Friday, June 29, 2007

All work and no play makes Matt a dull boy.

So... anyone want to hear about how much I work?



Yeah, I kind of figured not.

I've been reading a properly terrible science fiction book lately. I can't even remember what it's called. I'm probably halfway through the book, and I still can't figure out why the author bothered to write it. It's got no new central idea, no clever exploration of anything, just shallow characters with no motivation, and it has more clichés than the Arctic Ocean has hydrogen molecules. I continue on in the vague hope that somewhere all of the vague and disparate elements of the book will suddenly tie together and have meaning, rather than just being vague appropriations for unsuccessful generation of interest.

On the bright side, whatever I read next will surely seem the brightest, most well-written book ever.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Homesick

I have been really homesick for Japan lately. I really want to go back. Things keep coming up that I really miss. I miss the onsen and the sento, I miss the food. I miss the humid and wet rainy season, and the muggy hot summer that follows it. I want to be dancing Awa Odori every day, and I want to be back doing jujutsu. I miss my friends from Japan (who have all left anyways) and I miss getting to speak Japanese every day. I want to go back.

I know it had its problems, I know that I don't really want to live there for the rest of my life, but I don't want Japan to disappear from my life either. I miss Kamikatsu. I miss the culture and the lifestyle. I miss my home in Japan.

Where is this homesickness coming from? Am I hitting the five month wall of culture shock with my move to Vancouver? That's very possible. My problem is that I make everywhere I live into home. Winnipeg is home. Kamikatsu is home. And now, Vancouver is home. Everywhere I live is my home, but from another perspective, I have no home at all. "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head." I understand how that feels, a bit.