Third Year First Semester Reflection

Even though I don’t think about school that much, I think this time I’ll start off with it.  Comm school has been a pretty interesting experience for me.  I was never super driven to do it, but it really does end up becoming a part of you.  The hours doing homework, going to class, and working on projects …how can it not influence you?  Something our teacher told us at the end is that we have battle-hardened confidence now.  Even though it is cheesy, it really did connect with me.  With comm stuff before, I never really struggled with it, so my confidence came from how easy it came to me.  Now after putting so much time and energy into it, I can say that I did struggle with it, but I made it through.  I felt so behind from others because school rarely stressed me, so I didn’t know how to deal with it as well as others, but hopefully now when it happens again I can deal with it better. 

I said second year I felt my world was shrinking and I think I can say that even more now.  I cut out even more clubs from my life and mostly used my free time for the ones left and hanging out with friends.  I know I am supposed to be doing something with my college years, but I just felt like I needed to be with my friends more than dedicating myself to a cause.  The comm school teachers told us to not forget who you are so maintaining this dedication was sort of my stand against it.  I hope that next semester I’ll have more time to play guitar and piano, and go to my clubs more often. 

From my Japanese trip I realized some thoughts and struggles I thought I dealt with first year actually didn’t go away, and I think this semester I had to deal with them properly.  Interacting with people made me really think why I believe certain things and if that was the right way to approach something.  Sometimes I overthought situations and got sad, but with the help of others, I tried to come to terms with things and improved.  I have changed mentally in small ways, but overall I think I have a better grasp of my own thoughts instead of thinking too differently. 

To be honest, the things that overwhelmed me the most this semester was my emotions.  Sometimes I knew where they came from, other times they just came.  Sometimes dealing with them hurt more and other times ignoring them to work on comm projects made them worse.  I don’t think I have fully solved this problem, but in the same vein as comm school, I am more confident that if I feel overwhelmed again I can deal with it. 

Over this semester I think my biggest accomplishment is becoming closer to people.  I understand the people around me much better and I hope by me explaining how I feel they understand me better. I always found human relationships to be the hardest thing to navigate and build.  Still, there is something amazing when you are surrounded by people who care about you.  Yeah I’ve gotten pain and disappointment from friendships, but Eva says that if you keep pushing past that, there is much more joy to be had.  While trying to figure out things, along the way I’ve probably confused and irritated people.  Don’t feel I should apologize for it; I can only say thanks for everything. 

Aaaaa I will try to be better ok haha.  I’ll keep trying and hopefully I don’t fall as much as I did this semester.  

Still Learning about Myself

Even though modern psychologists don’t agree that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs go in the linear fashion Maslow described it, when I look at my life in college, it seems it has been going exactly Maslow’s way.  I obviously came into UVA with security and I feel I spent these two years establishing some form of belonging through joining clubs, forming friend groups, etc.  Really just associating with people in the form that I wanted.  Now I have friends that even on bad days I can talk to, or when I am bored, just walk to their rooms and talk to them.  But achieving this step means that the next one is going to confront me and that is what I have been trying to deal with during the last few weeks.

Comm School has emphasized that we have the capability to do great things and we need to build our own personal brand.  I guess I can break this into two categories.  I feel I have already talked about my self-confidence but just to recap: I trust myself in a lot of things, like actions, but with long term goals and aspirations I can’t fathom a lot of things.  When I went to the career fair today, I had to think, “would I actually fit in this company,” because I couldn’t see companies actually accepting me, but instead just accepting the product of me that UVA will produce.  On the other hand, dealing with self-confidence has been much easier for me after accomplishing my study abroad in Japan.  I didn’t think I could actually do it, so I was surprised by my own drive to accomplish it, and because I did, I know I can trust myself to put a huge amount of effort into something that I care about.

Personal brand is much harder because the basis of that is how others perceive you.  As a human I can’t say I haven’t thought about that stuff before, but I rarely think about it.  My empathy level is probably lower than others and I usually just do things that I like, which others see is really weird.  I haven’t really cared about what others think as long as my short term need for enjoyment was satiated, but it isn’t really sustainable.  This attitude of mine has gotten me this far, and it has a lot of good points, but I need to choose which parts to change. 

A good point is that I have heard is that I treat people pretty equally.  I talk to a teacher in the same way I would talk to a classmate, putting my personality in both conversations.  I feel that is the reason that I can so easily talk to teachers and business people because I see them as just other people.  Another good thing that has come out of it is I meet people I like.  People who are accepting of the weird things I do I find are really cool, so it is generally fun to hang out with them. 

Still there is some bad things about it, such as how I realized that I am missing the respect part of Maslow’s pyramid.  Sure, some people respect me for my way of thinking or my grades, but those thoughts usually occur in spite of my actions.  It is pretty understandable because I like to tease people a lot and don’t usually start deep conversations, so there is never an opportunity to show some aspects of me.  Part of managing my brand is expressing myself so people respect me.  For me that sounds like a very bad statement, but as long as it is still me and my personality, then how can I call it bad?  I’m trying to tone down my crazy and cater how I react to people, but old habits are hard to break.  I’ll see how I decide to fix the way I act while not losing all the good points. 

Sixth Week in Japan

Probably the last blog post that I will do in Japan so yay.  I might as well talk about something concrete since I haven't done that lately.  So obviously I'm taking Japanese here: one a normal Japanese class and the other two are just side classes that are supposed to make you use the language.  Those classes are ok but are not that much fun.  My Comprehensive class however is pretty sweet. We are a really chill class that likes to joke around but still we get the work done and learn.  Our class is heavily skit based which is awesome because people make some interesting skits.  At my UVA Japanese class, mostly I will be crazy and maybe a few others will be crazy independently or with me but here almost everybody finds a way to work in their own humor into the class.

I didn't give the people around me enough credit it seems.  In the first three weeks it seemed to me that Riso, Eugene, and I were the ones being the craziest in class.  After they left, I was worried that I will be left alone to make the class fun, but the first skit of the next 3 weeks where we had to act like we were ordering at a restaurant, almost everybody did something funny, so I was happy that I wouldn't be the only one.  I shouldn't have forgotten that other people had their own desire to make the class fun as well. Inkyu even said that in his first class since many of Da Crew members are in it, they do some funny skits in that class too.  I was happy that even in other classes they were pursuing our mutual goal.

Should also use this time to give a shout out to Da Crew members.  Maybe I got some Asian blood in me but I like this group mentality thing.  First at UVA with KAF and here with Da Crew, it seems that I like being part of something like this.  Things like having signs like our Shaka hand sign to call the group together and doing random stuff after class makes being in Japan not so boring.

They say if you want to have a trait like confidence, you have to fake it until it becomes ingrained into you. In the same vein, I say things like "Da Crew needs to stick together" so that eventually it actually becomes a value of the group.  Even though we were only together for a couple weeks, I think we bonded pretty well given the time we had.  This probably will sound like a farewell but of course I need to thank them all for putting up with my antics and random things I blurt out, or when I say things in order to provide (sorry Nikki haha).  Even though these are things that friends usually do, I'm still amazing that people can put up with so much 迷惑ｗｗ.

Doubt I will see most of you guys ever again after the program but it was fun while we were here.  Probably some will say we met for a reason but I usually don't think that far down that path.  I will just say that I suck at maintaining long distance friendships but I guess a balance of effort on both side can fix that easily.  Oh well that is future thinking.  One week left guys, at least for me, so time to go all out!

Fifth Week in Japan

My program isn’t over for another 2 weeks but mentally I feel I am already gone.  From others I here them lament about how short the program is and how they have fallen in love with Japan, but none of those emotions seem to spring out from me.  Many of those same people, even though they feel sad, already have full exchanges to Japan set up for the future or at least plan on coming back, but I feel it will be a long time before I come back.  I don’t feel that deep of a connection to this place.  I didn’t buy that much stuff except two books and I didn’t really make any deep friendships.  It is probably because I checked out, I’m too lazy to making friends and living in the moment.  As a fellow blogger said, “Some students gave me flowers. They’re plastic so I don’t have to water them. It’s a nice gesture, but lately I feel like those plastic flowers, being there and looking the part but not really living.”

The most obvious way I have noticed this trend is when people from UVA ask me, “how is Japan?” and I answer, “Just a normal life.”  Maybe it is my western individualism shining through but I am me and Japan is Japan.  As long as I am me, the location doesn’t really matter so my life is essentially the same.  I often walk out of class slightly shocked to see I’m in Japan. It is like I forget about it since I’m in my own little world all the time. 

Maybe this was caused because I kept being told that Japan will destroy my ego and try to reform me.  Since I kept hearing that, I chose to put myself above Japan.  I feel no need to assimilate or even try to assimilate because I’m here for a short time.  I wonder if I was here longer at what point would I let myself be whittled away by this culture. I have seen many people try to assimilate by acting more polite or even talking completely differently when using Japanese.  I am slightly shocked by it, but I would probably end up doing the same if I was here longer.

It is sort of scary in a sense.  In our western, humanist worldview, the self is king.  You are a being that makes decisions and affects the world around you.  It is hard not to have pride in who you are.  I am noisy and loud in class, blunt with the people around me and crazy with people I don’t know.  It is easy to define yourself by your actions and thoughts.  In Japan however, it is so easy to see these traits muzzled for the sake of getting along with teacher and fellow students.  Is our sense of self so weak that it can so easily bend to social customs? 

Life is always throwing stuff at us and we should always be changing our outlooks and ways of life, but for some reason Japan gives the atmosphere that it needs to be done sooner and without your permission.  I don’t know if I should be happy or not that I wasn’t here long enough to experience it fully.  Knowing this could be a part of my hesitation to fully dive into Japan and be as in love with it as others are.  I don’t know if what they are doing is just giving up themselves or living life to the fullest.  They say in Japan there is the うち or inside and the そと or the outside.  This applies to social groups, work relationships, even societal hierarchies.  Before I even allowed the Japanese to choose where to put me, I declare myself as a 外人 and that I am on the outside and will remain there.  Now I wonder if that was the best decision to make.  

P.S. Nikki always be hating that I don't put pictures so here is one ha!

Fourth Week in Japan

As much as I say I’m a practical person, I still hold a lot of idealistic values.  What sometimes ends up happening is I act one way while thinking another way.  Even when I say I disagree with something, I may end up doing the same thing.  An example is when I once asked my friend why she didn’t want to hang out with certain person.  Her reason was she would only be at college for another 1.5 years so her time was precious.  She would rather deepen the relationships with the friends she has than find more.  Maybe because it is rare for people to ask me to do things with them, but at the time I couldn’t agree with what she said.  However now in Japan where my time is limited, I am noticing that my actions are more aligned to what she said than what I expected.

I’m starting to finally branch out and hang out with some Japanese people, but I only expect to meet them maybe once or twice before I leave.  Sometimes Da Crew (a group of classmates who I hang out a lot with) have plans at similar times and I have to make a decision who to hang out with.  I usually choose Da Crew, which means I choose being with my established friends rather than making new ones.  I guess because I have only 3 more weeks in Japan I can’t expect new friendships to blossom easily so it is better to put my efforts into the friends I have. 

Why I realized this was because of a slightly unrelated thing what happened today.  The Japanese program I’m in is 6 weeks broken up into 3 week groups and some people are only here for the first 3 weeks.  Today was their last day and it suddenly hit me that they were leaving.  Riso san I joked with a lot in class; Eugene was the person who backed up my craziness; Kira Kira san I rarely talked to but she gave good reactions to my crazy actions haha.  I felt bad that I didn’t talk to them as much as I could have and before I knew it, it was time for them to go.

I wanted to at least say something to them before they had to go since I will probably never see them again.  Usually after class people stand around the 1^st floor of our building for a bit before going, but Da Crew members were leaving to go meet up with Carmen and Nikki.  I saw Riso san taking pictures with someone and Kira Kira san talking to a group of people.  As I saw my friends leave the building, I didn’t know what I should do.  Should I wait and talk to these people who are leaving or follow my friends? 

Riso and Kira Kira san seemed so busy I thought it was ok for me to leave but as I was walking out of the building I kept looking back.  Finally when I walked out of the building, I took one last look through the glass doors.  Kira Kira san noticed me looking, gave a smile, and waved farewell.  I didn’t expect someone to actually notice me.  I gave a wave and a half smile, then turned to go run after my friends. 

Probably my first real regret in Japan. 

Third Week in Japan:Goals

In class we were asked what we thought we would receive from our study abroad experience.  Many people automatically started writing stuff like culture, friends, and language, but I couldn’t really consider things I was going to receive.  I had to think why I even came here in the first place. Truly the reason was because a huge amount of my friends were also studying abroad and I had no plans during the summer.  I guess the only goal was to not be bored, but that is a low bar.  I am not bored when reading or watching shows either, but I can’t really go around saying I did that all summer so I came to Japan.  I mean I guess I learned some culture and a few random words, but mostly it has just been me confronting problems I thought I dealt with second year. 

The obvious goal of being in Japan is supposed to be learning Japanese, but I never really took Japanese for the purpose of learning it but more meeting all the people and having the fun classroom environment.  I realize now why the Chinese at UVA bind together and speak Chinese with each other.  For me the goal isn’t to learn Japanese but to talk to people, so if English is the best way to do it I have no qualms using English. 

I have sort of given up on trying to make Japanese friends.  Really the low bar of “not being bored” is that I have peeps to eat with since I hate eating alone, but not really make friends.  It is really possible and I applaud people like John and Carmen who can do it, and maybe I could if I put more effort but with the mindset I have it isn’t going to happen.  I’m probably missing a piece somewhere.  I randomly talk to Japanese people and go to lunch/dinner with them, but that only is the, “having someone to eat with,” not really the friend stuff.  Maybe because I came to Japan not expecting to make friends, I already had a mental block preventing it from happening. 

I wonder if it is a bad thing to assume and expect things so early.  I usually have this problem.  Like when I saw others go to Japan I was lik,e “oh that is something other people do but I’ll never have that chance so I’ll just sit here.”  Then when I get the chance to go to Japan I think “oh well I will just be doing random stuff and really not gain anything from it unlike others who have meaningful experiences.”  At some point what I think ends up being true maybe or maybe not because of my mentality.  Will probably need to do a whole separate post about that later. 

As Yozora said in Haganai, when you hit rock bottom you have nothing to lose. I seem to have that mentality a lot.  I think I have nothing to lose so I act like my crazy self and do things for my own amusement that is probably not beneficial for others nor in the long run for myself.  Though I doubt I will change, it is good for me to tell myself that I am losing opportunities by only doing that.  People find the balance between being crazy and being trusted and normal when necessary.  I’m still going around to extreme.

I guess the think I have learned from Japan is problems I thought were solved were not so I guess it is now time to fix them somehow….How the heck can Hachiman say he has never hated himself when it is so easy (People who understand this I applaud)  

調子が出ない

So there is this series the Queen’s Thief I really like and the main character Gen is king but doesn’t really like being king so he always acts unkingly even though he is competent.  One part in the book, assassins attack him and he kills them, but they leave a gash in him.  He was screaming and complaining as his guards and attendants walked him to his room like he usually does so everybody thought, “oh he is just being normal it probably is just a scratch,” but when the doctor looks at the injury, it was almost fatal.  As the character Costis puts it.

“He [The king Gen] should have said something, why hadn’t he? Costis wondered. In fact, the king had. He had complained at every step all the way across the palace, and they’d ignored it. If he’d been stoic and denied the pain, the entire palace would have been in a panic already, and Eddisian soldiers on the move. He’d meant to deceive them, and he’d succeeded. It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.”

The king didn’t want to cause a panic so he acted normal so nobody worried. If he acted out of the ordinary then people would note the difference.  It is like having a big sign saying, “I’m not being normal notice me!” If you really want to hide pain you act normal and people can’t tell the difference.

In our culture it is taboo to act anything other than happy with stranger.  Only with friends and family can you act many of the emotions we have.  If somebody broke up with their boyfriend or girlfriend, you don’t go running around in class telling people; you tell your friends and they help you through it.  So the idea that Costis said that how many people really want to hide by unsuccessfully pretending to not be a pain is pretty interesting.

The reason this came up is today in class I was just sitting and thinking and everybody was like “Tomy is quiet” and the teacher asked me if I was ok.  I thought to myself, “If I really wasn’t ok, why would I disturb class by blatantly acting abnormal?  If I wasn’t ok, I would fake being myself and nobody can tell the difference.”  It made me think that people who pretend to not be a pain are probably calling out to people to notice that they are being abnormal, whether consciously or unconsciously.  Not saying it is a bad thing, but if the person’s real goal is to hide their feelings from others, then the best way to do it is to hide in plain sight and act normal, not by being blatantly different than normal.  

Second Week in Japan

Been another week in Japan and my first week at Waseda.  Slowly getting used to the day to day routine and finding people to chill around with.  I know I will only be in Tokyo for 6 weeks so it is hard to make lasting friendships but I guess as long as I hang out with people and am not bored that is good. 

Something I find interesting is how people’s personality seems to change based on the language they are speaking.  It is probably because they are not as fluent in one compared to another which makes them have to use different means to communicate.  I feel I say more random stuff when I speak Japanese, but others sometimes lose the ability to be funny at all when speaking Japanese.  It is pretty interesting how you have to adapt yourself based on the language you are speaking. 

I try my best to speak only in Japanese but I can’t fully communicate in Japanese so if I ever want to have a deep conversation I have to switch to English.  Like today talking to Kohei at dinner I spoke Japanese but when we were talking seriously we switched to English because that was the only way I could do it.  These conversations are when I feel bond me to other people so if I can’t do it in Japanese then how can I connect with others?  Limitations Limitations. 

I joined two clubs but in Japan it is close to the end of the semester so everybody already has their established friend groups and it is hard to penetrate them, especially since finals for them is coming up and they will have less time than they do now.  Still I just try my best to eat lunch with people and also go out to dinner with some. 

I think the scariest thing is that since it is starting over with me having no friends and being in no clubs that it feels like first year again.  That means I act like I did when I was a first year like I didn’t learn anything from it.  I am worried that I may make the same mistakes I did before like for the sake of experience doing a lot of things but not really getting anything out of it.  For example a group of Chinese students were going to go to Roppongi and I wanted to go see it but Mike, one of them members said that I will probably find it boring since everybody will be speaking Chinese and I will not understand.  That for me is something I learned first year at UVA but I was about to make the same mistake again and if it wasn’t for me finding some of my other friends first I would have probably made that mistake.  I understand that people make mistakes in life, but then one should learn from it.  If I didn’t learn from it then I feel truly stupid.  

First Week in Japan

So I’ve been chilling around in Japan for a week acting like a tourist before my program actually starts.  Went to a lot of random places in Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Nara.  Typical stuff like museums, World Heritage Sites, and temples.  Of course I think they are interesting, but I find myself always in my own world.  I had to keep telling myself to look and actually take in what you are seeing because if I didn’t I would just look without seeing and walk away.  They are interesting in the sense that they are supposed to be interesting.

 

That doesn’t mean I didn’t find enjoyment in them, but I found enjoyment in simple things that I will remember more.  For example there are many kids taking school fieldtrips and one of the things they have to do is ask tourists questions to practice their English.  This one group walked up to a couple behind them and was like “えと May I have a picture?”  I thought it was really funny and kids were good natured so I was laughing.  They noticed me and asked me to join in their picture.  Now I am in some random middle schoolers’ field trip picture.  I found that really cool, perhaps even cooler than the centuries old temple in the background of the picture. 

As usual I do what I normally do when I’m not at school and haven’t talk to people.  I seem to grow super inverted when I’m outside of school.  I don’t try to approach people and talk to them though the best time to do that is probably while in a different country so I can interact with locals.  When I exited the restaurant today I realized it was 7:30ish so it was already dark.  Though I guess I am a morning person, meaning I can get up early and do work without being cranky, my favorite time is probably right after the sun goes down.  It isn’t too cold but it is dark outside, perfect for a walk.  Since this is my first time being out that late in Kyoto (gasp so late right haha) I decided to go for a walk.  Even in this busy city it was pretty quiet while I was walking.  Only a few people on bikes cruising around.  I guess it doesn’t matter which country I am in as long as I can walk around like this I am satisfied.

While walking I realized that I haven’t talk to people.  I mean that is usual when I’m abroad but I’m usually with my dad so there is someone I normally communicate with.  At school obviously I’m talking to people but for this entire week traveling alone I have really only ordered food and said some basic stuff to the train people.  I don’t think I could stand it if I was in that state for too long.  Good thing school is starting back up so I will probably have the motivation to make friends and talk to people.  Until then it is just packing and heading back to Tokyo.  

Second Year Reflection

I’ve wrote a bit before about second year in terms of my first reactions and friend stuff, but I guess the point of an end of year reflection is to consolidate everything into one.  I’ve shrunk my world a lot since first year.  Sure I’m still making a lot of new friends and hanging out with people, but I have become less involved with school activities.  I’ve dropped out of a few clubs and in some I’ve just participated less.  I came into college not knowing what I liked or disliked.  Many people say they don’t know what they like, and in the same vein I had to learn what I disliked.  I think me dropping out of clubs was mostly me not enjoying them compared to the effort and time necessary.  Now the problem is finding what I do like and supporting those organizations.

As expected, there is a huge amount of first year friends who I barely talk to anymore. Pretty normal so I can’t really hate on it, but I did find it interesting how I didn’t put effort into maintaining those relationships.  First year I was really adamant about putting effort into every friend I had, but that tired me out a lot and made me think it was all pointless.  I think now I have a more passive attitude in that based on the situation I will put effort into people.  People can’t help but be more likely friends who are around them more, open up more, and support them.  I think by being more accepting about friends coming and leaving, I can enjoy what I have better.

This year was when I took my last big chuck on non-Comm school classes before going into Comm School.  I actually only took one Comm class this whole year.  Not to hate on E school, but for me I could do math and science all day, but the liberal arts are what open my mind and force me to challenge myself.  I may not study that much for normal classes, but if you know me, I was in Old Cabell practicing guitar and piano all the time.  I’m not naturally good at instruments so I had to really work hard for those classes.  In addition, Japanese History made me see what we learned in Comm school through a whole different lens since we read Marx and Lenin.  The world is different from their time, but the philosophy they proclaim is something I feel everybody should read if only to hear both sides of the capitalist argument.  Even though I don’t think about my classes that much, this year has forced me to do things I’m not naturally good at and think in ways that if I just took Econ/Comm classes I would never had experienced.

I wrote a little about dedication in my last post and I just wrote about me not being dedicated to many of the activities I partook in last year.   By not doing things I like, it seems obvious that I have more time to dedicate to things I want to do.  Two times this year I have seen myself be super dedicated towards a goal.  The first was taking the Japanese Language Placement Exam.  I knew I was way over my head taking a test two levels above mine, but I put in a lot of effort through workbooks and studying vocab.  I knew I had about a month to study, so there was only so much I could do, so I just focused on what I felt could help me.  When guests came over for Thanksgiving they saw me studying so diligently that they commented on how good of a student I was.  Internally I laughed and thought “they should see me on normal days I’m such a lazy bum,” but now I think that maybe that dedication is my potential and I just need things I’m willing to invest into see that type of effort again.

 

The second things I dedicated myself to was applying to study abroad in Japan.  It was a long road and people I talked about it with know.  I kept on pushing it back and pushing it back until one day I was just like, “damn it Tomy go look at some scholarships!” I saw UVA was offering one but the deadline was next week so I rushed to get the app done with essays and recommendations.  Then I had to get the scholarship to approve my program which was the bulk of my hassle.  I put in a lot of effort into it and worked to make this a reality.  Now looking back at it, I sort of doubt it was me who did it.  I’m not used to seeing me so dedicated to a task, but it shows what I can do if I really want something.  That makes me more hopefully about my own potential. 

Eeh this is getting long.  Mostly I think the goal of second year was take what I actually, genuinely like about first year and try to enhance that while getting rid of the parts I didn’t like.  This meant I actually had to think if I truly enjoyed something.  Sometimes the idea that you need to try everything hits you first year and that gets in the way of reflecting if you actually like it.  It is good to try a lot of new things, but in the end, if you want to continue with it, you better like it.  Sure my world is smaller in terms of activities, events, friends, even physical space, but removing things I didn’t like surrounds me with more I do like.  Now if I find more things I like third year, then I can be even happier and dedicated, which will channel my energy and hopefully make me a better person.  

Dedication

This semester is almost over and I promise this time I will give a proper end of year reflection.  There are many cool things I don’t want to forget.

Talking about forgetting, today when I was studying for my Japanese test, I was listening to my liked videos on Youtube.  For me, my liked videos is another history of my life: what I was interested in at the time, who was I listening to, what my mood was, etc.  It was interesting to listen to my past and think about the me that liked that video. 

I finally got to the time that I watched City Hunter and I liked some of the OST videos.  A wave of nostalgia hit me as I thought back on that show.  The thing is, I barely remember the plot; I can probably only say what a normal summary could say.  I only remember how I felt about it, not what happened.  I felt like I lost something.  Sure they are fictional characters, but shows are meant to be realistic so me forgetting their lives is like forgetting a real person. 

For me I deeply delve into things for a time and then leave.  That show was my life for a week but now I can’t remember what happened in it.  What about with friends then?  My friends tell me personal stuff about them, but just as quickly as I forget the shows I probably will forget their lives too.  It feels disrespectful to do that after they put the energy in telling me these things, but I will not even remember them. 

I have seen these small bouts of dedication before.  During PAVAN, a governor school for the performing arts, guitar was my life for two weeks and I dedicated myself to that.  I practiced every day and I worked hard for our performance.  After the program, I would practice less and sometimes not at all.  The circumstances around me made me dedicated, not anything inside of myself.

I worry the same thing will happen with me and Japanese.  It has been a defining part of my college life, but without the environment would I even be doing it or would I even want to do it?  After I took the JLPT, I didn’t touch Japanese for a bit to rest and I feel that was me breaking my own fiction that I just need to keep doing Japanese no matter what. 

I know I don’t need to worry now because if I study abroad I will still be in the environment of studying Japanese, but what about 4^th year or after I graduate?  Where will my motivation come from?  I wonder if most of the things I do is because of environment and not because of my own drive.  When I’m not at UVA I interact with people much less and when I’m vacationing I pretty much don’t interact with others at all.  UVA has the environment of interacting with people and making friends that I wonder if I can transfer my attitudes in this environment outside of UVA. 

People say living in the present is good and I think it is but when I realize things that I do like this, I question how useful living only in the present is.  As always I need to obtain more of a balance of thinking about the past, present, and future.  

Connections and the Reality of Fiction

I have said before that the reason I like history is I like stories and how they connect.  For some reason my brain works this way so I connect various events and find some common thread among them.  If you read this blog you can tell that each post has a theme, but I give various examples and life experiences for each.  This isn’t a skill I naturally knew; I actually was trained to do it.  I was tutored in English since middle school to be able to write and do this type of critical thinking.  I always thought it was a bad thing to have tutoring even though for Indians it is pretty normal.  I guess people usual assume that if somebody is good at something they are naturally good at it, so not meeting that expectation felt bad. 

When I was in middle school I could barely write five sentences and make a paragraph.  I felt what I had to say was obvious and that is good enough.  I had to put in the effort to learn how to write proper papers and how to convey my message.  This is especially true for English tests like the SAT.  The essay portion gives you a prompt and you have to support or not support it using evidence from history, literature, life experience, etc.  It is pretty much pick a side and support it with evidence from different aspects.  That is how I reason out things in real life now; I pull from various sources and try to find the answer.

Something I do very specifically is pull from literary sources.  For the SAT you obviously have to do that, but I don’t think everybody tries to apply it to daily life.  It is that age old question: which is more true, fiction or reality? The answer seems obviously reality, but fiction is just a way to distill the essence of real life and present it in another form. Gus made sure I knew that fiction serves to guide us when the reality around us can’t.  We can find truth in it that may give us better advice than reality.  That is what authors try to convey through their works.

A good example of this, is in the Tale of Genji.  One of the characters is trapped by Genji who is using her in a game.  Let’s just say he is attracted to her but isn’t allowed to have her, so he plays out his fantasies through teasing other men with her…yeah Japanese literature!  Anyway, she has never experienced anything like this before and doesn’t know how to handle the situation, but she finds people who wrote fiction stories about a similar situation and reads them as people who empathize and who know the way to escape.  In the story, fiction helps the main character more than reality as she tries to break the fake reality that Genji creates around her for his own pleasure. 

In the end, is it so easy to bind all these things together?  Can something in history so easily connect to something that I’ve experience to something that I read in a book or is that just me forcing a connection where there isn’t one?  When I read Lenin in Japanese History class, the teacher pointed out Lenin’s definition of Imperialism and asked us what was wrong with it.  When nobody could answer he said, “It is a very nice list that is completely correct; the only problem with it is that it is a list.”  Lists are step by step or distinct points, but they do not show the interaction and the multiple causes and effects among things.  To understand true interaction among items, you have to be careful not to just compare and contrast, but show the dynamics and logic among what are seemingly distinct events.  I believe with that approach, the connections can be formed and a common thread can be found.

Thinking about Friendships on Valentine's Day

So yesterday I thought a lot about people who are gone from my life.  It was because of the males in KAF playing Cards Against Humanity and us realizing that Kohei would have loved it.  I haven’t actually thought of Kohei for a long time, even though we have had many good times together.  I was very sad when he left, but I mean life goes on, but that doesn’t mean that I forgot him completely.  I feel it is ok to forget some things temporarily but then remember them randomly.  Yesterday I thought, “Kohei would have liked this game,” and remember the good times with him.  I think that is good enough. 

A similar event also happened that day.  I was telling the story about how Arden gave me fudge mix and I gave her some of the fudge on White Day. I remembered how my mom and I made that and I felt pretty nostalgic about that.  I think as long as I have moments like this I should be fine.  People still ask me all these questions like, “What do you miss most?” or, “What is your best memory?”  Is it an interview?  I have these feelings in the moment, not something that I can spit out like an elevator speech. 

A slightly different thing I had to encounter is not people who left, but people who are drifting.  At least two groups of friends have admitted to have drifted apart.  I feel that is pretty normal; I don’t talk to a lot of people from first year or from any time period from my life.  In a sense I still can treat people who drift away with the same mentality as people who left.  Even if I encounter a person again, the relationship between us has changed.  We may be nostalgic, but friendships have to be maintained so being separated really does destroy the relationship.  I can still hear my former friend’s voice saying, “don’t talk to me.” Random aside but even though we were friends for so long, just being separate for a few years meant we were not friends anymore.  The only way to bring it back is working at the relationship.  Friendship is work; that is how I perceive it.  With my mindset, a friendship can depreciate if you don’t constantly put in effort.

Something Lynn posted today was "...when we remember we remember only what was forgotten. Each time we remember we remember forgetting. Thus the only thing remembrance remembers is obviously not itself, but it's other, namely forgetting." As I said, it is how we try to dig out all the emotions and feelings from the memory, but we can't get them all. Maybe in the end the biggest thing we get out of remembering something is that we forgot a huge part of it, and the stuff we remember is a copy of the true memory we forgot.

Even by writing all of this down I can’t preserve all the feelings I had.  Renaissance poets said that poetry can allow something to be immortal, but this is really my attempt to preserve how I feel about things.  Even as friends leave my life, I guess I can look back at posts like this and remember the me of the time, the mindset I had, and the people who surrounded me throughout my life.  

Context and Reality

Context may not be everything, but it is very important in how we interpret the world.  We hear people’s words based on who they are, we judge things based on our expectations, I feel I could go on.  The most recent example I have seen is when I went to some famous museums in Europe with my dad.  He doesn’t know many of the really famous paintings so he didn’t think they were that spectacular, but when he heard that these are masterpieces, he suddenly thought they were beautiful beyond belief.  It was more than just the natural aesthetics, it was also because they are famous.  Context added that value. 

I feel this is especially true with sci-fi authors and how they not only want to tell a story, but create a whole universe.  For me, I’ve read a huge amount of Stars Wars books.  I feel that fans were not totally satisfied by the original 3 movies.  How did Anakin become Vader?  What were the Clone Wars?  What is Obi-Wan’s past? These questions and more drove them to make the prequel movies.  In the same vein, the books are there to continue the story and now almost 26,000 years of Stars Wars history is written for fans to discover. 

You see it everywhere nowadays.  Sequels, prequels, spin-offs.  All there to satisfy the burning questions: “what happened before?” and “what happens after?”  I understand the draw as I have enjoyed these worlds that authors and directors have created, but I still wonder if a story with no context is still valid?  Just as almost every western poem has been dissected with respect to syntax or historical context, do other media have to be that way too? 

I feel this is the reason a show like Kara no Kyoukai was refreshing.  I loved the show, but I don’t have an actual reason why.  Yes the visuals and music were great, but the plot…can I even call it a plot?  It was like 7 small dips into a person’s life, only seeing that part for a few days and being whisked away to another point.  Context is destroyed and you just have to sit there and see what is before you.  It is painful really, to see something without having some grasp on it, to not realize why they take action. 

Japanese shows, movies especially, love to portray the transience of everything.  The term is “mono no aware.” The Japanese really took a Buddhist concept and made it their own.  No context is ok; just live the scene, let it fade, and accept the new reality. 

Reason why I’m saying this is because I just watched the movie Garden of Words by Shinkai Makoto (same dude who made 5 Centimeters per Second).  It is a show where you are just thrust into a beautiful landscape and get that mere glimpse of a person’s life, and see how they deal with the passage of time. 

I feel whenever I watch American movies, with all their drama, action, suspense, or horror, I’m a witness.  With these types of Japanese movies, I feel I’m standing by the person.  There may not be that much dialogue or backstory to explain where they came from or what they are thinking, but that probably reflect the real world the best.  You slowly learn a person’s life story by being with them for a long time; in reality you are probably only going to be in a person’s life for a small sliver of time.  In the same way these shows portray the transience we all feel in our lives.  They make you walk side by side with the character as they experience their loss, and finally you need to move on too when the credits roll.  It may not give you the happy ending you wanted, but mono no aware leaves you with that gentle sadness that this is the reality of the world.  

In the end, what connects us to works of art?  Do we need the framework of context or can we plunge in without it?  Maybe by experiencing both ways I can find the answer.