Time to shake the rust off (write, write, write)

I've been busy. I'm still busy. I've created excuses for not being able to write. I’ve told myself I am incapable of writing. I’ve grown layers of anxiety, upon excuse, upon self-doubt, upon lack of purpose, upon fearing my own words. In short, I became an onion. I have writer’s onion. It’s similar to writers block but a little smellier. I’m ready to shed off this husk of smelly insecurities.

I’ve been thinking about whether I need to close this blog for good. This doesn’t mean I stop writing it means that this blog would maintain its focus of discussing Japanese culture and I move on to a different blog to maintain and update more frequently. I hope to have my decision by the end of this entry but first let me explain my decision to update.

I woke up today and found out about the death of Ernestine Kimbro, a faculty member at the Evergreen State College. She was the first contract sponsor I had at Evergreen and an influential supporter in my interest in translation and Japanese studies. I think about the teachers that have made an impact in my life and how Ernestine helped and supported my approach to learning through my writing. She emphasized the value to look for the interrelations in the everyday and things that are seemingly dissimilar. No resource was out of reach or too obscure for her. She was an amazing teacher and friend and I like to think the work I did with her was a precursor to this blog.

I had no idea about the breast cancer or the chemotherapy. I guess deep down I knew something was up with the head wraps she wore but I didn’t bother to ask. Hearing the news of her passing away was like waking up from a deep cold sleep.

Returning to those memories with Ernestine two years ago I’ve realized that I have to keep moving. For my own sake and for the sake of Ernestine and what I learned from her I have to keep writing. Writing has meaning; there’s a purpose in doing this. I can’t promise a lot but I can promise to write and reflect on my life when it is necessary. I thought about closing this blog on account of Ernestine but that would be an empty gesture. I want to write stupid goofy things and serious things and be passionate about life and writing again. This blog stays open!

Thank you Ernestine for holding doors open and being an inspiration in my life.

And now for a long intermission

It has been a few months since I’ve last posted in the ol’ blog but its been up until recently a very busy and fast paced rollercoaster ride back in the homeland. Now the slow down has left a sizable hole needing to be filled. The problem is not finding things to fill the void but simply what to fill it with first.

There is a great bit of story telling in the past months that needs to be done but to cut down on length and to support the power of brevity here is a bulleted list of things learned and experienced in chronological order:

• People in the states are surprisingly wider and taller then I remembered
• Not driving a car for a year doesn’t mean you forget completely and crash randomly
• I have a surprisingly large amount of junk I don’t feel connected to at all
• Reverse culture shock is as real as it is invented
• Unpacking, finding a place to live, moving, registering for classes, taking care of all finances and preparation in under half a week is possible
• Snow in April is disorienting
• Sounds and smells seem to spark memories more profoundly then photos
• I do have a future in animation
• Living without Internet for 10 weeks is doable and healthy
• Klingon and Esperanto have some things in common
• Riding a bike while trying to take a photo can end in epic failure
• Linguistics is not as scary and soul crushing as the term “Universal Grammar” makes it sound
• Learning basic programming methods makes me want to get down and dirty with syntax and some languages I’ve dropped
• I have yet to come to terms with my grandpa dying
• 20 years is a long time in car years
• The greyhound bus is a great place to meet “interesting” people
• A 21 year old bottle of wine is surprisingly good
• your childhood neighborhood may be sprinkled with drug fairies
  
• Doing things is the cure for talking about doing things
• I can survive without a car in Olympia
• House parties at the Finger Complex rock!!!
• Finding a part time job is a full time job
• Riding a bike while trying to talk on a cell phone ends in epic failure
• In search for a job, non-profit volunteer work happen to fall in my lap easily
• Walking is about ¼ the speed of riding your bike somewhere
• I probably saw over $300,000 dollars worth of fireworks this 4th of July
• Any form of role playing games are mind gratingly addictive

It goes on but that is a good chunk of my life in the past few months. In the next couple of entries I’m going to wrap up the Tokyo trip and try and get on to the everyday happenings of life. Stay tuned.