Thursday, October 23, 2008

Philosophy and the Good Life

A year ago today, October 22, 2007, my friend and teammate Brett Jarolimek was killed in a bike crash at an intersection that I tried to make a better place when I was working for the City of Portland.

Today in my philosophy class, we discussed Aristotle and his views of happiness, and how sometimes, luck and fortune do come into play in ones' happiness.
Just because we talked about it doesn't mean I know how to deal with it.


Veloshop, I love you,
Brett, I miss you.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Theories.

A brief and abridged translation from a section of my Japanese blog.

American is a melting pot of cultures, with lots and lots of pieces of this and that, but doesn't really have a distinct cultural identity.

I Think this was possibly the main reason that upon moving to Japan, being brought up by Japanese, I have a great deal of trouble relating to people here in America, and feel much more Japanese than anything else.

I'm not American, or Japanese, nor I am really Asian American, so I think I will call myself an American Asian. (that isn't really from the blog, but its a slight translator's liberty.)


I feel very strange.

Friday, October 03, 2008

My Japan, My America.

It has been almost 2 months since I last wrote.

I don't really know what is going on.

I went to see my biological parents back in the states a couple of days after my last post, and had, to be completely honest, a really terrible time. It is really weird to see these people who, should be my 'family' and yet they know so little about me.
In the least mean way possible to them, I have trouble calling them my family.
It's not a case of bad parenting or bad childing, its just that we don't seem to match.

I was with them for less than a week and I walked out at least once.

Then, I went to college.


I am currently the Japanese International Student at Haverford.

It sounds weird in English, but I really have trouble in this country. I really have trouble relating to 'Americans'.
Almost all of my friends are the other international kids.

A cultural identity crisis is not what I was expecting.

I have no idea how to even begin to explain some of the stuff going on in my life.