Yesterday, i was home alone for a while and doing dishes and laundry. I was listening to an episode of the SETI Team podcast. It was really enlightnening and it had some challenging ideas about how we evolved the way we did. Like last time, I found this very interesting and listened intently to the whole thing. Last time, it talked about how cooking was a way we are different from the other species on this planet. This time, it was something else a little surprising.
Diseases, viruses and parasites have improved our lives.
Yes, that sounds a little crazy. Everyone is talking constantly about how should try and rid ourselves of the common cold, influenza and AIDs. Actually, this week is supposed to be my last week of classes but school was canceled because a few kids who just got back from the school trip have tested positive for "Swine Flu". That means that all this has come at a very relevant time for me.
The idea is rather simple but a little counter-intuitive. For example, they say Alzheimer's disease is one of the easy examples. Alzheimer's is apparently way more common in Western people like Europeans. It is far more rare in Asians. The genes that make your prone to having Alzheimer's disease later in life are actually really amazing at preventing... get this... the bubonic plague!
At the time, so many Europeans were dying of the plague it seemed at times that mankind would die out. But of course a portion of the population survived and went on to live despite the plague. Many of these people are carriers for Alzhiemers disease. That is because of a relatively simple genetic mutation that causes people to survive the plague in the short run, but eventually get Alzheimer'sdisease. But at the time, the average lifespan of a human being was way shorter. Therefore, for most people with that mutation, it seemed like a benefit without a downside! They would die by 40 or maybe even 30 and hey, they survived the plague! People have lived with this mutation for hundreds of years without noticing a downside until recently. When you are over 60 or so you get Alzheimer's.
The genetic conditions for the disease were there the whole time but it didn't manifest until our societies lifespan was dramatically increased. We think of Alzheimer's as being a horrible disease that kills people in a rather inhumane way. That is, by making them lose there memory and eventually their brain ceases to function. But again, this has been a wonderful set of genes for a large part of human history.
This brings many modern diseases into question. We say that things like AIDs are terrible and that is not in question. Everyone would like a cure to be found because there are so many people dying. But at the same time, it is hard to ignore that it is a part of our natural evolution and it could be causing good things for our future or it could be a by-product of something wonderful from our past.
For example, people have diabetes now and it is bad. Many people die from it each year, but the genetics and the diet that now cause diabetes actually in large part have help humans survive the ice ages of our past. We wouldn't have come this far as a species without diabetes. Yes, people right now hate it and wish we could cure it but we really should thank it for being here in the first place or we may very well have all frozen to death.
An interesting sidenote, the fact that diabetes helped us survive the ice age was discovered by accident when researching a frog. This frog in particular lives in a cold part of the world where each year it survives the winter by freezing solid and then thawing out the next summer. It does this by basically going into a diabetic shock that temporarily allows to freeze solid without dying. Frogs are both cute and genetically very awesome.
I was listening to WNYC's Radio lab this afternoon and they were talking about Darwin. A british biologist was talking about how his 6-year-old daughter saw a patch of flowers on the side of the road and said to her father, "What do you think those flowers are there for?" He wasn't certain how to answer her because she was young and he didn't want to give the seemingly nihilistic answer that, "they are not there fore any reason." So he asked her what she thought the flowers were there for. She said they were there cause they were pretty and they attracted the bees and the bees make honey for the people, that is what the flowers are for. He told her no, the flowers only purpose is to make more flowers and to pass on its genes. He feels like she understood him on some level, but I am not sure she would understand that until she was odler.
It is interesting to think how to raise a child in that situation. We want to be honest to our kids as much as possible but is passing on information like that while they are young helpful? I am not going to try and answer that question because I honestly have no idea. I would like to think that they would be more able to understand it when they get older if it was explained to them when they were young, but I am not sure if that is actually true. Honestly, they will probably just be confused about it and but content not knowing. When they are older they will have a bigger curiosity for that kind of thing. As an atheist, I will probably not speak about purposes for things like that or tell my kids about the meaning of life. Instead, I will insist that we are the meaning makers and different things mean different things to different people. Kind of a 'Nietzsche for Kids' approach if you will.
This is perhaps getting a little off my original intent for this blog entry, but that biologist on Radiolab mentioned something I didn't know. Having never read H.G. Wells' New Republic I didn't know that Wells used Darwin's 'Survival of the Fittest' (which keep in mind Darwin never said, it is just a famous paraphrasing of his work) to justify or at least permit a form of passive genocide. There are some scary lines about getting rid of the yellows and browns and blacks...
But anyway, next time you get sick instead of being upset, try and remember that that disease may be the reason or at least be part of the reason that we are still in the world today. And if you have diabetes and this global warming becomes and ice age well... you lucky bastard.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
What Makes Us Human / Cooking As Science
Yesterday, I was listening to a podcast by the SETI Group. It was the second part of a two part series about what makes humans unique from the animals. The first part covered the things that were traditionally cited as being unique in humans that have since been found to be true in many other animals. For example, they say that our brain size or language or our tool use is what makes us human. But we since discovered that may animals use simple communication and linguistic tools. We have discovered that whales have larger brains than us. We have known for a little while now that monkeys can use tools, but even some birds have been discovered using tools. There is a small South American bird that fishes worms out of wood by using a stick and there are crows in China and Japan that wait by the side of roads to throw nuts out in front of cars.
One of the new theories was something that caught me by surprise, but makes a good amount of sense. This is the theory that cooking makes us unique.
My first question was this: Certainly, I cannot think of another animal that cooks. But why is that significant?
It is significant because cooked food is more nutritious and therefore supports a life that requires more calories. These calories allow or brains to work harder and our stomachs and intestines to work less. The obvious reason that cooked food is more nutritious is because it is softer (if it is not overcooked that is!). This allows our stomachs to spend less calories in the digestion process and therefore we have a higher net total of calories gained. The second reason is that heating and cooking food breaks down and denatures proteins and other things so that they are more efficiently processed. If we eat raw meat we gain calories but perhaps from only like 40% of the food. If we denature the proteins by cooking them we get something more like 60% (these are not factual numbers, but I am just trying to express the general idea).
I found this very interesting. The podcast went on to say that in other animals like primates and birds, the ones that could more efficiently digest their food have larger wingspans or are smarter. Likewise, the ones that have small bodies and aren't smarter have to hunt less for food because they are gaining more nutrients from what they are getting. This allows them to survive a little bit better in their environment.
The podcast went on further to suggest (as SETI is want to do) that if we encountered another intelligent or one smarter than us, they are likely going to have found a way to use the extra energy in their environment (e.g. fire) to predigest their food. They will also likely have a lot of genes that allow for digestion of various different things. For example, humans can digest starches when most other animals cannot. Likewise, our bodies don't have to contain a lot of the organs that other animals need to obtain what they need from food. We cook our food so that we can digest the same amount or more with out multiple stomachs or extra intestines, stomachs etc.
There are some interesting implications that come from this. Of course, there are many kinds of animals that have complicated social structures, but they suggest that human society was greatly influenced by the need to wait between the time that food is found and when food is eaten. The fact that we kill a deer and then cook it allows for many opportunities for the food to be stolen by another human or animal. Therefore, our social structure became deeper and our language became more expressive.
Alone the same lines, I have been watching a TV show that many people who are a fan of Japanese anime may already know. The show is Full-Metal Alchemist. The show is about two brothers on a journey to restore parts of their bodies that they lost during an Alchemy experiment that went wrong. Alchemy is kind of like their magic in this world. They use it to make cities or things. They stop problems with alchemy like Samantha in Bewitched used magic to get the dishes done. There was a line in an episode I watched recently where they comment on how the first forms of alchemy started with cooking.
It occurs to me that the first science may well have started with cooking. I know that the creation of tools like bows and arrows, spearheads and flint knives could also be considered the first science. But real chemistry and physics probably started with cooking. We found that eggs changed when we applied heat and so on and so on.
This has forever changed the way I look at something I experience daily: cooked food! I hope everyone else found this interesting!
One of the new theories was something that caught me by surprise, but makes a good amount of sense. This is the theory that cooking makes us unique.
My first question was this: Certainly, I cannot think of another animal that cooks. But why is that significant?
It is significant because cooked food is more nutritious and therefore supports a life that requires more calories. These calories allow or brains to work harder and our stomachs and intestines to work less. The obvious reason that cooked food is more nutritious is because it is softer (if it is not overcooked that is!). This allows our stomachs to spend less calories in the digestion process and therefore we have a higher net total of calories gained. The second reason is that heating and cooking food breaks down and denatures proteins and other things so that they are more efficiently processed. If we eat raw meat we gain calories but perhaps from only like 40% of the food. If we denature the proteins by cooking them we get something more like 60% (these are not factual numbers, but I am just trying to express the general idea).
I found this very interesting. The podcast went on to say that in other animals like primates and birds, the ones that could more efficiently digest their food have larger wingspans or are smarter. Likewise, the ones that have small bodies and aren't smarter have to hunt less for food because they are gaining more nutrients from what they are getting. This allows them to survive a little bit better in their environment.
The podcast went on further to suggest (as SETI is want to do) that if we encountered another intelligent or one smarter than us, they are likely going to have found a way to use the extra energy in their environment (e.g. fire) to predigest their food. They will also likely have a lot of genes that allow for digestion of various different things. For example, humans can digest starches when most other animals cannot. Likewise, our bodies don't have to contain a lot of the organs that other animals need to obtain what they need from food. We cook our food so that we can digest the same amount or more with out multiple stomachs or extra intestines, stomachs etc.
There are some interesting implications that come from this. Of course, there are many kinds of animals that have complicated social structures, but they suggest that human society was greatly influenced by the need to wait between the time that food is found and when food is eaten. The fact that we kill a deer and then cook it allows for many opportunities for the food to be stolen by another human or animal. Therefore, our social structure became deeper and our language became more expressive.
Alone the same lines, I have been watching a TV show that many people who are a fan of Japanese anime may already know. The show is Full-Metal Alchemist. The show is about two brothers on a journey to restore parts of their bodies that they lost during an Alchemy experiment that went wrong. Alchemy is kind of like their magic in this world. They use it to make cities or things. They stop problems with alchemy like Samantha in Bewitched used magic to get the dishes done. There was a line in an episode I watched recently where they comment on how the first forms of alchemy started with cooking.
It occurs to me that the first science may well have started with cooking. I know that the creation of tools like bows and arrows, spearheads and flint knives could also be considered the first science. But real chemistry and physics probably started with cooking. We found that eggs changed when we applied heat and so on and so on.
This has forever changed the way I look at something I experience daily: cooked food! I hope everyone else found this interesting!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Alternate Presents / Phantom Tears of a Possible Future
Last night I had a dream that felt so real. It was a really emotional
dream and it was surprising how much I cried in my dream. When i woke
up, i knew instantly that i was a dream but it left me with a funny
feeling that i couldn't really shake.
dream and it was surprising how much I cried in my dream. When i woke
up, i knew instantly that i was a dream but it left me with a funny
feeling that i couldn't really shake.
My friend Mike had sent me a letter and it said he was getting married.
In real life, i know he is dating someone but in my dream he wasn't
marrying her. He was marrying some other different girl that i never
saw in the dream and her name was never mentioned. But i flew home from
Japan to see the ceremony. Monica came with me. We arrive and we put
on fancy clothes. She had a beautiful red dress and red shoes. She
finally found the red shoes she'd been dreaming of.
The night started well and it was a pretty standard wedding ceremony.
There was a dance in the dance hall attached to the chapel. Monica and
i danced and discussed or future together. We were happy and would
occasionally embrace and kiss and occasionally we would talk about how
we felt like it was a celebration of us and not a celebrate of Mike's
marriage. We joked and laughed and i welled up with emotional.
There were drinks being had and later on i found myself in the lounge
outside the dance hall with Mike. We both had loosened our ties and
were a little sweaty and tired from dancing. He said something that i
can't recall, but it was about how we had come to where we are now. He
said something else about how we used to be the way we were. Even if
this really happened, i am not sure i would be able to remember exactly
what he said because of the high emotions in the room.
We both stepped forward and hugged each other really deeply. I said
something like, "We aren't kids anymore i guess Mike. This really
proves it. We have to really be adults." He agreed and we both cried
together. I felt like an adult then. Actually, after reflecting on it
more through out my day today, i cannot think of a feeling where i felt
like more of an adult. There is no time in my actual life, my real life
where i have felt so much like an adult. I don't feel like i am as
mature in my life now then i felt in that moment of my dream. It was a
good feeling and i can't really say why. It is a little like my whole
life was practice up until that point and when i was to leave that
wedding the real life began.
I hope to feel that feeling again soon, in my life, my real life. I am
ready to do something with my life. These past few years in Miyazaki,
my improvements in my Japanese have definitely been my practice for my
life as a student in Tokyo which will be practice for my life as a
professor. I am almost there. That dream was like a little gift from
an alternate present or perhaps from my real future. It was a little
taste to inspire me and motivate me. I know that kind of real life
might still be a few years of graduate school away but I am so close. I
am so so close.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Badly Drawn Me / What True Romance Is.
Badly Drawn Boy is a wonderful artist that has a kind of sad tint to all of his music. It has been a long time since I regularly listening to his music. It is a beautiful kind of Jazz spin-off acoustic music. It is hard for me to explain.
I have been stressed out recently about money and getting into grad school. It turns out, both of the universities that applied for I got into. That is despite having been late a day in one of my applications and being told that I didn’t included something that I needed. I thought that I had included it. I gave up on getting into Keio University because I felt like I couldn’t please them after that. I got into Sophia University and I was very happy. Sophia University was my second choice in Tokyo but I was happy to get to stay into Japan.
Now that I have gotten into Keio University, I am filling out the papers for matriculation. I have had a very hard time getting a wire transfer done from the states so that I can pay my tuition. Today, I went to talk to my boss today for advice on getting an apartment, thinking that I had the paperwork under control. I was more concerned about whether it would be difficult for Monica and I to get an apartment together unmarried and with our being foreigners. My boss told me that she didn’t think that would be a big deal. But that lead into a discussion about the length of my visa. It turns out that my current visa ends on July 30th. I swear someone told me along the way that we were given some leeway time after or job ended to finish things up in our apartments and otherwise.
At that point, I didn’t really know what to say. My plan was to go ahead and get an apartment in August and move in a month early. I planned on going back to the states to visit California with Monica and to see my own family in North Carolina. My boss told me that she wasn’t sure I could rent an apartment if my visa was going to end in a few months or didn’t extend for a year so I can make a contract with the realtor. That was pretty scary but then she was explaining a little bit more of how the system works and it looks like we would have to be out of the country or fly out of the country on the 30th of July and my visa for Keio University would start on the 5th of September. That would mean a whole month in the states and that would be pretty fun. But it means that I would probably have to show up in Japan without an apartment but potentially a temporary 1 month apartment and then during that month have to go find an apartment. That doesn’t seem so bad but it was not what I planned and it makes moving in hard and it would be hard to have our stuff stored and then shipped to us in Tokyo or something. I don’t know how that is going to work.
The other thing is Monica’s visa. We are trying to find a way to have her stay with me in Japan. She says that if we weren’t together she would probably just go back to the states and that scares me. It makes me feel like I am an obstacle in the way of her future or something. We have been talking about getting married. I have never talked about anyone I have been with about getting married, though I have never been with someone like her before. I have been in a relationship for so long with someone who I felt such a deep connection too. I love her so much and find myself reaching for ways to express that and find myself having to use analogies about stars, great distances or the wide embrace of the sea. However, none of these analogies actually capture the depth of my love for her.
We have always said that we have no interest in having kids. That was at least up till a few months ago. Actually, it’s getting close to a year ago that we figured out what we would name our daughter if we had one. And we would have a daughter. We do not want to raise a boy. We are going to name her Lemon. And we are probably going to get her a different last name because we both are uninterested in changing our current last names. Her middle name is still undecided. This shows how serious we are about each other. I just turned 26 though and I am just about to be starting an intense language program followed by several years of grad school. I have always said that I would get married once I got my life together.
I have been listening to a lot of the Savage Love Cast. He says a lot of things about sex, love and marriage that I respect. I think that too many people get married to early. They have not figured out what they are going to do with their lives and they have a lot of steps to climb to get there. They may find it doesn’t work that way and they ran into a dead end. They have to go back down a few steps and climb back up in a different direction. I am getting, I think, to the last couple of stairs on the staircase and if I succeed in grad school I will be able to get a job as a professor at University here in Japan. This has been my dream for the last 5 years or so. I feel so close to it and yet still very far away because I know it will be several years before I have a degree qualifying me for such a position. I am not even totally sure that my Japanese language ability will stand up to the challenge yet.
I know I say this a lot in my blog, but I don’t really know where this entry is going. I am just trying to write a few things down in hopes that they will help me figure all of this out. I have to find an apartment and I have to find the next step on the staircase. I can very realistically see myself married to Monica in a few years But I am not quite ready to get married yet. I have talked to my mom and my sister about this a little bit recently. My mom loves Monica and at times I feel like she likes her more than me. My mom doesn’t know the answers either and she doesn’t claim to. I find her honesty very refreshing and even if that means she doesn’t have the exact words to make me feel better or to help me find that next step it makes me feel safe. My sister loves Monica too and would love to see us married, but she said quite simply, “When you are not ready you are not ready.”
That doesn’t mean that in a year or so I won’t be ready. I think Monica thinks that because I am not ready yet means that I won’t ever be and that is not true. I don’t think it is true. I am worried she thinks that it means that don’t love her or that she is flawed and I am struggling to show her that I do love her and that I don’t think something is wrong with her and that something is preventing me from marrying her. It isn’t like that at all. I think she agrees with me that people get married when they have their lives together for the most part and we are not at that point yet. That doesn’t mean we are going to break up and that doesn’t mean that we won’t work together to help each other get or lives together. That is a play on words. It is not a very articulate one but it shows that like Badly Drawn Boy says, “One plus one is one.”
I used to listening to Badly Drawn Boy when Monica and I first started dating. I wanted nothing more than to be with her but she wasn’t sure of our relationship and we were on strange footing living far away. We would ride the train to each other and we would have a great time together and not want to be apart but when we were apart she wasn’t sure if she was ready to be in a relationship. I was in limbo for a while with her not knowing if we were going to be able to be together and the whole time I was listening to Badly Drawn Boys music thinking of stratagems to be with her.
Now, I am sitting on the couch while she naps. I want nothing more than to be with her. I am seriously thinking about marriage. I am thinking about how much I love her. The footing is strange here again. We only have a place to stay for another month, our visas are about to expire. I am hardly apart from her except for when I am at work. When I am at work I want nothing more then to be at home with her. I was in limbo about grad school. Now, we are in limbo about an apartment and a visa.
Johnny Walker is cutting cats open to take their hearts and their souls. Just this time, he is explaining his plans to me in Japanese. I am going to be listening to more Badly Drawn Boy in the near future. But while Monica is asleep I want nothing more than to just sneak into bed next to her and say look, this is going to be ok. We are strong and we love each other. We are smart and we can do this.
But I can’t. When she is sad she has to be alone and she has to take a nap. She will talk to me about this more soon, but now I just have to sit alone listening to Badly Drawn Boy with my heart beating really fast and a tear in my eye. I want to finish the next chapter but I understand enough Japanese to know what the gory details of what Johnny Walker is doing to those cats.
I am scared and the person that calms me down the most is in the other room asleep.
I have been stressed out recently about money and getting into grad school. It turns out, both of the universities that applied for I got into. That is despite having been late a day in one of my applications and being told that I didn’t included something that I needed. I thought that I had included it. I gave up on getting into Keio University because I felt like I couldn’t please them after that. I got into Sophia University and I was very happy. Sophia University was my second choice in Tokyo but I was happy to get to stay into Japan.
Now that I have gotten into Keio University, I am filling out the papers for matriculation. I have had a very hard time getting a wire transfer done from the states so that I can pay my tuition. Today, I went to talk to my boss today for advice on getting an apartment, thinking that I had the paperwork under control. I was more concerned about whether it would be difficult for Monica and I to get an apartment together unmarried and with our being foreigners. My boss told me that she didn’t think that would be a big deal. But that lead into a discussion about the length of my visa. It turns out that my current visa ends on July 30th. I swear someone told me along the way that we were given some leeway time after or job ended to finish things up in our apartments and otherwise.
At that point, I didn’t really know what to say. My plan was to go ahead and get an apartment in August and move in a month early. I planned on going back to the states to visit California with Monica and to see my own family in North Carolina. My boss told me that she wasn’t sure I could rent an apartment if my visa was going to end in a few months or didn’t extend for a year so I can make a contract with the realtor. That was pretty scary but then she was explaining a little bit more of how the system works and it looks like we would have to be out of the country or fly out of the country on the 30th of July and my visa for Keio University would start on the 5th of September. That would mean a whole month in the states and that would be pretty fun. But it means that I would probably have to show up in Japan without an apartment but potentially a temporary 1 month apartment and then during that month have to go find an apartment. That doesn’t seem so bad but it was not what I planned and it makes moving in hard and it would be hard to have our stuff stored and then shipped to us in Tokyo or something. I don’t know how that is going to work.
The other thing is Monica’s visa. We are trying to find a way to have her stay with me in Japan. She says that if we weren’t together she would probably just go back to the states and that scares me. It makes me feel like I am an obstacle in the way of her future or something. We have been talking about getting married. I have never talked about anyone I have been with about getting married, though I have never been with someone like her before. I have been in a relationship for so long with someone who I felt such a deep connection too. I love her so much and find myself reaching for ways to express that and find myself having to use analogies about stars, great distances or the wide embrace of the sea. However, none of these analogies actually capture the depth of my love for her.
We have always said that we have no interest in having kids. That was at least up till a few months ago. Actually, it’s getting close to a year ago that we figured out what we would name our daughter if we had one. And we would have a daughter. We do not want to raise a boy. We are going to name her Lemon. And we are probably going to get her a different last name because we both are uninterested in changing our current last names. Her middle name is still undecided. This shows how serious we are about each other. I just turned 26 though and I am just about to be starting an intense language program followed by several years of grad school. I have always said that I would get married once I got my life together.
I have been listening to a lot of the Savage Love Cast. He says a lot of things about sex, love and marriage that I respect. I think that too many people get married to early. They have not figured out what they are going to do with their lives and they have a lot of steps to climb to get there. They may find it doesn’t work that way and they ran into a dead end. They have to go back down a few steps and climb back up in a different direction. I am getting, I think, to the last couple of stairs on the staircase and if I succeed in grad school I will be able to get a job as a professor at University here in Japan. This has been my dream for the last 5 years or so. I feel so close to it and yet still very far away because I know it will be several years before I have a degree qualifying me for such a position. I am not even totally sure that my Japanese language ability will stand up to the challenge yet.
I know I say this a lot in my blog, but I don’t really know where this entry is going. I am just trying to write a few things down in hopes that they will help me figure all of this out. I have to find an apartment and I have to find the next step on the staircase. I can very realistically see myself married to Monica in a few years But I am not quite ready to get married yet. I have talked to my mom and my sister about this a little bit recently. My mom loves Monica and at times I feel like she likes her more than me. My mom doesn’t know the answers either and she doesn’t claim to. I find her honesty very refreshing and even if that means she doesn’t have the exact words to make me feel better or to help me find that next step it makes me feel safe. My sister loves Monica too and would love to see us married, but she said quite simply, “When you are not ready you are not ready.”
That doesn’t mean that in a year or so I won’t be ready. I think Monica thinks that because I am not ready yet means that I won’t ever be and that is not true. I don’t think it is true. I am worried she thinks that it means that don’t love her or that she is flawed and I am struggling to show her that I do love her and that I don’t think something is wrong with her and that something is preventing me from marrying her. It isn’t like that at all. I think she agrees with me that people get married when they have their lives together for the most part and we are not at that point yet. That doesn’t mean we are going to break up and that doesn’t mean that we won’t work together to help each other get or lives together. That is a play on words. It is not a very articulate one but it shows that like Badly Drawn Boy says, “One plus one is one.”
I used to listening to Badly Drawn Boy when Monica and I first started dating. I wanted nothing more than to be with her but she wasn’t sure of our relationship and we were on strange footing living far away. We would ride the train to each other and we would have a great time together and not want to be apart but when we were apart she wasn’t sure if she was ready to be in a relationship. I was in limbo for a while with her not knowing if we were going to be able to be together and the whole time I was listening to Badly Drawn Boys music thinking of stratagems to be with her.
Now, I am sitting on the couch while she naps. I want nothing more than to be with her. I am seriously thinking about marriage. I am thinking about how much I love her. The footing is strange here again. We only have a place to stay for another month, our visas are about to expire. I am hardly apart from her except for when I am at work. When I am at work I want nothing more then to be at home with her. I was in limbo about grad school. Now, we are in limbo about an apartment and a visa.
Johnny Walker is cutting cats open to take their hearts and their souls. Just this time, he is explaining his plans to me in Japanese. I am going to be listening to more Badly Drawn Boy in the near future. But while Monica is asleep I want nothing more than to just sneak into bed next to her and say look, this is going to be ok. We are strong and we love each other. We are smart and we can do this.
But I can’t. When she is sad she has to be alone and she has to take a nap. She will talk to me about this more soon, but now I just have to sit alone listening to Badly Drawn Boy with my heart beating really fast and a tear in my eye. I want to finish the next chapter but I understand enough Japanese to know what the gory details of what Johnny Walker is doing to those cats.
I am scared and the person that calms me down the most is in the other room asleep.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Full Circle / 12 of 12
I am in such a good mood today. This entry is an attempt at figuring
out why. I woke up today at 6:40. I usually wake up at 5:30 and go
catch the train. I leave the house at 6:45. There is no way I can make
it on time so I send an email to my boss saying I wanted to take an hour
of my saved time off this morning so that I am not late. She says it is
no problem.
out why. I woke up today at 6:40. I usually wake up at 5:30 and go
catch the train. I leave the house at 6:45. There is no way I can make
it on time so I send an email to my boss saying I wanted to take an hour
of my saved time off this morning so that I am not late. She says it is
no problem.
I get up and I start getting ready, I wake up Monica who is usually in
bed when I leave. We start getting ready for work together and we are
watching the shows we normally watch. There is a horoscope feature of
Mezamashi Terebi, the morning show we always watch. But it comes on
after I am normally gone, so I never see it. Monica usually text
messages me to tell me where I am on the horoscope. I am a Gemini. She
is a Capricorn. She is number one today. Everything is supposed to go
well... She is going to have a really good for various reasons. I,
however, am ranked number twelve. Twelve of twelve. But I was in a
good mood and I say to Monica, "I don't know how that is supposed to be,
I feel pretty good and I don't have a busy day scheduled today…" She
says, "Well, you are late for work…" She's right. I am late and I hate
to be late. Whenever I am late I have tons of anxiety about it. But
today for some reason I didn't.
She leaves for work while I am still packing my bag up and I go down to
catch another train to head to work. I am rereading Kafka on the Shore
by Haruki Murakami. I read it almost 3 years ago in English. The book
was originally written in Japanese and I found a cheap copy of it at
Book-Off (a used book store) this past weekend. I picked up and read
the first page without any problems and I was shocked. Could I actually
read this deep philosophical book in Japanese? I, apparently, could. I
have been reading it on the train and after dinner a little bit each day
since. If it was an English book I would be very far through but my
reading speed in Japanese is about a third of my reading speed in
English, so it is a little slow going. But I understand almost every word.
On the train this morning, I get to the point where my favorite
character appears. His name is Nakata. He is 50 something mentally
handicapped man. He is humble and polite and has the ability to talk to
cats. He gets money from his brother and the government to survive but
makes money on the side finding peoples lost cats. He is really good at
his job, obviously, because he can go and ask neighborhood cats if they
have seen the missing cat around.
Reaching this part in the book I find myself grinning, hugely on to
myself. There train is by no means full, but there are a good number of
people on it. I wonder what they think of me, a white guy from America
reading a famous Japanese book and grinning like a fool. At this point,
I realize I have come full circle.
I arrived in Japan in August of 2006 to work 3 years. My 3 years is
almost up. On the airplane from America to Japan, I started reading
Kafka on the Shore in English. I landed and in my first few weeks I
found little time to read because of the excitement of starting my new
life in Japan. But I started reading it slowly again and I was making
new friends. One of those friends, was a Japanese-American girl named
Monica. She was reading Kafka too. We didn't notice this at first. I
was about 40 pages ahead of her. We started hanging out all the time
and talking about Kafka… of course we start dating and we have been
dating for almost 3 years now.
Now that my time is coming to an end here in Miyazaki, I find myself in
a weird position. I don't really want to leave Miyazaki Prefecture
because I have come to love it here. Changes can be so subtle or so
big. I am reading Kafka, again. In Japanese. I am reading Kafka on
the Shore in Japanese almost exactly 3 years from when I read it in
English in deep anticipation of my new life ahead of me in Japan.
My feelings about the book are the same. Beautifully written, the
characters are all so deeply intriguing. The way the cats talk to
Nakata about the how cats see the world strikes me as so profound still.
It feels like I am reading it in my native language because my
understanding feels so fluid. When I catch myself sometimes and say,
"Eric, this is Japanese. You are reading Japanese. It's not your
native language…" I am shocked. My Japanese is perhaps where I wanted
it to be when I first came to Miyazaki. I think I probably wanted to be
more fluent than this, but this is a huge milestone.
When I started reading Japanese books for the first time a while back, I
started reading things like The Little Prince or the Disney Aladdin
books. They were kid's books that were written in easy to understand
Japanese. I always wanted to read deeper philosophical books--Murakami
books. Or there is this neuroscientist that is often on TV talking
about how the brain works. I want to read all of his books too. But I
couldn't. I was frustrated by my confusion when picked those books up
and I saw that half of the words I didn't understand. More than half
perhaps. Being able to just pick up and read Kafka on the Shore like
this (without a dictionary on hand at all times) is like I have finally
made it up that long staircase. The one I have be climbing for years
now waiting to get to the place where the philosophical discussions
where happening. But I got caught up on the stairs playing with the
kids who had no interest in reading the top of the stairs. Aladdin and
The Little Prince are slinkys that I pushed down the stairs and chased
after. Kafka on the Shore is the knocker on the door at the top of the
stairs. I am almost ready to walk inside.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Pie Charts / The Economics of Me
I’ve been doing pretty well these days. Life has been good. But I spent a lot of money on my new computer and in paying applications fees for the universities I am trying to attend. I paid money to my loans back in the states and I found myself without almost nothing left over. I knew a long time ago that I was horrible with money. I am having a hard time really finding the direct root to this, but it seems to be linked to the lifestyle that I have.
Since I was about 14 or 15 years old, working at Laser Quest in Charlotte, I got into the habit that entertainment money was money spent eating out. Almost everyday after work, I would use my money to go out to eat with my coworkers and friends. It seems a little ironic now that I was working that job mostly to have money to go out with the good friends I made of my fellow employees. But then I entered college and I didn’t know how to cook. I started going to restaurants and hanging out with my friends there. My habit of food as entertainment continued and perhaps got worse. Also, I found myself going to a lot of the same restaurants that I was eating at during my Laser Quest days.
When I first came to Japan, when I was living alone, I felt like my paycheck was huge and didn’t know how to spend it all. I spent about 30,000 yen ($300) a month on my phone bill, talking to Monica, because I didn’t understand the plan and didn’t notice it was that high because it came out of my internet bill. The company that ran my home phone was the same as my internet company. When I learned to read the breakdown of the bill, I was shocked that I had spent that much for so long without noticing it. I don’t really have an excuse because I should have noticed my internet bill was unreasonably high.
Monica and I moved in together and my bills went down by a significant amount, but my transportation cost a lot more. An hour’s drive worth of gasoline and/or train tickets later and I was in roughly the same boat. But I bought an iPhone and my phone bill went up again. Monica and I started hanging out with our neighbors and spending more money eating that I had in Mimata. So I ended up roughly the same. Until my apartment with her really started to feel like home and we invested in books and furniture and other things. I had paid off my credit cards while living in Mimata, so I should have had extra money but I didn’t because of buying those household things.
I have a little bit of money in a savings account. But it is no where near where it should be. It is honestly a little embarrassing and pitiful that it is so small. I keep telling myself, at least I’m out of debt (except for student loans…). But that is hardly feeling like enough.
If I get into school in Tokyo, Monica and I will be moving to Tokyo. I will be a college student with, hopefully, a part-time job. Monica will get a part-time job too. Our income will be so, so small compared to what we are used too. Our apartment will cost about the same and our bills will probably cost the same too. I am going to have to find a different form of entertainment because restaurants are more expensive in Tokyo.
We looked for apartments online. They are way cheaper than we had originally thought, but they are really small still. We are going to have to make due with less things and learn to budget. I am worried that we will not learn how to do that, but we have to. We either learn to survive like that or we starve to death.
My father is going to loan me the money for tuition and things. I am going to try and become a university professor one day and hopefully that will be a decent living. I hope to be able to pay my father back and still be able to go to restaurants every once and a while. But it will be good to have broken myself of the restaurants-all-the-time habit.
I downloaded an iPhone application that is supposed to help me keep track of my expenditures and see where my money is going. I used to track things in an excel document but I haven’t done it in over a year and a half. I want to scare myself with how big the pie section for eating out really is. But I am broke right now. Payday is a week away and I bought the iPhone application anyway. It cost 600 yen ($6) that I could have spent on transportation or food instead. That is proof that I still have a lot to learn…
Since I was about 14 or 15 years old, working at Laser Quest in Charlotte, I got into the habit that entertainment money was money spent eating out. Almost everyday after work, I would use my money to go out to eat with my coworkers and friends. It seems a little ironic now that I was working that job mostly to have money to go out with the good friends I made of my fellow employees. But then I entered college and I didn’t know how to cook. I started going to restaurants and hanging out with my friends there. My habit of food as entertainment continued and perhaps got worse. Also, I found myself going to a lot of the same restaurants that I was eating at during my Laser Quest days.
When I first came to Japan, when I was living alone, I felt like my paycheck was huge and didn’t know how to spend it all. I spent about 30,000 yen ($300) a month on my phone bill, talking to Monica, because I didn’t understand the plan and didn’t notice it was that high because it came out of my internet bill. The company that ran my home phone was the same as my internet company. When I learned to read the breakdown of the bill, I was shocked that I had spent that much for so long without noticing it. I don’t really have an excuse because I should have noticed my internet bill was unreasonably high.
Monica and I moved in together and my bills went down by a significant amount, but my transportation cost a lot more. An hour’s drive worth of gasoline and/or train tickets later and I was in roughly the same boat. But I bought an iPhone and my phone bill went up again. Monica and I started hanging out with our neighbors and spending more money eating that I had in Mimata. So I ended up roughly the same. Until my apartment with her really started to feel like home and we invested in books and furniture and other things. I had paid off my credit cards while living in Mimata, so I should have had extra money but I didn’t because of buying those household things.
I have a little bit of money in a savings account. But it is no where near where it should be. It is honestly a little embarrassing and pitiful that it is so small. I keep telling myself, at least I’m out of debt (except for student loans…). But that is hardly feeling like enough.
If I get into school in Tokyo, Monica and I will be moving to Tokyo. I will be a college student with, hopefully, a part-time job. Monica will get a part-time job too. Our income will be so, so small compared to what we are used too. Our apartment will cost about the same and our bills will probably cost the same too. I am going to have to find a different form of entertainment because restaurants are more expensive in Tokyo.
We looked for apartments online. They are way cheaper than we had originally thought, but they are really small still. We are going to have to make due with less things and learn to budget. I am worried that we will not learn how to do that, but we have to. We either learn to survive like that or we starve to death.
My father is going to loan me the money for tuition and things. I am going to try and become a university professor one day and hopefully that will be a decent living. I hope to be able to pay my father back and still be able to go to restaurants every once and a while. But it will be good to have broken myself of the restaurants-all-the-time habit.
I downloaded an iPhone application that is supposed to help me keep track of my expenditures and see where my money is going. I used to track things in an excel document but I haven’t done it in over a year and a half. I want to scare myself with how big the pie section for eating out really is. But I am broke right now. Payday is a week away and I bought the iPhone application anyway. It cost 600 yen ($6) that I could have spent on transportation or food instead. That is proof that I still have a lot to learn…
Monday, April 20, 2009
がっかり / Slower Than Light Speed
Last Wednesday, I mailed out the first of my applications for grad school. It was for a school that was not my first choice but was my second choice. Everything was done on time despite me waiting till the last minute before getting the application filled out. Today was the due date for my first choice school. I had gotten most of it together, or so I had though, last week. I had not filled out all the paperwork but I had all the medical checkups done by the doctors and I had ordered all the transcripts and received all of the recommendation letters. I was planning on sending out the application on Friday of last week.
As I was getting the application together, I realized that I was missing a document that I needed. It was called the Pledge Form. I had not looked through this document in detail but seeing the description of it I thought it was just me signing a pledge to the university to uphold some kind of code of conduct blah blah blah… But when I opened it up to start to fill it out, I realized my mistake. It was actually a document that was showing my father or mother or some other guarantor to help me pay for school or to be a contact in case something happened. The due date for this to be received is today.
I emailed my dad and sent him the form but he had trouble opening it because of a lack of Japanese language support. I contacted him over the weekend and I faxed it to him. He filled it out and scanned it. Then he emailed it to me. This all happened at about 3 in the morning here in Japan. I lost some sleep to this but also to anxiety.
Today is Monday, the 20th of April. My friend George’s birthday. It is also the Columbine Disater’s anniversary and Hitler’s birthday. It is the day before payday and it was the due date to RECEIVE these documents. In my head, I thought it was supposed to be received on Tuesday, but that doesn’t make sense cause I knew that Tuesday was the 21st and therefore payday. Yet, somehow I still thought I had until tomorrow for my application to be received. When I realized that today, I panicked a little bit. I checked in the fine print of the document to see if it said that it had to be postmarked by that date. Sophia university, for example, requires that there documents be sent by registered mail and postmarked by the due date. The applications can be received after the due date if the postmarked date is correct. But my first choice university says that the documents have to be received by the due date.
I asked my coworkers if there was a same day service offered by the post office in Japan and they said they thought it existed. So I rushed down to the post office and asked them if they could get this envelope to Tokyo by the end of the day. They said it wasn’t possible and that the fasted method was by 10 tomorrow morning on the 21st. Sad. I bought a money order from the post office for the amount of 100 dollars. That is the application fee and I thought I would just try and mail it anyway and see if I got lucky and they accepted it late through some miracle.
But I remembered that there was a Kuro-Neko service down the street. It is a Japanese fedex like company. I ran down there and was like can you get this delivered by today? They, sadly, told me the earliest would be tomorrow in the afternoon. So, I ran back to the post office and I had them send it so that it arrived by 10 am on Tuesday. A day late. I am hoping that maybe they will accept it as it is postmarked by the due date. But I am not sure they will. I feel like my 100 dollar money order will go to waste. I feel like I have no chance at getting into that school now.
I am really upset now because I only was going to apply for two schools, my first and second choice. Then I would have two chances to get into grad school. Now, all of my eggs are in one basket. I have one chance to get into school here..
Let’s hope I get lucky.
Update:
I just called the school and told them I wanted to let them know that my application would be late. I told them I had a problem getting the Pledge form printed and that I was very sorry it was not arrive in on time. The lady spoke kindly on the phone but her response was, "Our policy is that the materials must arrive by today. The screening of your application will be effected negatively by late arrival."
I suppose that is good news because they will actually be looking at my application. Or it at least sounds that way. Even if I am effected negatively by my application being late, there is still a chance that I will be accepted if they really liked my essay or if my grades were better than everyone else that applied.
I know that is very unlikely thought. Sad.
As I was getting the application together, I realized that I was missing a document that I needed. It was called the Pledge Form. I had not looked through this document in detail but seeing the description of it I thought it was just me signing a pledge to the university to uphold some kind of code of conduct blah blah blah… But when I opened it up to start to fill it out, I realized my mistake. It was actually a document that was showing my father or mother or some other guarantor to help me pay for school or to be a contact in case something happened. The due date for this to be received is today.
I emailed my dad and sent him the form but he had trouble opening it because of a lack of Japanese language support. I contacted him over the weekend and I faxed it to him. He filled it out and scanned it. Then he emailed it to me. This all happened at about 3 in the morning here in Japan. I lost some sleep to this but also to anxiety.
Today is Monday, the 20th of April. My friend George’s birthday. It is also the Columbine Disater’s anniversary and Hitler’s birthday. It is the day before payday and it was the due date to RECEIVE these documents. In my head, I thought it was supposed to be received on Tuesday, but that doesn’t make sense cause I knew that Tuesday was the 21st and therefore payday. Yet, somehow I still thought I had until tomorrow for my application to be received. When I realized that today, I panicked a little bit. I checked in the fine print of the document to see if it said that it had to be postmarked by that date. Sophia university, for example, requires that there documents be sent by registered mail and postmarked by the due date. The applications can be received after the due date if the postmarked date is correct. But my first choice university says that the documents have to be received by the due date.
I asked my coworkers if there was a same day service offered by the post office in Japan and they said they thought it existed. So I rushed down to the post office and asked them if they could get this envelope to Tokyo by the end of the day. They said it wasn’t possible and that the fasted method was by 10 tomorrow morning on the 21st. Sad. I bought a money order from the post office for the amount of 100 dollars. That is the application fee and I thought I would just try and mail it anyway and see if I got lucky and they accepted it late through some miracle.
But I remembered that there was a Kuro-Neko service down the street. It is a Japanese fedex like company. I ran down there and was like can you get this delivered by today? They, sadly, told me the earliest would be tomorrow in the afternoon. So, I ran back to the post office and I had them send it so that it arrived by 10 am on Tuesday. A day late. I am hoping that maybe they will accept it as it is postmarked by the due date. But I am not sure they will. I feel like my 100 dollar money order will go to waste. I feel like I have no chance at getting into that school now.
I am really upset now because I only was going to apply for two schools, my first and second choice. Then I would have two chances to get into grad school. Now, all of my eggs are in one basket. I have one chance to get into school here..
Let’s hope I get lucky.
Update:
I just called the school and told them I wanted to let them know that my application would be late. I told them I had a problem getting the Pledge form printed and that I was very sorry it was not arrive in on time. The lady spoke kindly on the phone but her response was, "Our policy is that the materials must arrive by today. The screening of your application will be effected negatively by late arrival."
I suppose that is good news because they will actually be looking at my application. Or it at least sounds that way. Even if I am effected negatively by my application being late, there is still a chance that I will be accepted if they really liked my essay or if my grades were better than everyone else that applied.
I know that is very unlikely thought. Sad.
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