On The Last Year

My birthday has come and gone, and I have been thinking about how the last year went. I don’t have a great memory, but luckily I keep a journal. Looking back at my journals has reminded me that this was a pretty good year. A lot of firsts (both good and bad), and the year enabled me to grow up and become a better person. Well, at least I think it did.  I guess ya’ll out there reading this will have to be the judge of that
   
The year actually started off at a rocky place for I was still trying to get adjusted to walking after being bedridden in the hospital for breaking the fifth metatarsal (aka the pinkie toe bone) in my left foot. When I had broken my hand (ring finger in my left hand for that one) in high school football, I pretty much just had to put a cast on and I was back on the field like nothing happened. Being in the hospital for a month for a broken bone was a brand new experience to say the least. It was the first time I have ever stayed in a hospital overnight. While the stay could have been worse (it was actually quite pleasant in retrospect), by the last week, I wished nothing more but to be back in my own apartment. When I finally got back, it took a long while to finally feel like I was normal, and it didn’t help that the surgery to take out the metal in my foot (that was used to heal my foot from the inside) afterwards was mildly traumatic (though that was mostly due to a miscommunication between my doctor and I about whether I was going to be put under or not, it turned out I thought I was going to sleep through the surgery, the doctor had other plans). I realized how much I enjoy walking then, and how much it improves my life to walk around. I knew I liked walking, but not being able to walk for months (or at least no able to walk without pain), made me realize how much I do love a good walk.

I went with the rest of the year with solace that, no matter what happens, good or bad, at least I could walk. That was a blessing, especially since this year also had its share of car problems with my Japanese license renewal (and barely missing having to pay a huge amount of money), brakes failing (oh, you wacky brake fluid), and tire headaches (studless or not to studless). Walking has also made going to Fukuoka, Sakura-jima, and going back to America for Christmas with my fantastic, amazing girlfriend (hi honey!) a joy as well. Seeing my first concert in Japan (a band called “Aqua Timez,” the highlight was our group hardcore dancing to a song until we realized that the song was actually about the atomic bomb in Hiroshima), seeing my first volcano (or what I could make out of all the ash it was spurting), and being in Chicago for Christmas for the first time since I started working in Japan (an odd, snow-less Chicago Christmas, but going with family to see the movie White Christmas made up for it) made the year an extremely memorable one.

To be honest, there were a lot of other, much more personal things that happened, but I hesitate to really write about those because they are thoughts and memories I rather keep private. Also, there are a lot of things that, when I have a bit more time to reflect on them, I will be able to write on them with the sort of clarity I demand of my writing and myself.   And about writing, this was also the year I revived this blog! I had been writing off and on for years (back when it was called the “DDROG” and was primarily about blogging about my Dance Dance Revolution adventures in Japan), but it wasn’t until I got the advice that a creative person needs to set him or herself to a standard before they can get better and I decided that standard should be that I write a blog every week. I know I haven’t necessarily held myself to that standard in the past few weeks, and I apologize. All I can do is try and make sure I do better and it has been a great learning experience for me.

So, thank you so much all of you for reading, and I hope that you continue to read on as I begin on the adventure of my next year of life. This year is going to be a big one as it is the final year that I will be at the job I am now in Japan. I have a few plans and a few bets I am making (not literal bets, mind you), but I am sure that it will all work out somehow. I am hoping now that I am older and wiser I can write better blogs (and, god willing, get more readers), but it is something I am just going to take one post at a time.

BONUS!

Here are some highlights I wrote about in my journal that jumped out at me:
-Drinking a drink in Fukuoka supposedly made by Jack Johnson
-Having an argument with children about who is stronger: Goku or Batman (the kids thought Goku, but I knew Batman would win somehow)
-Remember SOPA/PIPA?
-Reading the Japanese comic series Slam Dunk made me fall in love with studying Japanese again
-This was the year I got into Oliver Sacks, Marc Maron, renting CDs in Japan (is that why CDs are so expensive in Japan? because you can rent them for like 200 yen at Tsutaya?), and a whole bunch of books, video games, and music.
-My most popular blog by far was A Lungistic Fate by far. Maybe I should write more about linguistucs?
- I still owe my girlfriend a steak dinner for breaking her bed. Sorry honey :(