~1 year ago...

here i am trying to shorten my crim law outline and suddenly i realize that my mom was right, again. one of these days-not today-ill admit it. some friends new and old said the same thing, but i wasnt hearing it. ive been struggling a little (a lot) with this new relationship of mine and i couldnt figure out what was keeping me from moving forward. maybe i knew all along and was just afraid of saying it out loud. this sucks, not much i can really do about it now. just have to wait and see what happens. maybe ill get lucky for once and this thing will work itself out, even if it means starting all over again. im too lazy, lost my patience, i havent meditated in weeks, things shouldnt be this difficult...i dont think i want to try again. why am i writing in code all the time? what`s the point of writing this blog at all if only i can decipher it and will i even understand this weeks from now?

i moved last weekend. not into a 1br downtown or in chestnut hill like i planned to, but all the way up northeast, 5 miles from the bucks county line in this townhouse with my mom and sister. craziness. i might have to stay in west oak lane for finals next week unless i can leave at 6am...and i dont know what will happen next semester.

another blast from the past

this was i think by far the best summer i`ve ever had. no enlightening moments like in japan; it was just crazy, fun, embarrassing at times, but always unforgettable...i learned alot about intl law, italy, people in general, and myself.

I had a great birthday. no bachlorette party or night club or anything...just a long dinner party then barhopping...we (read i) was drunk before we even left the restaurant to go to any bar (italian white wine gets me everytime) and then people were buying me all kinds of birthday drinks. i was so wasted by the time we got to the 3rd bar that i ended up walking home with this blue-eyed boy and fooled around for about 3 hours...sike! hahaha. D`s more than enough for me ;) My roommate didnt have such a great birthday because of some stupid boy she has this crazy crush on so the next night we had a girls` night. also this was my roommate`s friend`s last night in rome...first dinner at this great restaurant across the street from the residence and lots of house wine and pasta and seafood. then to one of the apartments with A/C where i tried some hash and we just played cards, listened to music, male-bashed for a little while (not me), drank more wine, smoked more hash...then 2 of the girls went on this secret mission and left for a few hours and 2 boys crashed the party (i told them they werent invited a few hours before) but they were fun so we let them stay...one of them made us a bong thingy for the hash.


2 days later we (the good girls and i) left for venice...almost missed the train because one of the girls didnt bring her reservation number and had to wait in this long line about 15 minutes before the train was departing...2 of us were on the train 5 minutes til departure and the other 2 were in line; i remember calling saying we`re getting off the train and we`ll just take the next one. but they made it on the train just before it started to pull off. turns out all you had to do was tell the conductor your seat number and poof your name appears on her pda and she prints out a ticket for you. Venice was amazing...i wish we had stayed longer. our apartment on the outside looked really sketchy and we were all worried because of our not too nice island apartment 2 weeks before...the front entrance looked like it would just crumble at any moment...old exposed brick and not in a good way. but once we went upstairs and opened our door we were all very relieved to find a very modern, fully renovated apartment with pretty much everything but A/C. We were all having some problems with the skeleton key locking the bathroom door the first night, and then the next morning i woke up because i kept hearing this jiggling noise. and I.O. was locked inside the bathroom. finally got her out after about an hour (maybe it was closer to a half hour, but it was still long, cause i took a couple of breaks to let the 2 other girls try to get her out). Didnt lock or shut the door after that.

And lots of other crazy adventures during those 6 weeks. Cant wait to go back!

another very old post from japan...

How silly I was for actually thinking I could do this job for 9 months! it`s been one very long (muted) scream of boredom...feeling like i`ve seriously wasted my time and talent being here. the research is challenging and full of buzzwords like nano, bio, and electronics but i just feel like i should be doing bigger and better things that are closer to my heart (i.e. public policy, community development, working on health and environmental issues etc). i`m just not passionate about working as a corporate engineer. I thought I could be because of the location and the new research but it just never happened for me. I love Japan, I love the food, traditions, religious ceremonies. I love being able to travel to places like koyasan, hokkaido, kyoto. practicing zazen and eating vegetarian meals with buddhist monks. soaking in mineral hotsprings in beautiful mountain inns in the middle of winter. i even have fond memories of several places in tokyo like the museum district in ueno and shopping in akihabara and harajuku. I am really glad that i was so fully immersed in the language and culture, and only played confused foreigner once or twice.

Culturally there are some isssues that can be quite annoying and frustrating at times: the largescale conformity whether its at work, school uniforms everywhere there`s even conformity in the recent trend of suicides (group suicides from charcoal stoves in cars or some man kills his entire family and then himself), the robotic nature of many of the salary workers and the mental health/anti-social issues that are not uncommon, the rudeness and obliviousness that comes from the crowds of people whether its in a museum, supermarket or on a train, missing chivalry i.e. people dont make a point to give up their seats for elderly or women or small children, so much environmental waste you should see how much plastic is used in these stores...pedestrians and foreign drivers beware of narrow japanese country roads and aggressive drivers; there are way too many perverts and gropers especially on the trains, and there is a large number of single men who spend huge amounts of money and time watching/reading anime, playing video games, and looking very autistic and anti-social; the general lack of privacy. Ok maybe i have mixed feelings about the people because ive had some amazing encounters with complete strangers and coworkers...overall Japan`s great, even better than the first time.

I just hate my job. I almost quit the first week in March; im still amazed that people actually volunteer to spend a very large portion of 40 years of their lives doing these types of jobs and the fact that most of my coworkers dont spend much time in the labs at all makes it even worse...i want to crawl into their heads, figure out what`s broken, and fix it for them-for free, in fact i`d feel like i was doing a public service and wouldnt hesitate to spend 40 years of my life just making sure that people dont spend theirs staring at a computer screen, making pantene #46, studying corrosion, or anything else ridiculously pointless in the grand scheme of things.

in other news i still havent figured out this whole platonic relationship thing. so i came to japan thinking im not going to play any games or flirt too much or try to be the cute, lost foreigner or anything like that. i`ll just be myself (and try not to look so sexy ;)I had a very weird, confusing summer as far as relationships with the oppposite sex and so i just wanted to keep things as simple as possible during my year here. But in my attempts to just be friendly (it`s hard not to be when you`re alone in a foreign country), eager to share and learn from as many people as possible, up for (almost) anything whether it be a town market-festival, a zazen retreat or karaoke and soba, trying to keep my nights and weekends full, i may have confused a few people here. My bad...Being around so many men all the time and living in this little city has spoiled me...way too much attention even for me. not only were people, even perfect strangers, buying me things all the time, never letting me pay for anything, some of these men have actually bought and made me gifts that they obviously put a lot of time, money, and thought into.

Anyway Ive never been so excited to write a final research paper...we`re having a farewell dinner party after work tonight and then i just need to finish clearing out my apartment. I`ll be in philly in 4 days. I can hardly believe it. winter was so dreadfully long, if i didnt know any better i`d think some extra weeks had been added just for me.

about 2 years ago...

i headed back to work monday morning after a very nice vacation (since the 27th)...it was so clear and serene and pleasant outside, i wondered if maybe i was mistakened and it was in fact sunday. seemed wrong to begin the dreaded 9-5 cycle on such a beautiful day...a day for the beach and bike riding and sketching and zazen and a long lunch followed by an afternoon nap and a good book and...instead i was inside labs all day, all week. i cant believe i fooled myself into taking this engineering job; I was ready to run after the first 3 months. maybe i can understood the people who actually spend a decent amount of time getting their hands dirty in the labs but ive never seen so many `deskworkers` who werent programmers or secretaries. i still dont know what half of my coworkers really do...do you need 3 or 4 section leaders to `lead` the other 10 people??? no wonder unemployment in japan is so low.

some of the guys at work, when they found out i would be leaving in june, asked if i could get an extension and atleast stay thru the summer...im flattered that people enjoy my company but ha! i hope i wasnt smiling too hard yesterday as i went over my last experimental plans with my boss. and if i was, hopefully it looked like one of those `i had such a wonderful time here and i really dont want to leave but dont worry ill be back (as a tourist)` smiles. i could really use a time machine right about now.

other news:
............
last week i discovered that i do know how to cook or rather i know how to read a box and follow a recipe and buy food for more than 2 days. plan to take it up a notch or 2 this summer using all those cookbooks i read thru without once taking out a pot.

............
horoscopes dont work very well when you`re thousands of miles away from friends and family, potential boyfriends, and office romances.

going on a zazen retreat up in the mountains this weekend...

~ a month before leaving japan

sometimes i wonder if i should just join a buddhist monastery or convent somewhere in the mountains and call it a day. or i wish there was some hidden, untouched tribe i could join and limit my contact with the outside world as much as possible. think walden pond or some little obscure village in the south pacific.

everything seems so wrong. i worry too much and sometimes i get this crazy idea that i have to save the world from just about everything...poverty, disease, environmental problems...i went on a zazen retreat this past weekend with 30 union workers from various research backgrounds...it was my second time spending the night in a temple although this one was on a famous buddhist pilgrimage route and was set up like it`s own little town spread out along the base of a mountain on the outskirts of a city southwest of here. i was so jealous of the monks.

my first overnight temple experience, in koyasan, was so brillantly simple and humble and serene and beautiful that i really didnt want to leave...probably the best rest i ever got (the vegetarian meals were amazing too). i probably wouldve been in a state of peace for the rest of the week, if not longer, but the indian ocean tsunami happened a day after i left western japan. if i had made plans ahead of time there`s a good chance i wouldve been spending my winterbreak in malaysia or india.