Its been a couple weeks.

I hope you didn't miss me too much. I felt the inexplicable pain of separation from your gaze, so here I am, begging for more. What? I can't say that I have been all that particularly busy in the past couple weeks, but sometimes one thing leads to another and I haven't been posting. Oh well. So on my lovely day off, I'm comin' at you live from good ol' Japan. For how long, who knows? I can update any readers interested in my current arrangements in: the next paragraph!

Big news! I'm certifiably eligible! What the hell does that mean? Basically its just the first step of many that is very important when applying for a visa. Since mine is a student visa there needed to be collaboration with the school and other parties involved. Now that I have that fancy piece of bureaucratic wastepaper, I am all set to go talk with the immigration folk, which will hopefully set up my move, applying for the visa itself. Now this is tricky, because I am already somewhat of a legal alien here, and I'm applying to upgrade my status from inside the county. Whether or not that will be possible at all is unclear to me, hence my looking forward to a meeting with the staff at the immigration office. I see there being three possible outcomes for me, I'll list them from most favorable to least in terms of future careers and current financial/personal effect: 1. Everything goes better than expected. In other words, I stay here, get my visa, study, work, play, and live. 2. I gotta go home to apply for the visa. This is good news too, I'd get a chance to see all you American friends one more time before I'm off to Japan for who knows how long. 3. They decide that I'm a worthless sack of human goop and ship my ass back to America. I am not sure why they would do that, since I'm already eligible, but I have heard of stranger things happening here in Japan.

So that's where I'm at, kinda stressful to be honest. Classes are supposed to start in less than a month, so within the next couple weeks I could be back stateside for an unknown amount of time. Don't hold your breath though. I feel as if I have sunken to the level of presidential campaign promises in terms of my reliability, at least on this matter for sure.

What is on the menu today? I have something that I wrote not too long ago. That time I was inundated with inspiration, and in my struggle to comprehend complete human interaction I popped out this little diddle. I hope you enjoy it, its all about you.

I hope there is still room in there for me

What I have is unwavering, creative and unconditional

I inundate others too easily with my passion

Resulting struggles led me to attempt to trickle

My inexperience is obvious, I under-apply or over-correct

but I haven't given up, perfection always takes time

what is right and good is always resisted by nature

if only to prove to yourself that you want it

desires receive little patience in my mind

abandoned for the sake of sanity or purity

all that comes from this is irony, for I am neither

the more this realization becomes apparent

the more I realize that I want to be with you

This seems to me to be self explanatory, but I wrote it, so what I really think is not only clouded by my own hindsight, but also, as every high school English teacher will tell you, its not about what the author actually means, but about as many different meanings you can get out of it as possible. 

Anyways, check out my other posts, I'll be adding more soon.

Videos, you love to watch them, I know you do

That's right folks, here they are, some videos for you. First, two of my favorite videos from the web. They are part of a video series from "What the Bleep Do We Know?" which talks in depth about quantum theory. Of course its a few years old, and full of a lot of spiritual speculation, however I enjoyed watching it thoroughly, and this cartoony super hero scientist man is really entertaining. The concepts he talks about are not easy to grasp, but its explained in such a way that just about anyone can get it.

This first one shows what its like for someone looking "down" at us from a different dimension, but it puts it in the most logical way possible for us to relate. So we take on the view of a three dimensional being, observing a 2 dimensional world. Watch the video, its pretty self explanatory.

Imagine someone coming to your doorstep and pulling you from everything you thought was true and significant and then realizing that there is so much more that is equally, if not more significant, because its not held down by location or time. If only it were as simple as it sounds. 

Next up is some basic quantum physics stuff. No big deal really, but the last part of the video is my favorite. I even explained these concepts to a younger friend of mine not too long ago, using the same ideas he shares, and she seemed to understand, even though math isn't her strong point.I even explained these concepts to a younger friend of mine not too long ago, using the same ideas he shares, and she seemed to understand, even though math isn't her strong point.

Conscious thought and observation play a much bigger role in the world than most of us realize. I said earlier I'd tie some points back to what I had said about new year resolutions. Well this is it, part of it at least. Perception is a key driving force in the world. We can change our perceptions to see the world in a different light, and so it will become that.

Next up is an amazing video of young Japanese schoolchildren. No its not creepy or perverted, unfortunately, but these kids understand more about life and how to make it work than 95% (don't quote me on that percentage) of Americans. Its sad really that they have such a complex knowledge of the world and how it can affect us, but also how we can support each other and rely on our strength to make it better. For those who are tear-bags, you may want to grab a box of tissues.

Kawaii! That's just part 1. I haven't gotten a chance to see the rest of them yet, but I encourage you all to check them out. Also did you notice the date the narrator mentioned? That was almost 10 years ago, these students have all graduated high school now. I will investigate to see if I can find what they are doing with their lives nowadays. Maybe even try to find them while I'm here!

Last one then I'm done for the night. Up 'til 6am is not going to help me be productive tomorrow. This one is about feminism. I have no idea if this lady knows what she is talking about, or if she is just playing intelligent psychologist, but her arguments are logical enough. This video is kinda long so maybe grab some popcorn and relax a bit. Also, not quite the tear-jerker the other one was.

An interesting look at how evolution has trained us to eventually over-populate the planet, due to the very same idea that gives us feminism and chivalry. Well that's all for me everyone! Please comment and let me know what you think of the state of all this so far, any compliments or criticisms are welcome and appreciated. 

Busy!

Whoo! Happy New Year everybody! I can't say enough about the year I had last year so I might as well not say anything at all. Thank you to all the old friends who were there for me to have fun or lend me a hand when I needed it. To all of my new friends (there are a lot of you) you are awesome, 'nuff said. Like the title of this post says the past couple weeks have been hectic around these parts. Huis Ten Bosch's highest grossing season is Christmas and New Years and the time in between and shortly after, that is what we were told at least. And sure enough the park lived up to its hype. Some 25,000 people visited the park on NYE and holy cow we were busy. So I apologize for slacking in my upkeep on here, but I'll make it up to you by adding a few extra things today, as well as something new and exciting.

First of all, maybe some of you out there made new year resolutions. I urge you to cut that shit out right now. Hear me out. Its great to have good intentions of self improvement at the start of the year, but in the case of these resolutions, it tend to be more of a forced declaration, rather than actual freedom from your bad habits, which is really what you want to curb, right? Sure it would be great to tone up that saggy butt, or maybe now is the time for you to cut out tobacco or alcohol so you can feel healthier, but are those really the sources for what is causing you the most pain and sorrow?

Say from the first of the year you change your exercise habits. Now you are going to the gym, 3 times a week. After a month you are seeing little results, but you probably feel better, have more energy, and can push yourself a little bit harder in your programs (I am assuming a level of diligence not often given to resolutions). What hasn't changed after a month is how you see yourself in your mind, in other words, how your thoughts change the way you perceive the world around you. Yeah, you are starting to feel good, and have more energy to do things you enjoy, but if the reason you wanted to go to the gym and work on your figure was due to poor body image as opposed to an issue of fitness; all the toned butts and sexy abs in the world won't save you from how you see yourself.

So my challenge to you is this: tell your New Years Resolution to go fuck itself, you may have already done this, in which case, you are ahead of the curve. The next step is to analyze and inventory yourself. The older you are, the harder this gets, but its easy to take baby steps. Take time out of your day to watch yourself from an outsiders perspective, explain yourself to an invisible alien, especially when you feel yourself second guessing what comes next. Ok, yeah, perhaps I am more loony than any of you, but there are really good ways to figure out where stress and pain come from in your life, more often than not its internally based. Of course stress come from outside sources as well, that bear you saw while camping could have ripped your face off, or that time you got into a car accident on the highway was probably really stressful! These are things you can't always control, but worrying about that boy or girl liking you, feeling anxious about money, thinking that you aren't good enough; these have nothing to do with outside influences, but can be sought out consciously and conquered.

O by the way, did I mention that this isn't easy at all? Sorry to leave that bit out. Its true, for some of you, if you commit yourself to finding these things and overcoming yourself in these situations, it might be one of the most difficult things you do in life. But the thing about degrees of difficulty is, the harder you work, the vastness of the reward is exponentially increased. Plus then hitting the gym will actually be worth your time, and you will be able to see the results of your hard work right away.

I'll be posting some videos later that I will attempt to tie in to this idea, and maybe make it a little more clear. that is the big surprise. Look at me with my big mouth, ruining surprises. I'll have to think of something better to give you now!