Memories of the Earthquake

It was kind of surreal. I was sitting with one of my teachers in the office while a student was retaking a test. All of a sudden my co-worker said "Do you feel that?" and I said "Feel what?... ohhh." Yeah we definitely felt it. I'd describe it as being on a boat. A lot of people from our area (Shizuoka Prefecture) said it was the feeling of being dizzy. That's pretty accurate. The quake felt like it lasted for a minute and the student next to me told me she was scared. I said I was too. Yep, it was pretty scary.

The good thing is Hamamatsu wasn't physically affected at all. There was no initial damage from the quake, and no tsunami so far despite the fact we are on tsunami warning. The students and teachers are all fine. The students were actually pretty excited. None of us really knew how huge the earthquake was at the time.

Hella Didn't Write Anything

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step” - Chinese Proverb

Well, that didn't turn out so well. I was lazy as hell and I didn't update at all. I'm in Japan now, and lots of cool stuff has happened. I think I'll start posting again.

It's Hard to Blog About Japan

when you're not in Japan yet. I did get my placement though. I'm juiced. I've been slacking on my kanji studying, and haven't lost any weight. Whoops!

B-boying

In an effort to lose weight, I decided to go back to b-boying (breakdancing). It's a lot more fun than running or lifting weights in my opinion. I pretty much spent an hour cleaning off nasty motor oil and random drippage off the linoleum, but it was worth it. I had a lot of fun sessioning for about an hour. The bad part (or good?) is that trying to relearn all of my old moves made me realize how sluggish and weak I feel. I'm 175 pounds right now. I'm curious to see how much I'll weigh in 3 months if I can keep this up.

What does this have to do with Japan? Well, I remember being inspired by Japanese b-boy crews when I was starting out. They have a pretty big scene there, so it might be worth it and fun to get all my moves back. That way, I'll get to meet a lot of people and have something to talk about. No one wants to hear about me playing video games all day.

Selling Stuff

Selling all your things is probably the most difficult part of picking up and going to another country. On the plus side, you get a pocketful of cash. On the downside, you are most likely selling all the stuff you love and never wanted to sell.

Just remind yourself of the dust factor. If it is going to sit there and collect dust, then isn't it better for you to sell it? You can just re-buy the same stuff in the future, or even buy the newer version of whatever it is when you get back.

Forget dollars, I'm going to make it rain YEN.

P.S. I will miss you, Fight Stick.

Hella Japan

Being unemployed sucks. Beleive me, I know since I have been unemployed since September '09. Luckily for me, I finally found a job in Japan!

I will be leaving in July and will hopefully have a lot of cool stuff to post. For now it's just study kanji, lose weight, and pack.