Lazy Sunday

Happy Mother’s Day! Treat your mothers right, ‘cause you’ve only got one of ‘em! (Yeah yeah, I know, some have more than one. Treat them well, too!)

So where was I? Ah yes, my dreams. I have a ton of dreams. I’ve mentioned the “doctor” dream and the “headmaster of a martial arts academy” dream already. But you may not know that I have other dreams; “closet dreams,” which I shall reveal now.

Acting. Have you ever wanted to be an actor? I was joking with some friends a couple weeks ago about becoming a タレント (“tarento,” or “talent”), which is the name given to TV celebrities who don’t really have any particular talent. But they’re just on TV for the sake of being on TV. Many shows in Japan have people just sitting on the side, occasionally commenting on whatever topic the hosts are talking about.

More and more foreign タレント are appearing on Japanese television, for better or for worse. The good is that Japanese people, especially those who live in the countryside, are getting more exposure to foreign culture. The bad is that sometimes this is the ONLY exposure some Japanese people get to foreigners, so the タレント end up becoming representatives of whatever country from which they come. This is a big problem because people in Japan have a tendency to think “Oh, David Specter said this on TV, and he’s a white American, so that must be what every American thinks.” (Conversely, people in the US are also guilty of this too, for Japanese people, or other foreigners. “He’s Asian? He must use chopsticks.” Etc.)

Anyway, back to the point. My dream isn’t to become a タレント. But I think it would be fun. And I would like to be on Japanese TV one day; ideally as a regular (like a タレント). But my real acting dream is to star in a hit blockbuster action/martial arts movie. I don’t know where I would get my start, though. I was supposed to star as the main villain in a movie that a friend of mine was going to direct, but the project got cancelled. (Actually, not the villain, technically; but rather, the last person whom the protagonist meets, fights, and kills. From the context of the story, though, my character is more of a hero, as he is the victim of the protagonist’s looting.)

My acting experience is minimal. I was an extra in my friend’s short film, “Mixed Drinks,” which is the story of a foreign English teacher who went to a party to meet a friend of his, another foreigner, who had been living in Japan for a few years. The two of them share stories and interact with other foreigners and Japanese at the party, but some drama happens, and the movie ends after a climactic physical argument. The short film serves as social commentary to various issues that occur between foreigners and Japanese people. I’ll post it here, if I can get permission.

I’ve also starred in a short documentary that my friend, a film major, created (directed, edited, filmed). The documentary was about me as a martial artist. I went with the approach of a comparison between traditional karate (using Shotokan Karate as an example) and modern karate (using my American Kenpo Karate as an example). It was really fun to make, and I’m thinking about doing a project like that again, where I delve deeper into the meaning of martial arts, and explain more philosophies and theories. Maybe I’ll make it a series...a YouTube Series…::gears are spinning in my head::..

To be continued…

Word of the Day: 俳優 「はいゆう」 “haiyuu,” which means “actor/actress/performer.”

Lazy Saturday

Continued from yesterday’s post, which itself is a continuation of Thursday’s post.

I think about those dreams and think about how awesome it would be to build that clinic. But then I think about the long and arduous road to get there. And I think about all the issues and problems about being a doctor in the first place. And I begin to question my desire to be a doctor. Is that really my dream? Or was it something that just sounded good? Or was it because I “dream big” and reach high because I want to fulfill my potential, but without really considering whether I would enjoy doing it? I think about the hours on the job and the stress of dealing with sick patients, and overall happiness. I currently enjoy working a “35 hour week” (actually it’s about 40 hours a week, like any other regular job, or more when I stay longer), but I still have a hard time finding enough time to do everything in the day that I would like to. And doctors have even less time! (Another reason I would prefer to run my own clinic than work 60 hours a week in a hospital.)

But before I get ahead of myself and worry too much about potential problems in the future (which may not necessarily affect me), I need to look at the “getting into med school” problem. And a big problem indeed it is, for me. One of the biggest faults of it is timing. The application season begins over FOURTEEN months before matriculation into the program. How much sense does that make? That means if I want to go to med school in Fall 2013, I need to have all of the application materials and documents and everything prepared by late May 2012.

Can I still apply this year? Yes and no. Yes, theoretically, if you look at the date. But in all practicality, no. And for various reasons. The biggest reason being that I wouldn’t be able to get the packet of recommendation letters written by my university’s “Pre-Professional Health Committee,” as I believe the due date for that has passed. But moreover, I would also have to refresh my MCAT knowledge, and take the test again. There are two test dates offered in Japan this year: June and August; neither of which allow enough time for me to review. Lastly, I haven’t had much volunteer experience relevant to medicine recently. So in order to wow the admissions committees and convince them to let a fun-loving late 20’s guy into their school, I would have to really bust my ass and prove to them that I want this, like I did with getting to Japan.

So what do I want? That’s the question of the decade; nay, century. Nay, millennium. I seem to never know what I want. Things here and there, yes. Dreams here and there, yes. And I’m fulfilling a lot of them simply by being here in Japan. I know my hobbies, and I know my interests. I love a lot of things. I have a passion for a lot of things. I have a burning desire to DO SO MANY THINGS. But I know that if I delve into medicine, that’s it for me; that’s it for those dreams. That’s it for those passions; I know that I would have to invest so much time and effort into medicine that I wouldn’t have the time or energy to focus on anything else. And perhaps that’s what has been preventing me from finally just going through with it all. My other dreams.

What are these other dreams? Find out next time, on ハロルドin Japan.

Word of the Day: 幸せ 「しあわせ」 “shiawase,” or “happiness.”

Lazy Friday

This is actually a continuation of the post I wrote yesterday, but it is a new topic, and thus I wanted to save it for another day.

And this brings us to my next topic: life. Rigidity in life allows us to proceed forward on a certain path; rigidity on this path allows us to (theoretically) succeed by moving up the ladder and mastering one particular skill. Of course, one has to loosen the rigidity to allow acquisition of knowledge passed on by mentors and peers; the concept of keeping an open mind. But this sort of rigidity and single track mindedness, while benefitting us in the “mastery” concept, restricts us from trying out new things, venturing into new fields, or exploring other professions.

I am at this fork in the road; which I’ve been stuck at for a while, actually. Too long, arguably. Basically, I’ve had this sort of “dream” to become a doctor. But I can’t solidly specify where this dream came from. There isn’t any one point in time where something happened and I had a lightbulb moment: “Eureka! I wanna be a doctor!” No, nothing like that. It was more like, “Hmm, I like sciences and math. I like people, and I want to help people. And it’d be cool to cure disease and fix people’s ailments. Hey, maybe I should be a doctor.”

And over the years, I’ve bounced around ideas about what kind of doctor I would want to be (oncologist, cardiologist, dermatologist, and most recently, pediatrician because I work with kids), or where I would want to work (hospital or my own private clinic; honestly would rather have the latter). Most recently (couple weeks ago), I DID have an apple-on-the-head moment: I should build a health clinic that is part clinic and part dojo. That way I can teach martial arts on one side AND give medical checkups and be a doctor on the other side. One of my friends joked that I could fix up one of my martial arts students in the clinic after giving them a proper showing of the ropes in the dojo.

(This reminds me of another Hajime no Ippo character: the medical student who challenged Ippo after he won the title belt. He made a comment that his hands are used both for fixing and for breaking. He was an interesting character, as he utilized his knowledge of the human body to pinpoint specific targets on his opponent. As a pre-med student, of course I was immediately interested in this character.)

To be continued…

Word of the Day: 夢 「ゆめ」 “yume,” which means “dream(s).” It may be used in both the figurative sense and the literal sense, just like in English.

Lazy Thursday

So here I am, sitting at my desk, on a Thursday morning at the junior high. There were no classes here yesterday. There are none today. And there won’t be any tomorrow. Why, you may ask? Because the first years were on a field trip to Hiraizumi, a town with a famous temple (Chusonji, a World Heritage site), the third years are on a field trip to Tokyo (JEALOUS, I wish I could go!), and the second years are doing job training. Er, not job training…but something like job shadowing. Where they split off into groups and help with work at various stores and such in the area, like hair salons, kindergartens, nursery schools, convenience stores, department stores, etc. So…yeah, no classes for the rest of the week. Yay, that means more time for blog posts and studying Japanese! And…sitting. Lots of sitting. Time to get up and do something.

...Whew! Okay, I’m back. I just did some shadowboxing and freestyle form, karate style and Bruce Lee style. I have been in a martial arts kick lately (see what I did there?). I have been talking to a friend recently who is interested in starting martial arts, and as a result, I’ve looked up a lot of Bruce Lee quotes and other Jeet Kune Do philosophies.

Jeet Kune Do means “Way of the Intercepting Fist.” It is Bruce Lee’s philosophy of martial arts. This philosophy entails a few basic key concepts: that of simplicity, practicality, and disobedience to tradition. With this philosophy in mind, martial arts practitioners should be able to adapt their techniques to a given situation rather than strictly adhere to certain stances or certain ways to throw an attack.

The downfall of traditional styles, according to Bruce Lee, is that the rigidity of the stances and attacks ends up becoming a limitation on the user. Think of it this way: if Guy A knows exactly how Guy B is going to throw an attack, Guy A can easily counter it. This concept was even touched upon in one of my favorite manga series: はじめの一歩 (Hajime no Ippo). The series’ “big, tough guy” Takamura was going for his first world title where he was fighting the champion (Bryan Hawk) who was a master of “unorthodox” style boxing. In other words, he had no set style; he was incredibly wild, and he threw punches from the strangest positions. Conversely, Takamura was well trained, and thus had perfect boxing form and textbook boxing techniques. Unfortunately,  Hawk was able to capitalize on Takamura’s “by the book” style, and he easily countered the attacks. It wasn’t until Takamura started resorting to his pre-boxing, wild gangster-style fighting and animal instincts that the fight started going in his favor.

Anyway, point is, rigidity leads to limitations. Let’s not get too limited by the routine we’ve created for ourselves. (Tomorrow’s blog entry will be a continuation of this one.)

Word of the Day: 無限 「むげん」 “mugen,” or, “infinity.” Literally, it means “no limits.”

End of one school year and the start of the next

I meant to publish this last week (two weeks ago?), but やっぱり, had too much on my plate to finish all my food. And right now, as I type this, I find that there are a series of things I want to do tonight, but I may not have time to do everything. All day, I had been working on my Japanese test (the JET Program offers a very useful self-study Japanese course), so my activities tonight would be mostly recreational. I wanted to get some guitar practice in as well (have I mentioned that I own two guitars now? I don't recall). Speaking of guitars, when I was in Sendai, I found an instrument section of a CD store. One of my guitars is a K-Garage Stratocaster by Kikutani Music.



So late March marks the end of the school year and fiscal year in Japan. It's a time when people change jobs, including teachers, public employees, and company employees. Graduation from all major types of schools in Japan happens in this month as well, to coincide with the matriculation of new students and employees in early April.

I went to a couple going away parties; one for the Junior High, and one for the Town Hall. The Junior High going-away party was particularly amusing. It was sad to see the Principal go, as it was his final year working. In Japan, people retire at age 60. And it's not even a voluntary thing, really; people are forced to retire at age 60. Usually people do their own thing from that point on, like run a private business or do various odd jobs. But if you are a normal "salaryman" you definitely gotta retire; especially if you're a public servant.

In any case, the Principal, a very nice guy who was a former English teacher, said his final goodbyes to us at the party. Other teachers who left was the Industrial Arts teacher, who is just two years my senior (great guy, fantastic guitarist), the Nutritionist (she is in charge of our school food), the head office guy (also very friendly), and one of the incredibly kind assistant teachers whose daughter was one of my nursery school students. It was sad to see them all go. But we all enjoyed our last feast with them.

Here is the part where I mention the really amusing part. So, most of us had been drinking throughout the party and were quite tipsy towards the end. And in drinking parties like this, people always walking around pouring drinks for people and sitting in other people's seats. I had gotten up to go to the restroom, and when I got back, the Japanese Class sensei was sitting in my seat. Let's call her Kokugo-sensei (国語　「こくご」 "kokugo" is literally "country language," and it is what "Japanese class" is called in Japan). So anyway, Kokugo-sensei is in her early thirties; a fun, energetic, genki teacher. I went up next to her and pretended to start sitting back down in my seat. "Just kidding!" I said, as I began to sit in the adjacent seat. She said, "No no, please sit," as she scooted over and made room for me on the seat. So, I sat next to her, as she requested.

Of course, it's difficult for two adults to sit on one restaurant chair comfortably, so I had to cross my legs and rest my left arm on the seat back behind Kokugo-sensei. A few other teachers were laughing as they saw me do this and engage Kokugo-sensei in conversation. We were talking about traveling in Europe, and I was trying to draw a map in the air of places I've traveled. She didn't quite understand the respective locations, so she held out her hand and had me "draw" the map again on her palm with my finger. At this point, the laughter from other teachers turned into gawking, and a couple of them started yelling, "That's dangerous! Dangerous!!!" in Japanese. "Kokugo-sensei, go back to your seat!!!" As she got up, she replied, "...just drawing a map..."

The Town Hall going away party was much larger, and held in the town center. Of the seven or so people leaving, one of them was a senior member of my Board of Education, whom I'll call Mr. Masters. Mr. Masters was awesome; he helped me out so much with so many things. The biggest in particular was in helping me purchase my beautiful car (he helped by introducing me to his mechanic, who ordered it for me). Her name is Misa (I'll explain that in some later post).

So it was really sad to see him go. Interestingly enough, I sat next to my former supervisor, Supes! It was fun shooting the shit with him again. And after dinner, I went with him to the Nijikai (Second Party), which is essentially the term for "After Party." Lots of people from the first party showed up. Someone turned on the karaoke machine and we sang some songs. I ended the night by singing "Hotel California" with a very drunk Japanese guy. Good times.

Word of the Day: 酔っ払い　「よっぱらい」　"yopparai," or "drunkard;" "someone who is drunk."

My first concert in Japan

I had a concert today! Pretty awesome. Good times. Good songs.

David Cook's cover of Mariah Carey's "Always Be My Baby"
Mr. Big's "To Be With You"
Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here"

...followed by a mini-encore of "London Bridge," a fan favorite.



Word of the Day: ライブ　「らいぶ」　"raibu," or "live," as in a "live concert" or "live performance." A concert is typically referred to as a "live."

Spring Break

Well, today is the first day of　春休み　「はるやすみ」 "haruyasumi" or "Spring Break." When us Westerners think of Spring Break, we imagine a week-long vacation in March (or April for high school, I guess?) where people like to travel and whatnot. Well, in Japan, Spring Break is actually between semesters. Or rather, it is between school years. Japan's semesters are split up into trimesters (didn't I explain this in a post last year or before?); from April - July, August - December, and January - March. The break between the first and second semester is actually longer than the break between school years. No idea why. Also, no idea why the school year is split up into three three trimesters with a different number of school days.

Something that is rather annoying is that "Spring Break" really isn't a break at all. Students still come to school for club activities. And all of the clubs are managed by the teachers, so they come, too (though sometimes external coaches are hired to assist with the training). Something I find pretty cool is that some of the kids who graduated come back and assist with the training during this time, too. I think it's for the sake of training the new Team Captains. A passing of the torch and showing of the ropes.

Anyway, back to the annoying part. So most if not all of the teachers show up to work. (The assistant teachers don't, though.) But there are no classes. So what the hell are all the teachers doing all day? Granted, there surely is work to be done; finishing up anything from the past school year like grading and such, or preparing for the upcoming school year. But in case you didn't know, there is kind of a running joke that all Japanese teachers seem to be in on; and that is the art of pretending to be busy. "Working." Us ALTs are masters at "working," though we aren't as good at hiding it. It becomes blatantly obvious when we laugh at a friend's facebook comment or a message on Skype. But that's okay. No one cares. 'Cause they're "working" via other methods.

Today, I brought my newly acquired acoustic guitar to school. I played a little bit to show a student a few chords, and a few hours later, students were asking me to play. Guess word got out. The guitar is great; I bought it from a friend for a very reasonable price. And he's an excellent guitarist, so I trust his judgment on having bought the guitar in the first place.

I intend to bring the guitar again tomorrow. I think the English Teacher and I will jam. I look forward to it. This is my way of turning the boredom of "Spring Break" into something productive!

Word of the Day: 退屈　「たいくつ」　"taikutsu," which means "boredom" or "tedium." It can be used to express one's boredom. A related word is 詰まらない　「つまらない」 "tsumaranai," which means "boring."