Growing Up
November 28, 2003
One update. That’s it.
Anyway. Do you remember the day you changed from being a child to, dare I say, a man? There are basically four stages in a life: kid, awkward kid-adult, adult, old fart. Life as a kid was sweet. You go to stupid elementary school where you’re heads over everyone else because they were just stupid. All that fun reading you did at home at night really paid off - you knew more about everything than everyone else. Best of all, you were cute because you were a kid - there are no such things as ugly kids.
Then one day, you grew up into an awkward kid-adult. You know the phase - you’re too smart and ugly to remain a kid and yet you’re too short, stupid, and rash to be an adult. You went through highschool hating every single minute of it. You guaged the stress and happiness meter by the number of zits on your face at any given point of time. You gawked at every human that did not carry a penis and wish you could have intercourse with them. You wonder why everyone got girlfriends while you’re stuck at home playing stupid video games and listening to your mother bitch about you not vacuuming the living room or something. Life sucked ass.
Thankfully, that phase ended and even though it ended painfully, well, who gives a fuck. The worst was over and now begins the living. You’re an adult. You’re legal. You’re kosher. You’re cool. Whatever you’re doing, it’s cool. By now you’re grown up, filled in, cleared up, a little wiser, a little more handsome. You might even have had some action or done some pretty cool shit. It’s all good. This is when you just do something you don’t like for a very long time, get some money, and hope the damn neighbor’s dog doesn’t shit again on your lawn. Look out world!
Old fart entry is empty because I don’t know my shit yet about this era.
—
I can pinpoint the exact moment of my life when I ceased being a kid-adult and became an adult. I remember it felt as if the delicate chemical balance in my brain had suddenly shifted and the tides had turned for rationale and maturity. I hated my teen years, there were so many things I did and did not do that I would love to change. There were so many people I liked and disliked, talked to and ignored, respected and looked down on, and all that. Looking back now, 99% of all that didn’t make any difference in the long run. The long run for me only ended with about 2 paragraphs of real lessons learned.
As an adult, I suddenly found myself a fountain of wisdom that I could tap into and also share with loved ones. Wisdom comes from experience and I think I’ve had my fair share of experience. I’ve seen a lot of shit that I wouldn’t hope on my worst enemy. I remember also noticing how even though I had become an adult, not many people around me had done so… early bloomer maybe? It’s been a few years down the road now and a lot of the people have caught up but there are still a couple who were left behind. You can easily tell who passed or not - it’s in their actions and words, in fact, it reaks from their body.
As and adult, I learned how to love, how to learn, how to grow, and how to let go. A lot of extra layers like caring what other people thought of me, or trying to keep up with others on something, or imitating the successes of others were suddenly shed, like the dried out exoskeleton of a tarantula. A lot of wild and untamed energy suddenly became subservient to my will. It was a matter of control I guess.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then my friend, you were left behind.
Friday
1 day weekends suck.
I stare at this empty space at blogger and I’m trying to fill it with wonderful words to entertain my visitors but I’m sorry: you get nothing!
It’s catch up time soon and I’m just pooped.
Journal
November 24, 2003
Well this will be part one of my update and I’d like to get this off my mind first. Saw the third Matrix. It had nice eye candy… guns and dragonball-esque fight scenes. Storyline? Simpler than the second, lacked the originality of the first. Predictable ending and fates of the main characters.
This week was your basic work and then more work at another place.
The weekend saw another ELI survivor coming into Osaka. Kyle, whom has been in Japan for the past three months, came way over to Osaka and visited us kansai peeps for a few days. We had a great dinner and rounds of drinks and good laughs on Friday and Sunday (today) saw more drinks and a very patriotic rendition of Oh Canada on the karaoke thing in our room. I also met some new friends who live around here - our Osaka family is growing once again. Today we saw a room of 13 people including me and that was without a few too.
I got to use my camera over the weekend too. Most were just point and shoot shots and I just left the settings on AUTO. It was just easier that way. I also intelligently used the flash to get rid of horrid facial shadows and ridges. I still haven’t got around to practicing but it will come soon. The first thing will be to practice holding still. The shutter speeds are too slow sometimes on AUTO and after having a few beers, it’s fucking hard to hold the camera still. I’m choked that some of the pictures are so blurred because of this. The video files are awesome but once again I hate hearing my voice… I sound so fucking annoying.
Ok anyway - that’s finished. I’m on the verge of writing down another big brain dump but I’m still grinding some gears about some things.
The Meatrix
November 17, 2003
Oh man! This was fun - Orwell’s Animal farm meets The Matrix, what do you get? The Meatrix. What a great way to spread ideas. I swear, the piggy was way better than Keanu Reeves will ever be.
Telephoto
November 15, 2003
Today I finally bought the the camera. It’s sweet. It’s nearing exactly what I want in a camera and no more will I suffer the horrible tendencies of my old digital camera. Today marks my entry into a world where point and click no longer apply. Today marks the step into a world where more logical thought must be given when taking a picture. A world where light, fill flashes, aperatures, shutter speeds, and photometry must be considered before every click.
This camera, while not as expensive as professional cameras, was a bit more than what I would’ve paid for a camera a while ago. It gives so much more control and also allows use of filters and other lenses. I’m still trying to learn everything but today I practiced taking pictures with long shutter speeds - basically for night shots. The shots look great except I can’t keep my hands still enough to capture a crisp, sharp picture. 2 seconds is a long time when you have to hold perfectly still.
I also bought a 128mb card today so now I’ll never have to worry about space anymore. It can also record AVIs but at 30fps and 320×240 res, it really eats up storage quickly. I can only get a bit over 4 minutes of video (with full audio) on an empty 128mb card. I only get 24s on the 16mb that came with the camera. Sure is fun to record video though.
Once I get some time and find some good subjects, I’m definitely going to post some pics. In the meantime, I’m trying to find any subtle differences between settings and reading a lot about digital shooting.
Remembrance
November 11, 2003
November 11 for me is not only Remembrance Day. I duly respect all the war veterans who fought for freedom in all wars. However, honestly, the wars we read about were a long time ago and don’t mean very much to me.
November 11 for me brings me back to 1999 because that was the day my best friend had a car accident that changed I think everyone’s lives. You see, this friend and I were extremely close. I couldn’t have thought of another person to, among other things, be my best man, be my son’s godfather, bring me home when I’m drunk, laugh at my when I get shot down by girls. His girlfriend was also another very close friend. The three of us were together hanging out and making fun of lesser people all the time.
That accident completely twisted the situation not so much because of the accident itself but more because of the aftermath that followed. He was in a coma for a week or two and during this time, there was utter hell as friends and family were found fighting over the pettiest of things. That really pissed me off. All I cared about was the welfare of my friend (at that point, his family didn’t tell any one of us his condition so we assumed the worst). While I was scared that I would be losing a friend, the assholes around me were fighting over, among other things, who was allowed to see him and who wasn’t, what she said and what he said, what to do with his money and things, finding new boyfriends, who disrespected whom. It was ridiculous. Had I had the emotional maturity and independence that I do now, I would’ve told them to shove things into places they shouldn’t speak of. After all, my priority was seeing my friend recover. Everything and everyone else was irrelevant at that point. (Read my Nov 15, 1999 update for some ideas of how I felt).
Now, being barely an adult, I was not exactly the most dependable person yet. I was completely distraught about my friend and I was tired of the bickering and fighting of those around me. Whenever I feel trapped in these situations, I close myself off - I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to go out, I don’t want to even see you. I just want to stay home and think my way out of things. During this time, the other friend and I had a falling out because while I wanted isolation, she wanted me to give emotional support. While I understand what she wanted, I could not do it because being there would be being subject to all the fighting and bitching that tired me out in the first place. She was in the center of many of the arguments.
One night, I remember talking to her on the phone and she was pretty much threatening me that if I don’t provide the care, the attention, and the energy (by “being a friend”), our friendship would be over. Now, at that point, I hated everyone who wasn’t the friend in the accident - but I didn’t feel it was warrant to end a very good friendship. So I said I would try my best to be there.
However, the next day, I find out she broke up with my friend. You see, he had awakened from the coma but had not regained full rational control - he was persistently calling her and I guess just being a big pain in the ass. She couldn’t take it so she had to break up. In my fragile little mind, I took this as her giving up on him. I thought this to be entirely hypocritical because just the night before, she was telling me something about me giving up on her. That was the last straw, I decided never to speak to her again. I would focus my attention on my friend whom was the one I cared about the most anyway.
I stuck by the friend for I think several more months. He had recovered miraculously and was adapting to a very different life (everything had changed). Unfortunately, somehow, he took a turn for the worse - he had always been a very smart, level headed individual but for reasons I don’t know - he turned to chemical substances. I remember getting some calls late at night asking me to drive him home because he was on some sort of substance and could not get himself home. I also remember getting a call saying I should go to his house because there were some guys who might want to start a fight with him over some ridiculous fight about cell phones or something. By this time, our friendship was strained, at best. We didn’t hang out much anymore.
I blame myself partly for this - he was, physically, still my friend. However, I noticed a lot of subtle changes in him mentally - I used to look up to him and thought of him as my big brother. At this time, I found the situation had reversed - he was a lot more immature and didn’t seem to know of behavior/consequence, action/reaction.
One of the last times we talked was when he called me and asked me to be at his house that day around evening. I had a midterm that night and would not miss it unless it was an emergency. I asked him what it was about and he said something along the lines, “You’ll know when you get here”. I told him I would not go unless he told me what it was about and I told him I had an exam that night. The reaction I got? As far as I can remember, he said, “You want to know what it’s about? I’m on heroin.” (or was it crack? It was something along those lines). The phone went dead after that.
Apparently (a friend relayed this to me), he had announced to family and friends that he had a serious drug problem that also brought along a financial problem. Yada yada yada. It really didn’t surprise me at this point.
I’m not the world’s cleanest boy scout, I smoke myself silly, I drink myself silly sometimes, I’ve tried a small selection of things I shouldn’t have, but I have never, nor will ever, touch anything as heavy as coke, heroin, or crack. I don’t blame him… he must’ve had his reasons. It easily could’ve been me had I been in that situation.
The last time I talked to this friend was at a new year’s party in my house. I got a call suddenly that night and he said he needed a place to “crash”. I said sure and in comes half a dozen people. It was not a fun night as many people were too piss drunk to realize their own actions. I will never host another big drinking party at my place because I never get drunk enough to enjoy it. I always worry about what people will do.
Anyway, that was a big brain dump. It is possibly the first time many of you read about this because I don’t remember talking to many of you about it. The reason I suddenly thought of this was because I’m comparing myself to this story and have I changed. The parallels are certainly here but my actions are completely different. I’ve given my girlfriend and her family everything that I could. In a way, I think I wanted to make up for the lack of giving those many years ago.
Raining
November 10, 2003
Finally a bit of time to relax. It’s been a very busy and tiring week no doubt. The funeral and other ceremonial dealings were quite draining. I helped as much as I could but I couldn’t fully participate in them since I was not a relative. The first few days, none of us slept very well. I got maybe 3 or 4 hours a day. The days after that were spent in their store cleaning and dealing with headaches about what to do. It has been an exhaustive week. Luckily I took a week off work because I knew it would tax me this much. I go back to work in two days which means I’ll have tonight and tomorrow to not do anything. Well actually, I have neglected my apartment for a couple months now - it needs a big big scrub down and I have a behemoth laundry pile that needs washing.
So it looks like they’re going to close their company soon. It’s a pity - a fully operational, profitable, fairly easy business and it’s going to be closed. I seriously considered taking over (the operational side anyway) had the father been well enough to teach me everything.
The new picture up top was taken by Eri’s dad while he was in Nagoya in August. We found his digital camera and two CF cards with pics in them. I made CD and today the pictures were printed. Some of them were very nicely taken! Here’s just one of them. I believe it’s a pic of Nagoya Castle.
The camera that I’ve been wanting to buy might have dropped in price slightly… I think I’ve decided to buy it even though it costs so frickin much. It’s much more than a nice consumer camera but not quite professional yet. I think it’s a good start. The best thing about it is the 10x optical zoom and pretty nice SLR lens. There is much more manual control than average consumer cameras but there’s only preset white balance and not much aperture settings to choose from… F2.8 to 3.5 I think… I don’t know, I might (probably will) buy it this week.
I’m sorry to all you folks who IM’d me only to not get any replies. I leave my computer on a lot and I forget to set those damn programs to Away sometimes. There were a few times when I was there but I just really did not feel like talking.
Anyway, I’m out of things to say now. More later.
Small Stories
I don’t know how he does it, but Derek Kirk Kim from Smallstories.com has done it again with his latest small story The Ten Commandments of Simon.
Outcome
November 05, 2003
At about 8:07 last night (Tuesday), Eri’s father passed away. He fought the infection that followed the surgery but his condition deteriorated fairly quickly. He died while in an unconscious slumber.
His heart stopped at about 4pm but the doctor gave an injection of some sort and got his heart to beat again but then the doctor told the rest of the family that he was going to die in 2-3 hours.
I came to the hospital literally 8 minutes late. The traffic was horrible. Eri and her mother were with the father as he slipped away.
The surgeon who operated sincerely apologized to the family and he was also in tears. I think he must feel responsible when really no one could’ve controlled the infection. Sometimes it’s just the right time to go I guess.
Eri and I stayed at the hospital last night to accompany her father’s body. While it is my belief that the body is just a shell and that a person is defined by their spirit or soul, I respect the belief of other cultures. There was a ceremony today and they will cremate the body tomorrow.
I firmly believe he is in a better place now where he can rest after fighting this for the past while.
Once again, thank you ever so kindly for all the well wishes and prayers. In due time we can all put this trying time behind us and begin to remember the good times from before.
Just When Things Were Looking Up
November 01, 2003
They fall right back down.
Yesterday was Friday and I spent the day where I usually spend my day offs now, helping out at my girlfriend’s store. They got a call from the hospital. It appears that the surgery, even though went well, had some complications. As I mentioned before, they had connected the esophagus to the intestines and had removed the stomach. However, it turned out that the connection didn’t heal over too well. Fluids such as saliva and were spilling out of the esophagus into the chest cavity. An infection occurred and it didn’t look good. He had a fever and had fallen unconscious. Also, he lapsed in and out of consciousness sometimes and was hallucinating and pulling out tubes and stuff. Not fun.
So I think last night everyone pretty much had thought the worst had come and we all went to the hospital at 2am. Eri and I stayed the night at the hospital and didn’t leave until 1pm today. Nothing worse happened - they had given antibiotics and also put him on the respirator. I have no idea how bad things are.
Anyway, I’m exhausted beyond exhaustion. I’m pretty sure I can say confidently that I have spent more nights in hospitals than the most of you and let me tell you out of experience - it’s very very not nice. We fell in and out of naps all night and all the while nurses and the doctors were walking in and out checking up on the dad. Hospitals at nights are also very creepy too.
I was asked if I wanted to continue working in their family business - if I would, they’d keep it open. The place makes a nifty profit and it’s just a shame to close a profitable company. Anyway, it hinged on the dad being able to teach us everything about the place. From where it stands now, they may have to close the place and I’ll have to keep to my teaching job (oh that will be great). I hate this feeling that everything in my life is out of my control - everything as it stands depends on the father.
I am one stressed out cheese bagel.
