I'm writing this from the middle of my last day of work. Since the time that I first heard that I got this internship (near the end of 2003), it seems like just about all of my life has been focused on planning for it or getting through it. Even the six months of preparing and waiting before it seem colored with expectations - I still think of it ( Read more... )

The more I think about it, games seem to be a part of my life rather than my whole life. I suppose I'm going to be one of those people who plays games well past the time when it's socially acceptable. You have more leeway to do this in Japan. Still, I don't really have any desire to work in the games industry. Lots have people have asked me if I ( Read more... )

Since my parents couldn't come to Japan, I ended up taking all of the vacation time that I had saved up and combining it with Golden Week and some other national holiday to make the ultimate 16-day vacation. I went to Tokyo for 9 days and caught up with Tim, Drew, and Krispy. Today was the first day back at work, and even though I have three weeks ( Read more... )

First, you need to head over to Krispy's journal and check this out. I guess it's not surprising that he picked up on this since we've had a lot of similar experiences, but he posted this during a time when it had been on my mind for a few days ( Read more... )

I haven't had much time for blogging lately. I have had time for reading manga, eating cookies, and watching Last Tango in Paris, though. The message of this film still remains unclear to me. I'd like to watch it again, especially if I could get a copy with subtitles for the French bits, but I'm not really sure if it would help much. There are a ( Read more... )

I think that one of the signs that I've adjusted to my work schedule is that I'm leery of time commitments. Whenever the thought of watching a movie even enters my mind, the first thing that I think of is, That's going to take 2 whole hours! You can call that the effects of time management, but I would say it's more like self-control gone way too ( Read more... )

I'm pretty distrustful of Japanese maps because they always end up being so unreliable. Frequently, they're too abstract to do any good, and once you find the place they seem so unnecessary. Partly, Japanese architecture is to blame. Even putting aside all of the stores and bars crammed into the various floors of one building, a lot of places in ( Read more... )

I just finished watching Manufacturing Consent a few nights ago. It's definitely entertaining, and as an introduction to a lot of Chomsky's ideas it works pretty well. I suppose I'm definitely a bit biased on that though, since I've read a good chunk of his stuff and listened to quite a few of his speeches. There's a lot of really interesting ( Read more... )

Last week I went to see Sambo Master with Pamela. The venue was a smallish club in Kobe, with maybe three or four hundred people. We were able to push our way to the front without any problem, and took in the show half-deaf and covered in sweat, the only thing between the band and a wave of underage Japanese kids who went crazy during every song. ( Read more... )

While I was on the way to my former host family's house last weekend, I got a call from my Mom. It was a pretty strange time for her to call, so I knew that something must have been up. My Dad had surgery on his knee last year, and she said that during a recent doctor's visit they found something in his heart and needed to do bypass surgery right ( Read more... )