The Lost Posts

The destination vs. the journey (the future vs. the present)

2008-11-10T12:23:00.000-08:00

I’ve said before that I usually plan things up to two years in advance, that I’m patient and can see my plans through. It seems this time I can’t really do that. And even if I could, I’m not trying. No, for once I’m taking things as they come.

Why? I don’t know, really. For a change perhaps.

One time, while I was still in Kirkland, I really wanted a pizza. Not just any pizza. I wanted Piecora's New York Pizza in Bridle Trails. Unfortunately without a car and with ridiculous suburb bus routes, I had to walk three miles to get there. It’s a long walk, but it’s no problem for me, not just because I’ve gotten used to walking over the last few years, or because I used to be a long distance runner (though the endurance training helped).

The walk was no problem because I saw the pizza in my mind and I could taste it. And I knew with each step I took, I was getting closer to what there was no substitute for. That pizza was what I wanted. And I walked the three miles and I got what I wanted.

Ok, so like, that was the first time I went. But the second time I did this, something occurred to me during the walk. Like, it’ll be great when I get there and have my pizza…but on the other hand, what’s the point of walking this distance if I’m not enjoying anything along the way?

Getting into the JET Program was a year-long process. Some people couldn’t or didn’t want to wait that long so they went to Japan through NOVA or the like (poor saps). Sure, they got there faster, but JET would have been a lot better.

I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to say here...um... Everything until now was simple. I could make my long-term plan and stick to it. It gave me something to look forward to so I’m never stagnant. And that’s part of who I am and what I feel compelled to do.

But it’s starting to take a toll on me because in all this planning and working towards what’s ahead, I never (and I have never) enjoy(ed) the present. And I’ve missed out on a lot because if things in the present disrupted my plans for the future, I’d have nothing to do with them (the things in the present, I mean).

People are telling me different things about what I should be doing now. And this not long after I had the realization that the less I listened to others about what I should do, the happier I was.

When I sat down to write this post, I just wanted to say that I’m looking into teaching positions in Seattle and Tacoma while I wait to hear back about international student advisor or study abroad advisor positions I’ve applied for. So maybe I can stick it out and stay in Seattle.

But the point is, here’s my point, dude…The point is I don’t know what will happen. I can’t plan it. With JET and teaching overseas, the doors opened easily, and maybe I made the mistake of believing I was in control of where went and what I did. And now I’m in a place where the doors don’t open so easily so I may have to go with the flow a bit.

I can’t make doors open. I can only knock on them and hope someone answers. But if they don’t, I’m just not sure how long I can stand around, in spite of how patient I am.

But I would wait, if it were inevitable and only a matter of time, as JET was. But it just doesn’t seem like it this time. I guess we’ll see. Maybe I just need something to do while I’m waiting.

Looking at my options, the teaching thing might be my best option right now, and it’ll let me stay in the area. There were a lot of things I liked about teaching even though I never felt very good at it. If the advisor positions never come through, I think I’d enjoy teaching. But if I were accepted into an advising position, I’d take that. ...But part of me doesn’t want to make another two-year plan (If the position were out of state).

I don’t know what will happen and I don’t want to think about it. I think and I plan too much. At some point, I’d like to realize an opportunity when it’s there…not in hindsight as I usually do. For once, I’d like to enjoy the present. I don’t want to walk to the end of my life and not know what to do when there’s nothing more to walk towards.

A change in the wind (Part 2)

2008-09-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

This is a bit of a callback to the post I wrote in Season 1. It’s kind of interesting to read now what I thought then. I wrote A change in the wind nearly a year ago when I was still in Taiwan thinking about what I would do in Seattle and how long I would stay there since at that time I was of the thinking of taking life in one-year chunks.

I don’t know. A lot has changed in short amount of time since I’ve returned to the States. And doing something different or moving someplace different…or even the idea of doing that…every year or so is starting to seem tedious. And as I mentioned in some recent post, I don’t really feel like going on another adventure…like, overseas.

But I still feel that need to move towards something. Another goal. The next thing. And I’m considering also, the things that are tying me to Seattle. And I’m thinking now that maybe there are only a few things holding me here. And one of them is that research project I left mostly finished just before leaving for Japan on the JET Program.

I’m going to be going up to Bellingham later this week to finally finish up my undergraduate project and tie off that loose end of my life. I just thought I’d rather do things in a different order, like, you know, get a job first and get settled, then go up and finish the project. But I’m just getting fed up with this thing hanging over my head.

And the thing is, I’m thinking if I can get this finished, then maybe I won’t feel quite as confined to Seattle. ‘Cause here’s the thing. My ESL job ends on Wednesday, then I’ll be going to Bellingham, then I’ll be going to Virginia to see my family, then I’ll come back in time for Aki Matsuri (Japanese Fall Festival). After that, things seem pretty open-ended as to where I could go or what I could do next.

Well, I’m kind of getting sidetracked from the reasons I’m writing this post. Basically, I’m trying to move away from the attitude of “when you know something is going to end, you appreciate it more”. I think, for once I’d like to stick things out for longer than a year or two…well, no. That’s not quite it. I guess I mean, I’m trying to change my attitude about feeling the need to change things on a yearly basis.

The other reason I wrote this sequel, is that I want I want to take on the good attitude I had when I wrote “A change in the wind” and remember the lesson I learned from Japan and put into practice in Taiwan.

I was in a period of darkness for the better part of a year in Japan before getting out of it. And I’m certainly in a period of darkness now. Although the reasons for my current state are completely different than when I was in Japan, the principal is still true. I need to move out of it and on to something else. I don’t want to be in my current state for that long.

Anyway, that was my point. So, I mean, some things are the same and some things are different since I wrote that post. So, I was just reflecting on it as a way of helping me get out of my rut. So, yeah. I know the right answers on what to do…it’s just…Well, things take time. I’d be lying to you if I said that I wasn’t completely miserable right now. But I want to get myself to move on.

Hmm…I probably could have written this post a little better, but…oh, well.

The House

2008-07-13T00:19:00.000-07:00

I’m standing in front of an old house, made of unpainted, dark wood. It’s on a hill. It’s daytime. My friend drives up to the house. She’s driving a station wagon. I haven’t seen her in a long time. I’m happy to see her. I think, “Since she’s here now, I don’t have to wait til later to visit her.”

Inside the house. It’s old. Two or three stories. My friend isn’t there. I panic a little. But I remember in the past, I never had to look for her. We always found each other. So I trust it will happen again.

I go upstairs. They aren’t stairs, but an escalator. It’s like a department store, but the interior is still the same old wood as the rest of the house. At the top of the escalator, there is an entry to the left. I walk into the room.

It’s a large room. There are clothing racks with clothes haning on them. I see her. She is picking out clothes to buy. I’m relieved. We leave the house.

She packs the station wagon. She drives away, down the hill. She’s gone.

I’m standing in front of the house. I walk back in.

It feels dark inside. In the room, there is a small table with a red sofa near it. Everything is dusty and old. There is a presence.

A little girl is standing next to the sofa. She’s wearing a dress. She’s a ghost. She says she needs my help. She says there’s another ghost in the house…upstairs. She needs me to help her escape.

I turn to look around me, in case the other ghost is there. As I do, I notice that the girl starts to change. She grows taller. Her face becomes hideous. When I turn to face her again, she slowly changes back. I realize what’s happening. There is no other ghost.

I don’t remember what happens next.

A change in the wind

2008-05-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

When you know something is going to end, you appreciate it more.

Recently, I've been feeling more of a pull to stay in Taiwan longer than a year. On the other hand, I've been feeling a stronger pull than ever to return to the States, much stronger than I ever felt when I was living in Japan (in some respects, anyway). Let me explain.

Before I left for Japan, I knew that I'd be staying there at least two years (and that's how long I did stay there). But a few months after I recontracted for my second year (around late spring in first year), I entered into, well, darkness. I hated Japan, hated my life there, and enjoyed nothing. And worst of all, the end seemed nowhere in sight.

It took 5-6 months to leave that darkness, but about halfway through my second year, things got better. I started to socialize more and started to enjoy my life more. And I think a large part of that... In fact I know it was mainly because the end of my time in Japan was coming near. (I even said I'd never return.)

As I've mentioned in posts before, I want to make sure I remember what I learned in Japan while here in Taiwan. Though, some lessons learned are more difficult to apply here, mainly because of the difference in...Well, just the differences, period (I'll explain what I mean in a second). But after Japan, I decided that I'd take things one year at a time, as far as overseas jobs go. Not gonna commit to two-year blocks. One-year blocks ensure that the end is always in sight.

But as for the differences between my life in Japan vs Taiwan, well, it's one difference. In Japan, my life outside of work was convenient and nice, but my work life was miserable. In Taiwan, just the opposite. My life outside of work is miserable but my job is wonderful.

Well, I'm getting a bit off-track here. Anyway, why the change in the wind? Let's forget what I said two posts ago. That was just venting. Remember that one or two posts before that, I said things were resolved and I was looking at the positive aspects of the coming six months. Some things are worth more than money.

I won't repeat all the positive things because I've already posted them, but I will add to the list. Well, I guess there's just one thing to add to the list. It seems that in spite of my lack of confidence as a teacher, I'm doing something right. My students (of all ages) seem to unanimously like my classes. Some of my adult students have expressed to my managers their refusal to have another teacher, even if one is available.

(A lot of workers like to believe that they are the pillar of the company and that if they left, the company would fall apart. I know better than to think that way, as I have worked for companies long after fired employees said that, and the company kept on going. Still, it's nice to have positive feedback and know that you are making a contribution. Something I rarely felt in Japan.)

So with this kind of job satisfaction, what's the rush to get back to the States? Supposing my life outside of work got better? Would I still only be enjoying Taiwan simply because I know that I'll only be here one year? Well, in part, yes. As I've mentioned before, my schedule is quite exhausting, and I don't have weekends. The thought of slugging through this for another year is discouraging, and could cause me to fall into that misery I felt in Japan.

However, the other thing that runs through my mind is what happened when I returned to the States from Japan. That is, I felt I had plenty of time (the rest of my life, really) to be in America. The rest of my life. There was that feeling of permanence. That the end was nowhere to be seen. And wasn't that the problem in Japan? So what do I do? This will likely happen again.

As I mentioned, though, I am being pulled towards America. I am being asked by my friends (more now than when I was in Japan) when I'll be coming back. Also, my professor at Western (WWU) has contacted me about finishing my research project. The timing of one year in Taiwan seems much better. It seems perfect. I knew before I came here that this would be my last overseas venture. And it seems now that I will be able to place myself back in Seattle and pick up where I left off. Something I wasn't able (or didn't want) to do when I got back from Japan. In that sense, what good can a second year in Taiwan do?

When you know something is going to end, you appreciate it more.

Killdeer vs. the Rock (not the wrestler)

2008-03-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

Much stronger than the crab.

People say that time heals everything. But supposing time doesn’t mean anything to you? Then what good is it at healing? Well, but it’s not really the time that heals, it’s just time allows you to forget. But what if you can’t forget? Well, then it’s going to be with you always.

I’d mentioned throughout Season 1 the lessons I learned from Japan and tried to take with me into Taiwan. The main one being that I couldn’t be passive about my happiness. I had to decide how things were going to be. This, perhaps obviously, goes beyond just coping with living in different cultures, but relates to many things in life. But I’m also finding some limitations in simply deciding how things are going to be.

It’s generally accepted that passiveness is easy to fall into. It really takes no effort. Don’t make conscience decisions. Let other people make decisions for you. Don’t try to change things. Just let them stay the way they are…or let them change by themselves. Passiveness is the lowest energy state.

So if that’s true, it should also be true that to fight or prevent passiveness takes effort. You have to make conscience decisions. You have to try to change things and not accept the way they are. And so, it takes energy.

I’m not sure what the antithesis of passiveness is called, but using my handy MS Word thesaurus, “proactive” seems the best choice, but it sounds like I’m talking about something completely different. I guess other terms are “upbeat” or “positive”. Those seem better.

Anyway, passiveness and, um, upbeatedness can be applicable for our actions and/or how we view things in life (or attitude). And I mainly mentioned them with regard to attitude. Like with Taiwan. I went there, excited about how things were going to be. But then, they weren’t the way I thought they’d be.

Well, I won’t go into all this again, but basically, I decided how the experience was going to be. You know, changed my attitude. I don’t know if it’s momentum from the experience in Taiwan, or if I’ve been thinking this way for a while, but in any case, I’m finding passiveness harder to accept than to fight. I don’t think I was ever good at just accepting things the way they were.

But here’s the thing. I’m now seeing a difference between being passive and accepting the way things are. They’re closely related, but different. The difference is in attitude. Deciding how things are going to be depends on your attitude. Accepting things the way they are doesn’t. You can have any attitude with that, positive, negative, or neutral.

So then, the options become changing the way things are (proactive action), accepting the way things are (passiveness, independent of attitude), and deciding how to look at the way things are when you can’t change things (proactive attitude).

But what if there is a more grounding truth? Something that is true no matter how you “decide” to look at it? And you can’t change it… All that’s left is to accept it. But as a person who is generally against accepting things as they are, well, this becomes a predicament.

There’s a huge rock in the sand. At first, I think I can move it. But that doesn’t work. So I try to look at it another way. But I can’t deny what is there. So I try to move it again. No use. Knowing my nature, my persistence and patience, it’s possible I could try again, if it was important enough. But what if it doesn’t want to be moved?

…

The Wart’s lesson from the Pike (the largest fish in Sir Ector’s moat)

2008-02-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

“There is nothing except the power which you pretend to seek: power to grind and power to digest, power to seek and power to find, power to await and power to claim, all power and pitilessness springing from the nape of your neck…

“…Love is a trick played on us by the forces of evolution. Pleasure is the bait laid down by the same. There is only power. Power is of the individual mind, but the mind’s power is not enough. Power of the body decides everything in the end, and only Might is Right.”

- The Once and Future King, by T.H. White

Superhero Personality Quiz

2008-01-07T16:25:00.000-08:00

Your results:
You are Hulk

Hulk		80%
The Flash		80%
Spider-Man		70%
Robin		60%
Green Lantern		60%
Superman		55%
Catwoman		55%
Batman		45%
Wonder Woman		45%
Iron Man		40%
Supergirl		35%

You are a wanderer with
amazing strength.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Random Rambling (with soundtrack…sort of)

2007-12-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to: Could've Gone Mad - Poe

Well, how do you know if I'm really listening to this? Maybe I'm really listening to Fix You, by Coldplay. In fact, that is what I'm listening to. Oh, wait. The song just changed. Now I'm listening to Ultra violet, by U2.

Anyway, just thought I'd write stuff. I've always wanted to just ramble on my blog, but I never really do that. Well, that's arguable, I suppose. Things are going well at school...oh. Now I'm listening to Square One - Coldplay....

Anyway, yeah. Things are going well at school. I've made a breakthrough in my lesson planning. I guess I mentioned that I was getting more efficient in my last entry. But here's my secret...that I'm anouncing on the worldwide web. So basically, because my classes are usually right on top of each other (as in, literally no breaks between classes), I have to have all my classes planned for before the first one starts.

What I did before was plan them in the order I had the classes. But what usually happened was that I spent to much time planning the first few classes and I sometimes didn't get to the last class (or couple of classes)...oh, Now I'm listening to Lemon Meringue - Poe... So now what I do is plan my last class first and work backwards until I get to my first class. See, I know I'm gonna leave time for that one, because it's the most pressing. It's a mind game, really, but it works. And I'm leaving myself enough time to eat dinner, so I have more energy now. So, yeah. I think I'll make it through the year. As for....ok, now I'm listening to Swallowed - Coldplay... Is this annoying you? Well, too bad ;) As for the extra hours I'm expecting to receive (mentioned, like, two posts ago), I may not have to take those classes after all. But if I do have to, I think I'll be able to handle it.

I was was looking at plane tickets yesterday. Not to Seattle this time. I was looking for tickets to Singapore. As I mentioned in previous post, my next holiday is in October. Seemed far away...Sorry. I'm listening to Til Kingdom Come - Coldplay... Seemed far away at the time, but now I see it's the month after next. Talking with several people has made me curious about Singapore. And maybe I'll be able to see an old co-worker I had in Japan. This plan for the Singapore trip, the trip to Japan in February, ...even the journey here to Taiwan were often quite a long time in the making. By the time I go to Japan next February, that plan will have been two years in the making....Now listening to Until the End of the World - U2...

I think that if I can continue to follow through with these plans, it may give me confidence that I can visit people wherever they are, so long as I don't mind the time that passes between. And hopefully, they don't either.

I've never thought much about time. And I have been pretty emphatic about not letting time be an influence on my decisions....Currently listening to New Way Home - Foo Fighters... If I let time pressure me, I'll make rash decisions. I don't want to do that.

But not just that. When people say things like, "That was a long time ago", it never seems that way to me. And at any rate, it seems irrelevant. It's what happens that matters, not when...Now I'm listening to Haunted - Poe... People will patronize the young and say they don't know any better. But I don't know. I'm older now than those days when people said I was young and, although I've changed my thinking (sometimes in major ways), I think there are some things that are just the same as when I was young. ...Now listening to The Hardest Part - Coldplay... Feelings, for example. *long pause* I don't know where to take it from here. But I was told that when I get older ( I was told this from childhood through high school, maybe even into college) that my feelings will change as I become more mature.

Love, for example....Now listening to Talk - Coldplay...When young people are in love (especially in high school), they're told by older people that it's not really love. And I believed it at the time. Then college comes around, and suddenly, people are adults, and love is mature now. But I never really saw the difference. I guess we could argue, or need to define love, but I'm not trying to get philosophical.

My point is... Now listening to Enough Space - Foo Fighters... Here's my point. My point is....I don't know what my point is. Just, not much seems to change as I get older... Now listening to What If - Coldplay... And if things don't change as I get older, then why should it matter how much time goes by? And why should older people patronize the younger for being foolish? How much wiser have they actually become? ...Now listening to My Hero - Foo Fighters... Well, those are my random thoughts. There is no conclusion. This cold continue in another post next week, or perhaps years from now.

Last song: Speed of Sound - Coldplay

Honesty and Direction*

2007-10-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

I remember one time when I was in college, I received one of those forwarded emails… This one was a survey asking about your preferences, likes/dislikes, etc. Like I think one was, “Do you like bacon bits or croutons on your salad?” I think I put that I like both.

One of the questions was, “What do you look for in a potential mate?” I don’t remember what I put for…oh, wait. Yes I do. I put some smartass comment like, “Do you mean ‘mate’ as in the way it’s used in Australia?” or something to that effect.

But another one of my friends put that she looks for honesty and direction.

I think a lot of people (mainly girls) say that they look for these things. But I’ve considered this over the years and found it to be a complete load of what-have-you. In fact, I would go so far as to say that honesty and direction have ensured my single status.

Let me explain.

Let’s start with honesty. Here’s the truth about honesty. No one likes honesty unless it happens to be something they want to hear. Most of the time, honesty will either make them angry or scare them away.

So best just to tell people what they want to hear.

Direction. Hmm, sounds nice. But really, direction only acts as bait to lure someone in. Perhaps you have direction when you’re single. But once you’ve bagged someone, your time gets diverted toward them and you can no longer maintain that direction.

Oh, you can talk about all the ideas you have of what you’d like to do. But what’s the point of talking about those ideas if you have no intention of heading in that direction?

So in summary, what you are really looking for in a mate is someone who tells lies and floats through life. There’s your winner.

*Please note: This entry may contain sarcasm.

"Is itt a movie?" (The soundtrack to my life)

2007-10-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

Opening Credits: Going Out (from Kikujiro soundtrack, Joe Hisaishi)
Waking Up: Island in the Sun (Weezer)
Average Day: No Surprises (Radiohead)
Flahback(?) 1: All in the suit that you wear (STP)
Train ride: Long Journey (from the 2046 soundtrack, Shigeru Umebayashi)
Fladhback(?) 2: Bygone love (from Ashes of Time soundtrack)
Stranger in a strange land (Wandering the city): Talk (Coldplay)
Flashback(?) 3: Reminiscence (from Ashes of Time soundtrack)
Stranger in my own country: Ana Ng (They Might Be Giants)
Flashback(?) 4: Hey, Pretty (Poe)
Which way to go: Square One (Coldplay)
Transition: The Rain (From Kikujuro soundtrack, Joe Hisaishi)
The Future: Find the Way (Mika Nakashima)
Life’s Good: Haircut (Pavement)
Hope: Quizas, Quizas, Quizas (from In the Mood for Love, Nat King Cole)
Inner Contemplation: Comptine D'un Autre ete L'apres-midi (from Amelie, Yann Tiersen)
The untold secrets, death scene, and closing credits: Angkor Wat Theme Finale (from In the Mood for Love, Michael Galasso)

Outtakes
The train station: You Look So Fine (Garbage)
The blackout: Take My Hand (Dido)

Life Lessons from Poker

2007-09-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

So, while I was down in Cali, during the day we’d go hiking, swimming, sailing, or just loafing on the beach. At night in the cabin, the available activities changed. You can read, play board games, talk, or play poker.

Now I was never much of a poker fan. I tried playing it a bit the last time I was in Cali, but I didn’t take to it. Well, somehow seeing Casino Royale got me more interested. So I gave it another chance.

As I played it and had the rules/tactics of the game explained to me, I started to see strong parallels to life. And I wondered if that was coincidence or if the inventers of the game planned it that way.

I’ll write down the rules/my impressions:

- You play, make your decisions based on the hand you’ve been dealt, and based on what you presume other people have (but you really don’t know, and more often than not, you never will know).

- And in turn, other players are making decisions based on the hands they’ve been dealt and on what they presume you have.

- You also don’t know which cards will turn up from the dealer.

- Early in the game you have the option of checking what other people will do, betting money, or folding (backing out).

- Sometimes you have to bet before you even know what you have in your hand.

- Later in the game, there comes a point where, once you’ve put a good amount of money on the table, you lose that option of folding. (I was not entirely clear how strong this rule was, but in any case it was strongly suggested that it was not in my interest to back out after so much was put into the pot, not just by me, but by others).

That last rule was especially profound to me.

I asked my friend ways I could improve in the game (since I always lost). He mentioned that it’s better to be more of a realist than an optimist. If you keep getting stuck on one possibility that you want rather than being open to letting some hands go, or finding other options, you won’t win in the end.

This is simply because you don’t hold all the cards. You have no control of the cards that are dealt to you, nor what others will decide to do with the cards they have been dealt, nor what cards the dealer will turn up. You can only control what you do with the cards given to you. But that hardly counts as control at all when it comes to the big picture of winning the game.

One of the biggest problems I had when I played was that I always had this strong desire to know what cards the other players were holding and/or what cards the dealer would turn up.

And while I could play it out, put more money on the table, and eventually force people to show their cards, sure I would then know what people had, but to what end and for what purpose? You just look like an idiot when you don’t have anything good in your hand, you generally won’t win if you play that way, and other players who want to win the game get annoyed when that’s done as it detracts from the main goal of winning the game.

I asked my friend, “Doesn’t it bother you not knowing what cards the other player(s) had?” He said something to the effect of, “Yes, it bothers everyone.”

Well, if you know me and/or you follow my blog, you can probably guess that I don’t like this game and its rules. But it certainly gives insight to the post I wrote on the life we choose. And I realized that if I don’t play by these rules, I can’t win. Or at least, it’s unlikely. I suppose you can play your own way, but perhaps not many people are going to want to play with you, certainly not the ones who want to win.

But I guess the analogy to life can only be taken so far. As complicated as this game is, it’s nowhere near as complicated as things in life, where there are different versions of the game (within a country and between countries, but I’m not getting into that).

I wonder if I can win this game. We are not all dealt the same hand, so we are not all living the same life. And with little control, there is no guarantee you will win in the end.

But…what is it to win the game? That’s what I have a hard time seeing. I consider also the lyrics in the song by Sting, “Shape of my Heart”, where there is some unwillingness to play by the rules.

And I’m also uncertain if in life we are really stuck in the confines of similar rules as in poker. I don’t know.

I used to think I had control. The only thing that didn’t go my way was I didn’t make it into the military. In everything else, I got what I wanted…maybe not in the amount of time that I would have liked, but I thought persistence, patience, and optimism got me there eventually. And I’m reluctant to give up that notion.

The life we choose?

2007-09-18T20:14:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been told that you are a product of your own decisions? Probably. I know I certainly have. But like, most of us are aware that while this statement may be true, it has to be balanced with other factors like your upbringing, environment, and what is usually described as genetic predisposition.

I held those factors in some sort or balance from college to…well, somewhat recently. But it was in recent years…like within the last year or two that I started to give more credence to choices (making decisions) over upbringing or predisposition. Something that I just now considered while writing this is that upbringing and genetic predisposition are essentially constant, or at least things we can’t change, for the most part because they occurred in the past. But making decisions is always something we can do now to change what will happen in the future.

Still, I’ve felt recently that upbringing and predisposition have a certain subtle power that work quietly while we delude ourselves into thinking we have the power to make whatever choices we want in life. I mean, sure we can make decisions, but the question is, why do we make the decisions we make?

I was taking the bus up to Seattle from Tacoma, and I sat next to this guy with a close haircut and a big knapsack. (Tacoma has a lot of people in the military). He asked me how far Seattle is and where the train station is. I told him it takes about 45 minutes and that I’d be riding past the train station so I’d let him know which stop to get off at.

I suppose that could have been the end of our conversation, but I was curious so I asked him if he’d just returned from overseas or something. As it turned out, he’d just been released from prison on a minor offense. And this day was the first day of freedom he’d had in…I think 52 months.

The experience he had influenced his perspective quite a bit. And one of the realizations he’d had was similar to one I’d had in the past year – that life is what we make of it and it’s up to us to decide how we look at things. He said, “This bus ride, for example…it sucks. But if this is the worst thing in my life right now, it isn’t that bad.” (He’d been riding buses all morning. This was his third transfer.)

It seemed from talking with him that his experience had caused him to see things differently and make new decisions in his life. However, I also found from talking with him more, that his recent sentence was not his first. He’d been in prison before. With that history, I started to wonder if he really was going to do anything differently in his life or if he’d end up right back where he was. And if he did, then why, if he’d learned from the experience before.

So I started to wonder about the decisions I’ve made in my life and why I’ve made them. Why I do things the way I do. And the answer is…I don’t know.

At the end of Season 1 and going into Season 2, you may recall that I started to feel a sense of power, of control of my life. That I could do what I wanted. And I had considered the logic or justification for my decisions. But until recently, I neglected to consider why I see things the way I do in the first place. And now that I’m considering changing course and doing things differently, I’m suddenly finding the barriers of my upbringing and predisposition to be much stronger than I realized…which is causing me now to feel I’ve trapped myself. It’s like, I’ve seen life a certain way and have done things a certain way for so long, it feels like I’m stuck.

Why am I so focused on what I do and where I want to go? Why am I so inflexible? Why am I patient? Am I making decisions to be this way or am I just doing what comes naturally to me? If someone tells me that I should be more flexible or to live for the moment, aren’t they just telling me what comes naturally for them? Couldn’t I turn around to them and say that they should be more patient and see things through, and work in the direction they want to go and not to lose focus? And if they tried that, could they do it?

Or would they find, as I have, that they are stuck in the life they’re living? That it’s not fate or predestination we’re living, but that we seem to be prone to make the decisions we make.

It’s difficult for me to accept this because I’ve seen people make life-changing decisions so I believe…well, not just believe, I know it’s possible. But you have to really want it. Although, I think sometimes, experiences in our life can force us to change. Like when you hit a rock.

Well, I hope that guy I talked to on the bus can make the changes in the life he wants. And I hope that I can, too.

Proposal for an alternative marriage setup

2007-09-18T20:13:00.001-07:00

Finally! It’s here. This is the first draft, but I’m sure it will be revised/ratified over time.

Um, before I go into this, I’d like to give a small disclaimer/follow-up to what I said before. I said that things are “tolerable” when you know they will end. Mmm…that sounds a bit negative. The positive side would be that you appreciate things more when you know they will end. Well, I guess I did say that at the end.

But even so, with that said, it’s not to say that I don’t wish some things would last forever. I do wish some things would last and I wish there were someone that would stay in spite of all that changes.

And it’s because of this desire that I’ve come up with this marriage setup. The intent is to help ensure that a marriage will last. The way marriages are set up now are flawed and run counter to the human condition, even though they are meant to be something solid.

Before I explain my proposal, I’ll list the pitfalls of marriage and/or life.

- Everything gets old, no matter how wonderful it was at the beginning.
- Once things get old, you don’t appreciate them anymore, and you take things for granted.
- After a while, the grass starts looking greener elsewhere.
- You want what you don’t have and when you have it, you don’t want it anymore.
- The same can be said with people. You spend enough time with a person, you’re gonna get tired of them. Once you get tired of them, you’re not going to appreciate them and you’re going to take them for granted. Finally, you start looking at other people.
- In a regular relationship, this is where the couple will likely (and perhaps should) break up. But in a marriage, you no longer have that option, which is strange because in spite of the fact you’ve arbitrarily volunteered yourself to a life sentence, the human condition doesn’t change.
- But here’s another weird thing. At least, in a regular relationship (as in, non-marital), you do feel the sense that you could lose the person you’re with to someone else if you stop caring for the person you’re with or take them for granted.
- But in a marriage, people lose that sense that they could lose what they have simply because they’ve signed a contract. And they get lazy and stop trying once they’ve bagged someone. So the stability that a life-time contract was supposed to give ends up becoming a weak foundation.
- Another problem is that there is too much expectation from marriage. People are looking for that one person who is right for them and will meet all their needs. Well, people need a lot of things, which often contradict each other if you’re expecting all of them to come from one person.
- The last thing is, and I mentioned this before, forever is too long. It’s not even comprehensible. And well, I guess the rest of your life is technically a finite amount of time, but whatever.
- Anyway, so what do most people say to these problems? They’ll say, “That’s life”, or “That’s just the way it is.” As if marriage was something that came out of the natural world. It was invented! And with most things that are invented, we look for ways to improve it, make it better, especially if there are problems with the current model.

This is the way I would set up a marriage.

First of all, dealing with this problem of everything getting old or getting tired of being around someone all the time.

You get tired of someone when you’re around them all the time. Well, how can you not be around someone all the time when you live with them? When I was in university, I had roommates for the first few years. They were good friends of mine. And what do most people say about rooming with your friends? “Don’t room with your friends if you want them to stay your friends.” And sure enough, I ran into problems and in one case almost lost a good friend as a result. So what ended up helping? When I lived on my own, I got along better with all my friends.

So why don’t we apply this to marriage? If spouses didn’t live together, they’d likely get along better. They’d have their own space, and because they didn’t live together, they would not get tired of each other and they’d want to be together. Basically, you’d be maintaining a state of never having what you want, and therefore, continuing to want it.

You’d also avoid stupid little disputes about how to load a dishwasher or how to hang towels. And your little annoying habits wouldn’t be much of an issue, either.

An issue that does come up, however, is when you have children. Well, there are a number of ways to solve this. Having separate dwellings could work but it might be a pain. I propose to purchase a duplex…one that is side-by-side. One side belongs to one spouse, the other side belongs to the other spouse. Since you both own the duplex, you can do whatever you want with it. So I would take out a wall (in my mind, I picture a two-story side-by-side…doesn’t even have to be that big). Then you have a big family room, but in principal you still have your side, and your spouse has the other. You still arrange things in your half the way you want. After all, it’s still your space.

So that takes care of a number of problems right there. But there’s still the problem with becoming overly comfortable in a lifelong contract.

Again, a lifelong contract has the problem of making you lazy. You no longer have the fear (or as much fear) that you could lose the one you’re with. So you take the one you’re with for granted. And you start to take less care of your body as well. Granted, merely being physically attractive is not important. I don’t mean this in a superficial way. But not taking care of your body is definitely an adverse response to the comfort of having someone for life.

A lifelong contract also poses a problem going into marriage, making it one the most stressful things you can do in life. That just doesn’t seem right to me. Who can possibly know who they want to be with for the rest of their life? Why should anyone be forced to make such an unrealistic decision? We are always growing and changing. Just like when you date someone, you eventually change, grow apart, etc. like I’ve mentioned in previous posts.

And there is, again, the problem with not appreciating what you have when you know you’re going to have it forever.

I propose shorter, renewable contracts. Broken into more manageable lengths of time. This will accomplish three things. 1.) It will make marriage less frightening to get into, 2.) It will bring back the fear that you could lose the one you’re with, causing you not to get lazy and take them for granted, and 3.) You don’t have to make the unreasonable choice of choosing who you’ll be with for the rest of your life.

(Note: I would propose the length of the contracts be lengthened effective immediately when children come into the picture, but only until a certain age, like, 18 or something.)

Finally, the expectation of marriage. To be honest, I’m really unclear on this matter. I’ve asked married couples why they decided to get married, but I get all kinds of answers. My thinking is that it would be to start a family. Other than that, I just can’t understand why anyone would want to get married and I suspect most people don’t really consider what they’re getting themselves into.

But I think the main problem is the expectation that you’ll be happy with one person for the rest of your life and that they will be everything you need. If it didn’t happen with other relationships you were in, there’s no reason things will be any different with your spouse.

As far as how to resolve issues of other people coming into your life while you are married…mmm, I think this part of my proposal could get controversial. So I may leave it alone for now. But at any rate, all you’d have to do is make it to the end of your current contract whereupon you could make changes.

I think this is all I’ll put down for now. I’ll post this again over time as I make changes to it. For example, I’ll start to consider the lengths of the contracts.

I’ll add this as a final thought. Many people would suggest to me that learning to live together and getting past differences helps you learn to compromise and grow. But I think compromising and learning to get along causes people to become tired and apathetic.

The method to my madness

2007-09-18T20:09:00.000-07:00

The ideas were flowing through my mind last night (er, this morning at around 2:30 AM) as to what I would write in this entry. Now they’re gone. This is another reason I don’t like writing. I often forget what I wanted to say. I’ve mentioned this before. In fact, come to think of it, I’m realizing that my recent entries are just repeating stuff I’ve said before. Not all of it, but, enough.

I think I was going to write about the thought process I went through that led me to travel and live overseas on my own in the first place and give some insight as to why I’m still single. I think some people are wondering. The latter is a bit more difficult to answer, but I can say that since the days of my last one or two years in university, it’s been a pretty conscience decision.

In this entry, I can pretty much kill two birds with one stone, answering both things in one, linear story. The question is, will I be telling the truth, or just justifying my actions with excuses. Well, if it’s not the truth, then this is what I fooled myself into believing was the truth.

So, like, in university I attended a lot of biology seminars (I was a bio major as you know, or can see in my profile). And at one seminar, a guy was talking about some research he was doing on, well, some sort of songbird. In fact, I think it may have been a song sparrow. He was comparing variations in songs individual males used to attract females and the mating success.

By the way, this has nothing to with answering why I’m single. I only mention it because I thought the research was interesting.

But what did have a profound effect on my thinking towards relationships, specifically marriage, was what he said at the end of his presentation. Someone asked a question about…well, I don’t remember exactly what it was, but something that would have required more research to answer…something that was within the speaker’s grasp had he continued to work on that project. But he answered that he hadn’t continued with the project because he got married and couldn’t spend that much time in the field anymore. That’s what hit me.

Now mind you, I don’t think he was using that as an excuse or that he regretted not continuing. But to me, I thought, “What a waste. Here he was doing this work that few people, if any, were doing, and he gave it up to do something that everyone does.” That was a turning point for me.

Well, I guess I need to give a bit more information. That by itself couldn’t have been a turning point if I wasn’t already losing faith in relationships. So let me go back a bit. I know I said this would be a linear story, but come on, you’ve read my posts before.

Ok, so like, from jr. high to high school…well, wait. No before that. My parents told me I should never go steady (I know. No one says steady. Whatever, ‘go out’) with anyone when you’re young (ie: jr. high/high school). As it was, in jr. high and in high school, I never saw much point to it. I watched other relationships. The same thing kept happening over and over again. Two people were attracted to each other, they went out, got tired of each other, then broke up. It didn’t matter how long they lasted, a month, a year, a few years…it all ended the same. So what was the point?

Still, though, I became interested in girls along the way. By around university, I kinda thought, ‘well, I’m young, but not that young. Other people are going out. People even get married when they’re college age.’ But I don’t know. Nothing really worked out.

Towards my remaining years in university, leading up to the above mentioned seminar, I just gave up, realizing I was wasting my time. Better to do something that I wanted than to chase after nothing. I was really busy in those last years of university anyway. ‘Last year’…hell, I was busy for all the years. Anyway, I just focused on my studies because I wanted to make it out alive.

But going back to that seminar, when that guy couldn’t (or didn’t) continue his research because of marriage, to me that equated to marriage being the end of a person’s dreams. I considered that I might be able to accomplish more with my life if I stayed single.

There was another important factor, too. The fact that all my life it’s taken me on average, twice as long to do something as others (from tying my shoes to taking exams). I figured I’m not going to be able to do everything I want in my life, so I’m going to have to choose some things and not others. I decided to be happy with being single and do what I could during that time. And I guess that pretty much sets the stage (and answers the second question: why I’m single).

So, why did I decide to live overseas? Well, part of it was because I decided that as long as I was single, it would be easier to travel. There was no one to question me or keep me in the US.

Hmm, you know, surprisingly this is the more difficult question. I thought the other one would be. But the traveling thing has really evolved between my decision to go to Japan and where I am now. I don’t just mean ‘now’ as in I’m in Taiwan now. I mean as in where I am in my feeling about traveling and living overseas. Because I think I mentioned in the second epiphany entry in Season 1, whatever got the ball rolling more than four years ago is slowing down.

In fact, I don’t think I’m even going to answer that first question, at least not the long version. How much do I need to say?
I traveled to Japan because I’d studied Japanese for three years in high school. I wanted to learn the language better by living in the culture (a linguistics class I took in university inspired me as well as a former student of my high school Japanese teacher).
I was tired of the usual thing in America; graduate, get a job, get married, get a family (I think I already discussed this above). I wanted to live day to day in another culture, not as a tourist.

That was Japan.

Taiwan was quite different. And I’ve probably already addressed why I’m here in Season 1 (beyond just wanting to see my Japanese students graduate). But I can’t remember if I mentioned everything, and one reason I came to Taiwan was because when I returned to America from Japan, I missed living the less than ordinary life. But certainly, you can never recapture that feeling of visiting another country for the first time. Still, I’m glad I’m here, but as I told my co-worker in Singapore, it’s losing its novelty. And to tie this in with my realization from that biology seminar, I’m not so sure I’m actually accomplishing more as a single person than a married person or someone in a relationship. And, yeah. I’ll end it there.

Epiphany #3

2007-09-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

So this is it. The long awaited third epiphany. Don’t want to build it up too much, but this is the one that ties the first two together.

The first two, I had in Singapore and they were written about in Season 1. The first was described in Killdeer vs. the Crab, where I recognized I needed someone.

The second happened two days later. I talked about it in The JET Afterlife. That’s a long entry so I’ll summarize. It was concerning time. It bothered me that people would be passive and let time and distance separate them and lose contact. I decided to try and overcome this by keeping myself in a position where I could travel anywhere to see the people that mean the most to me.

While I was able to overcome the distance, I couldn’t fight the effects of time. It wasn’t enough to cover the distance. The separation could still occur.

Putting the two together.

In my recent posts I described a rock I couldn’t move and the life-changing event. Those two things happened at the same time, as a result of one person. A loss that I couldn’t cope with for a long time. It knocked me to the ground and took the wind out of me…or I guess I described it as being submerged.

I used to be cynical in order to cope with these matters. Who cares? There will always be someone else. Nothing lasts forever, so why bother? And that would be a reason never to get attached to one person. And I was never after any short-term gain, so I couldn’t do anything frivolous or meaningless.

So how do I cope in a more positive way?

It just hit me today. And it may not be profound to some of you. And, really, I’ve heard it before, but sometimes something that is said can have a very different meaning depending on the attitude you have when you hear (or read) it. Here it is.

There’s going to be more than one right person for you in your life. So it’s not enough to simply find the right person. It has to also be the right time.

The best another right person you meet at the wrong time can be is a friend. Unless there’s value in something short-term. (I guess it depends on how you see things. I’m trying to see value in short-term things, mainly the present, as the past and the future are quite long, but I’m more interested in long-term gain.) Or unless you’re going to make a change in your life and go in a new direction.

The rest of your life is a long road. Best to pull over from time to time to make sure you’re still headed in the direction you want (or wanted) to go. I still reject the idea floating down a river, going with the flow. But I can see (better now) that there are things I can’t control.

Epiphany #2: The JET Afterlife

2007-09-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

“What is it about this JET experience that makes people think it’s the best thing they’ve ever had, that makes them wish they were back even though when they were there, they couldn’t wait to leave?”

Well, I keep going back and forth over which entry I’m going to write next, but I’ve chosen to write about the second epiphany. I’ll write about the zoo next time. It may be more relevant to ex-JETS, but I’m sure there are some parallels that can apply to anyone.

I’m not sure how this will go. In some respects, this will be easier to write about than the first epiphany because it’s less personal. On the other hand, this one has more tangents and it keeps evolving. So it could be more difficult to write about. I’ll try to stick to main ideas, but just know that there will probably be a lot more to it than what I write and that this epiphany is more subject to change…as this one has to do with time.

I won’t go into detail about my time in Singapore for this entry. But a quick timeline: I was in Singapore from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday morning. I already talked about Saturday in my last entry. Now, I’m skipping a bit to Monday evening.

Monday evening, I met with my JET co-worker from my first year. I wasn’t entirely sure what we’d talk about. We never really got along well in Japan. But still, meeting her was what got me curious about Singapore in the first place. And when was I going to be there again? So of course, I wanted to meet with her.

Originally, the plan was to meet for dinner, but she ended up working late, so we just had a drink and chatted.
My uncle once said that people mostly talk about two things, the past and the future…not the present. In knowing this, I often try to avoid talking about the past and future too much. (But you know, my thinking is, the present is a pretty small portion of our lives. The past and the future make up a greater portion of our lives, which gives more things to talk about. But I think his point was that people either live in the past or the future instead of living in the present. Maybe I’ll comment more on this at the end.)

Anyway, I try to keep things in balance. However, the one thing my co-worker and I had in common was that we had lived and worked at the same school in Japan. So, naturally, we talked about that. Actually, she was the first ex-JET I’ve met with in person since I, myself, left the program. So it was nice to be able to talk about the experience.

But we talked about JET a bit more than I thought we would. She’d left the program a year before me, so it’s been about two and a half years since she left. I figured it would be a small part of our discussion. I mainly wanted to catch up with her. And since we didn’t have much in common, I was glad we were having a drink instead of dinner, for fear of running out of things to talk about. But she’s the one who took the conversation in that direction. She did most of the talking that night. And it got me wondering…

What is it about this JET experience that makes people think it’s the best thing they’ve ever had, that makes them wish they were back even though when they were there, they couldn’t wait to leave?

Perhaps I’m putting words in people’s mouths. However, the general feeling is that ex-JETs miss the program when they leave. Though, maybe it’s not just JET. After all, most things are better looking back than they were at the time. But this seems different. I don’t know. I don’t have time to summarize what made JET such a good experience. Maybe…well, wait. Let me say this first.

Going back to the subject at hand. So things are better looking back than they were at the time. People also say you only remember the good times. But the thing is, I haven’t found that to be the case. Maybe something’s wrong with me, but I remember everything…the good and the bad. I remember the bad just as much as (sometimes more than) the good. I realize JET was wonderful, and there are things I miss about Japan, but even in hindsight, I don’t, for a second, wish I’d stayed a third year. (I protest, too much. I must be lying.) Ok, maybe, if I could have put up with the nonsense for another year, it would have been nice to have stayed. But I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate it. I think the only way to appreciate JET is to leave it. You just can’t understand what you have til it’s gone. And if you know what you have, then you want to hang on to it all the more (in which case, great. Stay the three years).

Well, neither of these were the epiphany, but like I said, I realized a lot of things from this trip. I just rambled a bit. Sorry, sorry. I just get a bit carried away sometimes. So, um, right. The epiphany….I can’t remember what it was now. Crap. Something about time.

Ok, after I had met with my co-worker, I kind of felt it was a bad thing to have talked so much about JET (the past). She had been out of the program longer, so what good was it for me to remind her of a time that was over? I think that was it. That was the epiphany. (Or extrapolate that to the bigger picture, and that is the epiphany.) But I emphasize “was the epiphany”.

At first I thought it was bad to have brought back memories of a time that was over, but like I said earlier, it wasn’t all bad. I said it was nice…at least for me. I wasn’t sure about for her. I wrote an email thanking her for meeting with me and that I enjoyed reminiscing about the JET Program. I didn’t figure she’d respond to it, so I held on to the above epiphany. However, she did respond saying that she enjoyed catching up and talking about JET, in which case, the epiphany is null and void.

The danger of writing an epiphany of time (or anything I write with some air of finality) is that it’s subject to change with time.

Well, that’s the meat of what I have to write. I’ll close with some offshoots of the epiphany. But if you need to take a break…use the restroom or get a glass of water, you may do so now. I’ll mark your place right here.
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How well, did I get over JET? I lasted six months in the US before I came running back overseas. And why am I here in Taiwan? To experience something new? Or an attempt to recapture something I lost when I left JET. Taiwan is becoming more and more a base of operation for my objective in Japan, primarily to see my students graduate high school. That’s not to say that it’s a waste, but if I’m only here for Japan, aren’t living in the past?

It remains to be seen whether attending the graduation will be worth it. Will it be too late? Will it mean as much to me as I had hoped when I’m freezing in that gym? Will it mean anything to the students? Or will it be pathetic that an old teacher had nothing better to do than return to a school he hasn’t worked at for nearly two years? Well, as I mentioned in an entry a long time ago, one of the things I learned when I left Japan, you can’t be passive about it. You have to decide whether or not an experience is going to be good or bad. Don’t wait until it’s gone (counter to what I wrote above).

Epiphany #1: Killdeer vs. the Crab (or What the Crab Taught Me).

2007-09-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

A worthy adversary, this crab.

I guess I should write this sometime. The problem is, my trip to Singapore was a while ago now, so the details of the events surrounding the epiphanies are fading from my memory. But maybe that will help me get to the point more quickly. (Yeah, right.)

So the first day in Singapore was great. After arriving at the airport, I took a shuttle van to my hotel. It was cheaper than a taxi and easier than transferring two times on the MRT (subway). Plus it allowed me to talk with other passengers. As it turned out, everyone on the shuttle was in Singapore for the first time. Two were from Zimbabwe, two from Israel, and two from California (though not originally, I don’t think). So it was kind of fun to talk with them.

Got to my hotel around 2 PM, dropped off my stuff in my room, and went out to find a late lunch. Around the corner was a nice courtyard to a very fancy hotel (or perhaps a timeshare property) with various food establishments. Most of them seemed closed, but there was an Italian place open, so I had a margarita pizza.

With food in my stomach, I was now ready to look around.

My hotel was by Singapore River, which I followed out to Merlion Park (pictured two posts ago). Along the way, were some cool-looking buildings and a lot of restaurants (which I bookmarked in my mind for later. I always plan my day around food.) Also saw signs for events that would be happening that evening, like an Octoberfest, and a number of concerts along the river. All these events were happening later in the evening, so I continued to walk and look around for the next few hours.

I know, you’re waiting for the epiphany. But that didn’t happen til dinnertime. And I have to set it up first. I have to tell you how well the day was going first, before I tell you how it suddenly turned miserable.

But first, let me say this. One of the things I enjoyed about my experience in Japan is that I went there by myself. When you go places and do things by yourself, you don’t have to agree with anyone on anything. You just do what you want. I like that. I’m not a very flexible person anyway. Though, I am incredibly patient. And the two compliment each other nicely. People have criticized me for being inflexible, but I would argue that when you are inflexible (or uncompromising) and you have patience, you’re going to outlast anyone or anything that stands between you and what you want.

But inflexibility and doing things/going places on your own has its setbacks, too…

So, it was getting late. I started to follow the river back in the direction of my hotel and looked for a place to have dinner. I came across an outdoor seafood restaurant that sat on the river and decided to eat there.

I was pretty hungry, so I had a hard time deciding what I wanted. The stingray sounded interesting, but it looked too similar to a steak (the menu had pictures). I was recommended the crab. Sounded good. I hadn’t had crab in a long time…and I soon remembered why.

What followed was most enduring, painstaking process I’d ever gone through to acquire food. The amount of work that went into breaking this crab apart was not worth the small amount of meat I extracted from the shell. And the thing was covered with oil and garlic, which was tasty, mind you, but it made the process more miserable (I hate getting my hands messy).

But I’m a patient person. So I worked at it. However, when I looked a big clock across the river, I realized that I’d been at this for nearly two hours…and I was still hungry. I became frustrated. And that’s when it hit me.

I can’t do everything by myself. All the power I felt from having control of everything…being able to do anything I want whenever I want…seemed meaningless now.

But that wasn’t the epiphany. It had nothing to do with the crab or me needing help to eat it. Or if it was, it was only part of the bigger picture.

I needed someone.

I wanted nothing more than for there to be someone on the other side of my table. People have told me this before, but I’d rationalize my position. But when a dead crab on your plate reveals this to you, it’s hard to argue with it. But I’m pretty sure I already knew it before the crab even came. The novelty of doing anything I want and going anywhere I want is wearing off.

When I finished my dinner, I had eaten most of the crab. But it had won. I tried going to those other events mentioned earlier, but they were ending by the time I got there. It seemed time had a bit of a victory over me, too. I walked home defeated. And so ended my first day in Singapore.

But thankfully, it did not ruin the rest of my trip. And, really, it hadn’t ruined that day, either. I’m glad it happened. The next day, I went to the Singapore Zoo (perhaps I’ll write that entry next). Then the day after that, I had a second epiphany.