Well, my darlings, I'm back again. You poor saps who waste your time reading this drivel probably thought that I'd left you permanently. Well, for a while there, I thought I had too. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of things to talk about here, I just didn't have the will, the drive, the desire to sit down and relate them all to a bunch of vast nothingness. Not to say that those of you who are reading this are "nothing," simply that I don't think there's a soul out there reading this. Perhaps it would gain a bit more of a following if I sent the address to people, but I haven't quite gotten to that stage of confidence yet, I suppose. For the time being, I kind of prefer being able to write down my thoughts without the possibility of more than one or two people reading them.

Anyway, getting on to the real subject here, I've settled in Japan for the time being, 99.8 percent completely oblivious to what's going on around me. Last night I made a promise to myself that I would study Japanese a bit more, really hunker down and get the basics of their alphabets one at a time. Learn some of the essential phrases when you're trying to find your way around the country. I've managed to get a grip on "Where am I?" and "What's this?", which comes in handy when I'm lost or curious about what exactly I'm about to ingest. One method I've found fairly helpful in learning to read is collecting a few menus or fliers and then translating the katakana or hiragana (2 of the 4 alphabets used in Japan) into the romaji (one of the alphabets, with all the sounds of the Japanese characters written in roman lettering) using a chart. It's worked surprisingly well so far, I'm able to recognize a few different symbols now, and slowly learning more everyday. My goal is to really put a lot into it and be able to have both of the symbol alphabets down by mid-July and be working on the Kanji (Chinese characters that don't seem to have a whole lot in the way of pronunciation rules. My coworker was telling me that, especially with names, these characters can pretty much say whatever you want them to.)

Well, there's plenty more to say, but I've got to start moving. Classes are starting late today, but that still means I have to get there early enough to prepare for them. I'm currently in the process of whipping up a quick lunch, a bit of yakiniku aka Korean BBQ aka meat and veg in a sweet sauce over rice. The rice is just about ready, so ta ta for now.

5 days and counting...

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for attending tonight's showing of "Stuff It and Cram It: Packing for a Life Abroad." Let me begin by pointing out the obvious things one needs while packing. First and foremost on the list is clothes. Life abroad would be very difficult if one were to neglect these necessities. Especially if, like myself, you're bound for a country where a majority of the population wears an inseam a good six inches shorter than your own. However, one should be keen to recognize the common affliction of overpacking. Set yourself a limit on how many items of clothing you're taking. If your primary purpose abroad is a business setting, keep in mind that 5 days of the weeks will be spent in a coat and tie. Casual clothing will certainly take a backseat and therefore should be limited to 7-10 days worth. Keep in mind that less is always best. At least that's what I keep telling myself. If you can get your hands on one or two of those vacuum packed bags (my mom likes to call them sucky bags), the kind you can squeeze the air out of yourself without the use of a vacuum, I think they do a wonderful job of compacting clothing and other things. They can make for some odd bumps and lumps amongst the rest of your things, but a few well placed t-shirts can feel in those gaps nicely.

Thinking within the parameters of the "less is best" theme, don't bring anything that you can't pick up while settling in at your new home. This list can include, but is not limited to, towels, laundry bags, hangers, etc. Everyone needs a souvenir mug so don't worry about bringing your favorite one along. In that same vein, not all of your stuff should be expecting to make the round trip to the foreign country and back. For example, in Japan I'll need a couple of pairs of slippers. Finding my size there will probably be a difficult venture, so I've opted to bring them from home. Now, don't tell them, but one if not both pairs won't be coming back to the states. I invested in something cheap that'll get the job done, but the likelihood that I'll need two pairs of slippers outside of the setting of Japan is quite small. Not everything that you'll be taking abroad will need to last a life time, they'll only need to last as long as you're abroad.

Necessity can often be an attention hog, and rightfully so. One must certainly plan efficiently in order to be sure that everything you need is readily available for you. However, you certainly can't neglect entertainment that you may need en route or while abroad. Because books are so dreadfully bulky and heavy, bibliophiles like myself may find it difficult to pack what they feel they need. Unfortunately the only thing that people like you and I can do is limit ourselves. How unbelievably horrid, I know. If you do bring multiple books, be sure to distribute them evenly in your luggage so that one bag isn't bogged down more than the others.

You are certainly in luck, however, if your passion is more along the lines of music or film. God bless the technological advancements of mp3 players. CD's can take up an enormous amount of room, room that can be much more efficiently allocated to necessary items. Like more books :). Or, for the more focused, a decent set of travel speakers. To digress momentarily, there are some incredibly lightweight and compact speakers out there, many of which are now mp3 ready. There are even some deemed travel ready, offering a protective case built around the speakers if you're planning on any strenuous travel. Anyway, if you're able to invest in an mp3 player with a sizeable amount of memory, there's even more incentive to leave things like laptops behind, though, to be honest, computers can be a little more difficult to escape than CD's. Another thing to keep in mind when debating the mp3 player issue is the ease of replacability. Let's say, God forbid, your music collection is lost or stolen. It will certainly be easier to replace an mp3 player than it will a cherished stack of CD's.

While there are certain programs in the world that will readily rip a DVD onto your laptop hard drive, I question their legality and efficiency. It can be a bit of a pain, but I think the best thing to do is to bring along your DVD's if you're intent on taking them with you. But to cut down on the bulk, leave all your DVD cases behind. Keep your film collection down to the basics and put the DVD's into a small CD case. While you're at it, be sure to remember the operating system and any other essential software CD's your laptop might need in case it comes down with a terrible cold. You probably won't need those, but it's certainly better to bring along those small pieces of plastic than be stuck without them.

Now that I've wasted a good chunk of your time blabbing on about things you're probably not at all interested in, I'd like to open the floor for questions. Anybody? Anybody? No? Alright, then. In closing, I'd like to remind you once more that less is best. I made the mistake of moving to Scotland with far too much luggage, 6 bags in total, at least 2 of them weighing in at around 70 lbs. This time around, if all goes as planned, I'll have managed to pack in 3 weighing no more than 50 lbs each and probably no less than 20. Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything.

Let the Blogging begin!

Now that I finally have something worth sharing, allow me to share. In a little over 2 weeks, I will be flying half way around the world to begin my year long soak in sake and sushi. Talk about an adventure. With little to no language under my belt, a healthy curiosity for the world and its cultures, as well as a little over 100 lbs. worth of luggage, I will be going to teach conversational English in the city of Sendai, Japan. The closer the date of my departure gets, the more I realize I have to do. My intention is, if anybody actually packing in preparation of living in a foreign country should stumble across my humble blog, that this webpage should be as helpful as possible. That means that soon, hopefully very soon, I'll have published a list of things to remember to pack, how to pack them, and other things of that nature. Once I reach Japan and I'm more able to answer the questions of what that whole experience is like, I'll be sure to fill you all in accordingly. Until then, however, I'm pretty exhausted from all the excessive nagging worries I'm collecting prior to my exodus. So please, if there's anyone out there, be patient and I'll tell you all about how stressed out I'm getting very soon.

Detour

After reviewing the last few posts, I'm beginning to realize this thing isn't exactly proceeding how I'd wanted to. I'm starting to come across as a bit more of a leftist "damn the man" hippie. Let me try to set the record a little straighter. I'll tell you a bit about just who you're reading. I'm a guy, modestly smarter than the average bear, old enough to catch that passing reference, not old enough to have seen the referencee in his first run at the world of television. I am impulsively passionate, meaning that if I read or see something I like, I'm immediately swollen with the desire take part in it. I was looking for another word there, but I think swollen accurately portrays the slowing and stiffness of other parts of my life when this desire seizes my brain. Allow me to explain. I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I wanted to move to Long Island. I saw Lost in Translation, I wanted to go spend a week or two in the Park Hyatt in Tokyo. Currently, I'm suffering from a bout of intellectualism. If the nagging is persistent enough, tomorrow I will drink deeply from the river of Whitman's words while occasionally breaking to scan the horizon for Moby Dick. I have little doubt that within a few days, I won't be able to crack the spine on either of the books, despite the fact that I'm already over half way through them both. Continuing, I'm a writer who is afraid to write, afraid to find the failure that I know I'll find, the failure that is necessary in order to better myself. How tragic and Catch-22. During my year abroad in Scotland, I took ill with a serious affliction that hinders my thought process even today. It was caused by a bite from a nasty little creature, commonly known as the Travel Bug. I believe I've got 12 or 13 countries under my belt for now, though plenty more exploration can and will be done within those countries, and hopefully another half dozen or so on the way. Just going to have to wait and see how money and other common hindrances affect my life in the Far East. I have to admit, despite the class that I took on political Islam, I fear I've been too deeply effected by romanticism in movies and books growing up. I'm a bit of an orientalist, hoping that the mystique that surrounds places like China is entirely true, though reality will undoubtedly teach me otherwise. I've been through enough places to know that one should never enter a country with preconceived notions of what you will find there and that a large part of your opinion on a country comes from your own perception of things. Do yourself and the natives a favor, learn and experience as much as you can while you're in their country, don't take anything for granted, and, whether your physical appearance will allow you to or not, do your best to blend in. Culturally or linguistically, I've just found that you get a more pure experience when you make an effort to show them you're pleased to see how they live. Dear God, I should've stopped while I was ahead. I'm starting to sound like that damn hippie again

Three Gorges Dam anxiety

A couple of weeks since my last post and, for those of you keeping score at home, this is now officially my longest blog. As for life beyond the web, you're not missing much. A new camera on the way, all of the accessories waiting anxiously for its arrival. Work is getting to be more work everyday. Yet another reason I'm chomping at the bit to get out of here and into the East. I'm positive that I'm being naive, if not downright ignorant, but the only worry I have is being able to cook decent, inexpensive food. A plethora of problems are waiting for me at the Narita airport, but I'm not even sweating it at the moment. At this point, I'm more worried about getting upriver of the Three Gorges Dam before it floods everything in Central China. Essentially destroying thousands of years of river culture, both in villages lining the river banks and the ancient ruins they're racing to uncover. It's amazing how the displacement of somewhere over 2 million people and the destruction of unexplored historic treasures are being brushed aside in the name of technological advancement. Fair enough, an obscene amount of people will be getting electricity and, therefore, "modernity", but it's difficult to say whether the pros outweigh the cons. I would be happy to say that they do if these archeological digs were being allowed the time to make significant progress on their work; but with the impending flooding, only a fraction of the artifacts are going to be uncovered. The artifacts that are being recovered are pulling their own "dam effect", flooding the local museums to the point where they've had to shut down so as to convert to giant warehouses while bigger museums are built. There are priceless goods literally sitting in the rain outside of these converted museums, waiting for looters to take advantage of their exposure. And then there are the cemetaries. I won't get into that, but let's just say the Chinese people are making huge sacrifices, sacrifices that their government will never be able to pay back. Anyway, for those of you who won't be able to make it there before 2009, when almost all of this will be lost, I'll do my best to take a bunch of pictures while I'm (hopefully) there. But I'm getting way ahead of myself.

A little less than five months until I'm in Japan and I am itching to go. There's only so much preparation I can do before getting completely burnt out on everything. By the time the beginning of May rolls around, I'm not even going to want to look at a bowl of rice. But naturally, when the time comes, I'll be ready. The amount of time I am able to spend at home gets proportionately smaller the older I get. My parents seem to find new ways to push my limits whenever I return home from school, from foreign countries, from anywhere. But I think I'm going to have to cut this post a little short. My heart's just not into it tonight, so if there is anybody that's actually reading this steaming pile, my apologies. I'll be back in a little while.

Introduction

Before I put this post into full throttle, I'd like to point out that this blog will eventually have a topic, so please, be patient. In the mean time, I'd like to invite you to indulge in a few of my thoughts on a variety of subjects, but primarily the world of blogs. In the past, I've attempted to spark my creative flow in a number of ways. Journals, dream diaries, I even tried a blog once, but with little effect on my motivation to put my thoughts into a form visible for others to see. Since my last attempt at blogging, however, there have been momentous changes in my life. 2, soon to be 3, continents called home; a lengthy, intense international relationship; and the probable end of my career as a student. I feel I've a much better grasp on who I am and what my life is about than I did even a few months ago. But I've still been unable to feel comfortable with putting pen to paper. This is bound to be a bit of a barricade in my attempt to one day make a career out of my words.

Along came Blog. Such a bizarre medium, completely exposed to the world if only they'd look. An elongated trenchcoat flash going largely unnoticed. It reminds me a bit of a photographer, Henry Drouillard, who coordinates his flashbulbs with the drop of his models' drawers as they stand in very public places. For that brief instant before any of the bystanders realize just how much skin is standing next to them in line for the bus, there isn't a hint of surprise or shock on anyone's face. Just calm. As if it's something they see everyday on their way to the grocery store. In the case of either the photography or what you're reading right now, it isn't really the lack of a reaction that gets me. It's not even the ability to bare all in the most public of places. It's the illusions of privacy, the anonymity of our words that make this one of the most appealing and revolutionary ways of communicating. Not only will the millions of people surfing the web most likely never have a desire to read these words, nearly all of them wouldn't even be able to find them in the vast garbage heap of the net. Some of the world's darkest secrets are safest in plain sight.

If you're looking for any of those particular kinds of secrets, however, you won't find them here. For the next five months, it will likely largely be filled with random thoughts, things people in the real world would only listen to because it's the polite thing to do. I'll do my best not to make things too long-winded and heavy. Interjected here and there, you'll find explanations of how I'm preparing for my move to Japan, the second country on my tour of powerful but relatively small island nations that drive on the wrong side of the road. Hence the actual web address, 2down.blogblahblah. Once May rolls around and the creepily long-armed reach of the internet has laid hands upon my humble and very Japanese-sized apartment there, you'll hopefully be hearing all about how much I love it there. Either that or you'll be hearing about how much the food sucks. Whatever the case, I'm sure there will be pictures.

Getting Started

It's just past 3 am here in Hometown, USA. The harsh white sting of the computer moniter along with the ungodly hour have got me blinking at twice the normal rate. It's not so much that I can't sleep as I'm just not allowing myself to, for reasons unbeknownst even to me. I thought I'd get a head start on this whole blog thing before I make my way East into tomorrow (more on that to come). But to be perfectly honest, the only reason you're reading this now, if there is in fact anyone reading this, is that the website wouldn't allow me to post a comment on a friends blog unless I myself created one. Here is the masterpiece I've put forth. Bask in its glory.