Not much happening. Need to find a job. I think the only way I can get a job in Japanese is to start freelance translating. Not sure if I want to do that right now. But it might be nice to get paid for doing something like that. I definitely need to keep up my Japanese and I've been trying to do that. There's a lot of kanji that I don't remember and a lot that I have yet to learn. I guess I can burn the midnight oil and study during that time since I do my best work at night. Especially since I don't have to wake up early. Hmm...translating might be good for me.

Okay...hmm...have you ever wondered what the wannabes do for a majority of their life? I'm kind of wondering if I'm a wannabe. Not committed to actually putting in the effort to becoming something. Well, if the natural world taught me anything, you need to eat and drink healthy, and exercise to become strong. It's true for anything. And if you don't put it to use, you'll lose what you gained earlier. If you eat and drink junk and don't put what you know to use, then you definitely won't look good at all. Metaphors...gotta love language.

Hmm...I told one of my friends that I'd play against him in Ultimate Jump stars...still need to get my characters evolved. I got creamed by the computer on the deathmatch. That's sad. Anyway, there's a lot of characters in that game. It's going to take awhile to get everything in that. Man, how could a small ds cartridge hold so much info?

Oh well. Anyway, enough babbling. I wonder if I could coin the term, wannabe dreams?

I'm always wondering...why do people review games before they're coming out and other people find them helpful. It baffles me why people listen to ordinary people who probably have no idea what the game is about. The only people who do are the people in development of the game or people who have actually played the game. I don't know, but I think that I'm going to stop wasting my time reading Amazon reviews. Especially ones in Japan that are written 3 months before the game is set to ship. Dragon Quest Swords for the Wii was the one I was talking about.

Anyway, maybe I should go to sleep. I think I'll feel better once I wake up and stop wasting time in front of my computer reading stuff by people who don't have any facts about the game at all.

Another thing that I am disappointed in is that Gamespot came out with a preview of Valhalla Knights and because of that, I went out and bought the game in Japan. Now that they are playing the English version of it, they saw that it wasn't a great game at all. They rated it about a 5.4/10. One weakness about Gamespot is that they don't have anybody who can understand Japanese, so when they go to the Tokyo game shows or play Japanese titles that they have acquired, they have no idea about what the content is about. So, with that said, they can only understand a little bit about the game. What they really need to do is hire someone who can read Japanese and who is a gamer and can write articles in English. I think they had someone before who did that, but don't now. Oh well...I know now not to trust the hype about a game before the people who write the articles actually review the English version of the game. I also think that maybe I should find a different place to read video game articles also. Hmm...

Or, maybe I should stop reading these articles and stop coveting video games that I don't need and beat all the ones that I have before I decide to look into buying other games. However, one thing though that I must say, sometimes if you meet someone whose video game experience you trust in that'd probably be best instead of reading video game reviews. However, in my case, I'm at the age where my friends don't have a lot of time to play video games and I have to rely on my own judgment.

But man, Okami was one awesome hit that I'm glad that I listend to and bought in Japan.

I skipped fellowship tonight. I thought that it was last night, but apparently they sent out another email saying that there are street signs saying that you can't park from 6am to 6pm on the road at my friend's apartment. So I missed out on the DS party. And my friend who has a psp also. But there's always next week. Man, my friend in Japan wants me to play Ultimate Jump stars for the DS. It's better than Jump Super Stars (the first one), but still my characters are nowhere near as powered up as his are and I suck at the game. Hmm...maybe that's some incentive to play it more. Got to beat him at Ultimate Jump stars. Yes, I must baby!

As I'm getting readjusted to the US, I'm finding that my Japanese skills are becoming poor again. It's true that if you don't use it, you lose it. Most of my experience in Japan was speaking and listening in Japanese. I did read some stuff, but if they had English, I just used that instead, because it was easier. Yeah...you would too if you had to find where you needed to go in a hurry. Unless it was more crowded in that area, then I used the Japanese.

Hmm...when I think about Japan, I kind of wonder...I've started to forget what it's like there. It'll probably come back to me if I return, but man, is my memory of how things were so short? I still remember the complaints, general types of classes, how to get to each school, the bottled coffee and just the fact that I never could understand everything that went on at the schools, but what I do remember the most is that the kids, at least most of them, liked me. I always felt like I was never sure if my lessons were making any impact on them. Some schools were tougher than others. Some teachers didn't get along with me...but they didn't say anything. Some students just didn't respect me. But overall, it was a positive experience for the most part. However, I felt like I didn't really belong in Japan.

Maybe if I stayed longer, I could have gotten to know more Japanese or developed deeper relatioships with the teachers and students. But I'd say that it would be pretty hard to do that if I didn't learn anymore Japanese. Anyway, I'm tired right now. Maybe I should go to sleep and stop thinking about the past.

Wow, man, so I have a semi contract job that goes once every other week. I won't get paid much, but at least I'll be working with some of my friends. I need to find a job that will be steady and pays me decently. I'm not sure if my parents will move yet, but I'm kind of worried that they will. I know for sure that I'm going to stay in my hometown, but if i can't, I'll have to go with my parents. I don't know. I don't have a real job and I don't have very many job skills in terms of my education. Only Japanese and I have to work on that more than i have.

Hmm...maybe I can pick up freelance translating jobs. Most of the jobs out there are translating in terms of Japanese. If I get good enough, then maybe a company will hire me full time. I'd definitely like to get into the video game business, but I'm not sure if that would be good for me. The pay will be good, but the time constraints....I'm not sure if I'd be happy working long hours like 14 hours a day. But I'd be willing to do that if it it means doing a good job and getting things done by the deadline.

Man, I need to do something other than play video games. Hmm...maybe I should read Japanese articles online again. Yeah...it will be a good thing to always keep up my Japanese.

I got these books before I left Japan called Brave Story. I heard about it because there's a video game out for both the PS2 and DS in Japan. I think that it's coming to the US also. I like the Japanese voice actors a whole lot better than the US voice actors. I think that expressing things originally written in Japanese is done better by the Japanese voice actors. Most of the time I can't stand the US voice actors. Which is one reason why I bought video games in Japan even if they were going to be released in the US later on. I think however, that I just need to study Japanese everyday and do some work in it while I have no job. I need to pass the Level 2 proficiency test in Japanese. That will help me get jobs later on. Man, my books that I mailed home won't come until at least a month later. I shipped them surface mail...which might have been a mistake. I'm wondering if they'll be wet when I get them.

At my old shipping job, some packages were wet because some of the trailers that were used had cracks in the ceiling. So you'd get some wet packages from the rain. Or, from the docking bay area and the trailer, sometimes water woulld leak through the flap covering the trailer and get packages wet depending on how much rain poured down. But it wasn't serious. The only concern I have though is that puddle on the ground of the trailers do cause some damage to the contents. I'd be really sad if the books I brought with me from the US to Japan got damaged on the way back to the US. But oh well.

It was crazy how much stuff I had in my aparment. I accumulated a lot of stuff living in Japan. Shipping it cost a bundle. But it's better than leaving it there in Japan. I'm glad I did ship it though. I got all my stuff out of the apartment and I didn't have to throw away much. Well, I threw away a lot of trash. That was about it....and some food items and some items I bought that I couldn't bring with me.

Anyway, I'm babbling right now. I should get going while the day is young.

Well, I'm home now. Man, I need to find a job soon. We'll see what happens though. Man, I haven't really blogged since I left Japan. Not much is happening nowadays in my life. School was the most interesting part about my time in Japan. But I'm also glad that I don't have to lesson plan anymore. I never really got to explore Japan. But I'm not much of an explorer anyway.

Anyway, I'm really tired right now. I shouldn't have drank that coffee last night.

I'm sad that I'm leaving, but I made my decision. I think that they'll be different things up ahead of me, but through it all, it will be alright. Teaching English was both fun and frustrating at times. I basically could not communicate that well with the Japanese teachers, but I think that because I used Japanese a little bit, the kids understood a little bit easier.

One thing that I wonder about in teaching is, when we give the kids the answers so easily...does that cause them to be dependent upon the teacher? Does it stop them from thinking for themselves? I tend to think that maybe I've seen too many teachers here give the answer too early and not let the kids think or guess for themselves what it could be. But I've also seen that the kids get really discouraged when they don't get the answer right away. Is it because they've had a lack of learning how to deal with failure?

What I think is one thing that a lot of people need to learn how to do is to learn how to deal with failure when it comes. Not just in Japan, but in a lot of places. In Japan however, you see a lot of people kill themselves because they failed and this society is not very forgiving of failure.

What I think is a part of everyone's life is that they need to learn how to bounce back from defeat and overcome the things that beat us up before. Not saying that you'll get closure in all areas of your life, or tie all loose ends, but definitely life is not perfect and everyone is given struggles. Life is not fair, and God is not fair. If God was fair, and gave us all what we deserve, we'd all be in Hell. I don't understand life, but I deal with it in some ways. However, there was that time when I really was discouraged here and didn't want to go to work. But I still went, because it was my responsibility to teach my lessons...and for the most part, they went okay...I don't remember them being too awfully bad. But definitely it was a struggle and I didn't know how to teach these kids...being an entertainer is kind of tough. heh. That's basically what you are when you're a teacher in Japan, especially an English teacher. heh. You're not there to teach...you're there to make English fun! Well, I guess that is teaching.

anyway, the people here are good people. I guess I tend to think that about a lot of people...even if others may not think so. But yeah, nice people, but they don't know Christ or probably have never really met someone who does. Well, most of them. Japan isn't considered an unreached country, however, it is very very resistant to Christianity. One of my reasons in coming to Japan was that i thought that I could make a difference here. But I saw that I just wasn't faithful here. I didn't go to church. I didn't pray that much. I tried to do this on my own. I wasn't alone though, as people from home were praying for me. But I felt like I have no support here which was my fault, because I could have found it here.

i don't know what will happen, but I think that maybe God did have a purpose for me here. Maybe someday, I'll come back to Japan as a missionary. But the things that I struggled with as a kid, like what other people thought of me, was dispelled as I wasn't thought of as much in Japan. heh. I guess I'm not thought of as much in America, but being in a different culture, I just learned not to care. heh. I guess maybe it was another part of my life that was healed in Japan by God.

When I think about God, I'm always amazed at how good He is. Yet, I feel like I'm just not really living for Him. Anyway, I hope that that will change once I get back home.

I wrote a complaint that I didn't publish, but I remembered that it is written that "Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure. Children of God without fault in this sinful generation in which you shine like stars in the universe." Something like that that I remembered from Bible study a long long time ago. Anyway, I don't think that I'm shining like a star...