“Need someone to hold me down as I come up…come up” – Jeremih

March 21, 2018

I love that song…

Last week of the school year has arrived. The rain has been coming down for three days straight. Japanese is becoming more and more difficult. That saying “The more you know the more things become more complicated” is true.

The good news is I definitely know more Japanese than I did last year, so I guess that is some form of progress? Got to keep reading.

Novel:
I have no idea where this is going. I wanted to document the last four years of my life and scribe it into a narrative of some kind.  I didn’t want to plan a plot or an outline; I just wanted to write and that’s what I am doing. Aiming to have a lot of it done by the end of the year. I think I am around the 30,000-word total currently. 100,000 seems like a good place to wrap it up. But who the hell knows. I really don’t know what I am doing.

Magazine Interview:
I was interviewed by a magazine in Hiroshima called “Grande”. The writer’s name is Mrs. Atsuko Iwai (岩井 敦子).  She had been looking to meet foreigners living in Japan and had an assignment to find some to interview. I mentioned it back in January but didn’t end up posting the journal online. Pics came out pretty good too. Kurahashi’s scenery easily makes me look good. The interview is just me spilling my dreams…

  

 

 

 

 

February 16, 2018

“Mike Jordan pedal to the floor and rubber is scorchin’ Olympic athletes carrying torches” – D. Gardener

Basketball Begins:

Basketball season has started up again and boy do I suck. Hurt my hip flexor and have a hard time running aggressively lately. I think it may be a small sports hernia. I typed the symptoms in on  WebMD and it says I have cancer. So either or I am screwed I guess.

On February 11, we had two games. First game went well and we easily won 71 – 22. We out sized the team greatly. Everyone on the team played well.

Q1: 14 – 10
Q2: 16 – 2
Q3: 27 – 5
Q4: 16 – 5

 

 

The second game proved to be much more difficult. This team was bigger and more rough. I think we underestimated them during the first half and had to get our head straightened out. We were able to come back after the half and pull out a win and the final score was 58 – 49.

Q1: 11 – 9
Q2: 12 – 23
Q3: 15 – 10
Q4: 20 – 7

I am about a year and half in to living in Japan and I decided to make a quick list of memories I probably will never forget.

• finding spider nest under my bed

• snake on my door step

• – hornet nest built on my laundry line
• – chased by boar
• – over 20km bike ride
• – wild dog watching
• – sleeping on beaches
• – winning basketball league
• – improving Japanese level
• – being over 20,000 words in on a novel
• – writing lots of poetry
• – continuing my research on Gary Snyder
• – meeting acquaintances of Gary Snyder in Japan
• – understand Ezra Pounds’ ABC of Reading
• – meditating on solo days
• – sometimes never speaking a word on most Sundays

Here’s to 2018.