Bad Person

I am a bad person, it's simple as that.

When I was younger I swore to an oath at least once a week.

I've broken the first two points of that oath.

Everything I thought was good about myself was apparently a lie.

If I could do something like I did to someone like that what does that make me other than a bad person.

I'll understand perfectly if this goes ends up in a certain way.

This is probably the last post, as there will be no meaning without Her...

Buns of Steel!

Just a short update for now(still have to study for tomorrow's final before She gets up).

Interesting day today, on my walk the 雰囲気(funiki) of the area reminded me of why I had fallen in love with this country the first time. Although I now have no plans to stay here(one winter was enough, and I miss my protein, among other necessities that are only in the US(Her)) I had a glimpse of what it was like when I made my plan. I seriously think that it has a lot to do with the fact that today was a good day at school. I was reminded of when I just started in Japanese, and I was learning something new every day, along with being challenged just a bit by all the tests. The fact that I didn't have to haul my heavy legs around town on a rickety bike probably also added to it. Oh, and I was an alpha today, I think I can keep it up, if I just stop giving a shit about being accepted by the people around me, and just do what I want to do, not what we or they want to do.

Anyways, to the topic of the post, while farting around on the internet procrastinating my time away I came across something that might actually be useful. It's called traineo and although I'm not sure if it's going to actually work for me(I'm pretty sure it's based on losing weight, and I'm trying to go from 175-180) I still think it'll be nice if I can track my progress. Aaaannnnyways, while clicking around on the site I came across an interesting post called "100 push-ups". There's a fitness test for my new plan and it requires 60+ push-ups to gain the rank of upper echelon, which I usually want. Because of that I was captivated and brought to a site that had a program to be doing 100 push-ups non-stop in 6 weeks. Unfortunately I only have 4 weeks until I get a chance at him*, and I have to be able to complete the challenge. This made me a little upset, until I found that due to my current state of fitness, I can skip half the program. So I am now on a course to be doing 100 push-ups non-stop(which I've never been able to do before). Also, on the site was a program for 200 sit-ups(once again, useful for the test), which I've already started, once again on week 3 rather than 1. Finally, being hyped up from my chocolate dinner, I found the section on 200 squats. The basic requirement(to skip half) is 30 and to me that seemed like a joke. So I decided to perform their "fitness test" to see where I should start, and found that I can already do 200 squats, and probably a lot more, before getting really tired(note: after 200 I was short of breath, and my heart was beating, but my muscles were nowhere near ready to quit like with the other exercises). So now my weekly plan is sit-up training 3 days a week(MWF); push-up training 3 days a week(STT); and on the final day(S), at least 200 crunches(I lernd semicolens to!!1).

*Note on him: I know that there is no reason to believe it's true, but for some reason when She was talking to him it reminded me of when the one who's better than me was talking to the nerd. I really need to get this under control, because if it goes down again like last time I will never be able to get out of the stump, but my gut just hates all of them that make Her get that look on Her face, especially when they talk like that...

Japanese(Yay!!): 雰囲気(ふんいき/funiki) this one has a tricky spelling, and it's always hard to get it out on the computer correctly the first time. It means "atmosphere" and the reason that it came up was because it was on my test this morning, so I still had down to the stroke order for all the kanji fresh in my head while writing this, and it just happened to pop up before the English equivalent. Also, it probably has something to do with my essay that I used to get into this school.

Reboot

Apparently my reader(s) are demanding that I continue my blog, so more monotony for the world, YAY. Today started out not so great, woke up in the morning and half slept through my 1 hr buffer time only to have a tiff with the g.f. before heading off to school. I couldn't concentrate in class, and at first I thought it might be because I was tired, but I also kept thinking of the argument. While half listening to prep questions for my oral final next week and playing peggle on my ipod I came across a solution that would make me happy, and I figured that if she truly loved me she would come back with the right response. Of course, she always knows what to say so just a couple words in a text immediately changed my outlook for the day.

I then went through the tediousness of class and ran into some old friends from the place I shouldn't have ever left and made half plans to hang out with them again soon. Unfortunately they're both of the opposite gender and I am still trying to find partners for man dates so I'm hoping I can get them to introduce me to their boyfriends, or some other male friends that they have.

After eating lunch I headed downtown to meet up with my student with the apparent speech impediment for what I though was going to be a long session. I got there about 40 minutes early and decided to check out the electrical district that was hidden just beyond a place I frequent. When I got there I stumbled upon a store that I thought didn't exist in Kyoto, and picked up some materials for a project that I hope to start with the help of the electro-geeks in my family.

In the middle of my nerd hunt I got a call from the SIS stating that he wanted me to meet him at the restaurant where we normally do our sessions instead of a 20 minute walk away, so my day got a little bit better. It only improved from there as I got to the restaurant and found him in a suit with a large bag that looked like travel. I then found out that he was going to cut our normal 4 hr session short to 2 hrs(woohoo!) which meant that I now had time to grab that ring I saw on the way down, and finish my nerd hunt.

On the way back I ran into a hidden 100 yen and grabbed a couple more things(cheese grater & tape cutter) because I seem to be defenseless against the idea that you can get something that's useful for only 100 yen.

On the way home I discovered a new way to tie my scarf that makes it extremely easy to tighten/adjust so that I never have to worry about stopping to fix it while riding again. I finally got home and decided to try on the ring(stupid me for not trying it on before buying) to find that it doesn't fit exactly right, but it's good enough for now, and I may have found out how to resize it myself.

After doing a little internet research I lazed around for a while before finishing up my homework due by the end of the night, but have yet to make any progress on the essay(motivation:fail).

I think I may have found the perfect way to cook chicken, with a nice mix of ponzu sauce, garlic, paprika, and pepper that burns into a nice black ooze that then seeps into the chicken to give it a very strong flavor all throughout.

On another note, spending all my time writing essays in Japanese and not getting enough practice with my English finally seems to be affecting my spelling. I found my self writing "works saited" when trying to make a note on a new word I learned. At first I thought to myself "silly Kevin, that 'ai' sound is simply an 'i', I can't believe I messed up something so simple" before looking at the word again and noticing that "cited" is spelled with a 'c', silly English(almost wrote inglish) and your spelling rules(rools).

Catch Up

It seems I may be back into the flow of things, my last post was only a little bit ago, and I haven't accomplished much since. I did manage to get an outline for my essay, but that didn't take much time, and I don't feel very accomplished because of it. One thing that I did enjoy however was my dinner. I made the hard boiled egg salad, which turned out to be acceptable but not amazing. However, the thing that I really liked was the chicken. I don't.... guhhh, how could anyone read this and not be bored, posts will be limited now to when something interesting happens...

Failure to Plan

Yesterday was basically another complete failure. I thought that the first night was bound to be a failure because I started at 9:40 and only gave myself until 12:00, but there was no reason for such a failure the next day.

It all started out ok, waking up only 15 minutes late into the schedule that I had given myself an extra hour on, but it all went (mostly) downhill from there. During class I was horribly tired, and although I had resolved to be a better student I found myself getting distracted by random thoughts and my Ipod. After class I went to the friend who I thought would have the paper, but found that she didn't so I went home and took a nap between classes. I felt bad because that's the only time I get to talk to Her, and I wasted it all on a stupid nap. I then went to the class, which wasn't much of a failure, actually a bit of a success. However, the class seemed kind of useless as it was just a reading about crazy old Japanese horror stories of what would happen if you were a bad wife. After the class I decided to try and swing by the paper holder's place to get it, but after "searching everywhere" for it she couldn't find it so I went back home after sitting in the cold outside waiting and hoping for something to help me with my report.

When I got home I began to pull the report out of thin air before discovering google scholar, which would have been useful to have before. I finally finished the report and had eaten dinner while writing it. I attempted to start working out, but my muscles hurt too much and I was too tired to finish even 5 minutes of yoga style exercises.

I was about to go to sleep when she brought up a fear that I had previously had, but I just buried down inside like everything else so that I can sleep. Of course, because it was now apparent to me I spent the better half of 2 hrs trying to find a solution. Not being able to find anything and not being able to sleep with it on my mind I decided watch TV to get my mind off it. However, the problem with internet TV is that what you want to watch is always on, so I got sucked into it and stayed up until 5. I then attempted to try and sleep but that never actually came about.

Drifted in and out of sleep while having weird dreams about people complaining about having to tutor multiple people at once so they can't sleep. I also noticed that my next door neighbor seemed to also have a sleepless night(I can see his light on through the wall).

I then tore myself out of bed because I had already skipped one lecture(the most boring of them all, and apparently was completely useless today as well) and I like the teacher from my second lecture. After that I went to lunch and got the odd combo of gyoza ramen(doesn't really work 'cause the gyoza gets all soggy in the soup). The next class was basically the same as always, the teacher kinda amazed me by the fact that he was able to perfectly finish a lesson without having to start the next(last day of classes). The final class was quite scary, as I had just turned in a report that I know I didn't write too well. I had thought that the teacher wouldn't really care about how well the report was written, but when I turned it in she started asking questions about what I had meant to say, apparently my Japanese is that bad. We were asked to write about a couple things from over the semester that had left an impression on us, and while looking for stuff to write about I came across the paper that I couldn't find the night before.

Finally finished the day, 1 day closer to going back to where I never should have left. From now I'm going to try and get started on one of my last 2 essays, hopefully get it cranked out either by tonight or tomorrow. With the whole not sleeping thing I really doubt I'm going to get the energy/motivation to work out tonight, which is quite disappointing. However, I do plan on heading over to the gym tomorrow and actually doing some real weight, so that maybe I can gain some body mass back.

Dinner tonight will probably be hard boiled egg salad, thought I've seen it in a restaurant before so I don't think it could turn out too horrible, and if it does, I have backup curry udon.

Day 2

Slept in a bit past my alarm(15 mins). But I still like the extra time that I've gained by waking up a bit earlier. I didn't sleep so well last night, not sure exactly why, but I do remember that whenever I woke up I was thinking about things that I could write in my essay(and noticing the fact that she wasn't there), so at least I made some progress while I was missing out on my sleep. I'd like to take a nap between classes today, but in all reality that probably won't happen.

So today's goals are:

Make sure to ask WG3 to borrow the paper that I needed to write my essay, and try and get it done before 8:00.

Larger dinner(starting at 9:00 at the latest)

20 min workout(immediately after food)

And, if I have time, to start on the other essay(due in 9 days)

Theory vs. Reality

Wow, what a complete failure today was. After finishing the first post I got distracted trying to sign up for adsense on my blog(as you can tell, I got it working).

Once I got it working(4 minutes before my self set time limit of 9:45) I went to make dinner, which actually turned out ok, but the first part of the meal(gyoza) took far longer than I had suspected. Because the rice was taking a while to cook, I decided to try and get a head start on my essay and finish it after I had eaten/worked out/showered.

However, in order to write the essay I had to find a sheet of paper that had an outline of the topic that I was planning to use, and some ideas that I could jump start the essay with. I spent about 1 hr looking for the essay, shuffling through papers and came up with nothing. As I finally decided to give up(after considering changing the topic and even doing a minimal amount of research for the other topic) I remembered my rice in the cooker.

I went and got it and ate it while listening to music, because stressing over an essay while eating late at night just doesn't sound like a good idea. I'm not sure exactly when I finish eating, however, I did move straight on to the workout when I was finished.

Which brings us to another failure. After 16 minutes of actually working out (plus 10 minutes of reconfiguring my room and rigging a barbell out of things in my room) I was out of exercises that I could do, I had already run through most of the exercises that I knew I could do with minimal equipment and limited space in my room, all the muscles that were necessary to continue those exercises were not going to be doing much more.

While working out I noticed that I must be somewhat malnourished. My arm are fare smaller than I remember and I was getting warn out after far too little work. This thought occurred to me again in the shower when I saw that my legs were also smaller than I remember.

Good things that came out of the situation however were that I did have a proper dinner tonight, and I did manage to clean up after myself.

As it's now 12:20 I am going to sleep, because I plan on waking up at 7:00 tomorrow and I should be getting ~7 hours of sleep if I want to be in working condition tomorrow.

Also, I didn't get around to reviewing social interactions today(I did a bit of it on my bike to go get food for dinner, but not throughly) I don't have any reactions to post. However with the small amount of review that I did get, I think that I'm OK for today. I didn't really have any intense social interactions with anyone, except JM1, but I don't believe that could be seen as a mistake on my part, much more on his.

Below is just a summary of today's results I guess you could say, just for my own sake.

1/18

chocopan 1

katudon 1

-egg

-tonkatu

-shichimi ~1g

-rice 150g

gyoza 21 pcs

rice 450g

kagome tonkatu 10g

shirodashi 10g

salt ~1g

water 1c + 1 1/2 bottle

workout(16:23)

200 crunches

40 weighted bag curls

40 pushups

10 incline pushups

20 leg lifts

motivation: fail(0%)

workout: barely passing (75%)

review: fail(50%)

The beginning

I've recently come to understand that I am not as good of a person as I had previously thought. They always say "ignorance is bliss", however the problem with that is that as soon as you are lifted out of the bliss of ignorance by someone who is kind enough to tell you what's really going on, you feel the exact opposite of that bliss. That bliss itself makes you feel horrible because not only was what you believed wrong, but you were so ignorant that you accepted that bliss and took pleasure in it.

The things I need to improve upon are many, but for starters I think I'm going to try and get rid of my slight Asperger Syndrome. The realization of this problem was the pivotal thought that began the idea of improving myself. I've actually noticed this problem before but I always just accepted it as a part of myself that I would not be able to improve. However, I've recently gained a new relation that has changed many of the ways I think. With this person around I no longer feel that I have to accept the world as it is, or myself as I am. I have found out that as long as she is behind me, cheering me, and sometimes correcting me, I get the feeling that I can do almost anything. It's like when I was a kid and I would watch karate movies and I'd leave the theater/couch/car(drive-in theaters ruled) believing that I possessed the ability to do flips while kicking a box that I had just bounced off some bad guy's face. With this person around me I feel like that all the time, I see her and wish that I had the same traits and the same courage. I don't know what caused this fault to develop in me, but I know that it is not something I like. I don't like it when people have a way to knock me down a peg, and I especially don't like it when that weakness is something that I could have avoided if I tried a little bit harder.

The idea of trying harder brings another point to my mind. I find that when I'm near someone that I care about I always get sleepy and just want to give in. However, when I'm not around anyone that I care about I'm overly energetic and I usually can't fall asleep when I should. Perhaps if I start working on improving myself I won't get so tired around those that I'm always trying to impress and I'll be the person I am around them even when I'm alone, wearing me out enough that I will have normal amounts of energy.

Another thing that I want to work on is my motivation. As it stands I am a horribly lazy person. If an essay is due in 3 days I will wait until 2 days from now to do it. I know that if I did it today, I would feel more relieved, and I wouldn't get upset with situations as easily. However, whenever it comes down to it, I always start to put things off till the last moment.

For now my final fault that I see with myself is my physical inabilities. I believe I can remedy this simply by training more than I do currently(once a week at best)

The internet says that if you do something every day for 30 days it will become a habit, whether good or bad. I think if I make an effort to address these problems I see in myself every day for the next month I will be able to start on the path to becoming a better person overall. However, lifting my hin will probably reveal more "blissful ignorance" to me and it may become hard, but that is the reason for this blog. By writing in it every day, and having it as something that everyone can see with a simple google search about me, I believe that I can gain the motivation that I lack in myself from outside sources.

I am going to treat this as a scientific experiment as I've always found that science is one of the few things in which I've never lost interest.

Therefore, summing up, things that I plan to do every day for the next 30 days are:

-work out for at least 20 minutes

-review my social interactions from the day so that I can see if I made a mistake

-do one thing that I had planned to do tomorrow, or "some other day"

To start off for today(because saying "I'll start tomorrow" will only lead to it not being done) I will: work out for 20 minutes(using a timer so I don't cheat myself) immediately after eating and doing my dishes; write the essay that is due in 2 days, even though I have plenty of time to do it tomorrow; and review my social interactions. I will then post how it has gone at the end of the day so that I will force myself to account for my actions, and I will be able to see myself from an outside view in order to discourage complacency.

On another note, if you are actually reading this blog and you've started from the beginning, then you should know that I sometimes feel words from another language(most likely Japanese) sometimes work better than an English word, or I may sometimes be in a thought process and a Japanese word may pop up that just fits better at the moment. In any case I will go through my post afterward and leave a description of what I meant at the end.

For today's post I used the word hin(品). I'm not sure if I am completely correct in my usage of the word, but to me it means something along the lines of quality. When I looked up the word in my dictionary, the first example sentence translated from 「彼は品がない。」(kare ha hin ga nai) to "He is a common sort of man." It actually kind of amazed me that the dictionary described the concept almost exactly as I was thinking it(I never learned that specific word, just other words that used that kanji). In that sentence, I was referring to the fact that I do not want to be just a normal person, I want to be something more, something that people can not easily attack, and I want to be someone that others can look up to and find inspiration in.

So now I'm off to make dinner and hopefully begin the path of becoming something more.