So i have a job interview on friday and if things go well i'll be headed to Japan the first week of July and headed to either Tokyo or Osaka. Either way i'm headed there right before the hottest time of the year and i possibly may die.

meh, Anyway, I signed up for the LSAT today. Not sure if i'd make a good lawyer... but atleast im tryoing to get my options open. IF i was jsut a little bit smarter or rather, if I was rich, i'd head to grads school... but i'm not either and thus the pragmatics of life may win over my idealism. On the other hand, i'm applying ot grad school to and letting the fates decide.

In other news I met a girl.

...

Dreams unreachable due to self created barriers and the inability to commit with force or action...


Slowely becomming more and more incommunicatable while at the same time the walls that carried me no longer inspire...

A room with no windows i keep speaking the same story

i know things tire...

but nothing holds

and

I just want something to move me to passion and catch me for more then a moment.

So as luck turns out...

I woke up a little on edge and sitting there waiting to be dosed i repeatedly reworked the odds of getting the high dose. Then something strange happened. I guess I managed to leave a good impression on the parametic because although no one is supposed to know who gets dosed, he decided tha to tell me that I was placebo bound.

2 Days later and I can say that he was being honest. Instead of all the puking and delusions that i was afraid of I have spent the last few days playing poker and reading the books that i had randomly in my backpack.

So it seems that my luck has finally turned positive again...finally. In 2 weeks i'll be able to pay off 1 1/2 credit cards and have some breathing room until the next study.

The next thing on my list is to get back to studying. I can never study for anything with i'm in a drug study... I'm not sure why, but ive never been able to study in confined spaces. Sitting at home i get NOTHING done, but heading to a noisy starbucks I can study non stop for hours. But with 2 months left until the test i think i'm still in the clear.

On a side, i'm finally going back to cornwall this weekend for the holidays. if your in Cornwall let me know and we'll go for beer.

Hitting up my scetchiest study ever.

a Long string of bad luck and i find myself really strapped for cash. To be fair, it is my own fault. I returned from Japan with my credit cards 3/4 paid off but between Christmas spending, apartment set up, and my high tolerance and general generosity when i drink and the holes in my pockets i found myself with no food money. Then came the dry spout of studies, and unexpected bills. When i actually got into a study i developed the stomach flu and couldn't even leave my bed let alone join the study. So, despite my better judgment i recently entered into a sketchier study.


At first it didn't sound that sketchy. Its for a new high dose THC based drug for cancer patients who have an immunity to the lower doses. The negative part is that I have no such immunity and neither do the other study participants. Here's the sketchy part. I am in the 5th group to do this study and in all 4 groups before me there have been some crazy ass side effects. I have a 1/4 chance of getting the highest dosage and of those who have gotten it there have been only a few that have managed no bad side effects. most have puked for days, a couple went to the hospital, and atleast 1 person i know of went temporarily clinically insane. I start the study in the morning and i'm a little nervous. After this study i definitely cannot get myself into this situation again. But, with the 2300 i'm making in the next 5 days at least ill have a jump on things.


On the other hand, if I see any talking rabbits i'll be sure to tell you guys next time i get a chance to get online....

wish me luck.

bad luck

well it seems that I have been struck by a string of bad luck that has left me jobless, foodless, computer less (living in internt cafes now) and with -1.74 in the bank....

BUT, you guys know me... i bounce back quick and am always scemeing for the future. I'm writing my lsat's in a few months, might volunteer in india again, and then moving back to Japan. Lets just hope i can survive this reign of bad luck and make it until then....

It is usually the little odd coincidences that sparks a smile on my face... and it is these smiles that carry me forward on the worst of days.... Today i wrote on my face book that i was a dreamer and a drifter who lacked confidence... Several hours later i recieved a cleverly disgused spam mail, the kind that usually annoys me, and found a crude message that left me with a half crocked smile on my face... the message read:

"A man who hangs loose and hangs large has more confidence when dealing with women."


ok so i'm probably the only person who finds this amusing.


Anyway, So ive been milling over a book idea. i'm not a great writer, but if the idea hasn't been done then the ideas atleast is gold. Luckily enough, its an idea that would commit myself to a long term project... one that will take long enough for my writing skills to catch up to my thinking process.

It seems that the more i try to focus on studying for the LSAT the more i tend to find myself thinking about anything but. But then again, i think i am just passing time anyway. Just standing still trying to get any barings possible before i jump yet again off another bridge hoping to be caught by the invisible man.

um ignore thaT

Ok so new rule....
no more drunk posting.
lol
ignore that last emo rant

So ive discovered that i'm not that great at being single.... or rather not that great at picking up at clubs or the like. The funny thing is that the old saying is true, when one is content happiness finds you and when one is looking it is like one is in a canoe with a hole, no paddle and a gator near by... There I was thinking that she was enjoying talking about existential fiction along side traveling tales.. that my lack of dancing skills was minuet in spite of the conversation.. only to find out later that she was just humoring me... Of course a bar is not exactly the place you would think intellectualism would fly, but in the very attempt i shows my awkwardness. I’m sure that if I HAD been in the position to be witty I could not have been.... And so the joke is rather that I’m like a limping cat in a dog show as of late...
Now, I’m not looking for pity here. Of course I know that the moment I’m ok with being single again i’ll have met someone or someone else will be back in my life or whatnot... I guess I’m just restless and miss having someone to wake up to without wondering if they will be there again... Ironically, it seems that once the opportunity comes for just that I seem to run and hide.... If there is a shrink out there reading this I’m sure I have a "commitment issues" comment coming... But truth is, I’m just waiting for someone worth dying for.... or maybe something worth living for.. Even for just a day...

Can't sleep

230 am and have to get up in a few hours.. but can't sleep. Some mornings I have to be up by 5 and other mornings i don't go to bed until 5... so you can probably guess my mental state as of late....

Still, some peace has arrived. I worry to much about the future. As long as i keep moving forward i have nothing to be ashamed of.... and so, lets leave that all to the side. but, on a side note... to those who have been following my wailing about the future and my ever changing ideas about what to do next... After I write the LSAT it looks like i might also try for the GMAT...lol. not sure where this is going to lead.. but we'll see.

So today was mostly a wasted day. Got out of my drug study this morning at around 7. After a study the loss of blood and sleep usually messes up my internal clock for a few days so basically i was no good until around supper time when i finally started doing a little studying.

As of now I have a hodge podge life. i'm taking 1 class at york (A fourth year philosophy of law class), a Japanese class coupled with a japanese cultural exchange, studying for LSATS, and doing 1-2 studies a month. Its an odd life but atleast i'm being semi-productive. On my off time i'm searching out programs on the internet trying to atleast narrow the options for the future.

um.. ok so this post is completly dull... but i'l have some more adventures soon... might head back to india this summer and then back pack china on my way back to japan... (since i didn't go over christmas after all) .. if that works out i'm sure i'll get myself into enough trouble (as always) to write about....
until then.. sorry for being lame.

I'm loosing ground and gaining ground every day. I confuse myself in utter annoyence...

Because i joined classes half way through the year i could only get into 2 classes meaning it won't have any effect on my average after all so i'm wasting my time. On the other hand, i'm doing drug studies again soe i'm making 500 bucks more a month then I was in Japan so i will hopefully pay off some big bills before summer. Then again no i'm not moving forward in terms of career or school, but if i can keep myself movivated i'll be using this off time to study for my lsats (back up plan) and improve my japanese.

in the end i'm having a hard time not being lazy. spending the last 2 years buming around (lets be honest, i never did work that hard in japan) trying not to waste time is a hard task.

I think i'm just rambling here... things are good mostly. Heading back to Japan for sure this summer after I apply to a million schools. But i have a high B average so i'm not getting into anywhere that will be promising. Not that i have counted my chickens.... but its going to be an uphill battle i'm thinking... Of course its do-able... but at this point it can go either way. At 35 i'll either be living out of a box or making decent money... and really its a flip of the coin...lol

ok so i think the winter hybernation is really making me wako...lol

I’m sitting waiting for my flight back to Canada and trying to get my head around the fact that I’m leaving this place. (That and trying to get through a hang over since my friends bought me a lot of liqueur which we all drank very fast before we said our good byes and I got on the bus to Tokyo. Its been a week of tears and free booze). Not my home, though maybe more my home then anywhere else, its been a really hard experience getting ready to say good bye. I’ve just scratched the surface of the language (I suck) and have not experienced half of what I should have while being here. The next 6 months back in Canada thus are not about being home (since I don’t think that I am particularly bound to Canada), but about giving me a 2nd chance to get my shit together and then get my ass back to Asia. I’m going to do a semester of school to try and get some good grades, up my gpa, get references from profs so I can apply to grad school. I’m also going to do the LSAT’s and apply to law school too. So somehow I have to turn into someone I’m not. I have to somehow buckle down and focus for 6 months. My friend Michael is the ideal of what I have to be this next little while. He studied for 2 months for the GRE’s and had the focus of a surgeon. He said himself that his life sucked for that time being that he was either working, studying at the gym or sleeping. I think he granted himself one day off a week turning town many invitations for nights out and turning into a temporary sort of hermit. But, in the end he scored a crazy high score and now will have a lot of doors opened to him that he did not have before. Those that know me well know that I am not the type to be able to focus long. I am too social and too easily diverted from seriousness that the chances of my pulling this all together with the results I want are pretty slim. But I’m going to try.
And then, while I wait to hear back from schools about my fall 09 application I’ll head back to Asia. Its funny, There are many reasons why I would want to choose somewhere else to go next. For example, economically in the short term Korea pays a lot better and the cost of living is a lot cheaper. Though of course the style of living is a little harder to adapt to. In the long term, it seems it would probably serve me better to learn Chinese or Arab instead of Japanese since these two are, and are predicated to be, the most profitable languages in the world after English. But, after spending 10 months working on getting a basic understanding of the language there is a part of me that does not want to start over. Of course, 10 months is nothing and my skills are so low that starting over would probably not be the end of the world. I’m always changing my mind about everything and in the end its hard to know where I’ll end up... but I do love japan and will be back. If things stay as they are now I’ll be back this summer and staying till grad school. We’ll see.

crazy

so guys.. i'm home soon... at airport... arg! i don't want to leave!

will post what i wrote on the bus here later... see you guys soon!

when the sky falls you never stand still.

So it seems that i have this knack for creating options out of chaos and giving myself ways out even when things come crashing down. Something small that was not really an issue turned into a monster which led a company to try and protect itself, and left me homeless and without a job in a country I love but still don't understand.
I was given 4 days to find a place to live and find a new job or have to go home. Well, its been a week and I’ve managed to find a place to stay that is a lot cheaper then where I was living, (free till Christmas)and now I'm working at a bar and also working for myself doing private lessons and clearing more per week then I was at my previous job. The cool thing is, I’m making more then I was before and most days only working 3 hours.
But, in the week in which I’ve managed to save the world.. or rather my world, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I could stay here and make some decent money. I could build my client base and see what being an entrepreneur feels like...
But as anyone that has ever read my blog knows, I am continually ranting about how I would love to go to grad school even if there is more money to be made else where and even if I might fail. So, I’m going to make a stab in the dark. At Christmas I will hand over what I’ve managed to build up so far to a friend and come home for a stint. (I’ve been surprised at how easy it has been to build a small client base) The plan is to head back to school for a semester of non-degree status. I’ve been told that if I can work my ass off and get at least 3 A’s and a B plus (though I’ll aim for 4 a’s) I can erase the effect of 2 bad marks from 3rd year and get my overall to a high B+ (now a B) and my philosophy grads to a A- (now a B+) This will also give me time to suck up for some academic references which currently I do not have and also give me time pick a school and start talking to profs from the school I want to attend. Then in the summer I’ll apply to grad school, and maybe do my LSAT and apply to law school as a back up plan, and then head back to japan while I wait for the answer.
Yess I know that I always seem to have a different plan and that this is just another in a line of many, but this is all I’ve got.
So ya, I’ll be buying my ticket soon. In Cornwall dec 20th for the holidays and then headed back to Toronto to upgrade something I already finished while people I went to are either already in their careers or are in grad school... I hope I’m not being crazy.

quote of the week...

"The end. Aaaaaah! Plat. Finished... not a nice way to die.... the best thing would be to break your neck , but you'd probably just break your leg and then you couldn't do anything. You'd yell at the top of your lungs, but nobody would hear you, and you couldn't expect anyone to find you, and you'd have centipedes and spiders crawling all over you, and trhe bones of the ones who died before are scattered all around you, and it's dark and soggy, and high overhead there's this tiny tiny circle of light like a winter moon. You die there in this place, little by little, all by yourself... "

its better to follow ones heart and fail and then turn to a second option in defeat then to coward onself into practicality... so grad school it is. But, practicality must prvail at some point, atleast so much as to not poison the future too much.. so i have to pay off some of this debt first.. atleast the stuff thats not osap. So i need to pay off 15k asap. Don't think i can do that in 10 months, so although my every hearts desire is to go back to school fall 08... i'm going to have to put it off till 09. But, no matter whats going on at that point.. i have to go back. I refuse to be a "i wish i had" type of guy....

the only thing that bothers me.. am i poisoning my future by starting later.. or would i be poisoning my future by going back with so much debt still lingering...

ok so there are other things bothering me... but i was never good at making actual life decisions.. ive always been more of an overthinker who acts at the last moment when action is all that is left....

in other news, I find myself knowing myself more these days. I am of amn of good intentions but weak will. I am the nice guy who ends up being the villian because he is not honest or atleast knows not himself. This being said, it comes to reason that though i'm glad i'm not them i really respect my little brother and sister... one married the other engaged and both on life journeys with much of the play already set up...or atleast direction. I can't even say who i am or what i want... and....
ok so i'm wining alot today...
shop that, ive ben over complaining alot as of late... maybe soon i'll be able to get my head on straight...

crap.. i have eventually make a choice...

ok, so here it is... My heart says go to grad school... though i'm only a mid B average student... though i know that i will never be rich and never publish anything worth while as a mediore philosopher...... though i will have to struggle to pay the bills...

and then i am faced with another option. Go to teachers college and make decent money and have summers off and enough money to pursue philosophy/ writing/ travel on my own terms... but then to have a job teaching the same things at an introductory level that limits the amount of questioning that can be done and is strangled by procedure and guideline...

Law school, the previously stated option is not one. I am a decent thinker.. but not on the spot. I need time to think out my position and passion of the moment often blocks logical progress....

So the question is.. does one choose passion the limits but makes one happy...knowing that poverty is imminent... or does one choose a means to pay for things that are outside of the range of that means. should ones work be the dream or can ones work be the way to allowing for the dream. Is 8 weeks of intellectual freedom and monetary safety during that time worth taking a step down? Or is it a step up?

I have something like 2 months to decide...

well, i:m waiting for the bus and about to climb fuji.. lone. long story, but its good. i have been way to pathetic in the self motivation area as of late and i think this will hlp me clear my head. Ive been going through alot and doing alot of stupid things as of late... ill tell later... but needles to say i think fuji and i are simular beings.. i:ll let you decide what that means.

hmm

Ok so its come apparent to me that I need to get my ass in gear. Yes I like to have fun, and yes I’m in japan and it’s a palce to have fun... but I have some major debt and it hasn’t gone down any since I came here (ya I know I came here to pay stuff off...) Unfortunately for me there have been some key factors in my ability to save
1. Showed up in Japan with 500 bucks and didn’t get a paycheck for 6 weeks so I kind of owed some people some major cash from the get go.
2. I live alone. I’ve never lived alone before and I now realize I HATE it. With no bodies around I either spend way too much time doing nothing... (I find no motivation to study in silence... I’ve studied with noise around me for too long) or find myself frantricly looking for something to do to keep me out of the house. The upside of this is that I know a lot of people... (though unfortunately with the high turnover all your time spent making foreign friends is out the window every couple of months. But, I’m trying to make more Japanese friends these days)
3. I like to drink. This kind of goes hand in hand with number 2 as to why I’ve been spending a lot of money.
SO, from here on in I’m going to try and find a ballence.

The good news in all this is that between my bonus and other things even if I don’t save any money I’ll walk out with 4k to put on bills.. .but I need to get 15k worth of bills paid off before I go back to school.. So um... time to bleed some money.

i ran accross this on a site and thought it was funny...A good account of why i miss and not miss being in school...

The Five Stages of Reading Derrida, Lacan, Freud &c
1. Clear some time in your schedule.Due to the fact that reading the works of any of these fine fellows will surely occupy an expansive amount of time, you should certainly cancel any and all obligations, commitments, appointments, and dates in order to fully realize the infrastructure necessary to consume, with all attainable mastery of that which constitutes "reading", the works, essays, texts, symbols, hieroglyphs, lines, shapes, and interruptions of white space by black figures that may (or may not) comprise the expression of minds of genius on topics essential to our very understanding of the manner in which we communicate, by and under which, we live out our very lives. Estimate at least twenty to thirty minutes per page.

2. Stand on your head. This will promote circulation to the region most active during your safari into decipherment and descent into descanting.

3.Hide your clocks.Having to regularly view these wretched contraptions will simply remind you how much time has passed since you began reading..... yesterday.

4. Be careful when releasing anger and frustration.When you finally become so entangled and embroiled by that which has captivated your attention for a span of time exceeding that of any other span of time representing the length of duration that measured the completion of work for other classes, you may feel the need to release this frustration by manifestation of such emotion in the physical realm in which we all (are under the perception that we) live in. It is necessary to take care. Never aim to cause harm, bodily or otherwise, to small children, household pets, the elderly, or yourself. Inanimate objects, while intricately woven molecularly into the grand web of being and thus exist as a mere extension of the animate form and essence, are typically fair game. For instance, hurling the book in your hand which contains the evening's selected reading should produce a sensation of euphoric ecstasy. Merely remind yourself to aim said book-become-flying-object in directions opposite of other living creatures.

5. Quit.Quitting is hip and in vouge. Besides, all those signifiers on that page really do not signify their intended significations. In fact, fuck it. It don't matter none anyhow. Jest relize that wurds relly dont mene nuthin at'all. They jus' bes hows we tryin to say shit n shit. So, at this point, use that there phone an go head call up yo freenz and go drink... alot... cuz you'll be all tired an shit.

ugg

well.. it seems that uncontrollable circumstances have forced my hand.
Before i can do any more school to pursue ANY path I have bills to pay. I have 4500 in credit cards dating back to my stupidity in my first years of college, a computer that is STILL not paid off, and I have to pay off my 10k line of credit that my parents keep telling me is causing them too much stress because they are co-signers. (Kicking myself for going to private school for half of university... though still happy I did) Toppled on to this is the 30k I owe in osap and the couple hundred dollars I owe to a few friends...and you see why I feel like I’m drowning. I can’t even consolidate to lower interest rates because I’ve been late on a few payments. I’m sending half my paycheck home but something always comes up to chip away at what I send. (like the recent bank holiday that cost me 75 bucks in nsf charges cus the money was stuck in transit) tie this up with the fact that though I LOVE Japan and want to stay here... it is too expensive to live here when I loose half my paycheck. I THINK I can have my credit cards payed off by the February... and so I’m going to go home for a month and then move to Korea where it is cheaper to live and where I’d make more money.
It sucks when your 25 and you know your going to have to put your life on hold for a few more years... especially when all your friends are already on their way or have arrived to where they want to be...
Of course only things of the future and finances are bad. Life here is good. I have a good girlfriend, good friends, and am keeping up with my philosophical readings. But, to be sure, I can’t wait until this cloud is no longer over my head....