personal

I’ve never lived alone before, and I knew it was going to be a difficult transition, but I suppose I didn’t know exactly how it was really going to go or how exactly I was going to feel. It’s a bit strange to be honest. I’ve always identified myself as an introvert, despite happily organizing events, having no problem talking to strangers, and having the ability to be quite energetic in a group setting (totally depends on the group). When my social interaction bar fills up, I find myself desperate to escape, craving comfort and familiarity in my own space. Socializing is vitally important to my mental health, but I find that negative social interactions are far more draining than no social interactions. Without the same consistency and familiarity now as I had especially back in San Francisco, I’m left both craving more social activity yet feeling unmotivated to engage in communities that I know I can, but just don’t scratch that same itch.

Well, I skipped a few days…I realized I was able to post pretty consistently these past two weeks because I would write my blog posts during class (and last weekend, I wrote them on the Shinkansen, so effectively the same thing as class). However, this was a long weekend, and I was pretty busy without enough alone time + access to computer. I’ll be perfectly honest, it wasn’t because I didn’t have time, though. I definitely could’ve squeezed something in each day. But something about the environment influences what I tend to do. When I’m at home with the most freedom, I find I either prefer to work or end up completely slacking off and browsing the internet. When I’m out and about, it somehow feels a bit too degenerate to just be browsing the internet in class or at a cafe, but there’s a bit too much going on to go into work hyperfocus-mode, so blog-writing is the perfect activity. (Yeah, I guess I could just pay attention in class, but that would just be too logical.)

The Triathlon in Tokyo (TnT) club has a Friday morning practice known as “Friday Morning Pain (FMP)”. It consists of bike hill repeats (going up and down a steep hill), then running a 5 or 10K around Imperial Palace, a very popular spot for running (one lap around the palace is exactly 5K, and it’s completely uninterrupted). Apparently, biking and then immediately running after is called a “brick”, because your legs supposedly feel like bricks (don’t fact-check me on that one), and it’s something you have to specifically practice for triathlons. I thought the “pain” in FMP was because the workout sucked, but it’s actually because it starts at 6am. I failed to get a good night’s sleep and had to wake up at 5 since it takes 40 min to bike to practice. I’m literally falling asleep as I’m writing this post so…zzzz

This was originally going to be family trip pt 2, but it turns out the only thing I wanted to talk about from the Tokyo part of the family trip was kaiten sushi (conveyor belt sushi). All of the other Tokyo things we did were just classic tourist activities that you can see anywhere on the internet. And sure, kaiten sushi is also a very widely-known activity, but there are many conveyor belt sushi places. The three major chains are: Kura Sushi, Sushiro, and Hama Sushi. All three are within a block of each other in Takadanobaba, so we really scored the jackpot.

I tried to write a post about politics, didn’t like it, rewrote it 4 more times, and then just gave up. So, in trying to keep up with an average of 1 post a day, I’ll switch topics while I figure out if/what I want to say. Prior to coming out to Japan, I swear I watched a bunch of youtube videos talking about how everyone in Tokyo bikes, it’s such a bike-friendly city, etc. Yes, biking is very popular and common, but my rose-tinted glasses are off now and I can confidently say - biking in Tokyo sucks.

This one’s going to be a short post. I really love having the flexibility of being a contractor/freelancer, and really appreciate that the companies I’m working for now are entirely outcomes-focused versus requiring me to show up on a schedule, at a location, attend meetings, etc. But with freedom comes responsibility of course, and I still don’t have the discipline to do it. I’ve always been the biggest procrastinator of all time - I’m the worst offender of waiting until literally the last minute to do my assignments in school, and the only times I’ve hit flow state at work is when people were constantly relying on me to output in order to do their jobs. If I want all the benefits that come with this kind of job, I know I have to finally figure out how to untrain my procrastinating brain and stick to a regular schedule. I’ve been so out of whack these past few days since coming back from Shanghai, sleeping past 3 am every night, but I’m actually going to try to go to bed early tonight. I’ve already been developing some more structure to my schedule - class from 1-4 pm, then go to the gym after. Now I’ve been adding on my daily blog post (I’ve been starting them in the mornings and then finishing them up during class…I’m a terrible student oops). My last two puzzle pieces will be where to slot in work and study. One of my issues is I usually take US calls in the morning (family, friends, and other networking things) and have dinner plans at night, which really chops up my schedule. Anyways, things for future me to figure out.

After a month-and-a-half-long haitus, I’ve finally returned! While admittedly I wasn’t occupied every single second of every day from the end of February till now, it felt like there was a constant stream of things to do and I was struggling to pick up writing and publishing again. I have so much I want to share, from some of the more significant activities we’ve been up to the past few weeks, to more small nuggets/slice-of-life-esque things that I desperately want to capture, but I’m still figuring out how to best convey less tangible things like subtle feelings of simple joys or small frustrations via this blog. It’ll take me a while to go through the backlog of experiences, but for now, I’ll just give an overview of what I’ve been up to over the past month-and-a-half.

So, I clearly haven’t been keeping up with my once-a-day goal despite the blog being on my mind a lot. I’ve been thinking about this for a bit and I think the main reason is because I haven’t made the “why” component of the blog as clear to myself as much as the “how”. I will often spend idle time throughout my day thinking about what I want to write, but when it comes to actually writing it down, I find it difficult to effectively convey what I’m feeling or thinking while also trying to capture what I’ve been doing, and on top of all of that, in a way that people who have been reading my blog might find interesting or entertaining.

Hi all, my apologies for the short hiatus - I was experiencing some technical difficulties (Github Actions randomly broke on me), and admittedly I was also recovering from travel, school, and life, but I do want to stick to my one-post-a-day goal, even if it is back-dated. I’m about a week behind, so I’ll be making 2 posts a day for the next week - one from the previous week and one from today (yesterday) which might be a little confusing. If you want to read them chronologically with how the events occurred vs the order in which I wrote the posts, maybe come back in a week to read them all.

I’ve been trying to establish a new hyper-productive lifestyle since moving: packing my schedule end-to-end and trying to make the most out of my time here. It’s been mostly successful, but I think I’ve finally hit a wall. I have a decent amount of blog content queued up that I don’t think I’ll be able to get to for a while, there are so many fun things to do but it’s hard to do them all while adhering to the very strict school attendance requirements. I still have a part-time job that I need to do work for. I’ve been getting by with like my 200 words of Japanese that I currently know, but it’s still such a struggle to do basic things. We are starting to feel the pains of Japanese bureaucracy: there was an issue with getting health insurance, the apartment hunt is going very slowly, and it does feel a little bit like we are hostage to the language schools (which is very likely because of the Japanese government’s visa policies). Miles and I were discussing going to his best friend’s wedding back in the US, and while I would love to go, it feels impossible with virtually no permitted time off. Friends are planning visits to the country and it would be so great to travel with them, but we just can’t. Travel logistics are so much better than anywhere else I’ve lived in, but it is still long and expensive to go outside of Tokyo, and we’re still at the whims of public transit schedules.

I spent a few days over the past few months getting the website set up, but it’s time to launch the blog officially. I’m on my way to Tokyo now to start a new chapter of my life and I plan on making the blog the primary focus of my time while I’m there. This trip was actually the impetus of the blog, partly to document my projects and adventures, and partly a way to stay connected with my friends and family remotely.

Despite the title, this isn’t meant to be deep. I’m not a philosopher or a preacher, and I don’t hold particularly strong beliefs, whether it’s political views, interests that I’m passionate about, or even favorite restaurants and movies. I have thoughts and opinions on individual matters, but I have yet to find the fire that really gets me going in a sustained fashion. Because of this, I’ve found myself fairly aimless in life and have been searching to derive a bit more purpose out of it, or at the very least, understand my existence better.