December 2007
7 posts
Good good-byes
Time is precious, I know that, but take for granted the brevity of my time here in Japan. This week marks the end of the first half of my academic year here, and that means around 25% of my cohort are leaving and returning back to their various corners of the world.
Four months is a flash of a film lens, but when you are spending your days and nights with a person, you quickly become invested in...
3 tags
I like your songs, I can sing along, but where's...
I met an English girl in a bar. We talked about England and Japan, and how we thought that the shared language between us and the Americans masked a greater cultural divide than we have with our French, German and Italian neighbours. We listened to old Placebo songs and laughed at how drunk (and young!) all the people around us seemed to be!
We caught a train to a friends bar out in the...
Rut
The last couple of weeks have been possibly the hardest of my time in Japan. I’ve been having increased contact with my family back home, and that combined with the time of year, and my well documented longing for a certain someone back home have had me stressed out and uninterested in partaking in all the usual fun we have here.
That was until Wednesday, I was out for the birthday party...
On being a western man in Japan
Being a foreigner in Japan (especially a white, European, male foreigner) usually means at least one of the following things:
You are a massive anime/videogame nerd.
You are an English teacher.
You are desperate for a(ny) Japanese girlfriend you can find.
Fortunately, I’m none of those, and that being the case, I have to constantly justify my decision to come here to a surprising number...
Open and honest
It’s a new tactic for me. I’ve grown up around, and become, the sort of person who keeps everything very much to himself. In my family, you don’t talk about how you feel - it’s a sign of weakness. I have been aware of that for some time, but was happy to accept that that is just the sort of person I am. Like my father is, like my uncles, my mother, my grandparents all...
WatchIn the same vein.
1 tag
What the fuck are you doing with your life?
Go home, ask her to marry you, move into a flat into the city centre together. Holiday in Asia, visit friends in northern cities on occasional weekends. Go to your mum and dads once in a while for Sunday lunch, and go to the pub with my lot. Get a cat, a car and all the sports TV channels we can afford. Discuss at great length Titus Brambles failings and the merits of Jay De Merit, celebrate the...