Get mad, listen to death metal, rage down the subway

One of the best things about living here has got to be the public transportation system. It is highly amusing watching so many humans, unnaturally packed into trains everyday everyone so dead to each others' presence, unless it involves an elbow in your spleen.

I invented a new game/system for learning Japanese: Pick whatever words/characters I want to learn each day, and fill a whole sheet. This will usually involve 3-4 compounds, which are like "compound words" in English except with kanji (Japanese characters), so multiple pronunciations are prevalent, and meanings are rather non-literal and unintuitive. I will write each compound 15 times or so to hammer them in. Then, the fun part: Try and find them in the masses of advertisements, signs, and kanji-overload that I see everyday!

Turning problems into solutions: Pro-active Belcher!

As for the title of this post: Without going into unnecessary detail, someone/something/some culmination of both made me angry, and in typical Ben-fashion I used music as my catharsis, as my self-therapy to get out all of those "bad vibes." I mean, of course dealing with said problem head-on would be ideal and much more satisfying, at least temporally, but realistically confrontations only get you into trouble in our modern world. Not to mention that I have other interests to protect, reasons not to confront it etc. etc.. So in rationale, I am not a coward who is running from my problems, or a kid who hates his parents (I love them dearly in fact), I just really like heavy music.

No, that sentence is misleading: I like music that fits my mood. Sometimes, the music can shape my mood. Other times, I need it to conform to me. Tonight was an example of that last one, and I listened to Suffocation's "Pierced From Within" whilst storming through Shinjuku station like I had somewhere important to go. And no need to worry about that pesky road rage either! What a city.

Incidentally, tomorrow is my first day of teaching. MY FIRST DAY EVER IN THE HISTORY OF TIME TEACHING ANYONE ANYTHING PROFESSIONALLY. I'm a little nervous, but rightfully so, even though I think I'll nail it for the most part...Sometimes though, I build up my hubris so convincingly that even I am fooled, and that shallow pride is stricken back just as quickly as it was made when I realize that I was never that confident to begin with! I feel about 65% good about teaching lessons now, and from what everyone says who has been doing it for a while, after I've developed a routine in the next month, I should feel 85-90% good/great/awesome.

So.

Today also marks the point in time when me and all my fellow trainees split up. We were like a big team of naively happy newbies in Japan, and now we all go on to different schools, and aren't likely to see each other unless we plan something outside of work, which will surely happen eventually. Such is life: everyone goes their own way.

I've had so much bogging me down as of late, but at the same time I'm always keepin it as "posi" (remember ye olden folks, this is slang for having a positive attitude!) as I possibly can. I really have no reason to complain, I'm just longing for some kind of routine or groundedness in my life. I thrive on it so. Once I have that, along with the proper amount of adventures, I should have a recipe for living relatively comfortably here in Japan.


"Do you believe that you are the solution, when you're just contributing to the problem?" - End of Line.