Fukuoka

Our day in Fukuoka felt more like a continuation of the previous 36 hours than the start of a new adventure.  With surprisingly minimal jet lag, we set out to explore the surrounding area.

We were able to visit two separate temples--the first, Shinto, the second, Buddhist.  Ninety percent of Japanese in Japan are followers of Shinto and Eighty percent are Buddhist.  Yes, that means there is overlap.

They were truly beautiful.  After purifying ourselves by washing our hands at the front, we were able to enter the inner areas.  The temple was built in the year 808!

Following this, we made our way to the Godzilla exhibits at the Fukuoka Art Museum.  There is so much to talk about, but I'll just leave it with: it was good, I greatly enjoyed it.

On the subject of food, (because honestly, who cares about anything else, amiright?) Fukuoka is known for its wooden food stands.  Called "yatai", these are where you want to go for some cheap, delicious meats, noodles, and rice.  And beer, apparently--a great way to loosen your tie after a long day of work--or travel.

"Yakitori" technically just refers to fried or barbecued chicken, but I feel as though the word means so much more here because this was one of the best means of my life.  One thing I noticed upon arrival is that the scents are all different.  This is important enough considering my sense of smell--which, day-to-day, ranges from "eh" to "dreadful".  Walking up and down the strip, alongside the water, our group hunted for a stand with enough seeing for five.  The air was heavy with the sourness of beer and the acrid smoke of charred meats.

For the past two weeks, I have been practicing my eating.  I've been working on eating much more slowly and deliberately--trying as hard as I could to taste the food better whilst I chew.  I am so glad for this because what awaited me on this particular evening was wonderful.

In halting english and with much hand-waving (both figuratively and literally), I was able to help communicate to our chef that we each wanted to try the barbecue and that we each wanted a beer.

Dehydrated and on little sleep, the brew soon worked its magic.  

The custom in Japan is to never pour your own drinks--and to keep your drinking partners well lubricated.  My drinking partner did an admirable job of introducing me to Japanese custom.  Soon, admidst the swirling scent of charred porka dint e din of far-off J-pop, I lost just enough of my inhibitions to allow me to try out my Japanese.

It ended just about how you would expect it to have.

Taiwan

A lot of how this trip is going to be evolving is shrouded in the unknown; our descent into Taiwan was just as mystifying. 

It's barely morning now (5:49am local), but we arrived before the sun.  Upon our descent into the city, I found the landscape to be both inviting and mysterious, with mountains and rises in the countryside only visible because they would obscure the city lights behind them.   The mere suggestion of mass and matter. Taiwan is suggestion.

On the other hand, we will be leaving for Fukuoka out of the Hello Kitty themed Airport Terminal...so there's that...

Sixteen Hours in a Cubicle

Right now it's 5:36 your time and we are four hours in on our 15 hour flight. Tactically, our best bet is to stay awake for the next 2.5 hours at least. The absurdity of the sleepiness that I feel right now is indescribable. I know I've been more tired than this at other points in my life, but 

...

I forgot where I was going with that.

The plane has these cool screens which show graphics of your flight speed, the local time in both airports (NY and Taipei), the flight altitude...it also shows a little plane icon on a line graph that represents your distance to your destination as well as a number that says how many kilometers you are from there. This is bad. I have been obsessing over these two numbers for the entire trip. (Incidentally, we are currently 3563 km out from NY and 9789 km).  

The entertainment offered by this device includesto a wide selection of possibilities--from electronic pachinko to recently released movies (Andrew and Christina just finished Captain America 3) to a variety of July Pop and Malaysian artists to sample. A literal "Who's who" of musicians--because I have no clue who any of them are.

The seven of us on this trip are a motley crew. Jimmie is a salaryman working for a company and he's used to the traveling; he bought his tickets with points.   He's a bit quiet, but maybe that is just in comparison to Andrew.  Andrew is my freshman year roommate and eventually my Senior year apartment mate and my gradschool...what do you call a guy who bums on your couch every once in a while? A friend? A cat?

Yaki (I don't know his real name) is the one who I have the least grip on. He's another quiet type. The whole group keeps talking about anime and Pokemon Go and I feel a *bit* left out. I don't watch many animes.

Christina and Andrew and I have been (and most likely will be) hanging out the most together for this trip. Christina is a funny girl with a deadpan delivery. I met her at Anime Boston a few years ago and her and Andrew were dating by the end of that very month.  They've moved in with each other and apparently they work well together. She's quiet and he's loud, but they're both cognizant of each other's unique ways of reacting to a situation and can adapt accordingly. I feel equally comfortable being around one as the other.

__________________

Sorry, dozed off there for about 30 seconds. The micro-naps are coming with increased regularity. 5:56am where you are right now. The plane icon is informing me that it is now 9582 km to Taipei.

The final two on this trip, I would have to say, I know the least about. Mel is the name of the "she" character and the name of the "he" has escaped me...something with a "C"...Colin?...Corey?

A child has just started a rebellion.  I'm not sure what its infernal cries are in response to...probably the economy...or perhaps he's a Bernie-or-Bust person.  More likely, it's because the creature is as tired of being conscious as I am (6:03am/9467km).

I'm losing my schwerve. It's time to pace the plane again and splash water on my face. 

6:13am/9312km

I suppose there's no way of knowing if I've gone insane at this point from the waiting.

We will be landing in Fukuoka and spending the day at a Godzilla Museum. I anticipate that most of my "camera film" (as if, right? who uses real cameras anymore, right?) will be used up tomorrow/today/I have no conception of how to describe this.

6:32am/9043km

The Start of a Journey

It wasn’t until the plane was already in the air that I started to become excited; my nerves slowly melting away into a vague sense of—first acceptance—and soon contentment—and now joy.  I was going, finally, to Japan.  The trip was no longer a "someday" or a “when I have the time”, or even a “maybe next year”, it was today.  At 1500 feet, the sensation figuratively made my ears pop—and also literally. 

Japan has always, even when I was very young, made the short list of places that I have wanted to visit.  I have to admit (and with no small amount of embarrassment, I assure you) that the origins of my single-minded fixation on the archipelago began when I was four due to the influences of a certain 50-meter tall radioactive lizard.  I have to give my dad the thanks (or the blame) for this: when he called me into the living room and had me sit down to watch “King Kong vs. Godzilla”, he couldn’t have known that this would be the start of a “something”.

And it was VERY “something”—I would go on to collect and watch and re-watch "daikaiju eiga" (giant monster movies) of all sorts.  I would go on to learn far more about Pokemon than any sane human would recommend.  I’m not sure when my interests evolved to include Japanese history and culture, but…well, there you go…

I wouldn’t say that I am in any way uniquely qualified to comment on such a journey.  Quite the contrary: I may be the least qualified person (hey, you don’t know that I’m not, so don’t even try).  

But hey, I am on a plane traveling to an alien land, so there’s that.

___________________

I have seven hours left to kill before I finally get to go to sleep.  In order to prevent excessive jet lag, Kara and Andrew have discerned the exact time when we are allowed to fall asleep.  Eight AM EST.

That would be bedtime (a generous bedtime) in Japan.  Every cell of my body is crying out for sleep and I must steel myself against the crystalline siren call of shuteye.  Every moment of awareness is pain.  Oh, to drift away into sweet nothingness…

Sorry, lost my train of thought there.  

At any rate, I have wasted a sufficient amount of time on this diversion for now; my thoughts are becoming increasingly more scattered and the small spaces between the atoms—at least in my brain—have become engorged.

I have no clue what that means.

Six and a half hours left.  Time to speedrun Pokemon Blue Version.

Too Focused on Pokemon to Play Pokemon

Let me tell you all a story about how "Pokemon Go"dropped surreptitiously overnight and I was left hungering for adventure for days.

Wait, that might be the whole story...

I suppose that I can't say it's not my fault that I haven't started the game; I have had plenty of time on my hands.  Summertime for many teachers means stressing out about how your paychecks are stretching to the limit; exercise that body and exercise the wallet; both must be stretched.  Fo me, however, summer is time for me to (finally) take some time off.  See, I'm not only a teacher: I'm a teacher/tutor.  At parties (when I'm at least 40% intoxicated) I like to facetiously (or rather 40% facetiously) describe these two as my "community service job" and my "mercenary job", respectively.

Let's face it, teachers don't get paid in any real money.  Teachers get paid in broken dreams and wasted effort.  As much as I would like to be able to feed myself with cynicism and ennui, I tend to seek out solid foods because this insufferable corporeal form requires them.  The tutoring is how I make all of my real money.  As a matter of fact, the teaching salary is completely incidental by comparison--not even matching up to 10% of the same hourly rate.  The only reason I do the high school science teacher thing at all is to keep in touch with my conscience.  If I accepted ALL of my money from rich, stubborn parents and their rich, stubborn children, I would surely have sold my soul to the non-denominational devil, so to speak.  The teaching helps ground me, but it doesn't keep the internet "ON".

So here I am with all this time on my hands breeding pokemon for my upcoming Sinnoh Classic Battle Competition (later in July) when Pokemon Go drops like a ton of rectangular prisms made out of baked clay (bricks, I believe the humans call them).  I'm a very "first-things-first" kind of fellow: it is often the case that I forego doing something entirely if I would have to be stretching myself between two different activities.  I have a pile of unstarted video games and books; I can't begin something new if I'm working on or involved in something else.  I can't start Pokemon Go until I'm satisfied with the team I've been building for this ACTUAL Pokemon Tournament (blog post about this one to come).  Well, I could, but I wouldn't enjoy myself nearly as much as I would if I just started it, say, a few days from now after I've gotten things cleared away for the Sinnoh Classic.

As a result, I've been sitting here hatching Vulpix eggs and soft-resetting for the correct-natured Zapdos when I could be out there in the sun catching Butterfree with my pokemon (charm the Charmander.  Fuck me, I've already chosen a nickname for him!).

Well, these eggs aren't going to hatch themselves...

We're Already "There"! :) :/

One thing that has been striking to me in the most cutting way recently has been my inability to see real, sweeping paradigm shifts that are currently happening all around me.  It's absurd to me that I have missed these.  Like a ranger who can discern the markings of recent rain, but not the huge footprint right in front of his face, I have missed the obvious and expected present.

Let me explain.

I've been in something of a mood recently.  This happens sporadically to me because I'm a uncouth nothing millennial, lacking direction and sensibility and balance (and all other worst of adjectives) in my life.  Also, I party too much (so there's that).  It's not uncommon for me to, for weeks uninterrupted, "drink life to the lees" in this (to others at least) insufferable self-assuredness.  But even Ulysses must have his slow days--the ones where he can barely force himself to do the things that he needs to do--even that he likes to do.  Most of it depends on circumstance: Ulysses' gods are "Tennyson" and mine are "Jack" and "Daniels".

But I don't want to talk about that now.  I was walking home from my regular/required/noncompulsory daily prayers to the gods of iron at the gym and reading my current time-monopoly "The Handmaid's Tale" (no time for that here; leave it at "excellently written and incisive/depresses and scars the hell out of me").  I had the book tucked under one arm as I ducked into Shaw's to grab a quick lunch (chicken thighs...but who's asking, right?).  The cashier's reaction is what surprised me.

I suppose the most audacious changes are the result of a series of infinitesimal alterations.  The cashier was incredulous.  "When I was little girl I read, but now TV is too much distraction. [sic]"

Honestly, at first I thought she meant to imply that she was surprised that I was reading.  I guess if there is a "type" of person who reads, there are all sorts of prejudiced reasons why it wouldn't be me.  I wouldn't begrudge her for thinking something like this--there are worse prejudices out there and for me, cis/white/male/uppermiddleclass, to complain about such a slight would be both asinine and comical.

No, she was implying something a lot worse.  She was surprised that the people in general read.  That the plurality of persons of the world still have readers amongst them seemed, up until now, a given.  Apparently that s no longer the case.

We are already "there".  The "there" that happens in the future.  The "there" at the end of the sentence.  The "there" that is only mentioned in predictions of dystopian chaos.  The final "there".

When did we reach "there"?  When did "there" become "here"?  A close friend of mine noted that it's been this way for a long time.  Bingeing TV--even admittedly bad TV--rather than even entertaining the possibility that reading may offer respite from the noise.  This was always something that happened to faceless consumers in nameless cities far away in Florida or in Dakota--not to people that I see and know and socialize with weekly.

Even more startling is how blind and deaf I have been to the noise.  I suppose that is what has me the most affected.

For now, I suppose, the melancholy continues...

Physics is Math+

We're nearly to the end of the second trimester here at school and I've been thinking about the major differences between the two physics classes that I teach.  I have both the advanced physics class and the introductory physics course.  Now, high school physics is nothing to write home about; my course doesn't even use calculus.  However, I have nonetheless noticed a divergence in approach between these two.

While I'm still on the topic, I do wish I could teach more of the calculus to my advenced group--they're bright enough to have at least absorbed the concepts.  The school I teach at lacks Calculus as an option in the math department.  Even so, I toss into lecture sporadic conceptual notes on things like definitions of the integral or the instantaneity (I made this word up, so it is totally "a thing" now) of the derivative.  We have even learned the vector math behind the cross and dot products!

In the interests of making the class as suitable for each group as possible, the Introductory class has focused on conceptual bits such as conservation and Newton's laws.  Everything seems to come back to "An object in motion etc etc. ..." and "For every action, etc etc. ..."  The kids don't need to calculate very much.  There are a lot of questions in quizes and tests about what happens in different impossible science experiments.  We end up with a pendulum attached to a spring on a merry-go-round (which a college freshman would describe as the most nightmarish Mechanics I Homework problem in existence).  Since it is treated from a conceptual level, the kids feel engaged and they look forward to asking questions and debating.  Students who just don't "get" the math do get turned on by the concepts; many of my weaker students from the first trimester are now at the top of the class.  Needless to say that I am proud.

The Advanced group has always been computationally heavy, but these days I focus less on working through the practice problems and more on deriving the concepts behind these from base principles.  The kids still have hard calculations on tests (and medium-difficulty calculations on the quizzes), but during class, its now rare that we solve something by example.  The result is that I have one physics class where we do little calculation and focus on the concepts and one physics class where we do little calculation and focus on the concepts...hmm...

I'm not saying that they don't do any of the math in the Advanced class--just that they're all clever enough to know how to use an equation without it needing to be explained to them.  Their most recent midterm was modified from actual AP Physics C Mechanics questions (obviously I chose the questions that didn't require calculus).  As a result, a lot of our time is spent discussing the significance of terms or where an equation will come from.

I was at my best friend Ross's house the other day and we were discussing our mutual grumpiness over drinks.  He's a string-theorist and he's nearing the end of his PhD.  We attended graduate school together at RPI before he left for Northeastern. 

We obviously started talking about physics.  We came to the conclusion that Physics is just math with boundary conditions. 

I'm not going to try to say that I'm this great teacher/tutor, but I will say that I've been doing this long enough to have convinced myself that I think I know something appropriately useful.  I've had AP physics students and introductory physics students alike.  I've taught students for the SAT.  I've taught the course both with and without calculus.  Across all of these differing backgrounds and circumstances, I have had the most success stressing the same sort of sentiment.  As long as you remember a few important concepts and you have the general equations, you will always be able to solve the problem.  You just have to ask the right questions of yourself.  You just have to make the one correct assumption at the crucial moment.  Just look at the boundary conditions.

So Many Movies...

So I've watched over 2100 films now and as a result I seem to think that I actually know something about movies.  Obviously, I'm delirious and mistaken, but I'm going to allow myself this little fantasy.

I'm not exactly sure how much time I've spent watching movies, but to me this isn't time wasted.  Even the bad movies are important to me.  It's hard to explain.  There are so many perspectives out there, each trying to be heard; how do you choose between a million-million voices?

I'm often asked which TV shows I prefer (but honestly, who even watches TV anymore when everything is on netflix or hulu), and my answer is always the same.  I actually don't watch shows.  I don't even like shows.  There's something about the serial nature of them that put me off.  I like films because there's a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end (Marvel's Cinematic Universe has somewhat bastardized this form a little bit, but that's just a consequence we're going to have to get used to given Warner Brothers having joined the party with the imminent release of Batman v. Superman).  I dislike watching "shows" because of this same reason.

I couldn't get into "Dexter". I didn't enjoy "Breaking Bad", "Weeds" was just so much background noise.  As a card-carying lifetime contrarian, one would think that this would be something I flaunt: it's one more thing for me to be smug all over the place about.  While I do occasionally come down with a bad case of the "I-would-never's"

If nothing else, I feel as though I have gained an appreciation of the artistic medium--and I've learned that there is no right or wrong way to make a movie.  I'm pretty sure that the only wrong way to present something is to present it without care.  As long as the people behind the project care about their craft and one person appreciates it, the product has to be viewed as a success.