LostinJapan

crashing and Silly Poser’s exit

lostinjapan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:13:38 +0000

I am a little concerned that my life is going to be changing so much in such a short time. Only 5 weeks of teaching, 2 real lesson plans, 3 AET meetings and I will be kicked unceremoniously out the door of my school and become gloriously unemployed.

I am very happy about leaving - I think it’s time to move on to something else - but I am not overly excited about the things I don’t have control over. For example, my major supporter and closest friend in Japan, Silly Poser, will be leaving in 6 days. I also have to work out my visa situation and worry about how I’m going to maintain my excessively hedonistic lifestyle. I want to travel, but I don’t have enough reserves to pretend I’m independently wealthy…yet.

Silly Poser…Silly Poser, you are the first to be honored with a nickname in my blog. The older I get, the more I realize that net anonymity is probably best. Also, nicknames are very funny. Silly Poser is a very beautiful girl who contorts her face every time anyone takes a picture of her because she just can’t cope with how pretty she is (I think).

Anyway, I could say that I am stealing this nicknaming writing style from a blogger that I admire very much and who is a much better writer than I will ever be…but c’mon. We’ve seen this writing style in every Seinfeld episode, right? So no, I’m not going to admit it.

Back to the main theme of this post - “crashing” - I am feeling dangerously needy right now. It’s the kind of unstable that makes me do strange things like smile but not feel anything at all when Silly Poser broke my Ikea 365 plate or feel myself stabbed in the heart if Silly Poser doesn’t sit by me at karaoke. I’m not coping well with how I feel and I think it’s partially monthly hormones and partially me struggling with myself to not hold onto something and someone I’ve become attached to, especially when I know we’re going to part paths so soon. I want to say that these emotions aren’t really how I perceive things. They’re just flashes of feelings I can’t seem to control. So I’m just sitting here being glum and ignoring many feelings while trying to make the best of the situation and have as good a time as possible with the days I have left. And I do have some really good days left. I’m especially looking forward to Indiana Jones and dinner this Sunday.

I also have a lot of travel to look forward to this year. I’m going to France, England, Italy and possibly Spain in September. Then I will probably be going to India in October and Australia in December if I can. Also, next month I might go to Korea and in August I’m going back to the States. This may or may not include trips to LA and NY before I go to Vancouver for a wedding. I guess it depends when I run out of money.

I am really blessed to have so many things planned. I am also blessed to have the whole cast of Star Wars, minus Harrison Ford, coming to Japan next month. I should focus on things to be thankful for and I know it. I am doing it. I am trying.

As a sidenote, the real thing holding my sanity together is the Harry Potter books. I have waited and now that the entire series is out, I’ve decided to read it in one go. After seeing the movies, it’s a lot like getting to know an old friend even better. So when school lets out, you can often find me curled up at cafes in Tokyo, imagining to keep myself from…myself.

Living interested in a disinteresting life.

lostinjapan — Mon, 26 May 2008 08:11:44 +0000

That’s today’s Engrish for the day, taken straight off a bag on the train. After reading it, though, I feel like there must be a lot of deeper meaning to it; meaning that I should heed. The more I think about it, the less I believe it really is Engrish.

Parasites

lostinjapan — Mon, 26 May 2008 06:28:01 +0000

Last night I was in a game room of sorts with wooden walls and straw on the floor. It was the kind of game room you’d see in an old circus or demonic amusement park. My friend, a guy, had to make 70 tickets with a fixed amount of plays or the ringmaster / carnie person would kill him. I helped my friend play…is it called skiball?..to get tickets. He easily won enough to win his life, so we both questioned the seriousness of the guy in the corner forcing us to play. Was there some trick? Could it really be that simple?

I discovered during the dream that I had a strange parasite attached to my nose. I tried to pull it out carefully, but it broke. I was able to get more of it out - about two inches in all, but not all of it. I later found out that trying to remove the brown worms just made them multiply. I was looking forward to some really bad face days. I also learned that I had been exposed to the parasite when I went somewhere or ate some special kind of fruit. I kept this a secret.

Visitors in Japan

lostinjapan — Wed, 21 May 2008 02:51:14 +0000

Last night I drempt that many of the people that I would like to forget came to visit me in Japan. They were staying for just a few days, and I had to work the whole time they were here, so I never had time to take them out to Tokyo or do anything interesting. They left thinking my life was boring and unpleasant and far beneath their own. I was stressed by their constant derision and upset that they had shown up in my world.

I didn’t get the feeling from the dream that my life really IS boring, just that the circumstances were less than ideal for me to show them the things and places I love and am interested in now. I was frustrated because the dream didn’t allow me the chance to stand up for myself. Also I felt that there was a misunderstanding between the visitors and I that had continued from the time we were young until now. I realized they were incapable of believing me or in me. I believed in myself, the validity of my life choices and my own happiness, but I gave up on showing them that. I felt defeat, frustration, indifference, and finally contempt for them.

My head is going to explode

lostinjapan — Wed, 21 May 2008 02:37:29 +0000

My head is seriously going to explode. I can’t breathe well enough to get oxygen to my brain, so I can’t seem to focus on anything. I am pretty proud of myself, though. I managed to actually go to work today when I was thinking of calling in. I need to get healthy, because I’m sending off signals of apathy and general I-don’t-care ness to everyone. I don’t know if they believe I’m sick, even though I am talking funny and sniffling.

I have two more classes today, and if I can just get through them I’ll be okay this week.

Beautiful Music

lostinjapan — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:54:45 +0000

I’m listening to the most beautiful music ever…unfortunately I have no way of finding out what it is. Don’t you hate when that happens? You’re out shopping in some store and you hear a random song and then it’s gone before you can ask anyone around you about it.

It feels awful to know that this beautiful sound is going to be lost forever; that this is probably really the first and last and only time you’ll ever hear this melody.

But…I will live, and I’m happy I got to hear it even once.

Slideshow Pro

lostinjapan — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:03:18 +0000

Okay, it’s a little embarrassing that it took me as long as it did (2 days) to figure out how to use SSP, but in my defense, I didn’t realize that .flv files wouldn’t be visible locally. So there I was, previewing and previewing, thinking there was something wrong with all my video files.

After much work, I have a slideshowpro 1.8 trial slideshow running above this post, and a test slideshow with video at http://www.lostinjapan.com/SSPtest.html

It took many long hours to get the video to work, but now I finally know how to do it.

So that I don’t forget…

You can crop and resize videos in Flash Video Encocer C3 at the same time
video thumbnails are linked with the code:
the video thumbnail is put in the thumbnail folder if the path was specified in the album definitions
Background Alpha 0 means transparent, 100 means opaque (maybe this is obvious to everyone else, but it wasn’t to me)
Most importantly, video files are NOT able to be previewed locally. They must be uploaded to your webserver

What a grueling 12 hours I spent figuring those things and a few others out. -_- Still, when I look at the pretty transitions, I feel all silly happy again. I am going to upload some videos of Japan soon.

Aperture Science Case Mod

lostinjapan — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:46:24 +0000

Surfing around, I just ran into a really sweet case mod based on my new obsession: the videogame Portal. I wish I had this kind of ingenuity and time on my hands, though it sounds like the guy who did it was dodging finals and married life to get this done, and for his pregnant wife, no less. I love hearing stories about geek love.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/11/make-your-own-aperture-science-pc-workstation/

The Moon Looks like an Orange Slice

lostinjapan — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:42:19 +0000

And you would believe me if I hadn’t left my camera at school. It’s so orange and perfectly cut in half that I want to eat it. It would probably help my sore throat, the one keeping me up at 3am, if I could.

I am going to watch a movie at my computer, because I just keep choking every time I fall asleep.

Lonely

lostinjapan — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:19:40 +0000

I don’t want to admit it, but I am lonely tonight. I need to get myself to bed so that I can face tomorrow. I joined del.icio.us and set up a wordpress blog and got this whole thing running because my head wouldn’t stop hurting even though my fever has gone down. I wish I’d finished tweaking a different program instead, but what can you do when you feel hurt? I’m glad I was on my computer learning a bit instead of stuffing my face with fudge and watching Sleuth, which were two other options tonight.

Going to bed now. I’m sorry I wasted your time tonight, Kim.