Fighting the video game urge

I had 20 items on my to-do list yesterday, and I completed all but two of them. Of those two, I started one and decided the other was unnecessary. Yet for all my productivity I had to fight hard against the desire to play video games.

The Arabic learning app that I was using is nice because it allows me to practice writing the characters, but after using it for four days I decided that it wasn't sufficient to help me actually remember the characters, having no review function whatsoever. So I got a new app which teaches the alphabet in 5 lessons and includes review. One thing that's nice (and slightly annoying) about this app is that it uses pictures of real street signs and shop signs in Arabic and has the user search for particular letters within the sign's text. Signs have many different fonts, so this gets difficult, but it's also satisfying to be working with authentic material.

I took another shot at getting my Java project to work, but to no avail. Finally I decided to try a different Java IDE and downloaded Netbeans. It probably doesn't have nearly as many features as Eclipse, but that makes the interface much cleaner and manageable. I found the GUI editor quickly without any extra setup necessary. I haven't tried my extant code yet, but if I can integrate that and maybe finish designing the text display window, I will be quite satisfied.

Since Big D made other plans for today, I ended up deciding not to go through with my intention to bike to the top of a mountain at oh-dark-thirty. It was going to take a lot of willpower, it might have been dangerous, I felt a little sick, and I could easily see myself getting to the top and becoming bored within minutes. Even now at 7:30 it's still -8 degrees, and I'm a bit cold despite having the heater on and being almost completely covered.

IOVG: I started playing with fire by browsing Steam, but then I uninstalled all the games in my library that didn't qualify as a visual novel or social game. All except Mass Effect, which I do really want to play someday but even yesterday I couldn't summon up the will. Next I tried watching Marmalade Boy, a live-action movie adaptation of possibly the first anime series I ever watched intentionally. The situation is fundamentally bizarre (parents of the two main characters exchanging marriage partners and then living together?) but several changes were made that allowed it to be more believable. Miki was sulky instead of just incredulous, the parents were solemn instead of air-headed and happy-go-lucky, and Yu is a bit standoffish rather than instantly perfect and cool. Miki's friend couldn't pass for a high schooler anywhere, though. Anyway, I watched less than ten minutes before I got bored. Next I watched an episode of the docuseries "Street Food". This episode was about Thai street food, and focused on an old woman who won a Michelin star. It was slow-paced but enjoyable. Finally, I registered for Amazon Kindle Unlimited and spent an excessive amount of time browsing for books to read.

The last day of 2019

The eggnog was a hit at game night. I was worried about the rum because I thought it tasted a bit odd, so I put a little bit less than called for. It ended up perfect though. Maybe a little more spice and vanilla would have been nice, but that also might have made it less drinkable. We played three games--Warcraft, Don't Starve Together, and Counterstrike. Warcraft was a vaguely interesting arena type game, but 20 rounds was about twice as long as I liked. Don't Starve was fun for about 10 minutes, but in the end we decided that it isn't casual enough for a game night. Counterstrike was possibly the most fun for all, but I'm really terrible at shooting games and don't enjoy them much.

Yesterday was productive. Notably, I made curry fish saute, bought some shirts and long underwear at Uniqlo, failed to find hanafuda at Hard Off, danced for an hour after watching some tutorial videos, and did some cleaning. Oh, and I talked to Mom and Dad. I worked on my JavaFX library problem, but finally I just gave up and decided to look for an alternative. I found the alternative easily, but then when I tried to use it I ran into the same problem as with JavaFX. Bah.

I also called Big D and it turns out he made other plans for New Year's Day, so I've been wallowing in the misery of abandonment. I'm still planning to make the trip, even though it's going to be -8 and I'll be alone. From Google maps it looks like I can probably bike more or less the whole way, so that should make it a little less daunting. It's only 15km, but the elevation is significant, so I'm thinking that it will take about 90 minutes. I'll wake up at 4:45, get dressed, eat a little something, make a hot drink (?) and then leave at 5.

IOVG (Instead of video games): I watched about 35 minutes of the movie Sing, which has been recommended to me several times. To be honest, I found it painful. The plot was about saving a musical theater by holding a talent contest, so there was a glut of characters who weren't interesting to me. The music was unaltered pop songs, the characters were animals, and the theater owner kept digging himself deeper into debt despite his great leadership qualities. I can cross it off my list without any guilt. I also watched two episodes of Jojo's Bizarre Adventures. This is a peculiar anime which some students at my junior high school are quite fanatic about. It also inspired a Worm fanfiction crossover that just barely failed to hold my interest past a few chapters. I had low expectations for this anime, but it was fairly absorbing, especially considering it only has Japanese subtitles so I understand about 80% of it. Furthermore, it inspired me to get back to reading a Japanese visual novel, but I finished the second episode at 9 so I decided to shut off the computer and read a book instead.

This morning I woke up at 2:30 because of heat (7 degrees outside, wow!) and dehydration. When I didn't go back to sleep soon after, I wrote my to-do list for today, which I once again had forgotten to write last night. Next I tried reading, but eventually decided to just sit up and write. There were several interesting passages in my reading, but I got a little bored at times and lost my concentration, and felt a desire to read something else. Maybe I just spent too much time on it--over an hour between last night and this morning. Also, I didn't make hostel reservations yesterday, so I did that just now. The price had fallen to $18 a night, woohoo! 

Day 1 (but 3 Days before the new year)

I was too affected last night to fall asleep quickly, and plus my neighbor kept moving things around until midnight. It also probably didn't help that I drank half a bottle of ginger ale, although I don't think I had any after 9. Anyway, I figured out a few things during that time, but I forgot to write a to-do list. That was my one takeaway from the motivational reading I did yesterday--make a to-do list for the next day before going to sleep. So I need to work on that, but anyway...

First, the ebook subscription at Amazon is currently just a dollar for the first three months. I didn't see any books that I particularly wanted to read, but even so for that price I can't really go wrong. They do have the New Yorker apparently, so that could be nice. But I also realized that a lot of the fiction books I would want to read are classics and therefore should be free anyway--I just need to figure out how to get them without too much effort. One thing that I really want to do is get back to reading Shakespeare. In Vietnam I had a goal to read all the plays, but I think I got bogged down in the histories and in the end was about 10 plays away from finishing them all. I'm sure I can access those easily and for free. I'd also like to re-read the Silmarillion again since it is my favorite book, and I think I'll investigate the English books at the local library. Hopefully they will have at least one Malcolm Gladwell book, which is my current non-fiction target of interest.

As for the hobby, I'm thinking about two primary ones. I'm going to give Netflix a shot, but I also want to try doing handwriting. It's cheap, satisfying (I hope), I can do it at work if I like, and it might even come in handy for my grad school courses. I saw some really beautiful ways to take notes which I'd like to try out. For Netflix, I'm going to make a list of interesting-looking shows and movies so that I don't have to feel intimidated by the search when I feel lazy and want to relax.

I was also thinking about getting back into language studying somehow. I downloaded an app for the Arabic alphabet, but it feels strange studying Arabic when I'm surrounded by opportunities to improve my poor Japanese. I think maybe I'll push through over the holidays and try to become familiar enough with the alphabet to be able to sound it out and write it. That's a fairly short-term goal that shouldn't require an large amount of time, and since I won't be memorizing words it shouldn't interfere with my Japanese study either.

My goal for Japanese is to be able to return to the states and be able to read the news in Japanese without feeling so much discomfort that I don't want to do it. Eh, honestly that's a big stretch of a goal, but assuming that it's possible, what do I need to do to work toward it? Obviously, read the news every day. So I need to figure out a way to establish that habit. I also want to improve my speaking ability since I am here in Japan. One way I'm thinking of doing this is by reading the news out loud or shadowing some kind of audio, thus building my comfort level with speaking Japanese so that I can talk to people more easily. Again, need to make a more solid plan for this, and it also needs to be fairly effortless because I can't imagine that I'll want to do a lot of extra study once I start school again. (REVISIT THIS PARAGRAPH LATER)

Since I'll be reading a lot in the new year, I need to figure out a way to make it feel worthwhile. My idea for this is to write my thoughts in a book blog. The challenge with that though, is I don't know when would be a good time for me to write. I generally do most of my reading before sleep, and when I'm sleepy writing is one of the last things I want to do. The next best thing would be to do it when I wake up. I can't imagine having time for this and running in the morning too, though. So here's my plan--wake up at 6, read, meditate, and pray for 30 minutes, write in my book blog for 20 minutes, and then get started on my day. Exercise will have to happen in the evening. At the moment, I'm thinking that I'll end up alternating between dancing and climbing.

I ran into a snag with programming a few weeks back, but today I figured out that it was caused by the graphical library I was using. So hopefully I'll be able to fix that up and get back with my programming soon, though maybe not today. Today I went to church and was once again convicted of the necessity of memorizing the Bible. That's another routine I need to establish, but it will have to come after I finish programming the application.

The game night is on, so here's my to-do list for the day:
laundry (done)
church (done)
book blog for books read last night
shopping for handwriting pens/paper and eggnog
make eggnog
recycle plastic bottles and milk boxes
if time, investigate Netflix/go to the library
game night

Resolution Addendums

I've had two ideas while sitting here, reflecting on how I want to direct my energy during this break and then into the next year. I made a post about my New Year's resolutions a month and a half ago already, and I still completely agree with the content there: continue waking up early and keeping a journal; start (back) exercising regularly and improve my spiritual life. I want to add two things to that--no more fanfiction and no more video games.

As I've mentioned before, video games are a drug and if I get sucked into one, it's like a poison on my time and it robs me of the pleasure of other activities because I can only think about getting back to playing games. Since I've been waking up earlier in the mornings, I've often used the extra time to play video games. And for the most part I don't even enjoy them that much (Factorio being the exception and even that becomes tedious)--it's just something I do when I have free time and don't want to do anything difficult, and then I get sucked into the goals I make for the games. But life is remarkable not for what is easy, but for what is difficult, and thus I should press myself to forego what is easy if at all possible. Eh, that probably is not true, but anyway...

As for fanfiction, there are many reasons to stop reading it. First, it tends to make me dissatisfied with my own life, whether through showcasing an extraordinary romance or extraordinary abilities which I can only envy. Second, many stories tend to have content that I should avoid, and doing so should help my spiritual life as well. Third, it's very seldom memorable or thought-provoking, which is the main reason to read in the first place. Fourth, it sometimes disrupts my sleep. There are probably more reasons, too.

So! I can't just give something up and expect that to be the end, especially when it occupied a considerable chunk of my time--I need to find a substitute for it. So first, for fanfiction--I'm going to allow myself to purchase books without guilt for as long as I'm not reading fanfiction. I'll need some more guidelines about this, because otherwise the guilt will probably come regardless of what I tell myself. I think it's a fair rule for me to buy a new book once I've finished another one, but sometimes there will be a book that I bought and end up not wanting to read, or I won't be in the mood for that particular kind of reading. So maybe I'll have three categories of books--history, fiction, and other non-fiction--that I can read together at any time, and once I finish one I can buy a new one in that category. If I start one of the books and don't feel like reading it again, then after, say, two weeks, I can buy a new one in that category. Alternatively, I think my coworker last year had some sort of Kindle library service. That would probably be cheaper than buying a new book every week or so. I'll look into it.

As for video games, I shouldn't really have much time because I'll have graduate school, but procrastination will happen at some level no matter what, I need to find something that is fun and relaxing enough that I can do it when I don't want to study, and yet more productive and less absorbing than video games. Actually I don't really have an idea about this right now. Programming would be ideal, but I really have to be in the right mood to find pleasure in it, and if I run into a significant snag, that's the end of it. Watching anime would not be the worst solution, but with my current internet connection it may just be an exercise in patience, which would land me back where I started. It's worth a try, and the price is reasonable, but what else could I do? I really should get back into climbing--that would keep me busy for the most part until I go home. If I could do anything, I think I would do some kind of craft like pottery or sewing, but that's not an option right now. I could play violin, but it's really frustrating at times and not particularly relaxing. I think whatever I do, it needs to be something that I can start without too much effort, see what needs to be done without too much effort, and feel a sense of achievement from what I do. Another idea is those coloring books for adults. I would have to buy colored pencils, but that's a modest investment compared to most possibilities. I'll keep thinking about it.

One of the problems with these two resolutions is that I'm not sure how to give them up completely. I think video games have merits in motivation at least, and I'm interesting in exploring the social aspect of them, which I have neglected in my life. I have a game night planned for next week with my coworkers, and I told a friend that when I go back to the US we can play together. Also, I'd like to keep my visual novels available because I hope to finish them one day, so it's not like I can completely wipe Steam from my computer. As for fanfiction, I can unsubscribe from updates and take the app off my phone, but I'm just a google search away from finding them again. So I guess I'll just have to find interesting books to read so that I won't want to read fanfiction.

Here's my idea for video games--every day that I can journal, I'll write something that I did instead of playing video games. I'm not really sure how that is going to work, but it seems motivational to me at this moment, so I'll give it a shot. I'll also tell my parents--I'm substantially more likely to commit to something if I tell someone else about it.

Vacation Start

I'm nearing the end of the second day of my winter vacation, and I'm already much happier with this vacation than with the past two. Yesterday I spent most of the day alternating between napping, reading a Worm fanfiction, and playing the idle game. I only played two days in Stardew Valley. In the afternoon though, I also did some dancing, which was quite enjoyable. For all that writing I did about my exercise plans, in the end I decided that dancing would be the easiest and most enjoyable exercise, so I tried it out. It's a long way from ideal because I can only do it in the evening and there are many moves that I can't do because even stepping is quite noisy so jumping is out of the question. But just moving lightly and rhythmically is interesting enough, and I think it helps me focus on technique (which I am in dire need of). I still would like to try running, and I did get the Zombies, Run! app on my phone. I think tomorrow though I will stick with dancing.

The end-of-year party on Thursday night with the junior high school was surprisingly fun. I really really did not want to go, but I didn't have an excuse and everyone except the two staff members signed up to attend, and as it is my main school, I felt obligated. I didn't enjoy the last party much, but more teachers came this time, and some of them were fun. At the main party there were almost constant activities so I didn't get much chance to talk to people there, but on the other hand there also wasn't any awkward silence and loneliness like last time. I participated in one of the events by eating a cream puff to which mustard had been added. The point of the game was to look at the faces of the four people who ate the cream puffs and guess who had eaten the spicy one. Of course I was the one who ate it, so I tried hard to make a face like I had eaten something spicy, but actually I quite enjoyed the mix of flavors. It was kind of like wasabi chocolate, but even better.

I enjoyed walking to the second party with the music teacher, who is a funny guy. He knows many English words and he can communicate Degawa-style quite well, but he can't really string a sentence together. So we spoke in Japanese, and he asked a lot of questions and was fun to talk to. Thinking back I feel like the conversation was a little too oriented around me, but I didn't feel that way at the time so I'll try to let it go. I did have an awkward exchange with the principal at the main party--he started talking to me just before another teacher was performing a song, and after that the events continued so he awkwardly returned to his seat, our conversation somewhat short and having been exclusively about me.

Last night was the elementary school's end-of-year party. The food was fantastic, people were attentively pouring drinks, and the mood was very jovial and loud. I sat next to a third grade teacher who I've not talked to much. Honestly I don't think he's a great teacher for the grade level he's with right now, and I feel like he doesn't like my style of teaching either. But I think we bonded last night over sake. I also had some great conversations, some of the best I've ever had in Japanese, with some of the other teachers. Thinking back, I should have worked harder to pour drinks--I really did a pour (hahah) job of it. If I am able to go to another party, I'll try hard to keep it in mind. We had planned to go to a snack bar again and sing karaoke, but we went to an izakaya for the second party and by the end of that half the group was barely awake. So we called it a night and I got home at 11. I drank a lot of sake through the evening, but I also had some tea, and drank water before and after, so other than periodically disturbed sleep I suffered no ill effects.

As a result of last night's conversations though, I've been having these wistful feelings. First, there's a teacher who is a bit inexperienced and she has had a very tough year. She was talking last night about how she would love to do a long visit to the US. At the beginning of the year I had a bit of a crush on her, and I still enjoy talking to her, so... I guess it is kind of a "what could have been if I were more of a go-getter" scenario. Then there's another teacher who is super cute and friendly and simply wonderful (except for being a sports fan... hmm...) and I had a nice conversation with her. She talked about an ALT that she worked with for two years, and how she spent a lot of time with him, meeting regularly and watching soccer games together. It sounded like in the end they didn't actually date, but I could easily imagine, at least on her end, the expectation of a development, which led me to this very wistful feeling. I'm pretty sure that she is married now, and definitely not to him.

Today I was actually fairly productive. I did game in excess, but not exorbitantly so. I did some reading about making goals and learning better, but didn't come across anything particularly new. After downloading the Zombies, Run! app, I looked around for some other things to learn and ended up studying a bit of Arabic and practicing speed reading. I talked to Big D for a while on the phone, sent him some travel plans, did some cleaning, did laundry, went grocery shopping, and cooked dinner. I even exercised this afternoon, and I think it's easy to tell because while I'm not normally good for anything but reading or maybe gaming at this point of day, today I'm full of thoughts and here I am writing a massive blog post that will be turned into a double episode. Then again, that could also be attributable to the fact that I didn't have work today, so I have less cause to be tired.

Exercise Plans

I had hoped for a white Christmas, but the week ended up being warmer than expected and it didn’t snow again, so it wasn’t very white. However, from the classrooms at my junior high school I could see lettuce fields still covered with snow, so I got a taste of a white Christmas. It didn’t really feel like Christmas, though. I greeted students and teachers with “Merry Christmas,” but nobody returned the greeting, and at the end of the workday I just went shopping for food, went home for dinner, made dinner, and read until I fell asleep. Today is my last day of work, and I already finished my only class but we still have a closing ceremony.

I got my physical results back last week, but I looked at them for the first time this morning. The doctor told me that my weight was just right, but I actually put on a few pounds since last year, which brings me up to about 150, as heavy as I’ve ever been. Worse, I seem to have added a centimeter and a half to my waistline. What could be the cause? I was eating donuts about five times a week from the beginning of this academic year in March, but in the last 6 weeks I’ve probably only had the three times. I also was eating potato chips fairly regularly in that time, but I’ve cut back on those too. However, I’ve also cut back on my exercise. Aside from riding my bike to school, I haven’t done any exercise since October. Anyway, I need to start exercising.

What could I do for exercising? Biking is interesting, but I’m reluctant to do it when it’s freezing or dark, and it will probably be one if not both of those at most times that I could ride for the next two months at least. I like dancing, but I don’t know a suitable place to do it. Climbing is a pain because it’s at least a two-hour commitment, and it involves going back out in the cold, hence, a lot of will power. Those are the exercises that I’m interested in, but there’s also a zombie run app that sounds interesting. The main problem with it is that I’m not sure I would have enough willpower to do it at night or in the morning. If I did it in the morning, I would have to be back home by 7. That is when the sun rises, so I would be running in the dark and cold, which doesn’t sound very nice. Finally, there is interval training. If I did that inside, it would have to be in the evening so as not to disturb my neighbors. In the evening my willpower is low, so if there’s something else that I want or need to do, I’m more likely to do it.

In conclusion, I think I’m most likely to do climbing, but running also has potential depending on the effect that the app has on me. Also, I like the idea of running in the morning, although I would need to get some kind of running light. So I think I will try waking up earlier, maybe 6 AM (only half an hour earlier), and try the running app. I don’t want to do it when it’s raining, but maybe for the first week or two I’ll do it every other day. If I want to continue after that, I’ll buy some more clothes and increase the frequency. If not, I need to make the transition from work to the climbing gym as painless as possible. One way to do this would be to drive straight to the gym, but I couldn’t do that on every second Tuesday, assuming my boss allowed me to drive in the first place. It might be worth asking about, though. Maybe first I’ll try my other option—leaving straight from Active. This would require bringing extra clothes and changing either at Active or at the climbing gym. If I’m cycling, I should change at Active. Ah, there’s another problem—dinner. The earliest I could get to the gym is 5 PM, and on meeting days it would be later, which means I can’t eat until after 7. Climbing hungry is worse than climbing full in my experience, so I should eat dinner beforehand. But to get dinner I would have to either buy it at Tsuruya or a convenience store or take it to work. Maybe I could eat at Active.

Okay, so here’s the plan. Starting December 30^th, I’ll wake up at 6 and go running. There will likely be some disruptions—Wednesday I might go hiking, and the rest of the week I might travel, but I’ll get back to the routine as soon as possible. If I skip three days in a row, on the third day I will go climbing. If I have food, I’ll bring it to school and leave it in the car. If I keep the heat at minimal when I’m driving, it should be okay. From the third term, I think I’ll start leaving my backpack in the car anyway—I rarely need anything from it at home aside from my wallet and phone. I’ll take my climbing backpack to school on days that I climb, with a bag of spare clothes and a bag for lunch inside. I’ll change at school after saying goodbye. If I don’t have lunch, I’ll eat at Tsuruya; otherwise I’ll eat at work. In this way, I won’t be tempted to succumb to relaxing at home. Finally, if the weather is bad and I can't ride my bike, I'll relent to doing interval training at home.

Post-contract traveling

This morning I had several thoughts, but by the time I arrived at school I could only really remember one. It snowed last night, about six inches, and it’s supposed to snow on and off this whole week without getting warm. Which means, I might actually have a white Christmas. I was trying to remember the last time I had a white Christmas—maybe one of those two times in Virginia, but before that I was probably in elementary school. I think in Russia I only had a white New Years’. Not that I really care about a white Christmas, as it will probably end up being a completely normal working day. I might go to the bar if someone will come with me or if I’m feeling particularly lonely like I was last year. It does look like I will have a decent lunch unlike last year—some kind of mayo tofu stir fry.

This weekend was another sacrificed to Stardew Valley. I did get ramen with Big D, went shopping, did some laundry, and even mixed up some cookie batter. But on the whole it was very unproductive. At this point in the game though, I only have three people to befriend and four objects to find, aside from which the game is pretty much just harvesting, selling, and expanding, so not very demanding. I’m thinking that after today or tomorrow I will probably just play casually.

I bought a game called Astroneers which looks really cool, but the frame rate is so low on my computer that it’s unplayable. I decided to keep it regardless with the idea that I will get a new computer before long. My current one turned four years old a few weeks ago. I decided that I will buy a new one after I secure a job at home.

Relevant to that, I’m thinking about buying my flight ticket as it looks like the prices might be going up. The earliest I would have to leave would be on Tuesday, March 24^th, but since the eikaiwa teachers have to work that day and I’m sure that they won’t have to leave until Wednesday, I should be okay to stay that long too. But where would I go? Kyoto is probably where I should go the most, but it’s really busy at that time and I’m not really interested. I haven’t been to the Kansai area at all, but there isn’t anything in particular that I want to see.

It looks like the cheapest ticket price is $680, and the soonest I could get that price would be on Monday the 30^th, which was when I was thinking about leaving anyway. I think ideally I would take my bike by train to the Kansai area, bike across Shikoku, and then finish in Hiroshima. If I did that though, I would only have three, maybe four days to travel and then sell my bike, which would be quite tight. On the other hand, if I can’t do biking, I don’t know what I would do between Wednesday and Monday. Actually, I could probably stay in Shiojiri or do local trips until Friday and then take a weekend trip somewhere (Takasaki, Karuizawa, or Yamanashi would all be fine), which would be chill. In conclusion, I need to work out where and when I’m going to sell my bike, which determines whether my plan is feasible or not. If I do the biking trip and end up behind schedule, I’ll just take the train to make up the difference.

Video games are like drugs

It turned out that I did get sick, and in fact I’m still recovering. I never felt too bad, but this weekend I made some poor food and activity choices which compounded with sickness to make me feel especially miserable. On the bright side, I’ve barely spent any time on the idle game. On the other hand, that’s because I’ve spent all my time on replaying Stardew Valley. It has had two large updates since I last played it almost three years ago, so there is some interesting new content, and I’m enjoying revisiting it because I haven’t played it in so long. At this point, I’ve already finished the interesting part of the game. In most of my games that make it past the first season, this is the point where I quit. Some endgame content has been added in the updates, but even so I don’t think I have a lot else to do in the game, so I expect that I’ll be finished with it by the time break starts next Friday. Which means that I’ll be able to start a new game for the winter holidays. >.> Or maybe I can get my act together and get back to programming. I think I’ve said it before and I’m still convinced that video games rob me of my thoughts as well as my time, and without thoughts I’m less likely to feel motivation or inspiration to improve. In short, video games are like drugs.

I’ve been investigating winter holiday travel destinations. This is my last chance to visit Kyoto, but I just can’t get excited about it. Kyoto has many famous places, but they are all temples. I think if I read a book about the history of Kyoto, it would be interesting to visit, but since I don’t see myself doing that between now and then, I think I will pass. I looked at Takayama and Kanazawa as I mentioned in my last post, but there wasn’t much of interest there either. So now I’m looking at Yokohama. There’s a Kirin brewery with tours, which would be interesting, and I think I would enjoy just walking around, especially around the pier area. The ramen factory is apparently a popular attraction, but it didn’t interest me until I saw that you can create your own ramen. There’s a Mitsubishi Industrial museum which sounds like a counterpart to my beloved Toyota Museum. Nearby, there’s an international mall. I think with three or four solid-looking activities, Yokohama is worth a visit. Now to see if I can recruit someone to go with me. There’s also the possibility of going skiing, but given the expense and my lack of enjoyment last time, I don’t think I will proactively seek a chance to do that. I’ve checked it off my list—that’s probably sufficient.

Stardew Valley is a waste of time, but it has also inspired me to think a bit more about gardening and DIY to do in my future. Not that I’ve actually done so, but I’ve got the motivation in the back of my mind, hahah. I’m a bit bored today, so I might find some time this afternoon to look up some plants to grow.

Christmas Party

This morning I woke up at 5:30, sneezing and congested. Since I believe that Big D had similar symptoms this weekend, I suspect that I’m getting sick. I feel almost normal so it could just be allergies, although that would be ridiculous considering it was -7 outside at the time.

The Christmas Party at work went well. I actually enjoyed the first session, and the second session wasn’t painful. We went out for noodles afterwards. Takashi told us that the relative height at which you clink glasses is important in a Japanese toast. I didn’t know that. Before eating, we went to Toys-R-Us for me to buy hanafuda cards, but sadly I couldn’t find any. Next I will try looking at Daiso, and if I get a chance I’ll check out Hard Off, and if I still can’t find them I might just order them online.

I did some programming work this weekend, finally. But I ran into the snag of outdated libraries, and after I updated them, I couldn’t get at least one of them to work, so my code was broken. I’m not really motivated to put a lot of effort into fixing it today, so it might be Thursday before I get back to working on it. We’ll see though. When I realized that I was discouraged, I tried looking into playing a video game, and just couldn’t bring myself to commit. I did finally do the challenge in the idle game that makes 24 hour resets most profitable, so my time in that game should be reduced significantly.

After talking to my parents last night, I have an idea for my winter vacation. I might do the bus tour starting in Takayama and going up to Kanazawa. It’s too bad that I’ll miss out on the famous garden, but thinking about it that ship has probably already sailed considering the time that I have left in Japan.

Souvenirs

It snowed this morning. I ordered some fingerless gloves and an aviator’s cap from Amazon, and shortly thereafter I found my glove liners. I haven’t used them in a couple of months at least and they weren’t in the reasonable places, so I was happy to find them.

On Monday I did a bit of programming, but since then I have spent my free time playing the idle game or reading. I’m nearly caught up on a Harry Potter and Star Wars crossover. I really like this combination, and most Star Wars fanfiction for that matter, but there aren’t too many of them. Maybe I could try reading the actual published books… but that would cost money.

I’ve been thinking about souvenirs to take home lately. First, I definitely need to get some hanafuda cards. I can probably get them at a second-hand shop, or if I make a special trip then I can definitely get them at Toys R Us. It might be fun to go there anyway, at least once, to see what the Japanese version is like and maybe revisit some of my childhood Christmas spirit. When I went to Nagano on Sunday, I discovered that the Don Quixote across the street has many great souvenirs like sake flavored Kit Kats, sold inexpensively. I need to get a T-shirt for my brother at least, and who else I wonder…

What shall I do tomorrow? I’ll work on the challenges for the idle game, and if I complete them I’ll be able to make my resets 24 hours instead of 12, which should make it a little less time-consuming. I do want to get to the point where my memory program can read a file and display the text. I’ll probably play a bit of Mass Effect also. In the evening I’m going to Matsumoto for an open mic night where Big D will play.

Hanafuda

Well, I survived my presentation at the city meeting. It went pretty well, thanks to one teacher who really really likes to share her opinions. If she hadn’t been there, we might have finished all my possible points with time to spare, but since she did come, we only covered three points. Honestly since Monday I have felt sort of in a daze without a whole lot of thought beyond immediate concerns.

It snowed this morning, but it was too warm to stick. I had been thinking that I might make it through the winter without sealing up my house too much, but last night was rather cold and this morning the heater really did not do much good, so now I’m revisiting that resolution. I biked to school this morning thinking that it might be the last time, partially because my hands get really cold even with my hefty gloves. I need to make more effort in trying to find my glove liners, and I’m also planning to get some fingerless gloves to (hopefully) help a bit inside. I’d also like to replace my aviator’s cap if possible, but it looks expensive.

I got to watch some of my students play hanafuda (flower cards) today. This is a game that I found out about through anime, and I've played a flash version for many years on and off. It's a game of luck not unlike poker, but for some reason I find it much more appealing. It might be because the cards are more beautiful. Anyway, it was fun to watch them play.

The car and computer science

Yesterday I was really tired and yet by 9 I was mentally psyched and couldn't stop thinking furiously until after 1:30 AM. I would have thought that I had drunk coffee, but I only had two matcha drinks, the latter before noon, so I doubt that that was the cause. It could have been a sugar rush caused by the surprisingly decent apple fritter I got from Family Mart—that seems the most logical explanation. But it also could have been caused by talking to my parents in combination with the mental high (is that a thing?) I got from finishing the Japanese exam.

In the end I completely wasted Saturday. I started a new game in Mass Effect as a soldier and have found the game much easier and am already past where I was in my last game. I also played an excessive amount of the idle game, finishing several challenges, but they took longer than they should have. I read a very little bit of Japanese and did no other studying.

Yesterday, of course, was the test. The train was much less crowded than last year going to the test—I still think that there must have been a later train that I couldn’t find. Coming back was worse than I remember though, being so packed that I didn’t feel comfortable eating my dinner standing up. The test was mostly fun, but I did get frustrated with a text about frogs and parasites. I almost finished all the questions on the reading section, and since there’s no penalty I guessed at the last few. The listening section was really hard though. At the test I met a guy that I knew from Matsumoto. He works as a translator for Epson, so I asked him a lot of questions about his job. From what he said, I could probably do a great job in that position. I haven’t written off the possibility, but I can’t imagine finding much fulfillment in translating endless documents that most people will never read.

At night, I talked with my parents about several things, most notably about my car in America and my Liberty plans. I had thought about buying my car back from my brother, but they seemed skeptical of this plan’s value. My thought was that it would save me the trouble of searching for a new car and let my brother do it instead, as he finds it enjoyable. I thought also that it might motivate him to save a bit of money to buy a car that he wants. My parents were skeptical that the second point would be effective at all, and mentioned that my plan might cause some timing issues. That’s not a problem because I wouldn’t need a car right away. But they also said that it wouldn’t be smart to buy the car back for the original price since my brother has gotten a lot of use out of it and had his dog ride it in. I really like the car, but I wouldn’t be keen on having dog smell or residue in my car. So at this point I’m thinking that I’ll go with our original plan and see how the car looks when I arrive in the US, and if I decide that it still looks good and I don’t want to look for another one, I’ll propose buying it back. I could probably live without it for the first six weeks, which should be long enough for my brother to find a new car.

As far as Liberty goes, I had been looking at some of the other content competency requirements. I’m close to qualifying for four areas—middle school English, high school English, ESL, and computer science. Middle school and high school English are similar,  but the latter requires an extra class or two, and I’d much rather student teach in a middle school than a high school. I’m not interested in ESL, partially because of the curriculum, partially because my experience should be a sufficient supplement if I had the chance for a job in that, and finally because I don’t want to student-teach ESL and potentially miss out on a more typical classroom experience. That leaves middle school English and computer science, which is my present dilemma.

Computer science may not even be possible because I’m supposed to have obtained a bachelor’s degree in my area of specialty. But it could be that my certificate from NC State in combination with fulfilling the competencies would be sufficient. With computer science, given that I test out of statistics and computer apps, I would only have to take 0-2 more classes.

But assuming that I’m approved to do the computer science specialty, what do the pros and cons look like?

+ Computer science would be a smoother student teaching experience.

+ Teaching computer science would be a nice transition into working in that field, if I decide to do that after getting the master’s.

+ Fulfilling the content competencies could be easier or more fun.

On the other hand:

+ English is, I suspect, more difficult to teach, so I would learn more from the courses.

+ Similarly, as far as I can tell, there aren’t any courses specifically geared toward teaching computer science, so the course load would be less relevant and interesting.

+ If I were to teach a different subject, I think that an experience in English would provide more transferrable skills.

So in essence: computer science = easier, more fun, skills transferable outside of education; English = more educational courses and more skills transferable inside of education. Laying this out didn’t help me feel more inclined either way, and I feel like I missed a few points, so I’ll have to keep thinking. Before I decide for sure, I should contact an advisor, confirm the possibility, and request a curriculum for the comp sci specialization.