showed. Thanks, Bob. If I were wearing a hat, I'd salute you.

*It is disputed whether Oregon actually recovered the ball, as an OU player seemed to have possession after the play.

Living it up with Mom and Dad

2006-08-21T21:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I officially moved down to A-town, Texas. I spent this past summer living back at home--which was really wonderful--so yesterday felt a little like leaving home again for college. Except that I'm a little older, a little wiser, and a little more aware of what life on one's own entails (and probably a little bit crankier and more set in my ways too).

Last week, Travis, Blake, and I took a road trip to Mt. Rushmore. One the way back, we stopped in Kansas at the house of our good friend Stephen. We had an evening to hang out, and after a killer game of ultimate frisbee in the park, we went back to his place and watched some Seinfeld. At one point during Jerry's stand-up (yes, we're on a first-name basis, Jerry and I), he made the joke that there's no way to move back in with one's parents and make it sound like a good thing. Observe:

A: So how's it going, Joe?
B: Great! My job is unbelievable; I'm dating the woman of my dreams; I've never felt better--and I'm moving back in with my parents. Life couldn't be better.

And I think Jerry's pretty much correct--there's just no way it's cool in current American culture. Contrast that to Japan, if you will, where it's completely normal for unmarried people (though more so for women) to live with their parents... indefinitely. Two of the 3 unmarried English teachers at my school lived with their parents--and their average age was over 40!

Anyway, I was thinking if I ever get done with all of this schooling, and by a cruel twist of fate, I'm no closer to being married than I am right now, I might just like to move back in with good ole Mom and Dad. Think in 7 to 10 years living with one's parents will be socially acceptable in America? One can only hope.

Travels

2006-08-09T17:17:00.000-05:00

I made a trip down to Texas earlier in the week. On Tuesday, my brother and I had breakfast at the McDonald's near my university. While we were enjoying our food, a well-dressed woman walked by, and she was packing heat--a handgun holstered to her torso.
That's my kind of woman. Only in Texas.

Some buddies and I are planning to take a road trip next week. Originally, we wanted to go to Yellowstone but then decided it was too expensive and too far. That kicked off a long series of setbacks: We made plan after plan, only to have them quickly unravel. Currently, we're only scant days away from departure, and without a clear plan, much less a destination.
So: Any input? Basically, we don't want to travel more than 2500 miles (unless flying), and we'd like to be able to do the trip without consulting a loan shark or auctioning of our kidneys on ebay.
Those are your criteria, ladies and gentlemen: Do your best.

nihongo no mese-ji (a message in "Japanese")

2006-07-27T23:33:00.000-05:00

I have just amused myself by composing what is for me a lengthy letter in "Japanese." For those of you with neither knowledge of nor interest in the Japanese language, my apologies--you need read no further. For those of you with anything beyond a dabbler's interest in the same, you have my apologies also, for I have murdered a perfectly good, if sometimes vague, language. My reason for the letter is stated (poorly) in the letter itself. Basically, I was just sitting and reminiscing about my time in Japan and my friends who are still there, and I thought I should like to "hear" the language, if only from my own gaijin lips.

Boku wa nihongo de kono mese-ji wo tsukuritai (da to omoimasu). Naze nara, nihongo wo wasurenai tame ni, renshu shitai desu. Saikin boku ga nihongo wo wasureteiru you ni kangaete hajimata. Okurahoma-shuu ni iru nihonjin ga sukunai kara. Dakara renshu shita hou ga ii you ni kimemashita. Mochiron honmono no nihongo janai dakedo. Kono nihongo wa gaikokujin no nihongo. Romaji de kaite America no kangaekata atte machigai ippakute nihongo desu ne. Ima yondeiru nihonjin ireba, gomen nasai! demo shoganai. Boku ga amerikajin desu no de, amerikajin no nihongo dake dekimasu. Issho ken mae gambatte mo, kono nihongo dake kakemasu. zannen desu ne. Nihongo muri! (joudan)

Tokubetsu na mese-ji ga aru kedo. Boku no nihon ni iru amerikajin ka osturariajin ka europajin tomodachi to boku no nihon ni sundeita koto aru tomodachi e. Saisho ni shitsumon aru: Kono mese-ji wakaru? Nihongo benkyo shiteimasu ka? gambatte kudasai. Soshite nihon ni sundeiru seikatsu tanoshinde kudasai. Saigo ni, Kami-sama no koto wo issho ken mae gambatte kudasai. Kami-sama kara moratta mokuteki wasurenaide kudasai. Ijou desu. Sumimasen. Otsukare sama deshita. Ojama sashimashita. Yoroshiku onegaiitashimashita. Osewa ni narimashita. Moshi-moshi, Migawa-chuu de gozaimasu...

Now That's Texas

2006-07-18T11:41:00.000-05:00

I've blogged from Japan, Australia, Vietnam, the USA, and probably a few other countries besides, but this is my first ever blog from the land known as Texas.

A native Oklahoman, I've always had mixed feeling towards Texas, but that's now neither here nor there--for here is where I am and where I'll live, Lord willing, for several years to come: in Texas. In fact, I just signed a one-year lease on a duplex.

About the signing of that lease... It provided me with one of my first "now-that's-Texas" moments. Our landlord let us stay in our duplex several days before signing the lease since he was still getting things organized with the house--e.g. we didn't have any electricity the first night (which was kind of fun actually). Anyway, when he finally did come over to have us sign the lease, I let him in the door and noticed he had a buddy who was just hanging out on the porch. It just so happened that my landlord's buddy was even bigger than he is--approximately the size and dimensions of a bouncer or a hit-man. Then my landlord walks in front of me into the kitchen, and I see he has a large hand-gun sticking out of his back pocket. Then he hands us the lease and says, "Any problems, boys?"
Well, sir, now that you mention it--no, not a one.

Welcome to Texas. The NRA stronghold of the world.

(My landlord's actually a nice guy--former army, grew up in the c-of-c, about my age. But it makes a better story if I leave this part out.)

Planes, Trains, and (especially) Automobiles

2006-05-23T17:55:00.000-05:00

Last weekend a series of in-country trips began for me. The summer's first road trip. I drove from Small-town, OK, to Big City, CO, helping my grandmother make the monumental move from life alone to life with relatives. She rented a moving van, and after we got it all loaded, we took the shortest (though not fastest) possible route to central Colorado, going through the panhandle of Oklahoma--"No Man's Land," it's called, apparently because no one wanted it back in the days before OK was a state. (My grandmother theorizes that Oklahoma was forced to adopt the area as a condition of receiving statehood, but she wasn't there, so that may be fiddle-faddle. :) Once there, I was fortunate enough to enjoy a few nice days with my not-often-seen relatives, including two of my cousins who are closest to me in age. We share lots of old but poignant memories, those hoodlums and I. Then I flew home--Denver-Vegas-OKC. Don't you hate layovers? The second leg of the trip was surprisingly enjoyable, though, because I sat next to an interesting old man who splits time between Oakland and Oklahoma. We talked politics for two hours. Some of the good, conservative Oklahomans sitting near us didn't enjoy my buddy's liberal views. One elderly woman in particular snorted her disapproval when the old guy leaned over to me and told me we ought to impeach Bush--with the same general tone my mom uses when asking if I would like to join her in a run to Wal-Mart. (I declined the invitation.) The point of contact between the old man's views and mine was his contempt for partisan politics and his opinion that money and media have corrupted and warped the whole political system. From there our paths diverged greatly. But enough about that.

This weekend, Lord willing, some buddies and I will drive up to Minnesota to see an old friend. And if I have time, later in the summer I'll make my way to Yellowstone. Ah, road trips, what a great time for friendships, what a great time to see the country I've known--but only in part--all my life.

A Shotgun Posting

2006-05-14T20:06:00.000-05:00

I'm using my dad's laptop to access the internet these days, and tonight he told me as a condition of using his computer, I have to post a blog--so here it is, my shotgun posting.

As you know, I am settling back into life in America, which includes getting reacquainted with my family and making plans for the summer. One of my goals for this summer, set long before I left Japan, is to get back into writing. And by writing, I don't mean posting on this blog, great as that is. No, rather, I am referring to the fact that since the age of 14, I have dreamed and schemed of being a novelist. Though I no longer list "novelist" as my official end-game career goal, I would still like to get published someday. Unfortunately, I fear I may have peaked a little early. The closest I've ever gotten to completing a novel, you see, happened when I was 16. I reeled off over 200-pages of an amusing little tale. And I had several other, shorter but mostly comparable, attempts in high school. Each of those efforts was frustrated by the same deadly flaw: A complete meltdown of plot. While beginning what turned out to be the final novel-manque of my high school life, I resolved to break this cycle of meltdown by actually outlining my plot before writing the book (imagine that). The result: I never got past the prologue.

That may not exactly sound like a Golden Era of productivity to you, but last night when I sat down at my laptop intending to start down the long road of finally redeeming myself as a novelist--having wallowed, year after year after year, in the miry pit of essays, short stories, poems, emails, screenplays, online posts--I produced, alas, exactly 4 and a half sentences of blah. If you're unfamiliar with the specifics of what "blah" entails, just imagine you're reading someone with the literary talent of Dan Brown and the plot-making ability of whoever wrote "Go, Dog, Go" (which is a great book, it just doesn't have any real plot), and that should give you the general idea.

Have I given up already then, you may be asking? No, indeed! I even have this crazy idea that if I can produce a solid plot outline without wearying myself to the point of needing a 7-year hiatus from novel writing, I might, just might, actually produce something resembling a finished product. But that's being quite generous with myself, I assure you.

All right, this shotgun post... is over. Ciao

Back Home

2006-05-05T23:33:00.000-05:00

I'm home. Tomorrow my family will assemble and celebrate Thanksgiving in May, making up for the 2 I missed while I was in Japan. Life at home is good.

It's of course all very strange and bitter-sweet, though more sweet than bitter. I guess the oddest thing to me is that everything feels very, very normal. Driving, eating, being with my family--all perfectly familiar and comfortable, so far. Even the endless background noise of Japanese that ran through my head while I visited two Christmases ago has failed to make an appearance (though it's all there when I choose to call it forward, while it lasts). So for now my life is exactly as I would wish for it to be: Relaxing and uneventful. It'll end soon enough. Next week, I begin the process of finding summer employment, and soon enough I'll be making detailed plans for grad school. For now... Know any good Japanese restaurants needing waiters?

The One-Night-Only Tour

2006-04-25T06:36:00.000-05:00

Travis and I leave for Japan tomorrow. First, we travel to Saigon--where we have an 8 hour layover in the airport. Then we fly overnight to Tokyo, from where begins the official Travis-and-Peter One-Night-Only Tour: Japan. If you want to see us (and I'm sure you do), you're gonna have to do 3 things: A) Be in Japan, 2) be in Mito City, Japan, Roman Numeral Three (III)) either pick us up at the bus stop or check us out at Denver's pad, the apartment formerly known as Travis'.

Don't expect any omiyage. Don't expect coherent conversation. And bring holy kisses aplenty. That is all.

(Oh yeah, say a prayer for our save travel, if you please...)

The Salt of the Earth

2006-04-23T04:09:00.000-05:00

I've spent the past 3 weeks in Australia, mostly around Sydney. It's been great. My good friend Travis has been my guide and traveling "mate" (in the words of the locals). Travis grew up in Australia and then lived (t)here again after college, for about 2 years. So he's well-connected.

So far, I haven't seen the inside of a single Australian hotel, and I don't expect to. What I have seen is the inside of many Christian homes. The hospitality I've received has been amazing. As a "squatter"--as Travis and I term ourselves--I've given very little to these wonderful Christians: Mine has been the role of receiving. So on behalf of these wonderful people, let me offer a small bit of praise: My witness that they are and have been worthy of Christ's claim--"you are the salt of the earth."

Live from Ho Chi Minh

2006-04-03T08:17:00.000-05:00

In case you don't know, I have just "retired" from being an English teacher in Japan and am now taking a month off to travel before heading. Currently, I'm in Saigon (HCMC), and tomorrow, Lord willing, I'll head to Australia. So since it's my last night in Vietnam, I thought sitting down at a computer and typing a lengthy blog would be the natural thing to do... actually, we're in for the night, and I have some memories I want to record while they're still fresh--ergo, this Top 10 list of sorts:

Some of the Really Cool Things We Saw in Vietnam:
10) Last night, when we arrived in Saigon from our coastal resort/village, we discovered a surprise thunderstorm (rainy season is still a month away) had completely flooded part of the city--nearly two feet of standing water in some of the streets. Not exactly what you hope to find in a place that already has problems with sanitation.
9) The Traffic. It's crazy. Motorbikes are everywhere in Saigon, and their only rule appears to be, "Don't get killed." Horns blare constantly. On our bus ride through rural areas, our bus honked its horn an average of about 12 times per minute--at anything: huge military trucks, motorbikes, suicidal cyclists, chickens, road kill.
8) There were several tourist sites near our resort, where we found the children to be very helpful. When we stopped at a certain temple, a gang of elementary and preschoolers met us and gave firm assurance that we need not worry leaving our rented motorbikes there--they'd keep an eye on them for us. And they did, for which service they expected a little bit of dung (Vietnamese currency) upon our return. Extortion by preschoolers...
7) But they were nothing compared to some kids we met near the red sand dunes. They flagged us down on our motorbikes, led us to the dunes, carried makeshift "sleds" for us, took us to a premo spot on the dunes, prepared the sleds and the downhill slope with damp sand (which apparently lessens viscosity)--and then cussed us out thoroughly in English after it was over and we didn't pay them as much as they wanted. Oh, the evils of child labor--kids as charming and sweet as money, not affection, can buy. But we made up in the end, with all but the oldest and savviest of the lot, too sly and world-wise for his own good.
6) Travis and I having ample opportunity to flirt with two girls (i.e. young women) who worked at our resort, to the great personal amusement of Jessica.
5) In fact, in general we've seen a lot of giggling and stares. Flirting is a major facet of the price negotiations going on in the markets. Tonight as we made our way through Saigon's biggest marketplace, Travis and I eventually abandoned making any attempts to find something actually to buy--instead we just got to stopping to talk to very pretty girl we saw--quite a busy night. Strange as it sounds, that crazy, busy, sweaty market in downtown Saigon had no shortage of good-looking girls. I'm thinking of proposing to one tomorrow... I'll keep you posted.
4) Talking to our hotel manager last night. A Vietnamese man whose father fought for the south (the pro-US side) during the Vietnamese "Conflict," for which reason he faced in-country discrimination and thus had to attend university in Australia. Gave us lots of insight into Vietnamese thoughts on tourists, Americans, and the state of things in 'Nam. Very enlightening.
3) Meeting all kinds of crazy travelers, many very friendly, almost all of them white. Only recently have I realized how privileged and wealthy white people are in general, the world over. Sheesh... FYI, in Vietnam, as in most Asian countries I've visited, they avoid the sun as religiously as we bathe in it. The reason? To prevent getting darker--they want to be as white as possible. Whitening skin creams, as in Thailand, Japan, etc. are big business here... Wow, don't I feel like the rich young ruler (and I'm currently unemployed).
2) Worshiping with the Christians at a small but thriving congregation (denomination unknown) in the fishing village near our resort. They used an organ that sounded more like an accordion, which, combined with their sing-song language, produced an unfamiliar but quite beautiful effect.
1) Today we went to a waterpark in Saigon (the best I've ever been to). While finishing out on the Lazy River, Travis and I were having inner-tube races. I neared two little Vietnamese girls, who seemed to be a little frightened. As I passed the older of the two, she gave me a curious look, then said, "Are we wacing (racing)?" I said, "What?!" and she repeated her question, in perfect little-kid English. So I answered, "Yes," and the game was on. Turns out the two girls were perfectly bilingual, though I have no idea why, as all personal questions, such as, "Where are you from?" were met by an immediate stone wall (those girls knew better than to talk to strangers), but for about two laps on that Lazy River, Travis and I had ourselved two very cute and very fluent little friends. Then we parted ways so that we could find Jessica and they could find their mommy. Kids are so cool--everywhere.

That's it! I'd better head up to our hotel room so that Jessica and Travis can chide me for wasting nearly an hour typing on the computer--when I'm in Vietnam! Good night!

A Sermon of Sorts

2006-03-20T20:16:00.000-06:00

I know I haven't posted in about a month, and this is merely a finished copy of an old draft. Hopefully before I leave here, though, I can post some final thoughts on life in Japan and some comments on my dad and sister's recent visit. Until then... good luck.

I'm amazed at the number and variety of things human language can express: Almost anything is possible. Almost anything. And I dare not forget that strange amalgam of longing, irony, and breath-taking joy when I think of the few notable exceptions to this rule--especially the heavenly city, so beautiful amd so foreign to this realm that John could find no better way to describe it than a listing of nearly every precious and beautiful substance his experience knew.

And then specific languages--German, English, Japanese, Arabic--throw up unique barriers of their own, limitations that come from the culture of the language and not from anything inherent about language itself. For instance, let's say here in Japan a young businessman wishes to tell an older employee something like, "I'm sorry, but that idea won't work. You simply don't know what you're talking about." The young man can probably make a hint or two in that direction (and he'd better tread lightly indeed), but unless I'm greatly mistaken, he can never come out and say anything even remotely close to the sentence I've typed. It would just be unacceptably rude even to imply.

Another example, one of the first phrases I had to learn when I came here was "Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu." I've heard this nearly everyday for the past year and a half, and I've said it a hundred times myself. But I still don't know what it "means." I understand some of the situations in which it's appropriate to use, but I've never gotten a precise translation of the meaning, because it has none in English. The closest anyone has ever gotten to translating it is along the lines of, "If it's not too inconvenient, please take care of me while we work together." Well, that says it all, I think. Not only is it not strictly translatable into English, but even the best approximation you can get just doesn't really gel with American culture. "Please take care of me if it's not too much trouble"--what an affront to our entrenched sense of individualism and independence! And that's no isolated case. Because of the cultures in which the English and Japanese languages are spoken--in which they exist--we sometimes find a reciprocal inexpressibility: Each language just cannot say some of the things that are present, even commonplace, in the other.

Anyway, many of you may have given up reading by now, but even if you don't care to sort through my verbiage, please don't miss the point of what I'm saying: Culture sways, sometimes rules, language. Culture can trump our very means of expression. And so it may even trump expression itself. This is, I believe, what George Orwell envisioned when he wrote about "newspeak" in 1984. He feared a society that would completely eliminate words like "love"--and thus, in theory, the actual concept itself. What seems to me to happen more often is that we keep the word around, but we and our beloved pop culture ridicule and mock it to the extent that merely to mention it in a tone not dripping with sarcasm is to invite snickering all around.

I remember seeing this happen about five years ago with the word "wrong." I was among 100 college students gathered in an hot office building for training in the arcane mysteries of selling sharp knives and other pricey utensils. After a mid-range manager gave a world-class demonstration of the effectiveness of our blades--especially on coins and tennis shoes--the time arrived for questions. A bright young man took it upon himself to ask about the permissibility of doing something that was obviously unethical (for the life of me, I can't remember what it was). After our head honcho, Mike, explained why that was unacceptable from a legal-punitive perspective, he paused and added, "Besides, that's just wrong." The room erupted in laughter. It was the most wildly successful comment I'd ever heard out of Mike's mouth. Ha! Wrong! Here we are trying to make some money, and he goes mentioning something as silly and beside-the-point as right and wrong... Man, that Mike! What a kidder! Unfortunately, that kind of reception is rather common for the likes of "right" and "wrong" these days, I'm afraid. What of "wisdom"? Is that still something to spend one's life pursuing, or a pipe dream we'd best not take too seriously? And whatever happened to "righteousness," "holiness," and "sanctification"?

The Idiot Box

2006-02-18T00:53:00.000-06:00

Right now, I'm sitting in my apartment trying to watch Japanese TV. I attempt this feat about once every two or three months, mainly because I know it'll help improve my Japanese. One time I lasted nearly 2 hours. But rememeber that numbers can deceive: Most of that time I wasn't paying any real attention to the TV; it was merely back-ground noise. But even that is an accomplishment in its own right. Japanese television is, in my humble opinion, the worst programming in the history of the universe. Even as background noise, it's just downright painful. Overall, it's at least twice as bad as American programming--and that's saying something.

Currently, I'm watching an Oprah-style show, with the exception that the host is a fortune-teller of sorts. She's an old Japanese woman with too much make-up, a rough voice, stern features, a penchant for delivering up terrible predictions for all but the most handsome of her (young, male) guests, and the most melodramatic background music I've ever heard. Several Japanese people have told me that she is incredibly mean--which is surprising given her populariy. As far as I can tell, however, she is in rare form today. Today's audience consists of 100 high school girls, to whom she is doling out advice on men. She has succeeded in making one girl cry hysterically but is now, shockingly, attempting to console the girl. Ah, there you are. She's just re-read the girl's palm, and apparently things are not as dire as previously thought. Whew, close one. Glad that's been taken care of.

Who watches this stuff anyway? What possible audience can they have in mind?

Now did I start this post just to gripe about Japanese programming, or do I have a point?... Hmm, you may be expecting a certain answer, but I'm not sure. Give me a minute to think about it, ne?...

Okay, I've thought about it, and I think I've made a horrible mistake. This old Japanese lady isn't a fortune-teller at all. She's Ann Landers, Japanese-style! I've had her all wrong: She's merely giving advice, not prognosticating. So I apologize for unwittingly deceiving you. Her new audience is a horde of public school teachers, all eager and nicely dressed. That's my peer group! Wow, someone just asked a question about dealing with "gaijin no sensei" (i.e. foreign teachers--e.g. me!). Wonder what she'll say...? Maybe I'd better turn up this background noise a little after all... I'll keep you posted.

Regarding the Robert Frost on My Window

2006-02-09T04:23:00.000-06:00

I consider Robert Frost to be one of my favorite poets, but in reality I don't know his poetry well at all. I've read less than half of his poems, I'm sure, and the only one I know by memory is there because I was forced to memorize it in the 10th grade and am just pedant enough to have refused its release for these many years since.

But I do feel pretty certain Robert Frost once wrote, "Spring is the folly in me." That particular sentiment doesn't ring true in my life: Though spring is many things to me, I generally reserve the best of my folly for the summer. But I digress. My topic tonight is not spring, but winter--cold, bleak, but bracing. It's always in the winter that I feel my strongest desire to write. Snow, specifically, inspires the muse in me. Last year on a beautiful snow day when I was trapped at school with no students and nothing to do, I wrote a rather lengthy (and ponderous, I'm afraid) poem about the blankets of snow falling outside my window. Please don't laugh--it's rude. I know any of the fellow males with whom I graduated high school would gladly attempt to pulverize me for admitting so much, but sitting here in my frosted-over, cozy apartment in Japan, I feel relatively safe from all that. And perhaps that's part of the magic of winter too--the snug safeness one feels when it's terribly cold outside.

Whatever it is, winter always makes me want to be a writer--not just the little show-off that writes to you periodically on this blog, but a real, recognized, remunerated show-off like Robert Frost. But it's more than the prospect of good hours, good income, and a perpetual ego-stroke--I want to say something! Really. I want to make people laugh and cry and curse me and sing my praises--all from the snugness of my little apartment surrounded by frost.

Alas, therein lies the hitch to my little scheme: It's only good as long as the frost lasts. As soon as beautiful, nymph-like spring jumps onto the scene, I'm out my door and out of verse--the wonderland of winter is gone, and I'm a light-hearted fool once more. Perhaps spring is the folly in me, after all.

Even so, let it come! I'm ready!

A Weekend-Trip, Japanese-Style

2006-02-05T00:31:00.000-06:00

I just got back from my first ever Japanese-style weekend trip (i.e. mini-vacation). We went to Nikko, a little village and vacationing community built around a mostly inactive volcano and the beautiful lake that volcano created while having a little spat many years ago. There were 7 of us: 4 foreigners, and 3 natives. The foreigners were Adam, Rebecca, Janet, and me. The nihon-jin were an English teacher from my school and two Japanese women I'd never met before. Here's what we did.

Saturday
7:30--Depart
7:40--Stop at a souvenir shop
8:30--Stop at a rest stop
9:00--Pick up our final companion at a train station
10:45--Eat lunch
12:00--Arrive in Nikko, beautifully snow-covered but freezing; sight-see and check into our hotel
13:00--Slide down some kiddy slopes on little plastic sleds intended for children
14:00--While walking around, have a particularly vicious boys-against-girls snow ball fight (victor not determined), while our Japanese companion looked on in shock, perhaps horror
14:30--Go to an open-air "hot spa" with enough sulphur in it to give us what temporarily looked like pretty nasty sunburns (Note: Adam and I went with the teacher from my school. We met him down in the hotel lobby wearing our Japanese bathing robes, expecting the spa to be in the hotel--it wasn't. We had to walk 200 meters through the snow, in sub-zero weather, wearing bath robes, tiny slippers, and nothing else.)
15:30--Read, watch TV, and nap in our hotel rooms
18:00--Eat a very Japanese meal that includes lots of unidentified pickled vegetables, a variety of raw fish, 3 french fries (literally), the best carrots I've ever had, and raw deer meat--which Janet devoured.
20:00--Hang out in our rooms

Today:
8:00--Eat breakfast
9:00--Leave the hotel
9:05--Stop and explore some igloo-like structures made near our hotel
9:15--Stop for ice cream at a dairy farm (yes, we ate ice cream in the snow)
10:00--Rest stop
11:15--Eat lunch at a famous gyoza restaurant in Utsunomiya (a city near Nikko)
12:45--Drop off our friend at the station
1:30--Stop at the same rest-stop as before
2:20--Arrive back home

Total Time: Less than 30 hours. It wasn't exactly relaxing, but I think we all had a great time. And it felt like we saw a lot more than could normally be crammed into a 29-hour trip. So we seemed to get a good taste of the dual nature of Japanese trips: Short, bustling, tiring (and expensive)--but fun, well-executed, memorable, and accomplished without even having to think of taking a single day off from work.

Why do you call me "Sensei! Sensei!" but do not do what I say?

2006-01-19T03:25:00.000-06:00

That's what I'd like to ask some of my students, especially the 2nd graders.

Something I've learned from teaching is the importance of obedience. Of course, a teacher doesn't deserve the kind of complete obedience that one owes to God, but with a few exceptions, teachers do deserve some. I am amazed at the number of ways students find to evade doing what they're told. My students have the obvious advantage of communication troubles. If I speak to them in English, it's all too easy for them to shrug it off with a "wakaranai" (I don't understand). So I generally speak Japanese when I need to "offer instruction." Even so, if I don't know the proper word, if I stutter, if I mispronounce or mis-conjugate something, I have decent odds of being either laughed off or put off with a several-minutes-long huddled discussion with all available peers--ostensibly to interpret my meaning, though I have a sneaking suspicion they're often just trying to figure out a way to get rid of me. Sometimes I'll ask students something (like who is supposed to clean a particular part of the school), and they'll pretend not to know the answer--when I know perfectly well they DO know. I've even had students run away from me while trying to tell them something. Albeit I'm faster than the lot of them, but I just don't generally have time to go chasing the little punks across the school. ("Generally," I say: I've done it before.)

So these and other techniques--some devilishly clever--are the means by which students try to get out of doing what I tell them. I usually win in the end, but quite often they delay things at least a minute or two. And more than time is lost: At the end of a long day of disciplining students, I feel it. I'm worn. And I see less of it than most teachers, because my responsibilities are less. (They obviously have to use different tactics on Japanese teachers, but often the principles carry over, I've noticed.) These little tactics, little ploys that put off obedience, stack up over the course of a day. They make for tired teachers.

So I think I understand a little better how God must've felt when leading the Israelites out of Eqypt. "I'm trying to help you!" I often want to tell my kids. "You're gonna have to do it in the end, so why not just do it now?" But kids are kids, and discipline is as inevitable and necessary as puberty. So it seems to me.

Conclusions? I'm going to try to be less of a finally-made-to-do-it-after-a-lot-of-arguing-and-dissembling Christian, and more of a whatever-you-say-Lord kind of Christian. And the next time I reread Exodus, I hope I'll have a new appreciation for the God's patience, His longsuffering.

Finally, I love my kids, and only a select bunch of them employ the devious tactics I've harped on today. And I'm neither a perfect nor an always-reasonable disciplarian, and sometimes my Japanese is unintelligible.

Thai and Tai

2006-01-07T04:12:00.000-06:00

I just returned from a trip to Thailand and Taiwan. It was an awesome trip--the people, the sights, the haggling, the sun, some of the food. And yet I have almost no desire to write about it.

So here's a compromise. Instead of trying to write an "actual" post about everything that happened, or a post with a specific point (and continuity and precision and all those things that typically make for good writing), here's a helter-skelter list of some of the cooler things we/I did.

-Riding a small, 100-cc motorcycle on the hilly island roads of Koh Chang, with Jessica screaming and holding on
-Riding elephants into the jungle
-The crazy all-day snorkeling boat trip on New Year's Day, with a hung-over but fun-loving crew, a few Europeans, and lots of Thai natives who apparently didn't know how to swim
-Visiting the current tallest building in the world
-Eating an unidenifiable bowl-full of "authentic Taiwanese food" in a shop off a low-end shopping block in Taipei (among the 10 worst meals of my life)
-The taxi ride to the Taipei airport with the world's worst non-incarcerated driver and a friend who's prone to motion-sickness (40 minutes of hurling, poor girl)
-Watching "King Kong" in the nicest theatre I've ever seen (leather, electrically reclining chairs; complimentary socks, blankets, and pillows; and a members' only waiting room)
-Having to "pay respect to the King" (of Thailand) after the previews by standing for a two-minute rendition of the Thai national anthem, though we'd just gotten comfortable in our reclining leather chairs
-Thai massages
-Ubiquitous Japanese tour groups (whom we could partially understand!)
-Late night card games
-Haggling with shopkeepers
-Getting ripped off by taxi drivers before we finally realized we'd get better rates if we quit bargaining beforehand and just made them run their meters
-Seeing a lizard or two every time we entered the room at our island resort
-Meeting drunk and very friendly Swedes on New Year's Eve, and then meeting them again, sober, the next day and wondering whether they were the same people
-White sand beaches
-Thai bluntness
-Tuk-tuks in Bangkok (3-wheeled beasts driven by local wild men)
-Using bottled water to brush
-Ending every sentence with the word "crap" while attempting to speak Thai
-Trying to figure out how much everyone owed every time we ate a meal together
-Trying to make my deodorant last until I got back to Japan (it didn't)

Okay, that's more than enough, though, now that I'm going, I don't want to stop. I hope you enjoyed your holiday. Mine was great. God bless!

What Do You DO?

2005-12-22T21:25:00.000-06:00

I tend to be a guy who gets things right more when thinking, reasoning, and monologuing than when it actually comes to the doing of them. That probably makes me a likely candidate for the broad ranks of Hypocrisy, but confession is usually the first step toward recovery. (Or else I'm just dissembling and following my usual form: Line it all up correctly in the abstract--and then still fail miserably when it comes to cold, hard reality.)

Along those lines, I can think of fews ways better to spend my energy than in doing good works, especially when done to the praise of God. In fact, I seem to remember a verse in Philippians that talks about one of the main purposes of our redemption--Christ's work in us--is that we might in turn do good to others. Anyway, I've known this for a long time, but still, when it comes down to it--to serving or sacrificing even a little bit of self--I too often choose the down-comforter-on-thick-mattress path of cozy pleasure over the futon-on-tatami-mat road of service.

But last night I was reminded of the joy of service, and so in hopes of reminding someone else out there, I'll tell you what happened.

I was in the downtown part of my city walking to a bus stop after a "Japanese drinking party" with my fellow teachers. At the party, I had won a bowl of pre-made noodles (not very appealing to most of you, but it's a good meal in Japan). Along the way, I saw a homeless woman, and I decided to offer her the meal. I told her it was too spicy for me and asked her to do me the favor of taking it off my hands, which she did. And she was so tickled, such joy broke out on her face! Such a simple thing--a kind word, an offering that cost me virtually nothing--and yet I had just made her cold, winter night just a little more bearable.

The Story Behind the Story (or Where This Story Fits in with THE Story):
1) I firmly believe that any good accomplished last night in that simple offering was the work of God. The "winning" of the prize at the party, my noticing the woman, her not being afraid to talk to a foreigner, even my being able to explain things in reasonably proper Japanese--was God's working. Strange that the God who conducts the symphony of the universe shouldn't be too ashamed to work within the narrow, selfish confines of me.
2) Giving that meal was probably more for my benefit than that woman's. Here I was walking home in a sort of stupor, too worn down by the semester to even celebrate its end--and boom! a little spiritual wake up call from God. Open your eyes, you fool!
3) It was very cheap service, in that it cost me virtually nothing, and really is no more than any "decent human being" would've done. Most service--and certainly the best and most Christ-like kinds of service--cost a lot more than a smile, a bowl of ramen, and 30 seconds of time. But you have to get there, and I'm far behind where I ought to be.

Love and Grace beyond understanding, cover even me!

P.S. I just gave my last roll of toilet paper to a neighbor who was moments away from serious bowel trauma. I'm out of control!

Decisions, decisions

2005-12-10T02:52:00.000-06:00

I have 8 minutes and nothing to say--perfect time for a post.

I'm not going home for Christmas this year, and it's more than a little sad to me, especially as the time draws near. My first Christmas not to go home, not to wake up to stockings and presents and the smiling faces of my beloved family. It's not something I can gripe and complain about, though, considering I am completely capable of going home but have just chosen not to.

Here's a brief run-down of my reasons for skipping out on family Christmas this year: A) I live in eastern Asia, probably the only time I will do so in my life, so I need to make use of holidays for travel in this part of the world, B) it costs a lot of money to fly back to the States during Christmas time, C) I hate LAX, D) I went back last year and gave fair warning to everyone that this year--2005--I would most likely do something foolish like run off to Thailand at the end of December. There it is. There it is, written out for all the world to see, the reasoning that will keep me from spending Christmas at home this year.

So I am truly sad to miss out, and I want my family to know (those of you that know how to use the internet) that I love you and will miss you this Christmas. And to top it all off, I'm not even sending any presents! But worry not, when I come home "for good" (at some undisclosed future date), I plan to bring lots of goodies.

That said, I'm content with my decision to go to Thailand. I could really use some tropical weather right now.

Grace and peace!

Life Abroad

2005-11-22T07:01:00.000-06:00

Life abroad is a mixed bag. On the one hand, you get all kinds of great new experiences and relationships, unique and plentiful opportunities to grow closer to God, and a handful of imminently pragmatic things like competency in a foreign language (hopefully) and a good bullet point for the resume. Then of course there's the downside: Being so far away from everything that happens with most of the people you know and love, culture stress, and many of the same old nags, just expressed in new ways--"What am I doing with my life?" "Will I ever stop acting this way?" "Why do bad things happen to good people?" and the like. Right now I'm experiencing more of the bad side of things--the nags, the uncertainties, the discontent, the fears.

While there's certainly a time and place for mourning and working out uncertainty, I don't care to make this blog that time and place. So instead, I want to point out a particularly spectacular benefit to living abroad. And like many of the best things in life, this benefit emerges corporately--it comes from many people and no one person alone.

Many friends of mine, real people I know and love, are scattered across this globe--school teachers, students, ministers, office workers, servants, businesspeople. Some of them I keep in touch with (even if only by perusing a blogsite), and many of them I do not. Some of them are struggling, and those that aren't are merely being given a moment's reprieve--a break in life's grand brawl. And some are winning the brawl, and some are battered to their wit's end. It's a picture that truly merits Shakespeare's clever invention: "Bittersweet." But through it all, and in it all, and some times in spite of what seems like "it all," I see the goodness and faithfulness of God. I see the church, the body of Christ--my friends, my family--in action on every field. It's warfare, to borrow the metaphor from Paul. And it's a painful and sometimes terrible thing to be fighting in such a war--the war behind and beyond and bedeviling every other skirmish, every terror, in the history of everything we know. And it's hard to accept and hard to stomach the damage done, not only to myself, but also to everyone I know and care about. And yet in the midst of this terrible battle, I see lives being transformed, I see heroes, I see old, gray, righteous heads lying down for the last time--in peace, assurance. I see victory outstripping the losses, even an occasional swoop into the jaws of death to snatch out some fallen soldier. And I see changes even in this foolish and fearful soul I call Me.

To such a God and Creator, the Author of all things good and pure and orderly and right, I say, Praise! Glory! And, keep your sheep safe until you return!

Fermentation, baby

2005-11-10T02:16:00.000-06:00

Yesterday while I was microwaving some half-a-week-old macaroni and cheese, I caught a whif of alcohol. I ignored it at first, but as it returned several times at a particular spot in my kitchen, I finally got to making a general search of things. Well, nothing turned up, and I had completely forgotten about it until today when I reached up to get a banana and saw one of my apples was acting a little peculiar: It was dripping. When I looked a little closer, I saw that the apple was actually sitting in a little puddle of something. A simple lean forward, and all the pieces fell together: Wet apple + The smell of alcohol = Fermented apple juice. Yes, indeed.

I hope none of you will be overly disappointed when I tell you I didn't take a taste-test of my little puddle of homegrown wine.

This country just does weird things to fruit. The apple wasn't even that old, and a few months ago I had a banana liquify. Who knows?

Praise Ye the Lord

2005-11-06T07:03:00.000-06:00

Praise God!

Sometimes I forget to do what is so vital and so natural--praise the Father. Yesterday Travis A and I went to Tokyo and took the GRE. We both did well--good enough to get into good schools with a little bargaining room, but (hopefully) not so well we'll stumble into pride. Praise God! Such a simple thing--a mere multiple choice test (with a few essays on the side)--can be so stressful. Now it's finished, and one more hurdle in the way of "the next step" has been cleared. Now I can begin the process of marketing myself to grad schools. Great...

If you know me or just feel inclined, nudged in the spirit perhaps, then please offer up a prayer on my behalf for guidance, wisdom, and success. (No, I don't think it's necessarily wrong or misguided to pray for success, depending of course on one's definition of "success.") Hey! Don't just nod and smile: Really do it--take my name before the Lord!

And if you're not wasting away in the pit of despair, then praise a little while you're at it!

Eavesdropping

2005-10-24T04:53:00.000-05:00

I read on someone's blog about an idea to post snippets from interesting or bizarre conversations they overhear. That idea immediately struck home with me, and after thinking about it, the reason seems to be quite simple: I spend countless hours every week hearing a language very (very, very, very) foreign from my own. But I've been here long enough that slowly, ever-so-slowly I find myself gaining invite, step-by-step, level-by-level, into the elusive and well-fortified establishment known as the Japanese Language. (Unfortunately, like most elite places, this one isn't nearly as thrilling inside as when one is completely blocked out in the cold. But then again, I haven't really entered the heart of the fortress: I'm still waiting on the fringes, a stone's throw from the outer wall.)

Anyway, so I've started realizing things. I've started to realize that when these crazy people around me are talking and laughing and shouting about things, they're actually saying something--real, human communication is going on. This may sound weird if you've never spent time in a place where people speak a foreign language, but it's true--you almost can't help but think some people are just out of their minds. (Actually, speaking the same language as someone is no guarantee you won't think they're out of their minds. And besides, let's not lose sight of the fact that some people are, in fact, out of their minds. Owari!) To me, there was no way the words coming out of their mouths came close to anything resembling real human expression. Sometimes I would find myself feeling utterly incredulous when someone would put up the pretense of "speaking" to someone else, when I knew they weren't possibly making any sense. But now sometimes, at rare, beautiful moments, their meaning, their words--and to some degree, all the other things that come resounding out from the deep places of a spirit--are so obvious I couldn't deny them if I wanted. Sometimes I hear people talking and, without even really meaning to, start to understand the basics of what they're saying, and it's so amusing to me.

I don't mean to say that the thing that's amusing is what they are actually saying. Rather, they're frequently as mundane and uninteresting as most of what any of us has to say, me not least of all. But just the fact that I can finally start to get it, and probably also because every intelligible sound I hear uttered contrasts so sharply against the backdrop of my previous skepticism, it's just so amusing to me. Sometimes to the point of distraction. So now I want to post some of the conversations I've heard recently. If an extremely, painfully mundane conversation happens to slip out at some point, gomen nasai (sorry).

Amazing Conversation #1:
Teacher: Hmm, that truck that brings the school lunch is late getting off today.
Secretary: You think so?
Teacher: No doubt! It's three o'clock, ya know!
Secretary: Hmm... yeah, they are late.

Amazing Conversation #2:
Student Teacher: You're Peter-sensei, aren't you? (Because I don't remember seeing another white person around here...) Well, I want to ask you in extremely polite Japanese if I can borrow the TV that resides in the English... class room... what's it called?... Oh well, I'll never remember it with you trying to look me right in the eye like that. Anyway, you probably know the one since there isn't another English class room in the school. So tomorrow I would really like to borrow the TV in there, if that's okay with you (?). Well then, about getting that key from you...
Peter: Do you need to get the TV now or just by tomorrow morning? (Why am I asking this?)
S Teacher: Well, you see, tomorrow morning I would like to borrow the TV that resides...
Peter: I see. Maybe I will unlock the door around 8:10 tomorrow morning, so it seems a person could get in after that... How is that?
S Teacher: Oh! That's a wonderful idea! I'd heard of your brilliance before now, but nothing could've prepared me for so unfathomably wise an answer as that! Thank you so much!
Peter: Yoroshiku onegaishimasu to you too.
*Note: Somewhat unreasonable liberty may have been taken with this translation.

Amazing Conversation #3:
Secretary: Blah, blah, blah... Peter-sensei!... Peter-san...
Vice-Principal: Yes, blah... blah, blah... important document... to the head office... Call back on the phone?...
Secretary: Peter-sensei!... Peter-sensei!... (Please note: Although I'm in the room sitting at my desk, everyone is nevertheless speaking about me, rather than to me.)
VP: (on the phone) Yes, hello, hello! This is Mr. _____, vice-principal at ___ Jr. High. Anyway--yes, I'm very good, and you? Oh, that's wonderful, wonderful. Yes, thank you. Well, I'm calling to talk about that little issue with Peter-sensei--(Sits forward in his chair and lowers his voice drastically, though I can still just make out what he's saying)--but the thing is, he's in the room right now.

Of all the little snippets I've accidentally overheard in my 15 months here, that was the absolute best. I nearly fell out of my chair with laughter. I'm sure the only thing that kept me from letting out at least a chuckle or two was my concern that something might genuinely have been wrong. (Nothing was.)

But don't you go thinking I'm the only would-be eavesdropper at my school. Many a time when I talk to an English teacher (in English) do I see another teacher's strained face, their gaze transfixed on a spot on the opposite wall, and a neck straining just a little too hard for the head on the end of that neck to be going about its usual business.

12 Minutes of... Something

2005-10-08T00:47:00.000-05:00

That's what you're gonna get with this post. Well, I signed up and paid to take the GRE. Now I have only a month of preparation and several hours of travel to and through Tokyo between me and the Graduate Record Exam. Oh, boy! I just have to decide what I want to study. This is the hard part, people.

So I've decided to open things up to you all, my international circle of expert blog surfers, to see what advice you have. Philosophy, literature, New Testament, Old Testament, theology, linguistics, English, some foreign language, creative writing, counseling, high-altitude basket weaving... the possibilities are nearly endless! That's the problem, actually. If I don't hear back from you, I will just assume you don't care... OR ... that you are as clueless about what I should study as I am, which is, after all, only fair.

That aside, life is great. In fact, it's so great, I don't know what to write about. I will just say on a side note that typing is much more difficult when it immediately follows exercising with those V-shaped contraptions meant to improve the strength of your hands. I've been using one today because earlier in the week I went to my friend Jon's apartment and did pull-ups on his indoor pull-up bar thing (which is quite an investment when you live in Japan and only have about 300 square feet of floor space to work with). Anyway, during my attempts at besting my personal record of 12 or 14 consecutive pull-ups, the first thing to go was my grip. Jon said he has the same problem, and it got us to reminiscing about the good old days on the playground when we could swing on the monkey bars for hours. So as an effort to reclaim the lost monkey bar skills of my youth, I am using a hand-resistance V-shaped thing (the proper name for which eludes me at the moment).

Woops, that's 12 minutes come and nearly gone! If you have any advice for me, send it on! And if it's real advice and not just a joke, feel free to even email it to me. God bless!

The Clock Is Ticking, and I'm Still Worried about Syntax...

2005-09-28T04:13:00.000-05:00

At least that's probably what I'll be thinking in about 15 minutes. I have decided I want to experiment with typing up posts while on a tight time frame (like tonight). I guess I have two reasons really. One is that I need to take the GRE soon and could stand to fine-tune my writing-intelligibly-while-under-pressure ability (it's amazing how quickly that particular skill gets rusty), and two, I just don't want to waste too much of my life writing on this crazy blog. But we'll see if this new idea lasts beyond the experimental try you are currently perusing.

I've had a request to include more posts about school life, and I'd certainly like to accomodate. It's a little difficult to do that, however, because A) I have to be careful what I say about my place of employment online (this is, after all, a public forum), and B) I just don't have any new stories. Or do I...? Let me think...

Well, I guess I have developed a slight identity crisis as far as being a teacher. Actually, I didn't "develop" it: I've had it since I started teaching here and just haven't managed to resolve it so far. The crisis is basically the old friend/mentor/authoritarian dilemma. Here I am trying to teach English in Japan. They call me "sensei," and they expect me to know answers to important questions, like, "Can I go to the bathroom?" and "Kento's head is gushing blood. Can I help him walk to the nurse's room?" All of this respect, and really, honestly, on occasion--usually--I just really don't know what in the world I'm doing. I'm here in a foreign environment, with all kinds of social norms and mores that are still completely enigmatic to me, and these kids think I'm capable of answering their urgent, life-or-death questions. I get some immunity from the challenging things because I don't speak the language and because the students know that, even though I'm a "sensei," there's still something a little odd about me... something a little different. (There are 700 people at my school. Guess which one of them isn't Japanese?)

So anyway, occasionally issues arise. For example, today a bunch of girls came into my room at cleaning time to help me clean. I knew they weren't girls who generally cleaned my room, but we had a sports tournament today, so everything was a little out of whack and I didn't bother interrogating them in broken Japanese. I just figured they knew where they should be. Then toward the end of souji time (cleaning), another teacher came into my classroom and proceeded to interrogate them in Japanese. Basically, she asked them in pretty brusque Japanese where they were supposed to be cleaning. After they said, "In the hall," she said something like, "Then why are you in here talking to Peter-Sensei?" So they got in trouble, and I kind of did too. I was practically their accomplice in souji-time crime!

Another time, a girl was being dragged through the teacher's room. She's a sweet student who likes to tell me how cute and cool I am (and she's right, of course). Anyway, she had made the horrible mistake of dyeing her hair, so a teacher was dragging her to the sink to dye it back to its natural black state. As she goes past my desk, she says, "Oh, Peter-Sensei!" and tries to stop and talk. The teacher isn't having it, though. He keeps marching her along and says something to the effect of, "Not even Peter-Sensei can help you now!" That was hard to take. It's one of the rare, striking examples of the failure of my "gaijin powers."

These are uncommon occurences, let me assure you. But almost everyday, just during my normal interactions with the students, small things happen that seem to test the line between authority figure and cool guy with gaijin powers. If I had more time and a password-protected blog, I would probably tell you about some of them. But I think I'll lay this post to rest.

One final word: I love my kids, and I know I'll miss them when they're gone. They have brightened my days so many times, I've already fired ten different guys who were supposed to be keeping count. God bless!

Joy Unexpected

2005-09-20T08:12:00.000-05:00

Joy often arises in unexpected places. In fact, one of the most consistent characteristics of joy is that it hardly ever comes from being sought, as a end, as a goal--but it often arises quite readily as a byproduct when you pursue other things.

One of the steady sources of joy during my time in Japan has come from my primary means of getting about--my scooter. I blogged a couple of months ago about a memorable roadtrip Travis and I took on our scooters, and that was certainly an occasion that brought great joy. But trips are almost always a source of joy to me. One of the remarkable things about the scooter (that beautiful, styroam-seated, 50-cc engined piece of machinery) is that it injects joy into the utterly day-by-day, the most routine of tasks. There's one road, for instance, down which I travel quite frequently, and everytime I ride my scooter down that twisting, treacherous path I hear the tune to Star Wars in my head and begin to swerve around in my lane, dodging potholes like a Force-wielding Jedi. And I'm not joking about hearing the tune in my head: It reverberates around in my helmet like a symphony, because it's being hummed--by me. And I don't even realize I'm doing it. It's practically involuntary, and I don't remember its ever having started.

Well, while I was returning home from our cell group, tonight's theme turned out to be a song from Les Miserables, "One Day More" (or whatever it's called). The song goes pretty high, as some of you know, and if I'm gonna take it upon myself to be Jean Valjean, I certainly don't want to wimp out, so I basically wound up screaming at the top of my lungs at certain key moments. At a particularly climactic point in the song (with me screaming "One--Day--More!!!"), I passed a guy on the sidewalk, and that old Japanese man spun around to look at me so fast, he nearly lost his footing and fell right on his face. The look on his face the brief moment I saw it was just priceless: Utter bewilderment, horror, and affrontedness all meshed into one contorted, mouth-gaping shape. I laughed my head off! And he nearly made me bite it on the pavement! The laughter was still going at full force when I stopped at the next light, so that the car beside me could see nothing but the arms of a white person convulsing and a shaking, twisting helmet with a face mask fogged over in the cool autumn night's air. And the thought of what I must've looked like made me laugh all the more.
I hope these people are enjoying me half as much as I'm enjoying them.

What Mark Twain has to do with Me

2005-09-12T08:46:00.000-05:00

(Warning: The following post is lengthy, and in a long-winded sort of way. In addition, it springs from several consecutive days of sleep deprivation, and has numerous obscure literary allusions, several awkwardly worded sentences, and sundry failed attempts at wit. That is all.)

Humanity is an interesting thing. In a sense, we're all connected, related, interdependent, but in a sense, most people just have nothing to do with the life of, say, Random Person A. I think that's why it's so notable when various lives do line up or intersect or in some unique way play off of one another. In fact, it's just such a person--and his unique connection to my own life--about which I'd like to say a thing or two.

The man was Samuel Clemens, best known by the pen name of Mark Twain. Born into a middle class family in a small, dank room in provincial-ville, central Mi... and I'm just kidding.

No, where our story really starts, is D----, Oklahoma, in the year 1986. That year a certain ruddy and handsome young lad began a prestigious academic career at none other than Mark Twain Kindergarten. Though beginning kindergarten several months behind the other students (because he didn't want to be separated from his momma), he overcame seemingly insurmountable odds and succeeded in continuing on to the First Grade. As a 1st grader, now at Mark Twain Elementary School, Peter (for this was the boy's name) won great recognition for himself, including First Place in the school Halloween costume contest, as a skeleton. When called into the principal's office to have his picture taken, Peter craftily used his skeleton mask to hide an overflow of tears. More Huck Finn than Tom Sawyer, Peter was crying because he mistakenly thought he was in trouble. Next, passing swiftly into second grade with all the alacrity and elan of a young man who's mastered block letters and addition with numbers from 1 to 10, Peter further distinguished himself as a son of Twain by running away from school after his gym teacher unfairly made him sit in Time Out when another kid tripped him. He also had the starring role in the 2nd grade play and was several times allowed to read his ingenious stories about Russian spies over the PA system to the entire school, including, yes, even the 6th graders.

So Twain and I were intertwined from the beginning. His namesake was my school; his pseudonym, the figurative anvil of my youth; his non de plume, the branding on my chest (on Tuesday nights, when I played soccer). How different my life had I had the misfortune of attending Will Rogers Elementary School! I shudder to think of it.

Then I moved to a new school for 3rd grade.

My next encounter with Twain came in college, when I finally got around to reading the more famous of his works. It's too soon to tell what precise lasting effects they are to have on me, but I can say that I'll certainly never think of the Mississippi the same again, nor will I ever forget the moment Tom, after winning through sheer chicanery the Sunday school prize for Bible knowledge, answered the eager clergyman's request to name two of the apostles with the cataclysmic "David and Goliath." That may have been one of the greatest moments in my life.

Most recently, I've come across several essays Twain wrote about the German language. In one he comments on the unreasonable length of German words--perfectly expressing sentiments I had while living in Austria a few years ago. In another work, he notes a key difference between German and English: That whereas in English we are always trying to think of new ways to refer to the same thing, in German it's perfectly all right to reuse the same word endlessly. So for example, if I, an English-speaker, want to write a story about a man with a knife, I have to do something like this, "The knife's shadow crept slowly down the alleyway. As Mickey peered down into the passage below, he noticed a small light moving and flickering there below--the dagger's tip. Losing sight of the faint luminescence, Mickey leaned out of the window, calling out, 'Hello, down there! Hello!' As though suspended in air, the thick, serrated edge trudged slowly, silently up the firewell beside the window. As Mickey craned farther out of the window, shouting again, the cold blade rose slowly into the air."
So you see what's happened? In addition to forcing me to write a silly story in a genre that's not exactly my forte, this language-wide aversion to repetition also made me use "dagger" (hardly accurate), "thick, serrated edge" (rather melodramatic), and "cold blade" instead of just saying "knife" each time. An odd story here and there may indeed find itself bolstered to have half a million synonyms flying around inside it, but more often than not, it's just simply a pain. I can't tell you how many times in my own experience a short story has come to a jolting stop in mid-composition for no other reason than a simple scarcity of synonyms.

But my favorite quote of Twain's, the quip that really takes the cake, the sayonara hit in any debate over the intertwinedness of Twain and me, was this comment following his travels to France: "I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language."

I'll just let you try to imagine how that comment might apply to me.

Tales to Tell

2005-08-25T06:43:00.000-05:00

I said I'd write a little about the recent trip to Singapore and Malaysia. So let's get an overview of the trip's logistics in our heads from the get-go, shall we?

Wednesday: Leave Japan (7:00)--arrive in Singapore (1:00 AM)
Thursday: Sleep in the airport. First subway/train of the morning (6:00), then a bus (7:30), next a taxi (9:30) to a port city (11:00) in Malaysia, finally a boat to our island (2:00)
Friday-Saturday: Island Resort Time.
Sunday: Leave the island (boat--taxi--bus), and spend the afternoon/evening exploring Singapore. Catch the last subway/train back to the airport.
Monday: Get up insanely early (3:00), go through security, and board the plane (6:00) back to Japan (2:00)

Here are a few highlights.
*As we were filling out our embarkment (or disembarkment or disembodibarkimentosmentalminniemouse) cards on the airplane to Singapore, we got our first real taste of draconian Singapore, a little message box that read: "-Warning- Death to drug traffickers under Singaporean law." It was a little intimidating knowing we were about to enter a country that likes to brag about killing offending foreigners.
*We got our second taste when we entered the subway system and saw about 20 million signs telling us everything you could do on the subway to earn yourself a fine, including a $500 fine (~350 USD) for eating or drinking anything whatsoever. I guess my brain wasn't working properly at such an early hour because at our second stop I made no hesitation in busting out a piece of candy and popping it in my mouth--to the utter horror of Travis and Denver. Well, it was a piece of hard candy, so swallowing it whole and chewing it were out. And if I had spit it out, I was sure the nearest old lady on the subway would've pulled out a handgun and executed me straight-away, so I had nothing to do but sit and let it dissolve in my mouth, the whole time in utter fear that a police officer would jump through a nearby window, beat me down, and arrest me on the spot.
*When we finally got to the bus stop in Malaysia that first morning, we stood out like a bunch of whities in a country of dark-skinned people. One taxi driver who spoke broken English accosted us immediately, guessed our destination (apparently most white people in southern Malaysia come just to visit the island resorts), and offered to take us for 30 Rng apiece-- thus 120 Rng. He even generously offered to knock off 10 Rng to make it 110. The only problem was there were only 3 of us, and 3 times 30 is 90. I attempted to explain to him his error, but the generally accepted laws of arithmetic apparently have no power over taxi drivers in southern Malaysia, and he wouldn't budge. So after scarfing down some McDonald's, we got in his cab and sat back to enjoy a 100-mile ride.
And enjoy it, we did. Largely because of the personality of the cabbie, that ride turned out to be one of the most memorable parts of the trip. He told us all kinds of things, like learning English from British soldiers after WW2, and how Malaysia is 70% Muslim, 35% Buddhist, a little Christian, and the rest aren't religious at all. We drove past rain forest/jungle the whole time, so he assured us at the start that we might well see tigers, elephants, or monkeys. That kept us awake for most of the trip, but to no avail. But what really got our hearts pumping was when he made a quick exit off the highway, telling us he had to "deliver a package," and taking us down a bumpy road toward a run-down warehouse--in a predominantly Muslim and rather poor nation. As we waited on him inside the car, I went through various mental scenarios, wondering how fast I could jump into his seat, release the brake, and drive his car in reverse back down the dirt road. But he soon returned, and the men with uzi's never left their complex. The other bit of excitement the old guy caused was to pull abruptly to the side of the highway, muttering "tiger area." As he climbed out of the car, we shook off our sleepiness and made ready with the cameras. Unfortunately, either there were no tigers in the area or "tiger area" was code for "pit stop," because all we saw out our back window was an old Malaysian man peeing on the side of the road.
*At the island, our first morning there we had beautiful weather and decided to put it to good use. We went snorkeling and kayaking for 3 and a half hours--and I managed to acquire the worst sunburn of my life, despite applying sun screen before starting out. We should've brought it with us in the kayak, I guess, but who knew the equatorial sun would be so potent? Despite the sunburn and despite being hit-on multiple times by the gay concierge, our time at the resort was great, and we met some interesting people.
*On the cab ride back down toward Singapore, we did indeed see a monkey. It was walking across an electrical wire over the highway.
*Sunday night in Singapore, we stopped at the only church we could see, St. Andrew's Cathedral (Anglican), a national landmark building. We went in to have some private meditation time, but being informed there would be a worship service in 20 minutes and being weary, we decided to stay. We figured it would last an hour at the most. Wrong guess. The sermon alone was 80 minutes. It was given by a man who appeared to be a native Singaporean, meaning he probably spoke English as his native language but still sounded like someone who learned it in a language class: Singaporeans speak "Singlish," and it's difficult to understand. For Gabe's information, this preacher mentioned the problem of "postmodernism" in his sermon, which caused all of us to exchange a knowing glance. Also, there was a band that played at the service, and they were quite good (though I don't have much to compare them with). And it was indeed touching to see so many people of different backgrounds in the middle of Muslim-thick southeast Asia offering sincere praise to the Lord of the universe. That may, quite honestly, have been the most amazing part of the trip.
*Throughout the trip, several people, upon learning we were Americans, wanted to offer us their opinions on US foreign policy. Amazingly, everyone who commented had favorable things to say. Our first cab driver, a Buddhist in a heavily Muslim country, told us he thought we were very smart, very clever, to go in and take down the bad man Saddam before he could get too powerful and control everyone's lives, like the Muslims do. Also, one of the ushers at church stopped me to ask if I pray for President Bush and the troops. I told him "yes." And he said he had heard many people in Iraq were now being evangelized, which he thought was wonderful. (I don't offer these necessarily to start a political discussion on my blog. I just thought it was very interesting that some people were so eager to discussion politics with us while we were so eager to avoid doing anything that would highlight the fact that we were Americans. In fact, in Malaysia, when most people assumed we were from Singapore, we didn't contradict them, and the few who directly asked where we were from, received the puzzling response of: "We're from Japan." Smile.)

That's all! And all too much it is. Good luck making it through the jungle of my experiences. I assure you they were less tedious when lived than are now written. God bless!

P.S. Because of the sunburn, my skin is now flaking off in sheets and I'm afraid may have done permanent damage to my laptop. That's how much I love you people.

Wanderlust

2005-08-22T07:36:00.000-05:00

I just arrived back from the not-so-roady "road trip" with Denver and Travis, and boy, it was a doozie. First of all, I have lamented and lament now again the fact that our fourth man, Blake B Blackwell, was unable to attend. During the trip, many times did our fellowship express sentiments of regret that he was unable to come, things like, "Man, this would've been even cheaper if we'd had a fourth guy!" or "Shoot, if Blake'd been here, we could've rented two kayaks instead of just one!" or "Oh, man, I bet Blake would've eaten that!" and so on. (I'm kidding, OK, Blake? We really did miss you, and not just because it's more practical to travel with 4 people instead of 3! Wish you could've come, but we'll just have to make up for it next summer--road trip to New England, anyone?)

For Denver, this marathon-esque tour began even earlier than it did for Travis or me (he traveled around Japan with his family the week leading up to this trip). But for Travis and me, here's how it went: on Wednesday afternoon, a bike ride from our schools--bags (and a few last-minute errands!)--scooters to the church building--on foot to the bus stop--bus to the airport-- Denver's waiting--flight to Singapore (7 hours)--about 2 hours of "sleep" on the floor in the airport--earliest train to a bus stop in Singapore--a bus to a market area just inside peninsular Malaysia--a taxi-ride over 100 miles to a city on Malaysia's east coast--an hour-long boat ride to a secluded island--then, finally, alas, freedom to relax a little! It was timely indeed, arriving after 24 hours of almost uninterrupted travel. Whew! We stayed on the island for 4 days, 3 nights--and then did everything all over again, this time backwards of course. That's where I am right now. That's the me that is attempting to compose a post right at this very moment--hours and hours of boat rides, taxis, buses, and air voyages between me and anything approximating good sleep. And I'm feelin' it!
Did I have a good time? Would I do the trip again? Yes, indeed. But you won't here any details that might clue you in as to why, until sometime after TONIGHT--which starts... now. Nighty-night!

A Road Trip Minus the Road

2005-08-16T18:04:00.000-05:00

Today I'm set to start a roadtrip minus the road. Denver, Travis, and I are headed to Singapore and Malaysia!

I plan to take lots of pictures (don't laugh, if you please!). I plan to sleep in an airport or two. I plan to spend some good time exploring some crystal-clear stretches of ocean. And I'm considering pretending only to speak Japanese and seeing how far that gets me!

If I make it back in one piece, I'll try to tell you a little bit about it here on the blog. God bless!

Call me Ichabod

2005-08-04T08:54:00.000-05:00

If I remember correctly from the Bible bowl days, "Ichabod" means something like "the glory has gone," so actually, just keep calling me whatever it is you've been calling me before you read this post. I simply wanted a means for introducing a great author I know: Charles Dickens. Perhaps you've heard of him.

I reread his David Copperfield recently, upon which I had for many years bestowed the illustrious and much-sought-after title of My Favorite Novel Ever. Quite appropriately, time has a way of making us question things we valued in our younger years, and I found myself granting Mr. Dickens (and especially Mr. Copperfield) no exception to this rule. I am happy to report that after a second reading of this wonderful book my esteem for it has undergone no relapse--in fact, I think it's grown. And though I no longer hold strict categories in my brain for my favorite this and my favorite that, I can confidently report that David Copperfield is among my favorite novels of all-time.

But this isn't meant to be a post about books. One of my favorite things about David Copperfield is the characters. They are simply amazing. I actually read most of the book while traveling about Japan on trains this past weekend--with my friends Travis and John--and on one notable occasion, the cohorts of Mr. Copperfield made me laugh so hard and so long that every Japanese person in the near vicinity stopped their respective conversations to gander at the crazy foreigner sitting there laughing his head off over--all of things--a book. The only other person I know who has discovered fully the beauty of this cast of characters is my older brother Andrew. And if he weren't such an adept conversationalist, I would truly lament only having one other person with whom I could appreciate these treasures. (But how many treasures have only we two been able to appreciate, Andrew?--the "special" seeds in the backyard, the baseball cards, the epic GI Joes battles, and a little thing called Super Shine.)

But this isn't meant to be a post about books. Sorry, I have to repeat myself, or I lose track.

Reading this book, I realized what an amazingly Copperfieldesque bunch of friends and family I have myself. I won't mention everyone who deserves mention, and those left unnamed need not assume themselves minor characters. I'm simply going off the top of my head, and maybe, perhaps, possibly giving special preference to those people who are mostly likely to drop a comment. (And besides, many of a man's best treasures are too precious for a public forum.)

There's Blake, flinging himself to the front of my mind--thrice mangled, disjointed, rent asunder, arm not akimbo and not really even akin (to the rest of his body)--a laugh known and loved by all, save those few snobs who frequent the Art Cinema in OKC--and the most diligent proponent of Pow-Wows known to his race.

There's Dad, hopelessly, boyishly intrigued with myriads of minutiae: plants, cultural oddities, historical tidbits, stretches of road he's never seen--but these mere filler, mere gap-minders, tartar between the broad teeth of life, duty, faith, and the status of his single son's dating life. Jovial, lively (unless he gets too much sugar), and a mind like a steel trap, though sometimes a thing or two gets mangled in the teeth (especially names of young ladies, Starla/Charla, Julie/Joy).

Joy! There's a young lady I'm incapable (or afraid) of writing up properly. Vivacious, pleasantly cunning, a "hoot"--in the lingo of my youth--honest to a faultering breath (yours if you've done wrong). Her rebukes strong, pointed--and sweeter than honey. A compassionate, diligent soul. Rich in faith and good works. A person to trust, and whose trust never to abuse.

Supreme enigma, puzzle beyond rendering, not merely rough at the edges, but amorphous, ungraspable, un-pin-downable--Gabe. Staunch inhabitant of iv'ry'd towers, iconoclast, Kerouac'd, most well-surfed blogger on the web, and SGA President in days of yore. Faithful friend, future brother-in-law (just kidding, Dad), philosopher and thinker, a man of deep, deep sensibilities (and a few that aren't). And above it all--I'm now convinced--the man single-handedly responsible for all remaining usage of the word "postmodern."

I didn't mention that David Copperfield is a very, very long book. Lest I be accused of rivalling Dickens (an empty claim), I shall have to stop there, though I've certainly left some glaring ommissions (including the entire AET group). Send me a comment if you want to be written up! I like to know who's needy.

*Note: In case you're confused regarding the relationship between Charles Dickens and the name Ichabod, let me assure you that all confusion on the point begins with me. For some reason, as I typed up this post late last night, my brain decided upon the first name of Ichabod--rather than Ebenezer--for that famous once-humbumger of Christmas, Scrooge (created by Dickens, as you no doubt know). If the inconsistency continues to bother you, just pretend I put a comma before "Ichabod" (thus "Call Me, Ichabod"), meaning to imply that Irving's Ichabod Crane and the repentant Scrooge were early pioneers of the telephone and that, at this particular point in time, Scrooge was urging Ichabod not to be lax in maintaining their intercontinental verbal correspondence.
Or content yourself with the knowledge that I am, on occasion, an idiot. That is all.

On the Road

2005-07-25T08:14:00.000-05:00

I've recently been contemplating the power of stories. In fact, I had a discussion about stories with my friend John just about an hour ago. I've been enjoying thinking about stories so much for the past hour or so that I'm tempted to start rattling off some of my thoughts. But instead, I think I'll tell you a story of my own. It may be one that means little to you when it's all said and done, but it's one that marked a rather pleasant chapter in the life of the ones who lived it.

Last Saturday, two boys met at one of the boy's house. Their names were Peter and Travis. Both of those boys had scooters. And they set off on those scooters in search of a mysterious lake. One of the boys had discovered the lake on a map, but neither boy had seen it in real-life and neither boy had ever heard anyone else talk about it. But they were in a mood for exploring, so off they went.

They had to fight through a lot of cars and trucks, but finally the boys found themselves riding past the borders of the city. And things slowed down a lot after that. The roads grew smaller and tighter, but they were more peaceful and interesting, and more suitable to a Saturday scooter adventure anyway. The boys brought the map, just in case, but they secretly hoped they wouldn't have to use it. If someone had stopped the boys at many points during their journey, saying, "Hey, you, just where do you think you are?!" they wouldn't have been able to answer with anything better than, "Somewhere south of the city," or even better, "Maybe you should mind your own business, thank you very much."

Did they ever find the mysterious lake? Of course they did! (It's a rather large lake, after all.)And they found it without a single bit of backtracking, too, though backtracking is hardly a bad thing usually. And what an unexpectedly plain and normal lake it was! Said Travis: "I thought it'd be more of a lake than this. It's basically just a big rice field." Peter thought so too.

But the boys weren't disappointed. They just decided that instead of spending too much time looking at the lake or trying to get something out of it that it just didn't have to give, they would see whether they couldn't make some kind of adventure out of the journey back home.

So they zigzagged their noisy scooters down narrow roads, overgrown with trees. They nearly ran over a big spider in the road once. Then later, they nearly ran over a strange stick. They turned around when they realized the stick had moved, and watched it slither off into the brush. They went down wooded roads and winding roads and gravelly roads and going-nowhere roads and rice field roads. One time they scared an oba-san (old woman), but not too bad, they thought, so they didn't feel bad about it. And many birds and animals and even a few bugs (some swallowed) noticed that as they rode, the boys would often laugh out loud, almost as if someone were tickling them.

They even stopped at a gas station once that happened to live on the side of an old road. The man there asked them, "Mbababa--Pe! Mhahahaudud--Pe!" and things like that. They told him, "Ibaraki-ben de hanasereba, zenzen wakarimasen. Demo futsu na Nihongo ga sukoshi wakarimasu," which of course means, "If you talk to us in the Ibaraki dialect, we can't understand a single thing you say. But we can speak a little bit of normal Japanese." And he told them, "Gajaumusuni--Pe!" which seemed to mean, "Then please talk to my wife, you crazy foreigners!" So they did, and a rather pleasant woman she turned out to be. After some poor guesses about their ages, occupations, and ability to speak Japanese, she let the boys pay for their gas. She told them one last time to please find Japanese girlfriends and then let them leave.

No one knows how long they road those scooters down those small streets on the outside parts of the city. Sometimes you could hear their scooters' happy, roaring, 50-cc engines south of the city, and sometimes you could hear them east of it. Out east, some people say they heard those engines several times in a nice little neighborhood where they boys' friends lived--the Woods and the Chans. One nosy neighbor even noticed the boys' scooters sitting outside those houses--with the boys nowhere to be seen! Well, those boys didn't disappear, as you might've guessed. Even boys on a crazy scooter-riding adventure in search of mysterious places like to stop and talk to their friends sometimes, you see. And they did a bit more than talk. The Woods gave them water and pineapple, and the Chans gave them enough peanut butter for a month! All brave adventurers should be so lucky as to have friends that nice and caring.

And that was nearly the end of their journey. They headed back to the city but stopped at a park to explore just a little more. What a way for an adventure to end. Wouldn't you know it, that park turned out to be a park that didn't allow for much exploring. But it did have some very nice playground equipment, and as the boys obviously thought, that's nothing to sneeze at.

They got home an hour later and just before dark.

The End.

Books

2005-07-11T04:30:00.000-05:00

Some of you will be filled with immense joy, some of you will ridicule, and some of you will probably just snicker and click the little "x" in the top right corner of the screen, but: We foreigners here in Mito, Japan, have got ourselves a little book club.

Yep, that's right. We meet every other week, typically at the home of Mark and Kelly Barneche. We've only been meeting a few months, but we've already gone from philosophy to culture to this week's book on psychology/sociology/life-in-general. I think everyone who has gone has enjoyed it quite a lot, and the discussion is about as good as any college class I've ever attended (and that's pretty good). In fact, I need to hurry up and write this post so I can get over there--tonight's the night!

That being said, I have gone ahead and decided to play along with Gabe's crazy game of blogosphere spam. It's all about books.

1. How many books have I owned?
I probably own about 300 right now, plus however many I bought and returned in college--so low-300s or so.

2. What was the last book you bought?
Tough question. First of all, I already feel inferior to Gabe for not even having my books catalogued, much less insured. And now here I've gotta go and, because I'm short on time, start typing out titles on my blog without providing hyperlinks--how can I bear this shame!!!!
Now, to answer the question: I have advance-purchased Harry Potter 6 and C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed. If those don't count, then you'd better put me down for Pilgrim's Progress, which I bought last year!!! (December 31st)

3. What was the last book you read?
The last book I finished was Shogun by James Clavell. Before that, it was some crazy book written by this crazy Japanese author. Currently, I am reading Bonhoeffer's Ethics, Augustine's Confessions, Les Miserables, and our book club's latest venture, Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (and I'm not even joking about that last name).

4. What are FIVE books that have meant a lot to you?
It's okay if these are books I've written, right? jk

1) The Collected Works of C.S. Lewis
2) The Brother's Karamazov by Dostoyevsky (it's second on Gabe's blog too--just call me Mr. Solidarity)
3) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey (the worst thing about this book is the title)
4) The Scarlet Letter
5) (I won't write this book on my blog. Ask me in person if you want to know.)

5. Tag five people who haven't played yet:
Sorry, I just don't play that way...

Later!

I Was Honored to Have Given Doraemon My Head

2005-07-08T08:14:00.000-05:00

I should warn you up-front: I'm in a dangerous mood tonight--I feel like blogging and have nothing to say. What you do with this knowledge from here on out is your own business. I won't be held responsible (at least I hope not).

I have my own English conversation classroom at school, called the ECR (as you know if you've read any of my reason posts). There are 18 classes at my school, so theoretically each desk, except for a few in the back, have about 18 different occupants weekly. That makes these desks uniquely suited for recording the history of my classroom. I like to think these desks tell a unique version of history--like a Rosetta stone or cave drawings, almost indecipherable to anyone except that arcane group for and by whom they were produced. Ever so often, I go around with an eraser and blot out the recent annals of my classroom. This gives me a good excuse to intrude upon these esoteric writings, which tell a history of my classroom from a perspective very different from my own.

I don't even know who the historians of the desk annals are. During class I often furtively scan the terrain, trying to notice, undetected, those select, peerless few who have been chosen to recount the history of the ECR. But to me they remain phantoms--unreal, unknowable, beyond grasp, yet their existence made undeniable by the signs they leave.

Today, I saw, written on a desk in the Japanese syllabary used for foreign words: "Wai Emu Shi Ei." I was momentarily puzzled before decoding the enscription's secret meaning: Y-M-C-A. It brought a tear to my eye to think that all over this country, maybe, probably, somewhere, the most sacred treasures of American pop culture are being transcribed on many a hard surface.

Somtimes the messages are less than subtle, however. I've mentioned it before on this blog, but it's worth repeating. Once I found this sentence written in clear English on a desk in the front row: "Don't overfriendly with me."

Today I saw a picture, drawn on a student's worksheet, of a famous comic book character, Doraemon (a rather feisty cat--I think). At this particular moment in time, Doraemon had a spear in his hand, and on that spear was the severed head of a man wearing glasses and smiling most sincerely. I may have misinterpreted this sign, but I couldn't help but notice that the impaled head bore a striking resemblance to that of my own. In spite of myself, I laughed out loud. I suppose I would've been concerned had it been a gory picture, but it was actually a rather pleasant one. Instead of the disconnected neck having dangling bones and dripping blood, as one might expect, it had a perfectly rounded ring at the bottom, like you see when you accidentally remove the head of a toy figurine. In fact, the whole head had the look of well-shapen plastic. I was honored to realize this student thought so highly of me: Even after horrible mutiliation, here was I, my "genki" smile fully intact, coupled with my comic-book-sized larger-than-life personna. And believe me, in Japan you just don't get any bigger than being a comic book hero. Or a villain. Maybe someday you can become one too. Don't give up just yet.

A Guest Uninvited

2005-06-30T03:46:00.000-05:00

Something interesting happened at school on Monday... (Sorry, another long post. Ganbatte kudasai!)

3:35 English "Chat" Room (ECR)
I sit down at a meeting with two English teachers, A1 and A2, and a student teacher. It's a routine meeting to talk about the student teacher's performance at a class that she and I co-taught the week before.
When the meeting begins, to my surprise, the other teachers have a sheet of paper that I am missing. The student teacher realizes I am missing the paper (Japanese people are very observant--probably because they never waste time making eye contact) and politely hands one to me. I peruse the paper slowly, painstakingly, making out as many of the Kanji (Chinese symbols) as I can. Meanwhile, the teachers are off to the races discussing things in rapid-fire--but always polite--Japanese. I could probably understand a little of what they're saying if it were said at half the speed, but at normal speed, I am just out of luck. After reading over the paper as best I can, I realize it's a lesson plan--and one I've never seen before. That means it's not the plan we co-taught the week before. So why am I here?...
As the Japanese dances energetically on, I ponder scenes from earlier in the day...

2:15 A2's Homeroom
I enter and ask A2: "So we will meet later in ECR? To discuss tomorrow's observation class?"
A2: "Ah, yes, in ECR."
Peter: "What time will we meet?"
A2: "Umm... maybe 3:40. It will depend. First we will talk to the student teacher about her class. After that, we will talk about the observation class tomorrow."
Peter: "Okay. I'll be waiting in the ECR."

9:30 ECR--after a class
A1 tells me: "So tomorrow you and A2 have an observation class, I think."
Peter: "Yes, I think so."
A1: "Yes, so today after cleaning time, we had better meet--you, A2, and me--and talk about the plan. You are free?"
Peter: "Yes, I am. What time will we meet?"
A1: "We will meet here in the ECR... I don't know time. Maybe we can decide later? Okay?"
Peter: "No problem."
A1: "By the way, the student teacher has an observation class next period. I must go and watch it, so maybe I will miss some of our next class. Is it okay?"
Peter: "No problem."

3:30 Teachers' Room
Peter: "A1, do you know where A2 is? I was waiting in the ECR, but she didn't come."
A1: "Well, we are supposed to meet with the student teacher..."
Peter: "Yes, the meeting. That's why I was looking for her."
A1: "A2 told you to come now?"
Peter: "Well, I wasn't sure what time exactly..."
A1: "You will come?"
Peter: "Yeah, of course. I just wasn't sure of the time. Do you know where A2 is?"
A1: "No, I don't know. But I came here to tell her the meeting will start."
Peter: "Now?"
A1: "Yes, when she can come. You will come too?"
Peter: "So it is now. Yes, I'll go now. See you there!"

3:38 ECR--The Meeting
And that brings you up to speed on my thoughts at the climactical moment in the story--the moment where we are now. Sitting there, thinking about the various conversations I had had about this meeting earlier in the day, an epiphany struck me: I am not supposed to be at this meeting. The observation class being discussed is not the one I helped teach a week ago; it's one from earlier today about which I know nothing! I'm jama!
And the reason I thought I was supposed to come is because I've been speaking to people in a foreign language (to them). And the reason no one told me to leave or to come back later or to go drink some green tea, is because they're Japanese and didn't want to offend me!

When I looked over at my English teachers speaking in their rapid Japanese, knowing that all of them knew I wasn't supposed to be here, wondering what in the world they were thinking at that moment, having this meeting under the "stressful" circumstances of having a gaijin uninvited, I had to stifle a laugh. And that small laugh ricocheted off my stony face and echoed all the down to the deepest depths of me--and hurled itself up again, this time with an army of snickers, chuckles, guffaws, and knee-slaps. In a word, it was War. Burying my face in the lesson plan, I squirmed in my chair, fighting to kill the laughter plotting to explode--sitting here with three other teachers, discussing "very important things," at a meeting to which I had invited myself. I even tried biting my tongue, but alas, despite my efforts, a small snicker escaped from me.

And that just made things worse. I kept imagining how these stoic, work-bent Japanese women would react if their meeting were suddenly ruined by an outburst of uncontrollable laughter from the gaijin. (You may think it incredible, but I actually have a long history of untimely uncontrollable laughter. It all goes back to an early-morning men's prayer breakfast when I was 12... Ask Andrew or Dad for a full retelling.)

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. Snickers were flying out of my mouth like sparks off a buzzsaw, and I was just about to explode completely. So I feigned a cough and bolted for the door. I stopped at a sink in the hallway and keeled over with laughter. I didn't actually fall all the way to the floor, but I think I would've, had I not been holding onto the sink. I was paralyzed for a good minute or two. I don't know for sure whether any of my students saw me standing there in the hall holding onto the sink, shaking with insane laughter, but I like to think at least one of them did. That might even be blogworthy in the Japanese world, if Japanese people blog...

My favorite part occurred lastly: At the end of the meeting, after cessation of the rapid-fire Japanese, A2 turns to me and says in a sincere, polite voice, "Okay now, Mr. Peter, please give Ms. Y----- some good advice." I looked the student teacher right in the eye and said, "I have no advice." Now it was the Japanese teachers' turn to snicker--it was a little embarrassing to ask me to give advice, since I didn't have any, but at the same time it would've been rude not to offer me a chance to give input. Then A1 says, "Yes, it's unfortunate that only A2 and I were able to observe Ms. Y-----'s class."
A2: "Yes, I think so too."
Me too, ladies, me too. Because had I been there, I wouldn't feel like such an idiot right now.

I really love those ladies. They crack me up!

Losing Phrase

2005-06-17T23:29:00.000-05:00

Most foreigners to Japan eventually come to realize they possess something called "face." Not a face, but face. The tricky thing about face is that its sole function seems to be that of becoming lost, and thus your sole objective as a possessor of face is to keep from losing it, whatever it is exactly. And believe me, it's hard to find if ever it gets away.
This "face" isn't completely unique, of course. There's a similar concept in America (and probably every other culture), and we even sometimes call it by the same name, "face" (as in, "You just did that to save face"). But the two don't quite parallel, at least not in degree, and maybe not even in kind. Face is a bit more important here than in America, and it can slip out of your grasp in a number of ways you would never suspect.

But that's all quite well-known.

Here's something that is not as well known (at least to those who have never lived in Japan for an extended period of time). If you take it upon yourself to move to Japan, something you may find slipping away from you as easily as "face" is what I would like to call "phrase." You begin to lose your ability to speak your native tongue. Writing, speaking, even thinking--it all slowly sinks to an unknown a plane, a quagmire, a netherworld of verbal incompetence the existence of which you'd seldomg before had wits enough even to suspect (like, say, on a first date).

A shining example of this occurred last Sunday morning in church. Talking about Moses after his descent from the holy mount, I said, "Can you believe how his face glew?!" Indeed the fellow Americans in my class could not. They laughed their heads off! Obviously, the word I meant to say, and would've said at any point previous to living in Japan, was "glowed." (Unless of course, the "glew" was to apply the horns that Moses on his head--I'm still uncertain on that point.)

This is but a taste of the horror of "losing phrase" that assaults all foreigners living in this country. Moment to moment, day after day, I find myself unable to recall the simplest 3- and 4-syllable words. My typing proficiency is atrocious. Sometimes when I hear a native English speaker utter a particularly complex sentence, I have to stop for a second and work out the syntax in my head. It's all very shocking.

I was forewarned of this danger of "lost phrase" upon arriving in Japan. I immediately began to devise all kinds of strategies to curb the dreaded phenomenon: reading complicated and intellectually challenging books, maintaining this blog, writing poetry occasionally, talking everyday to a native speaker of the mother tongue. All this I have done (with a little bit of grace on the part about maintaining this blog), and yet here I am, everyday my stockhold of "phrase" a little less expansive than it was the day before. Everyday losing ground.

What's to be done? I think I'll just have to go to graduate school. I see no other option. Farewell!

Desk: Part Deux

2005-06-11T00:49:00.000-05:00

It's been so long since I wrote the previous half of this novella that I can hardly remember the vein in which it was written. Picking back up the spirit of an earlier work is actually quite difficult, or so it seems to me. I'll do my best.

Chapter ?
After searching the school for my missing desk for about an hour (it's a big school), I succeeded in ruling out all but a few classrooms as the relocation point of my desk. I was unable to rule out those desks because they were in a classroom that was either locked or too full of people for me to make a clandestine inspection.

Remembering a Sherlock Holmes' story I once read, I went back to my classroom to make sure I hadn't missed any clues. Sure enough, I had. On the chair that had supplanted my own--that hideous, unsightly thing, with cracked vinyl and squeaky joints--was written, on faded paper, the number of a classroom--3-5 (3rd grade, 5th class). When I realized this was one of the few classrooms I hadn't been able to rule out, I decided to act.

Chapter Next
I went to my teacher's room to procure the services of a man named Yasuno*. Yasuno deserves an entire chapter or two in his own right, but I simply haven't the time. Suffice it to say, Yasuno (Sensei) is both an English teacher and the head of my 3rd graders, meaning he has access to the only language I can speak well enough for a crisis and he has access to all of the 3rd grade classroom keys. I think you can see where this was going.
I couldn't make any accusations right off, as that would be culturally offensive, so I simply told him, "Mr. Yasuno, my desk is gone." I expected to have to go through a lengthy explanation before getting any action, but before I could get on with my spiel, he had jumped out of his chair with a start.
I quickly led him to my English room. Upon arriving he said, "Oh, here it is," and pointed to the impostor. I don't know if he simply couldn't understand me or just couldn't accept the reality of what I was saying, but it took him nearly a minute before he accepted that this desk, though in my room, was not in fact mine. It was the desk in my room, but it wasn't my desk. My desk was gone. This was another desk. I didn't know why it was in my room. Yes, it really wasn't my desk. It was all very shocking.
As he stood there in bewildered contemplation, I turned the desk seat around, showing him the faintly written "3-5" on its back.
We were off in a flash!

*Yasuno is not his real name.

Chapter Next to the Next to Last (on the not-Last side of things)
I couldn't believe it as we stood there. We were actually unlocking--breaking into--the 3-5 classroom. Yasuno seemed to have swelled to twice his normal size, filled, I was sure, with righteous indignation on my behalf. He flung the door open, signaled me to enter, and I marched to the desk. It looked like my old desk (as much as one metal desk can resemble another), but on top of it were various items belonging to the homeroom teacher. Surely it can't be my desk, I thought. Then I opened the top door, and to my everlasting astonishment, within that drawer lay, undisturbed, my personal belongings. My toothbrush, the stickers I bought in America, the communication cards I had made for my students, and all kinds of knick-knacks--my junk lay within. I was shocked.
This teacher actually stole my desk! I couldn't believe it. Without a word, without a comment, a hint, a memo, a courtesy warning, she up and took my desk--which was full of my stuff!!!
Yasuno was shocked too.
Then ensued what can only be described as an interrogation.

Chapter: Interrogation
The formerly righteously indignant Yasuno had transformed, with the opening of that drawer, into a new man: The political, the shrewd, the I-want-to-be-Kocho-Sensei*-someday Yasuno, a man not likely to stick out his neck to aid an incensed foreigner against a powerful, sempai-ship possessing teacher.
But I had to know.
"Is this normal? Is this okay?"
No answer but an equivocal grunt.
"In America, if someone stole my desk, I would think maybe they had bad feelings about me. Is it different in Japan?"
More noncommittal noises.
"In America, if this happened, I would think maybe this teacher was being a little rude..."
This went on for a minute or two, until he finally produced a cutting insight: "I think maybe Ms. On-ma wanted your desk."
Oh, thanks for letting me in on that. I was wondering why she moved my desk halfway across the school!
After more interrogation, I felt persuaded that the homeroom teacher's actions were indeed far outside the bounds of acceptable behavior for a Japanese teacher. A final decision awaited me.

*Kochou-sensei = Principal

Chapter Last
Dou shimashou ka? What should I do?
I can't read another person's soul, but I think Yasuno-Sensei had firmly made up his mind to accomplish a single, unshakable objective: Inaction. If I had said, "Well that was a surprise! No one's stolen my desk in several weeks!" and walked away happily, he would've walked away right behind me, sharing in my laugh. If I had decided to steal my desk back and leave a nasty note, he would've helped me carry it and maybe even have helped me write the note. There's a certain amount of deniability a Japanese person has when dealing with foreigners: "I had to do it, or the gaijin would've gone crazy. You know how they can be..." But that's only conjecture. I don't know what exactly was going on within that man's head. I only know what he did: He waited for me to act, he waited to respond.
Here's what I did: I told him I was very surprised and a little upset about my desk, that if On-ma needed my desk so badly, she was free to it, but I wish she had asked me for it because it was very stressful for me not knowing where my personal belongings had gone.
When he realized I wasn't going to go ballistic, he said, "I will tell On-ma-Sensei that you are very angry!"
I told him, thanks for wanting to embellish on my behalf, but that wouldn't be necessary.
Then he helped me load up my stuff and take it to my new desk. The old desk was gone.

Epilogue
I have no idea what On-ma was thinking when she stole my desk. She didn't even have a key to unlock three of the desk's four drawers. When I removed my things and left the desk to her, I was sorely, sorely tempted to leave it locked and not to leave the key. But that could only be perceived as spiteful (as it indeed would've been), and I knew that just wasn't the Christ-like thing to do. So I left her the key.
I have never since heard any mention of the incident from On-ma, Yasuno, or any other teacher at my school. Mention neither at school, nor outside. It was a tough situation, which could have gotten a little explosive, and I think in the Japanese mind that means... it never happened. But I could be wrong.

Overall, I enjoy my school life, and this episode is in no way representative of my general Japan experience. I share it mainly because I think it's just a crazy story--and I'm glad it's mine to tell. In fact, my settled feelings towards the whole incident border on gratefulness. Who else can say they had a felony committed against them by a 5-feet-tall Japanese public school teacher in broad daylight?! That's crazy!

The Incident Involving My Desk

2005-05-20T04:17:00.000-05:00

Slackers are as slackers do. I have blogged so infrequently for so long that I couldn't remember my password when I first tried to sign in tonight. It eventually came back to me of course, but you get the picture.

With little further ado:

The Desk Incident
Chapter 1
On a calm day in early April of this year, my life as a Mito City AET was shattered. For about 5 minutes. Until 3:15 on that day, it had been one of the best days ever at school. My school had become infested with the excitement of Spring, a new start to the year (work-year), a new start to school. Everyone was cheerful, gregarious, and unusually brave about cross-cultural communication (i.e. talking to me). I spent the day running around the school, now in the teacher's room conversing with chatty teachers, now in the hallways shouting "hello!" to bright-eyed students, now in my beautiful English classroom enjoying my majestic second floor view.

Chapter 2
Within that classroom, there lived a desk. It was a beautiful desk. A happy desk, I would say, a desk that belonged to a happy, good-natured boy like me. We fit well together. Some might even say we were made for each other.

Chapter 3
At 3:10 on that fateful day, unsuspecting I entered classroom mine--strangely to find, there, three meddlesome boys, shifty-eyed, will-bent, and philandering. I asked them what they were doing, and they eventually communicated to me their intent--they were looking for wall hooks for their classroom, confirming my guess: They were scavengers. I decided to help them anyway and went to my prized desk to procur some hooks. But the object of my desire was missing. Indeed, there were no hooks, but that's not my meaning: My beautiful desk was gone!
Worse still, it had been supplanted by an impostor. Think of a flimsy, drawer-less, shabby, poorly-made desk, and you'll have begun to conjur a vision of the impostor that stood before me.
So I banished the boys from my classroom ("I don't have any hooks. See YOU."), and fell into deep meditation.

Chapter 4
I succeeded in meditation for about 18 seconds and then launched into a madman's dash around the school. I will henceforth refer to those 18 seconds as "the Dark Time." During the Dark Time, several scenes--visions, if you will, vivid and terrible--flitted before the eye of my mind. I saw myself flinging open the sliding door to my teacher's room and accosting the great assembly--40 teachers, including Kocho (my principal)--and saying, "Who stole my frickin' desk?!" (Yes, I used "frickin'"--I told you it was horrible!) "One of you stole my desk from the English room, and I wanna know who it was." The conclusion to this vision, in summary, goes: Culprit unveiled; culprit accosted--"special meeting" behind gym--AET receives desk, teacher, black eye. The other visions, more shadowy, more vague, involve me, condemned hero of Kafka, wasting away day by day interrogating teachers, students, and parents, trying, always striving, to uncover the mystery of my desk--failing, quelling, and falling into darkness.

To Be Continued... (I have to go see a movie in Tsukuba!)

Beauty You'll Never Know

2005-04-27T01:16:00.000-05:00

I really need to tell you all about the Desk Incident, but it will have to wait for another day, or at least another blog.

Today I spent $35 and a day of vacation--and got a Japanese driver's license!!!
Last time I took the test (see my last post), I drove well but not flawlessly. This time, to the contrary, was a heart-stoppingly perfect performance. I was whipping that car around those corners at 9.8 km/h like you've never seen before! One of the "reasons" I failed last time was because the instructor didn't like my positioning in the lanes--just a little too far toward center on those right turns. This time, I was perfect. Not too close to the line, not too far, just the right trajectory before turning (after ample signaling of course), and boom!--when I hit that new road off the turn, I'm locked into perfect positioning from the get-go--like I were sitting on a German-built track. I didn't know it before today, but when you find that perfect interval-- the "ribbon of heaven," let's call it--on that unrealistic, totally fabricated Japanese course, there is a feeling of euhporia and exhilaration that can't be found anywhere else on this planet. It came upon me all of a sudden, but when I hit that interval, a noise beyond joy nearly burst forth from my lips--wooohoooggggzzzztfthj!!! I think the person in the backseat may have even fainted. On my grade sheet, the instructor's well-formed Kanji turned into a child's giddy, meaningless scribble. I feel completely confident that if Aristotle could've seen how well-positioned I was in those lanes, how perfectly balanced, he would've shouted out involuntarily--"I've seen beauty, alas! And it resides in those intervals!!!!!"--and then fallen over untimely dead (after having been untimely alive).

Yes, I'm joking. I drove fine, but it still wasn't good enough to charge an entrance fee. I was honestly a little afraid I would fail--and that with the light of my eyes crushed by the weight of the injustice, I would pulverize the instructor before coming back to my senses. But he was gracious today. And God was gracious too. I prayed for skill and good favor--and He gave it. Praise God! It really did feel good to get that license.

I also met some very interesting people, including two Catholic priests, one Japanese and one American, and a crazy Brazilian who used to drive without a license--until he got caught. I had lunch with the Brazilian. We talked about how Americans are the preferred (and often honored) minority in Japan, while other foreigners like Brazilians are discriminated against. He said life in Japan is very difficult for him for that very reason and also because it is so opposite from life in Brazil, and that his sole reason for staying longer was money. He also told me he doesn't like Japanese women because he can't figure out what's going on in their heads, and that he doesn't eat the pre-packaged meals from convenience stores, and that he likes most genres of music. He told me a lot of things. What do you expect from a Brazilian?

And that was my day.

Nisshukan mae no aida ni nani o okorimashita

2005-04-12T04:34:00.000-05:00

I really should check it, but I think my title says, at least somewhat successfully, in Japanese, "What's happened during the past two weeks." I would love to tell you everything, but it would just take too long. As most of my readership already has seriously trouble making it through an entire journal entry, I will just have to be as laconic as I can.

Two weeks ago, I took my Japanese driving test. The driving course is ridiculously elaborate, the standards are draconian, and the process is costly and excruciating. And it's all pretty subjective anyway. And yet somehow I still managed to fail--go figure. Honestly, I didn't make any serious mistakes, didn't break any of their 2487 precious rules. I think I failed primarily just because the guy testing me wanted me to. He was an old Japanese man, rather grumpy, probably a hardened adherent to the old Japanese notion that hard work merely for hard work's sake is a good think. Thus in his mind (and of course I'm just guessing) it's good for people to fail their driving test and have to take another day of vacation and pay another $25 just for a chance to fail again--it builds character! And keeps his paycheck coming. At first, I was pretty put out, since I felt wronged, but then I realized two things. First of all, what do you expect? I live in a fallen world, a world that needs grace and light--do I honestly expect that in every single situation, every single combination of events, I will always walk away feeling as if I were treated perfectly just. And would I even want to live in such a world, blackguard that I occasionally am?--I want grace too! The second thing involved the other foreigners who took the test. We spent the better part of a day together, so we had a good opportunity for interaction. Among the people I met were an Indian couple with a small child, a Philippino couple, a Pakistani man, a Chinese man, and several Brazilians. As far as Japanese society is concerned, I, compared to everyone else in that group, am a prince. And they treat us that way. I get paid good money and receive good benefits from the Japanese simply to grace their schools with my presence, put in a little bit of university-trained thinking, and speak my native tongue. The other people there all have to work their tails off just to get by in Japan (except maybe the Indian couple because they had Phd's, but I'm pretty sure they had to work their tails off at least to get those!). If I walk into a store and don't know a lick of Japanese--Hey, no problem, he's white, and guess what?--he's American. "We'd love to help you, sir. Come right this way. Here's some green tea as you wait." If they walk into a store and can't speak really, really good Japanese, being Asian, they may get griped out. The Philippino couple was so desperate to get the husband a license, the wife nearly begged me to ride with him in the car so that I could translate for him (although I speak almost no Japanese myself). She was physically shaking from nervousness as her husband drove around the course. After he pulled the car in, his instructor had a lengthy conversation with him, explaining why he'd failed. The gist of it? The instructor didn't like his placement within the lane. In Japan you have basically a meter differential between the sides of the car and the stripes, and within that small differential--he never went outside of the lane--the guy just didn't quite have the right spacing, didn't quite have the "right stuff," to earn himself a Japanese driver's license. Too bad. Try again in a month, and be sure to bring lots of cash.

So after thinking about it, I decided that of all the unjust failings that went on that day (and we pretty much all failed), of all the small injustices, mine has to sting the least. If I am offended, let it be on account of those less fortunate than me.

But if I fail again, I may deck that grouchy old man.

Well, I'll have to tell my other stories on a later entry. That took entirely too long!

The Japanese Shuffle

2005-04-07T09:34:00.000-05:00

This (paraphrased) verse is for all of you wonderful Mito City AETs who on occasion feel stressed out by the speed with which your colleagues traverse the Teachers' Room:

"It is not good for a person to be empty-headed, and he who hurries his footsteps commits wrong." Proverbs 19:2

Let's keep it real out there, people. Peace out.

Souji-Time Part Two

2005-03-25T19:20:00.000-06:00

It has come to my attention that several key aspects of souji-time were unintentionally omitted from my previous entry. I shall here make amends, as much as I am able.

I mentioned earlier that we have to move the desks across the room in order to clean the floors. As we have 40 desks in each classroom, that is actually a slightly involved maneuver. My standard method of moving desks is one I learned from my students: Get behind a row and bulldoze until the desks either topple or wind up (roughly) where they're supposed to. Now, I had grown somewhat famous among the students for my desk-pushing abilities. Somehow the fact that I might be stronger than even the burliest of the 120-pound baseball players seems never to have occured to my students. This was humorous to me not only because I am a full-grown man (albeit skinny), but also because I am bigger than the average Japanese full-grown man. Honestly, what did they expect? Nonetheless, when I was able to move, say, eight desks in a row without too much exertion, my students were genuinely amazed. This is but one among the innumerable feats for which I have earned inordinate praise during my stay in Japan--to the degree that I now have but the loosest, faintest grasp on reality regarding my own abilities. For all I know at this point, I may well be Superman.
On a fateful day but a few weeks gone by, my world of desk bull-dozing fame came plummeting down upon my head. On this day, one of my English teachers came to my room to supervise during souji-time (she was trying to help me). I performed my standard swift relocation of 7 to 8 desks, and her life nearly expired. I don't know what all was said in Japanese (fortunately) before she was finally able to spurt out in English, "Mr. Peter, you did a very bad thing!" And indeed, I did. As I now know--and as my students knew the whole time, those little punks!--bulldozing desks during souji-time is in fact a very, very bad thing. What makes me laugh about it even now was her response, beyond merely the words, when she informed me of my error: She was utterly shocked, as if I had just willfully taken in hand humankind's universal set of morally prescribed behavior and shattered it upon the ground.

I have one glaring omission regarding souji-time: The post-sweeping cleaning of the floors. I mentioned that boys use dirty rags to race along the floors, but I forgot to mention an alternate game that they often play with the rags. Many times, the boys will line up against a wall in my classroom, rag to the floor, kick off from the wall, and slide head-long with the rag in front of them as far as they are able to go. Then that boy leaves his rag, and the next attempts to best the previous boy's distance. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the whole of these students task during souji-time. It used to bother me that they were able to be such freeloaders, but my indignation has slowly melted away, aided by my realization that NO ONE actually cleans during souji-time. Yea verily, indignation has been ousted by a little thing I like to call... envy. No matter how I try, I can't shake from myself a desire to take my own rag in hand and show those little punks that I--Mr. Peter, former Great Mover of Desks, a veritable Superman!--can push so far across the floor that, were I so inclined, I could easily bloody my head on the opposite wall. Ha, that'd show them! Only the joint power of two things has thusfar been able to restrain such an attempt: 1) An utter exertion of self-control, and 2) the fact that my mother wouldn't approve of my sliding around on the floor in my Sunday trousers.
My resolve in this matter may not stand forever. If someday in the near future I should come to your door bloodied of head, you need not ask why.

What are you driving these days?

2005-03-20T05:46:00.000-06:00

The adventures in Jenglish continue.

Here in Japan, it is popular to have cars with foreign names, especially English names. We of course do the same in America, using words like "stealth," "mustang," "trooper," "boxster," and the like. Those names sound cool.

Obviously, what sounds cool in English to Japanese people is quite different from what sounds cool to native speakers. Here are a few car names I've encountered while here in Japan:
"We've," "That's," I think I saw a "Please" at least once, and there are many others. I need to write them down. I write this post because tonight I saw one that made me laugh out loud, my all-time favorite: I saw a "Naked."

Foreigner: "What do you drive these days?"
Japanese: "I like to drive "Naked."

F: "How are you gonna get there?"
J: "Naked," I think. (Japanese people don't use articles.)
F: "Oh, I didn't realize that was an option..."

"How do you want to go tonight, honey? Naked?"
"Please."

And I'm sure they know what it means. That's the funny thing.

The "In" Group

2005-03-17T02:40:00.000-06:00

The Japanese have two words for foreigner: "gaijin" and "gaikokujin." The former word is a hair slang from what I can gather and is considered to be slightly rude; it literally means "outside person." The other word, "gaikokujin," means "outside country person," and it's perfectly polite. I have been called both.

The important thing to notice about these words is their designation of "outside." The symbol used here is the same one that is used to say, for example, "It's outside, in the yard." So whether by designation polite or inappropriately direct, you are, quite simply, an outsider.

To be honest, this doesn't particularly bother me, as I have no schemes of staying in Japan beyond a few years, but I know a few long-term Japan-dwelling "gaijin" who, being fluent, involved, and culturally well-informed, feel a little bit of frustration at being lumped together with every stray JET, tourist, or world-traveler as simply "outside," simply other. Theirs is a valid objection, I think.

Here's what I've been leading to: If you don't happen to be among the 90 million people in this world who were born "in" with the Japanese world, then prepare to do some adjusting if you come here. You won't be mauled horrifically by your experiences, and I'm sure you will go back home with a truckload of great stories and great memories, but you will need to adjust. So be ready before you come.

Let me list one area in which an adjustment or two will need to happen: The murky sea of personal property. I can't spell out for you exactly what a typical Japanese person thinks about this (or any) subject, but I can tell you, confidently, firmly, beyond doubt, that their and our cultural set varies more than a little. For instance, if someone writes, draws, or doodles something on a chalkboard (especially a "sensei," (?) especially while instructing), to erase their work without permission is strictly rude. I have never, regardless of need, regardless of any pressing reason, in spite of any exigency, seen it happen. (Then again, maybe I need to keep watching.) But on the other hand, every desk in the teachers' room--a cast jungle of desks, scuffling feet, water pots, kerosene heaters, and people (everywhere!)--every desk (including yours, my friend!) belongs not to the teacher whose name appears on the desk, but to the group. I cannot count the number of times I have returned to the teacher's room only to find that "my" desk is part of an endless assembly line of prints, is the pow-wow site for a group of irritated 3rd grade teachers, is the staging ground for a reclamation from wastewrack of three week's worth of old newspapers, or is the resting point (final until who knows when) for all manner of boxes, office materials, and items galore. And the funny thing about it is this: If I am in hurry such that I can't just casually exit the teachers' room and check back in at 10 minute intervals, if I am so busy I have to actually walk to my desk, occupied though it is, I have always gotten the impression that it is I, not whoever or whatever else, that is the inconvenience, the one out of line. That could be a misperception on my part. Or it may truly be how things work. I'm still trying to find out. In the mean time, I will continue to walk around with my hand in my coat pocket, pretending to keep ready with my gun so that everyone knows not to mess around with the "crazy gaijin." And I think I'll drink a little bit of green tea while I'm at it... Ah, that stuff hits the spot.

Insults via Jenglish

2005-03-15T03:56:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I read some Jenglish that said: "Give your life a sense of humor." I was a little taken aback at first, wondering, "How did they know I don't have a sense of humor!" Then I realized it was just devastatingly clever marketing. I don't know what it was they were selling, but it only cost 100 yen (~$1). That seems a little inexpensive for them to be busting out with a hit on personal insecurities, but I guess 100-yen competition must be pretty stiff these days.

Everything Under the Sun

2005-03-15T03:09:00.000-06:00

Everyday at school, we have a little event that I affectionately call "Souji Time." What does it mean? Well, "souji" means "clean," and I think you can figure out the rest--everyone cleans, students, staff, teachers. In fact, it is the only substantial cleaning that goes on at school, as no cleaning staff is ever hired. Period.

Now, we have lots of people-power (formerly, "man-power"), with approximately 700 people cleaning a building about an eighth the size of the Louvre. The bulk of the responsibility falls to the students (or "proletariat," as I call them, on a good day), as they make up over 90% of the cleaning force. That keeps things interesting. So please permit me to describe their general cleaning procedure in my English conversation classroom, where I am the self-appointed supervisor ("oppressor").

Anywhere from 4 to 8 students come to clean my room (or "serfdom"). They have different responsibilities ("division of labor"), though the divisions occur with unflagging reguard for gender ("entrenched gender roles"). There are often disagreements and even squirmishes among the various proletarian groups, which help distract them from recognizing their shared oppression. Though useful, sometimes these tommybrooks ("expressions of lower class angst") can become disruptive to the cleaning of the room ("economy and wellbeing"), in which case, I myself interrupt to put an end to the dispute at hand. I attempt to do so in such a way as not to alienate the affections of either group, but sometimes hard feelings do arise.

Okay, enough of that. Here's what we do.

First, we push all of the desks (40 of them) to one side of the room. Then two or three people, almost always girls (with the wildly inappropriate exception of me), use brooms to sweep. It isn't sweeping the way I was taught--careful, methodical, thoughtfully brushing along a pile of dust, making sure not to miss any. Basically, my girls just attack the floor with the brooms. Their only method is that they attack whatever dust they happen to see at any given moment, and as half of the dust in the room is swirling in the air within three seconds, that's not much. They do make some kind of effort to sweep the dust toward the not-being-cleaned portion of the room--i.e. directly at the misplaced desks. I keep trying to show them that, when we do that, half of the dust just gets pushed back onto the already-clean portion of the floor when we move the desks, but that must be, on Piaget's chart, one level above their peak capabilities at 3:30 in the afternoon--cause they ain't gettin it!
After a sweeping job as random as a two-year-olds efforts to "stay within the lines," two other students have races across the floors, holding dirty, old rags to the floor with their hands and running. I don't understand how those filthy rags are supposed to get anything clean, but it hardly matters, as the students make no attempt to actually cover the surface area of the floor--they merely race one another back and forth across the same strip of floor.
At some point, I say, "Okay, that's enough," or "Finish," or something, and we push all of the desks (and a lot of dust) back onto the "clean" section of floor. Then the sweeping manque resumes, followed by more floor races, and alas, the final placement of the 40 desks.
While the sweeping and all-important floor races are being undertaken, if there are more than 4 or 5 students to help, the other students will engage themselves in beating the dust out of the chalkboard erasers, changing the dates on the board, or attempting to teach me inappropriate Japanese words (which, unfortunately, are generally not in the dictionaries to reference).

A few final notes.
I can't say I fault the students for their sloppy sweeping, as the floor is composed of wooden tiles that have half-a-centimeter gaps between them, little spaces which of course catch an insane amount of irretrievable dust.
Besides the bathrooms, where 90% of the cleaning is accomplished with nothing more than a water hose, I have never seen anything chemical be used to clean the school. And I am of the mind that that is probably a bad thing.
In all fairness, the schools in Japan cannot be judged quite by the same standards as, say, America, because they take their shoes off before entering school (everyone does), which keeps out a lot of the nastiness that we track in 20 times a day.
My classroom is becoming a souji-time hang out, which is good in that the students like me and are learning at least a hair more English than otherwise, but bad in that, it makes cleaning time longer and longer...

These kids really do crack me up.
Grace and peace!

I love my children

2005-03-07T02:57:00.000-06:00

And by "my children" I of course mean, my students.

They're great! (some of them)

I don't have time to elaborate on why so many of them are so great, but here's a little hint.

My 3rd graders (equivalent to American 9th graders) will graduate in two days, so today they gave some/all (?) of their teachers a rose, a card, and a gift. Although I am sometime excluded from the various proceedings at my school, being after all the only foreigner amongst 700 Japanese people, I was not left out today. Three smiling but slightly nervous boys came to my room bearing gifts. The fact that these three boys were bringing me a beautiful PINK rose and a gift with a PINK ribbon on it struck me as a little odd, but then again, I am in Japan. So I took it in stride, and fortunately my gift turned out to be two very nice tablecloths, which are very useful in Japan. Their color was a rugged, manly green. So I was thrilled.

Also, I was erasing the writing on my desks the other day, and on a desk on the front row right in front of where I "lecture" was written (and I quote): "Don't overfriendly with me."

I have more than once been accused of being a flirt, but it's been a while since that accusation came from a junior high girl. I guess I had better tone things down next time I lecture...

These kids crack me up!

Augustine of Hippo

2005-03-03T07:34:00.000-06:00

For all of you AETs out there, here's a quote from Augustine, a 4th century Christian and one of the ancient world's greatest thinkers:

"This is proof enough that unbridled curiosity is a more effective way of learning a foreign language than constraint and compulsion." --Confessions, 1.14.23

I think my ninensei would agree.

Subway's New Slogan

2005-02-18T07:21:00.000-06:00

This is from a napkin that came from a Subway (a rare commodity here in Japan) in a town called Utsunomiya:

"Subway
The Natural Ideal style of eating vegetable."

Thank you, Jenglish. You sold me.

"Jenglish"

2005-02-10T07:41:00.000-06:00

So I've decided I will actually start making use of the fact that I live in Japan. The tourism opportunities are pretty unique, but here's something that you really can't find anywhere else: A little thing we like to call "Jenglish"--English, Japanese-style The truly amazing thing about it to me (and many other foreigners I know) is that, not just the Japanese people, but even multi-million yen companies actually think it's good English--when in reality it's often unintelligible. Here's a sample from a bag of fruit jellies I bought yesterday at the grocery store (and I think you'll see why I was so sold on these bad boys):

"This fruit jelly is cordially introduced to consumers with the delicacy that persists in the producer's preference through the typical taste and texture represented by the products."

This is actually really, really good Jenglish. It starts off so well, and it almost makes sense! Where it gets into trouble as far as I can tell (and I'm no linguistics scholar) is that the connections between the what and the whatnot are just a little bit mystery in the enshrouded place at where man whose intentions found within a cloak clouds brought and darkness has not opened to mind. In other words, some of the words are a bit abstract, and some of the connections are a tad hazy. Interestingly, that is exactly how the Japanese language works! (Or so I'm told by those who have more authority on the subject than me.) So of course to a Japanese mind that has a good grasp of the meaning of English words, the above Jenglish makes perfect sense. And indeed it does almost, almost, almost make even real sense! But not quite.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, in a nutshell, is the problem with being a gaijin ("outside person") living in the land of the Japanese. It almost makes sense--but not quite.

By the way, my Japanese is way worse than any Jenglish I've ever come across, and I am indeed really enjoying my time living here. Some things just have to be shared!

Which will it be, sir?

2005-02-05T23:47:00.000-06:00

If you approach an essay as if it were a multiple-choice question, then, regardless of your answer, you'll always be wrong.

That applies to college, as well as to life.

The Weight of Glory

2005-01-18T05:17:00.000-06:00

Here's a simple but (I hope) useful observation: Most of us don't want the glory that has been alotted us. This point seems counterintuitive, and I wouldn't have believed it had I not been brought to such a realization via the back door. But it's true: Most people don't want their share of glory.

But let's not move too quickly in all of this: We want glory all right--and that's the biggest smoke screen of all. Many people live primarily to gain glory for themselves, whether through the eyes of others or according to some standard, some idol, they set up in their minds. What about me? I'm rarely an exception. I want to receive glory for how good-looking I am, I want to be praised for how smart I am, how interesting is my blog, how proactive I am, how studious, how wise, how carefree yet knowing. From my mother, from my father, my siblings, distant relatives I hardly know, teachers at school (whether they speak English or not), the principal, the preacher, the girl who takes my money at the convenience store, the girl who takes my money at the community center (especially her, actually), the crazy children I pass every morning walking to school, and from almost every other human being I ever encounter, I seek praise. I seek glory.

And that's a huge chunk of my life. I may be more cosmopolitan in the group from whom I seek glory, but whether gleaning glory from many or from an elite few, many of you probably run your lives by roughly the same formula. So let me be honest: None of it's real. These hardy, fibrous "Good job" 's, "My, he's so smart!" 's, and "Oh, I'd like to date him" 's, they're nothing--a whim, a whisper, a joke.

What matters in the end is how much correspondence there is between those "Well done" 's and the "Well done, good and faithful servant" we will or will not hear when the last stone hits the water. And the hitch is this: There is no formula for figuring the correspondence between the two--it's completely indeterminate, mystery to its core. (To all except the One who will judge the living and the dead.)

And that's what upsets me so often. Here I am working the floor, raking in the dough on all this good praise, heaping up glory for generations to come--and deep down, I know my purse (my wife's) is completely riddled with holes. Deep down, I know it's all meaningless, even unprofitable.

And still every day, to some degree, is a struggle to put aside the glory that corrodes even as I grasp hold of it, and to seek the glory of which not even the slightest molecule can become tarnished--the glory that has yet to be revealed. The glory I often cast aside.

On a side note, a good amount of the complaining I do comes from the same error: Why is life so hard? Why is it my lot to have to do this or that? Why can't everything just be ideal? I curse the world upon which God intended me as a blessing, because I cannot seem to accept what has been placed upon my shoulders, my crown or accuser, the weight of glory.

Those are my thoughts for tonight.

By the way, I just found out yesterday: My apartment here in Japan is 247 square feet. What a monster!

What It Means to be a Runner

2005-01-11T05:25:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I ran the farthest I have ever run in a single day--I ran a 16-miler. It hurt, and today it is still hurting. But the long and the short of it is: I feel good. Running that far, and still having some gas in the tank at the end of the run, was an amazing confidence-builder for the impending marathon--and I think my co-runners felt the same.
In addition to our recent run, we have begun to square away plans for traveling and staying in Okinawa--flights, hotels, cars, beaches, women (we have to call our mothers, of course). So the whole thing is beginning to emerge out of the surreal, shadowy corners of the warehouse and will soon be frighteningly close to getting slung flat, wrong-side up, onto the rusted bed of my grandpa's old Ford pickup. Time is short!

As I sit here, I find myself bombarded with all kinds of life-metaphors to draw out from this marathon--things about starting speed, training, companionship, refueling as you run, etc. But here's a matter in which the marathon offers no parallel that I can perceive: When it comes to running a marathon, you do most of you training and indeed most of your learning beforehand (though you of course learn things during a marathon, and while most of that might well apply to a later marathon, little of it, I think, goes to the race at hand). So the marathon, beast that it is, is still just a performance, a brief moment on the stage--it belongs on the highlight reel of life, not to the desperate, interminable hours spent prepping for, editing, and producing the thing. One does not (ideally) figure out the bulk of his strategy as he runs the race--that was all mostly taken care of in the countless hours of preparation long beforehand. So my tentative conclusion is that, while there are marathon-events in life, the race of life itself has boarders stretching far beyond the 26.2-mile mill stone against which I intend soon to hurl my own weary collection of bones.
And that is a comforting thought.

P.S. to my previous blog

2005-01-07T08:19:00.000-06:00

In my last blog, I made a comment about women that I was immediately (and still) to regret, not because I think it was untrue, but because it will most likely come across as ungracious. I meant it as jest, a comment on the irony of the disparity between my own inclinations and those of most women I know when it comes to recounting life's "impressively broad spectrum[s] of banalities." I think it's funny that I should find such a thing so immediately unappealing and unnatural, when most women come across the skill of telling and retelling what are to me life's most unforgivingly boring chapters as if it had been wound into the fiber of their being--and I find it particularly ironic that I, a once-staunch watch-dog and yard-hound against all such phatic talk, have, through the agency and devious plottings of such women, found myself, alas, hopelessly, fatally longing to someday have just such an advocate and provocateur of life's boring monotony, its insipid, homey, warmly coazing stream, by my side, officially and until I die.

So please try not to take offense. I, jester, take aim firstly at myself.

Returning Home (again)

2005-01-07T07:31:00.000-06:00

So after a two-week visit to my homeland, I'm back in Japan. I arrived last night.

The trip "home" to Japan took the better part of three days to complete, aided of course by the net loss of 13 hours. And I made the journey completely alone, at least in terms of familiar human companionship.

I have two things to say about my journey home--small things to note really, principles and not really that impressively broad spectrum of banalities that some people (generally females) typically hope to learn regarding such a wearisome event.

First of all, this was my first time to ever fly across an ocean without a friend beside me on an airplane. My initial reaction to having to fly to Japan alone was one of disappointment and maybe even a slight feeling of intimidation, but I eventually found respite from any subtle worries in the realization that traveling alone has its own unique benefits--especially its penchant for character-building and presenting uncommon opportunities to meet new people. I won't be foolish enough to comment on the first of those benefits, but I will say I think I certainly cashed in on the second. I met a very interesting, intelligent man on my flight across the Pacific. He's a marriage and family therapist employed as a civilian on a US military base here in Japan. Not only did he give me a lot of good advice about grad school and career options in the counseling field, but we also had about the best conversation on psychology and faith that I have ever had. Like me, he is a person of faith (though we didn't discuss his precise background), and the insight and the experience he was able to share regarding the interaction between faith and the various counseling theories was priceless. He helped me brush up on some of the better things I learned about my field while in college, but he also introduced me to a few things that were new. And it was enjoyable conversation too! (though I imagine any eavesdropper, even one whose native tongue was English, would've found our words arcane, if not downright boring).

The second thing I want to comment on was also unexpected, but the surprise came not from the situation in which I found myself--but from the very me that should be supposed to be doing any finding. When I arrived in LAX after a peaceful night at a hotel, I immediately found myself among a group of Japanese tourists composed mainly of teenagers. Here's when the shock came: Seeing those young faces, hearing those jaunting, lively voices, I was struck by a sense of pleasant familiarity that nothing else in that particular segment of my American homeland (i.e. LAX) had even a smidgeon of enough power to evoke. Their little "sumimasen"s and "onegaishimasu"s were music to my ears! Not only did they ring out and strike in me a deep chord of familiarity, but I immediately found something within vibrating also with a shocking sense of rightness, a feeling of deep solace--something so inexplicably compelling I cannot deny it a share in the word "home." Falling in among those faces, those familiar but new voices, that language--all Japanese, all "foreign"--in the midst of the cosmopolitan, sprawling, impersonal LAX, I found myself to be in the last place I would have imagined possible--I found myself brushing against the edge of the garment of home. And indeed, I have returned home, again.
Now, lest my mother read this and find her heart stopping in its tracks--Japan is not my home, and it never will be. I am forever, indelibly "gaijin," and Japan is with equal, insurmountable force, "gaikoku" to me. Now, I may seem to have overstated my case early: All I meant to say was that Japan, and the beautiful, hilarious, indecipherable people who comprise her, now in some small way has earned a share in the word "home," for me. Has Japan stolen my heart? Will I live here forever? No. America is my native soil. And though both have varying share in my own version of "home," neither has a jots-worth of claim on my real, abiding, insuperable Home. And in that Home my true citizenship also lies.
God bless.

Home

2004-12-22T10:16:00.000-06:00

"You can never go home again." --Thomas Wolfe (I mention this so-so writer only because Bailey McBride has on more than one occasion deigned to tell me this particular quote.)

"Home is where the heart is." --????? (someone who's words outlived their name, and that's not meant to be an insult)

"Home is where yo' momma lives, cracka." --Peter

"Home, home on the range..."

"Home is where I can eat hamburgers and hot dogs, Mexican food, and Chile's, and where they'd never even dream of serving the raw fish and sea weed I had tonight." --Peter

"Home is the place that, when you go there, they have to take you in." --Robert Frost

Says it all, Bob. Says it all. Thanks.

I'm going home!!! See you on the flipside (of the Pacific).

Grace and peace

"Ramble on!" ... and I shall

2004-12-20T04:00:00.001-06:00

You see, this is exactly the sort of thing that terrifies me: Here I am, sitting here blogging for the first time in two weeks. As much as I hate admitting it, I have some level of commitment relative to this blog (not commitment to this blog--it's an inanimate object). And it's a commitment I need to make good on. Otherwise, I've failed. Otherwise, people will later say, "Hey, yeah, remember that one time Peter started a blog to keep us all updated on his life in Japan--and then totally quit. Yeah, I don't know how many times I clicked on his link hoping for a new blog before I gave finally up. I love the guy, but yeah, he's just not cut out for anything long-term, if you catch my drift..." Now don't get distracted from the main point of what I'm saying: I don't have any particular fears associated with not making good on this blog thing, merely a general fear of "failing." And don't get distracted by that either, for whatever degree of fear of failure I may have--it's not the main thing either (or at least I am willing to pretend it's not if only for the time being). What I am talking about is the fact that I started this blog, told people about it, wrote posts in it for a while, a few of which may even be halfway interesting--and now, boom, I find myself in the span of a few quick weeks standing here ready to raise the white flag of surrender. What did me in?
I'll tell you--I got involved with something that demands consistent effort, something that needs maintenance. And to be honest, I didn't measure out the weight of such a burden beforehand. In fact, I didn't even eye-ball the weight--I jumped right in, saying, "I want a stinkin blog. To blazes with any nets or snares the thing may throw on me--I shall write indeed!!!"
So here I sit. So here sits I, staving off abject failure only by making prose of my precarious balancing act on the last, weathered footstep of blog oblivion. In fact, even that saving grace is in danger of abortion: I am close to being utterly and banally self-reflective. So let me move on to thing I have been wanting to say!
I cannot stand being tied down, even to something as unintrusive and manageable as this blog. Many times, it's true, I am happy enough to blog away my night and consider it gain, but at moments like the present, I simply despise those shackles. But that's not the main thing either. (Why do I have so much trouble sticking to my main point. Am I always this off-track and simply don't recognize it, or is tonight an exception...?)
I simply want to draw out this subtle but powerful axiom: Sometimes, and maybe many times, action implies commitment. Though it's often unstated, one simply cannot get around this truism. If you ask a girl out on a few dates, well then on some level you've made some kind of commitment (and the same if you agree to go on those dates). You can't simply stop calling and ignore her for the rest of your natural life--somehow you know that's wrong. If you start to train for a marathon, even if you never tell another soul about it, then quit a few weeks later--there you go, somewhere within that complex soul of yours, you will almost certainly feel a pang of conscience, a wave of just-above-lukewarm shame or indignation toward self. Ask the woman who started college and then quit simply because she didn't like the load. (Quitting out of sacrifice for some greater good is an entirely different matter, I think.) Though she may never admit to having signed any such contract, at the end of the day--if she's honest--she'll admit that somewhere, somehow, she has spat upon a duty that deserved to be honored and is in some measure receiving payment for that infidelity--if only to the tune of $5.15 an hour. It's just in us. Unless we're fiends or blackguards through and through (and most people aren't) or unless we have bought so completely into kicking around blame into everyone's eyes but our own (which is a form of grand fiendishness in itself), then we understand and know and are bound by this principle of obligation through action.

I cannot pass up saying that this seems to me to be a pretty significant piece of the puzzle in explaining why so many guys of my generation are so "apathetic" or willing to act only when ordered. Very simply, they have grown to despise thoroughly those subtle yanks of the strings of implied obligation. Whose hands it is that have been tormenting them with those little jerks is hard to say, but I would wager that a great percentage of the time they have belonged to people who were very close to them and who loved them very much indeed--even often to the point of stifling.

Surely then, mustn't there be an alternative to this terrible trend? There is indeed! It is a bifurcated road. First, mothers and girlfriends and anyone else who is guilty of such manipulation (and yes, I think women tend to do this more than men, just as men tend to slide into listlessness and worthless torpor more often than women) have to exercise prudence. Pull your loved one around this time--and then the next--and (my, this is effective) the next--and then by all means do it some more--and (my, this is fun!) pretty soon those puppets strings will be so twisted and frayed not even the greatest of masters will be able to again wrangle them toward any productive end. And the puppet is far from improved himself. And the second thing--and this is honestly where the bulk of the responsibility and the greatest need lies--is this: Get some wisdom, you fools! Find out for yourself what obligations are there lurking in the shadows of the days. Don't overcommit yourself, and don't let twisted minds (even if only twisted a little, through love) twist your own mind--though folly in some measure must be accepted because of love (and I am deeply indebted to all of the people who put up with my folly daily and at every turn--and every post).

That is all I shall pontificate for today. I have made good on my duty to this blog, if only for today. And that'll do, pig, that'll do. Peace out!

Peter

P.S. Please send me a comment if you actually succeed in reading all of this--boy howdy, it wound up being long!

"Ramble on!" ... and I shall

2004-12-20T04:00:00.000-06:00

Favorite Moments from Life in Japan

2004-12-05T06:42:00.000-06:00

Let me attempt to relate some of my favorite moments from my life here in Japan. In order to do so in a compelling, though oft-used way, I shall compile my in a top-ten list style, though there may be more or less than 10 depending on how well my brain is working tonight and though I shall make little effort to actually put them in "correct" order of comical impact.

Ahem...
5) One night, I was riding my bike through a popular park in Mito and went down a dark alley. Before I could process what was happening, I found myself flying over my handlebars and through the air in perfect Peter-Pan-formation. I then landed squarely on my chest and chin, but was completely uninjured. When I got up and realized what had happened, I laughed my head off: I had run my front tire smack-dab into a short but sturdy concrete roadblock, which was completely dislodged from the ground.

4) My first or second week at school (during the summer), my teachers indicated that one teacher would go to a grocery store to get food. I tried to tell her I wanted beef curry, but somehow failed abysmally, despite half an hour of whole-hearted effort on both sides. So they made me go with her. We made the trip with little dialogue exchanged and no hitches, but upon returning to our teacher's room, the Japanese teacher who had escorted me boisterously announced my lunch choice: Beef and curry! And they absolutely laughed their heads off. The whole room erupted with laughter. "The gaijin just wanted beef curry?! Are you joking me?!" Something about it all was apparently unbearably funny. Welcome to Japan.

3) Passing my elementary's schoolchildren everyday as I walk to work, who despite having seen me nearly everyday for the last four months, still giggle, and shuffle, and point as if I were a rock star.

2) I stopped at a traffic light. Two little girls were on bikes across the way. I noticed them staring at me. As we finally crossed the street, they were noticeably getting excited at the prospect of getting to walk so close to me. As we neared, I finally said a gentle, "Hello." They both let out a spontaneous, thrilled scream and ran away. It was as though they had just been accosted by the most famous and attractive man they had ever seen. For that brief moment in time, I was Brad Pitt...

1) Once while walking down a narrow alley on my way home, a small boy stood in my way. He saw me walking toward him and froze. I think he was terrified. As I neared, I kept expecting him to pull the usual terror-stricken bolt--away from me. But a change came over his face, and he stood his ground. As I approached, I began to feel his curiosity very strongly--it bore into me with a strange, expectant feeling. I became convinced I couldn't simply pass without a word, so I said the first thing that came to my mind: "Watashi wa gaijin desu." That means, "I am a foreigner." Of all the banalities in the world at my disposal, of all the comments in the world to make to someone, I choose to put into words the one thought that was, above anything else in the cosmos, absolutely foremost in his little mind--this is a foreigner. But I like to think that about forty years from now, Japan will have itself one of the world's preeminent anthropologists, a dazzlingly brilliant man who got his start at the seminal moment that I, the whitest, strangest, scariest human being he had ever seen in his young life, took the time to point out that I am, indeed, a foreigner.

I've left several off, but maybe I can continue this some other time. I hope you enjoy reading about my life here half as much as I am enjoying living it. God bless

How's the Weather?

2004-11-29T03:50:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday, we gaikokujin here in Mito celebrated Thanksgiving. And we did it right even from the very start. At 10 in the morning we met, assembled, drew up sides for a friendly but competitive game of flag football. It was a lot of fun, and the teams wound up tying. No major injuries occurred, excluding those inflicted upon an ego or two. Almost everyone managed to make a good play or two (I had one and a half), and I even saw about 50 of my kids from school, who were noticeably thrilled to see their crazy English teacher out playing "rubgy" with other white people. But one of the best things about that morning--something that overarched and enveloped it all, something subtle but powerful--was the weather: It was, without being overly dramatic at all, beautiful. Not only were we sweating a decent little bit in shorts and t-shirts, but the crisp, pristine air revealed a perfectly blue sky. It was amazing!

What is also amazing to me is this revelation, something I'd rather not admit: The weather affects me a good deal. The more time I spend with myself (approaching 24 years now), the more I realize how much my own mood is swayed by that pervasive, powerful thing known as weather. When the weather changes, I change with it. When Spring breaks especially, I feel a sort of rejuvenation bordering on euphoria (and I always thought it was because of Spring Break). Anyway, it's very true, and it's time I admitted it and moved on--I am very, very seasonal.
So anyway, the weather now is rapidly getting colder, darker, more bitter--and I feel myself being slowly swallowed up in it (to a point, of course). My ambitions have taken drastic turns from what they were three months ago when I only wanted to pluck away making silly, upbeat music on the guitar, to run around half-naked outside, to somehow quench my unabating thirst to assault the sea or a mountain or a waterfall or anything bigger than me--now, here sits, quite changed, doppleganger I, wanting nothing more than a good friend (female, if you like) to hang out with (minus the talk) in my warm, cozy apartment, reading books or listening to mellow music and absolutely, positively eschewing anything that would lead us to open the front door and take even the smallest of steps away from my heated carpet...
And now having persuaded myself to become a recluse, I must venture out for school supplies! Drat! Oh well, that aside, for tonight I am a caveman, a torpid, slumbering bear. I am Jacob, that peaceful, domestic little man (though father of a nation, strangely enough...) And I hope to speak to no one tonight save a brilliant dead man named Dostoyevsky and the Lord my God.

But call me if it's urgent... grace and peace

Duty and Desire

2004-11-22T03:41:00.000-06:00

This is no great epiphany, but maybe I can start with a long-held truism and get something going from there: Sometimes a person is motivated out of duty, sometimes out of desire. I love the latter and in fact only tolerate the former because on some higher plane where exists a better, noble me, I ultimately desire to do the things that duty forces upon me when desire for and at that moment has slunk away into the shadows of my soul (or wherever it is that desire goes when I am feeling like a treacherous, hot-headed, or mopey jerk).

So today, and in fact at this particular juncture in time, I am writing from duty--I write because I think I ought to write.

Now, here's something I'd like to know: Why didn't anyone ever tell me the power of the word "ought." I learned "no," "yes," and "I want it" pretty early on, as I recall, and I even began, long before my schooldays, to call down the enchanted wonders of the sky with those magical "pleases"--but why in the world didn't someone take me aside and tell me about the lunatic, the unsatiable madman, sitting inside my head drawing me painfully, meticulously toward some ever-fixed, ever-oh-so-slightly-obscured mark in the sky--Mr. Ought.

Now let me tell you what I believe about this particular "madman," as I have labeled him. He's a madman only in relation to that part of me that wants to track him down and smite him from ever corner of my mind. He is, in fact, the most sane of all my faculties. He only seems like a lunatic because my desire, at the moment when I am labeling him, is itself so far gone into madness. He's my anchor and my lifeline to the shore. My hatred for him exists in direct proportion to the enmity I hold for my very self--though I'm often blind to this fact.

So the question of origin arises--and that is probably the most important part, so let me say it right out: Where did this insanely sane little mind-guard come from? Why, God put him there. In fact, He didn't merely put that little bloke in my head and then leave me be--He continues to nurture and guide me day by day, slowly, subtly, transforming me from within.

But I haven't quite hit upon the heart of the matter just yet. That man is only the start--the initial spark within that tells me about my Creator and His will, His intentions, for me at any given point in time and any given moment of reflection. I am in fact a participant in something much more profound and considerably more important. You see, I am a player, a participant, and in fact a "victim" in the most hostile kind of takeover the world has ever seen (and there are millions of others going on, right this minute, somewhere right before your very eyes)--I am a man who has been slayed from within. It's not suicide or the kind of flippant self-destruction that has often been romanticized in the history of the world. It's not the free-fling into madness that comes from severing of the anchor, from the final gnash of the teeth upon one's own tattered lifeline. No, it's the laying down of arms, the humble, helpless, yet noble kneeling before something you recognize--finally, at wit's end--as greater, better, and lovelier than yourself, the conquering of the hate-bent rebel within. And this is not a surrender to the imprisonment of nothingness, a surrender to hopeless, a final dash of despair--it's a surrendering to service.
And so duty becomes not an alien parasite scrambling around somewhere in your mind, a fugitive from your own intense probing, but in fact the very cloak you wear. And the fire that consumes corrupt desire, idle thoughts, words without grace and meaning, works slowly within.
And always you're drawn not toward destruction, in hate of self and others, but toward hope, hope in which (you know, though you do not know how you know) duty and desire have finally been joined.

A word about today

2004-11-13T08:29:00.000-06:00

Today was a great day, so I want to share it with you.

Today, I got to sleep in a little, but not so much as to derail the entire day. Then I rode my bike to meet up with my good friends Denver and Greg. We're training for a marathon in Okinawa, which is mercifully still a few months away. So we went for a nice 8-9 mile run--and it felt wonderful. I have been slightly sick the past week and a half and haven't had a good run during that whole time, so today was a beautiful, needed ray of light on my marathon aspirations. And the weather was absolutely amazing! (for mid-November or for any time of year) To describe the scenery on the run, I must borrow a word from Coleridge--it was absolutely sublime.

After we had gotten ourselves cleaned up, other friends came by, and we all went to a park together where we ate lunch and played. It was my first time at this park, and I loved it. We played with shameless glee, and the "real" kids there (all Japanese of course) loved it--they thoroughly enjoyed watching us slide down the slides, climbs on the ropes courses, take stupid pictures on, in, and beside the crazy dinosaurs they had there. My favorite feature of the park was its slides. This park has literally the two best slides I've ever seen. One has at least 200 feet of track and descends no less than 80 feet (I used The Force to determine that, Greg). Anyway, I happen to know from personal experience that if you ride down that crazy thing while sitting on a jacket made out of slick material, you will catch some fairly serious air at one point, and you may well over-shoot the sandbags at the bottom intended to "catch" you and wind up doing half a million summersaults before coming to a stop. (Denver is the only one who actually accomplished the latter of those feats, I should note.) The other slide isn't as scary, and I can't really explain what is so amazing about it (partly because that would spoil the fun), but I heartily recommend it for anyone who's not in general to "sensitive" to shocking new experiences.
The chemistry of the group was great. We were all in good humors and were constantly cracking ourselves up (sometimes from pure silliness, though there was a fair amount of genuine wit to it all), and we just really were able, I think, to enjoy each other's company.
Then the park itself was incredible--the ambience, the feel, a certain crispness, an invigorating clarity. The leaves had all changed into brilliant colors, the land there is pleasantly, almost majestically, rolling, and the weather was more than agreeable. It was a great afternoon.

Then we went to the church building, practiced singing for a Christmas concert next month, went to dinner together (11 of us English teachers total), and then we all called it a night. Now I have nothing to do but read another chapter of my Bible and study just enough Japanese to put me out for the night.

Praise God for days like today. Thank you, Lord.

A Little Bit Less Philosophy on Today's Menu

2004-11-04T03:54:00.000-06:00

I guess if I want to bolster the readership of this blog beyond Gabe, Blake, and a reticent Ann, I should include something a little more universally appealing than muddled philosophical comments.

Along those lines, I had an interesting day today (my, it's hard for me to write those words!). I eat lunch everyday with students (I'm an English teacher in Japan), and today I ate with an ichinensei class--equivalent in age to American 7th graders. When I go to the classrooms to eat with the kids, I never know what kind of response I will receive--from effusive joy to very deliberate and calculated apathy. Well today I was met with a healthy dose of the former. As soon as I walked into the classroom, the kids competed heartily to win a seat next to me. Then as we ate, the kids sat, Japanese-English dictionary in hand, armed and ready for communication. The highlight of the lunch period came when a popular song came on the intercom. I told the students I liked the song and asked what it meant. After many conferences filled with the standard nervous, energetic laughter, one student told me the singer of this catchy little tune was singing about the sky. "Oh, the sky..." I thought. "That's... a little bizarre." I asked him what about the sky was so interesting. After the requisite huddling, the student emerged from his cabal to inform me that the singer wanted to eat the sky. "He wants to eat the sky?!" I yelled in disbelief. The student assured me that such was the case, so I proceeded to laugh my head off. Later, I was given a reinterpretation of the same song, something about the sky crying, but I reject the latter interpretation as intentionally misleading redaction and hold firmly to the first. He wants to eat the sky... what a weird song...

The Conclusion to My Response to Gabe's Response... ad infinitum

2004-11-01T04:34:00.000-06:00

Good friend, my point is this:
Anyone who wants to denigrate reason as a means of knowing and communicating reality cuts off his (or her) own legs the minute s/he puts that idea to pen. When the pen hits the scroll, when the fingers hit the keys--boom, your cover's blown: Your a "modernist."
Now, the appropriate and oft-used retreat at this moment is: Ah, but Pete, I never said Reason was invalid as a means of knowing--only that it is but one among many. About that, let me say: yes, that is what you explicitly claim--that Reason is one among many equal avenues for pursuing truth (though you like to note how dodgy it is "viewed" to be)--but implicitly, you aren't quite as generous, sometimes accusing Blake and me of being modernists anytime we attempt to use reason as a means of arriving at, well, anything at all. But that's not the rabbit I'm chasing currently.

Here's what I was getting at with my earlier post: Reasoning--logical structures, arguments, codified thought--can take on a life of its own outside of human beings. But reason itself dwells within. It's a basic part of our apparatus for interpreting reality--including language itself. You often strike down Reason as an Enlightenment invention. I'll grant you that Abstract Reasoning was a cantankerous little organ that the Enlightenment gorged to grotesque proportions. But Reason, that little part within human beings that processes day-to-day reality, even language itself, is taken for granted by the ancients--it's presupposed. So if I try to unravel the great mystery of how many teeth a horse has through pure abstraction, well, that's me giving far too much hegemony to Reason. But if I determine what the length of a hypotenuse is based on Pythagorean Theorem, or if I decide on the meaning (even approximately) of what you said based on my knowledge of English semantics, or if I hear a general shout "Fire!" and pull the trigger because I think he meant "Fire!" rather than "Put that gun down, you idiot," then I am perfectly within my rights--reason in that sense is as intrinsic as sight. (It may break down largely into deductive and inductive reasoning, but I'm not sure that's quite where the dividing line is--I'm still working out my thoughts as well.)

So what makes me think reason deserves to generally be the king of my epistemology? Because reason is a whole lot harder to juke than, say, experience or emotions. Reason gets feedback from reality in a way that doesn't happen for the other epistemologies. Now at this point, you would be remiss not to accuse me of forgetting that ultimate reality is God. I know, and I agree. But because we are in a limited, finite form currently, we are a step removed from that reality--thus the immediacy of reason. Now, on the level of ultimate truth, of what value is reason beyond its usefulness in this world? I don't know--maybe it will be obliterated when full, glorious Truth is brought to fruition. But until then, it is indispensable. In a sense, then, experience and emotions may well be finally superordinate to reason--they may be much better avenues of coming into full contact with our God. (I'm not convinced that that's case, but I allow that it's possible.) And they may be equally noble and equally useful even here on earth--in certain contexts. ("I will sing/pray with the spirit and with the understanding.") But as epistemology for the day to day unraveling of the ephemeral, for deciphering the happenings of this accursed world, reason is at least indispensable. And I guess the reason I tend to think it's superordinate to the other epistemological means is that it resides over language (in my thinking), which I view to be superior to any other form of human communication in transmitting meaning.

Those are my thoughts as of now. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. And avoid cliches like the plague.

My Response to Gabe's Response to Me (As the Recursion Goes On...)

2004-11-01T03:33:00.000-06:00

Brothers and sisters, I have seen the light!!!

Gabe, you did it, you finally did it--I am now postmodern to the umpteenth degree. In fact, I am the embodiment, the bomb-diggity, the mac-suave mojo of Postmodernism itself. I am Postmodern.

But unfortunately, as Postmodern, I'm having this strange difficulty understanding what you say. In fact, I couldn't even sit here and write this (since it comes much more from my "reason" than all those other important means of epistemology) had I not hijacked the Modern mind of my earlier self and kept it hostage inside a cozy but well-ventilated corner of my brain.

So anyway, I keep having to really lean on that part of my brain everytime I want to read your blog (which is really embarrassing, I'm sure you realize). But you know, that whole ball of wax--reason, rational thinking, and whatnot--is actually the primary means I have of deciphering what you say. Sure, I eventually and even sometimes simultaneously process it through my emotions, experience, and all that good stuff--but I mean, the initial hit of it, the translation from you to me via words--well, for that I'm just utterly reliant upon Mr. Modern.

So anyway, what I need you to do for me, dear Gabriel-- and Mr. Modern tells me (rather smugly, I suspect) it "shouldn't be too hard at all"--is to start communicating on your blog primarily, and in fact almost exclusively, through means other than reason. You know, emotions, experience, connotation, communally-derived meaning (whatever that is)--just PLEASE make it happen. (This Modern jerk is really getting on my nerves.) I don't have a clue how you can do it (and you may want to tap your own Mr. Modern to solve that riddle), but I'm sure you can somehow do that for me.

I look forward to your thorough, enlightening, and hopefully largely nonsensical reply.

A Slight(ing) Discourse of Postmodernism--you may want to skip this one, Mom

2004-10-29T10:51:00.000-05:00

Much of what follows is actually identical to a comment I made on Blake Blackwell's blog a few minutes ago. I didn't intend it for dual purposes originally--but hey, sometimes opportunity knocks. Anyway, my comment is on the philosophical/personal/bowel movement known as "postmodernism." Blake and I are staunch non-Postmodernists who have a long-standing debate about it going with our good friend Gabrial Peterson. I don't know if we actually disagree on philosophy half as much as we disagree on terminology, but alas, words shape meaning.

Let me comment on the "good side" of postmodernism: It completely sabotages the defunct but lingering philosophy of modernism--the worldview that human beings can perceive and manipulate and come to know reality so well, so flawlessly, that ultimate truth bows down cowering before our mighty hands (and the microscopes, scalpels, and flasks they carry). That's what I like about "postmodernism," and I think that's what Gabe likes about it too--it does a good job, via its arguments, its rhetoric, of blasting modernism out of the water.
What I don't like about "postmodernism," primarily, is its frequent, insane use as a tool for completely obliterating reason and rationality (e.g. everything I have written thusfar can be dismissed as utterly rational, utterly modern). The end result of taking this completely "postmodern" line, which many people are willing to do in certain arenas, is simple epistemological nihilism--no one can know anything about anything. But that skewer is used with terrible bias: Postmodern writers are perfectly content to use the methods, yea, even the spirit of modernism--but only as long as they are using it for some perceived good. Thus some writers delight in debunking modernism via its own epistemology, in using logic to prove that logic can't prove anything. Having laid out of the groundwork, having proven, having girded, having secured themselves philosophically, they then proceed to debunk (often rather smugly) anything that employs or even smacks a hint of modernism--not caring to notice all the while that their own philosophical undergirding rests on that same root. To quote Blake, everything is ambiguous--except the Fact of ambiguity itself. This breed of postmodernism is completely self-contradictory--boot it.
To me the slightly less annoying usage of "postmodernism" occurs when people use it as a sort of buzz word (a tired and trite one at that) to refer to anything that has a bizarre, uncommon, or even merely awkward approach to thinking--or even to pure noise itself. A friend of mine recently told me of a band (which is or at least was apparently growing in popularity) whose whole show, whose whole sound, is based entirely on the concept of making noise. A hard-core groupie actually got up the courage to ask to join the band. The main noise-maker's reply was something to the effect of, "Do you want in because you think it's cool, or are you serious about the noise?" Are you serious about the noise? Yeah, I think a lot of "postmodern" thinkers are, and that's exactly the point: The world doesn't need more noise--it's needs grace and light. It needs clarity.

Gabe Peterson, eat your heart out. If you dismiss he offhandedly as a "modernist," I will seriously consider flying to America just to pimp slap you. (You know I love you like a brother.)

Motive and Motivation

2004-10-22T10:38:00.000-05:00

The creation of this blog has been brought about through the action of a single, possessing, inescapable motive: Revenge...

Just kidding.
Actually, this narrative (as I hope it shall become) emerges from at least several requests from friends, particularly Mr. Gabriel Peterson (i.e "son of Peter"; viz. "son of ME"; ergo: "I'm your daddy"), to "get with it" and make use of the latest in inter-web communication to keep in touch with those people who (frankly) matter most to me--my friends and family. So here is simply one way in which I, a stowaway here on the island of Honshu Japan, am attempting to keep in touch with you guys (gender neutral). Lots of love!