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A slice of life update.

For the last three years, I went to a barbershop owned by a husband and wife, who coincidentally were the parents of one of my 900 students. That’s small-town life for you. They are wonderful people, but they didn’t have a lot of experience cutting non-Japanese hair, which means they never got it quite right. Even so, they cut my hair exclusively for three years because I like to contribute to the local economy, and because I didn’t have the energy to find another barber I could barely communicate with. This, of course, is my fault for being a foreigner living in Japan with subpar Japanese language skills.

I got my last haircut in the old city on March 20th. After six weeks in the new city, I decided it was time to find another barber. In a small town/city, you can walk into a salon or barbershop pretty much any day, and they’ll take care of you within the hour. Turns out everyone gets their haircut on Sundays in big cities.

The owner of the fourth shop I walked into told me he had an opening at 5 pm on Friday. I was committed to trying every shop within a 15-minute bike ride, but this guy spoke English. “See you on Friday.” I was happy that I could actually communicate with the person cutting my hair, but I had low expectations for the end result. Turns out he did a year working holiday in both Australia and Canada. I can confidently say, “I trust my barber.”

Honestly finding a barber is the biggest thing that has happened to me since the move. I’m settled in at the day job. I’m only working with three co-teachers as opposed to the seven I had at my last school, so lesson planning has been more manageable. Been in the ALT game for a long time, so nothing new here.

The new apartment is comfortable, but the building doesn’t have fiber, so I can’t game with my brothers. While that sucks, I spent way too much time playing Apex Legends over the last few years. It was good to spend time with my brothers and not be alone with my thoughts, but I was using gaming as a distraction even when they weren’t on. After a couple of weekends with no games, I decided to find a Saturday gig. Fun fact about my new boss: he also lived and worked in Changwon for a few years back in the day. That brings me to a total of three jobs. Sunday is still the lord’s day.

Yes, I have been keeping busy, so it’s been hard to find time to write, but I also haven’t felt inspired to write since the move. If you’ve read any of my other posts, you probably won’t be surprised when I share this epiphany: my previous posts were largely inspired by anger, hurt, and loneliness. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m feeling a hell of a lot better these days.

Since I moved, I’ve been spending a lot less time alone and a lot less time with the bottle, if I’m being honest. Being in a REAL city full time makes me want to get out and do things, either by myself or with other people, because well, there are things to do and lots of people around. That might include a drink now and then, but it’s now drinks all around, not just drinks to myself. That being said, I’ve been working on my sleep hygiene, so that means even less alcohol. Still, for those of you who know me, if you come to Tokyo on a Saturday evening, let’s grab a drink and throw some darts.

Been a while. I really meant to write this sooner, but here we are. No past trauma being worked through in this post LOL. Just a slice of life story about my first job hunting experience.

Here’s a timeline plus my personal review of my performance during the job hunt.

January 6th
Interview 1: 5/10
As I wrote previously, I hadn’t slept well the night before and was just generally anxious since this was my first real-world interview. My posture was terrible and I had been so worried about the Japanese portion of the interview that I wasn’t prepared for the standard interview questions. My answers while were honest didn’t seem well thought out. One of the two panel members had an expression that I can only describe as “less than impressed” for the duration of the interview.

January 10th
Interview 2: 8/10
I felt like I crushed it. I was much more prepared for this interview mentally. I also preferred the structure of this interview. There were three panel members. I managed to get a few laughs and what I perceived as a nods of approval. It felt like I had a good shot at getting the job.

January 17th
Interview 3: 6/10
Google Maps had me a bit frazzled because the location wasn’t accurate for the first time. I was almost late for the interview. I had a few minutes to get my thoughts together. The panel called me from the waiting room. Structure was more or less the same as the second interview. Though I don’t feel like I really impressed anyone this time.

On January 27th I received an invitation for a fourth interview. I sent an email letting the coordinator I would be attending, but I was pretty sure that I was going to get an offer from one of the other places I had already interviewed at. I received rejection letters for interviews 1 & 2 on Jan 30th. Reading the second rejection letter was rough because I thought I had “crushed it.” Suddenly I was really worried about that fourth interview. I had already signed the resignation form for my current job and this year’s hiring season was practically over.

February 3rd
Interview 4: 6/10
There is a 15-minute timer on the interview panel’s table. Did my intro in Japanese, did an activity demonstration, and answered a few questions in English. So far so good. “Now we’re moving on to the Japanese interview questions.” Couldn’t even attempt to answer that question in Japanese. They then repeated the question in English, I answered. They proceeded to ask the second question in Japanese. My blank face and hesitation caused one member of the panel to lean over and tell another, “Yeah he’s not going to be able to answer any of these questions.” (Or at least I’m guessing that’s what he said) They ask the rest of the questions in English. LOL. With two minutes left on the timer they thanked me for my time.

The rejection letter from interview three was waiting in my mailbox when I got back to my apartment that evening. Definitely killed any confidence I had left. I had a solid losing record.

February 4th
The next day I gave in and applied to a 3rd-party dispatch company (notorious for low pay and poor management). The hiring rep got back to me right away and scheduled me for an online orientation that week. A job is a job. I’d make it work. 

February 5th
As I’m about to call it a day I check my email at 4 pm.
The results of interview 4: “We are pleased to inform you …………”

And now I’m writing this on my fourth day of work in the new city/school. My first full-fledged adult job hunt was humbling for sure. I definitely need to put the work in as far as the language goes as this city requires contract workers to reapply every year. This post is just an update and to help me get back into the habit of writing.

Thanks for reading.

Scott Galloway: “It makes me feel like a baller.”

Prof G says being generous with his wealth makes him feel good. It feeds his ego a bit and lets him help other people. I get it. I’m not wealthy, nor have I ever been, but I’m working on it. Currently broke af working two gigs. I’ll get there though.

We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but I will say that my father and adoptive mom made sure we never went without. Gotta give them credit for that and a lot of other things. I was sent to a grocery store down the road a few mornings a week to buy a gallon of milk for cereal. I wasn’t ever ashamed that I was paying for said milk with a pouch of loose change. 10/11/12-year-old me knew money was money. It made sense to use the coins that accumulated in the cup holder when you could. It wasn’t until years later that it clicked, “Oh. We were broke.”

My family lived in a neighboring town for a few years because it was the only place we could find a house. We all still went to school/worked in our hometown though. My two younger brothers and I used to walk around by ourselves in the summer. We would rotate between the two school playgrounds, two parks, and the library.

 On one particular day, our parents scrounged up five dollars in quarters to get some cookies from Subway. A high schooler was running the shop that day. I’m assuming he was in high school because he was a couple of heads taller than me and skinny with acne. I made my order, he handed over the little white cookie bag, and then I started sorting out my change on the counter. “That’s okay, I got it.”  Three little boys (10, 5, & 4 y.o) walked away with a bag of cookies and five dollars to spend another day.

It’s been a good twenty years since that random act of kindness. I must be a sentimental guy because I never forgot about that moment. He was working at Subway during the summer, so if he was a high schooler like I guessed, there was a good chance he was saving money for school clothes. If he covered the cost of our treat himself, that five bucks was close to an hour of his wages. That man was a baller.

I won’t lie. Seeing that a handful of people read my posts gives me motivation to keep writing. So I guess what I’m about to share now is a bit of brag. In my first few years working as an English “teacher” (영어 원어민 쌤)   in Korea I was paying off some college loans and credit cards in addition to sending what I could to my little brothers. $50-100 doesn’t seem like a lot unless you have four younger brothers separately asking for a little help now and then. I was blessed with some scholarships to help with college, and then I chose to make a life on the other side of the Earth, so you know I was going to Venmo them some cash whenever they asked. Helping out family, not much of a brag. Don’t worry, that’s coming. ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

I was a high school English “teacher” at a boys’ high school the first year and a half I was in Korea. Then COVID hit and for some complicated reasons, I had to switch visas, apply to the local city board of ed., and become an elementary school teacher. About 7 months later, I was walking through the downtown area I frequented, on my way to my go-to bar, when I heard “MYNAME-쌤 (teacher)?” I look to the left to see a couple of my boys, who had graduated high school since I last saw them, sitting outside a pub smoking. (Korean drinking/smoking age is 19)

I stopped to chat. They invited me inside to say hi to some more of my boys and a few of their friends from another school. They offered me some food and plenty of soju. At some point, I stopped the server as she was walking by and handed her my card as discreetly as possible. Like any good 쌤, I paid the bill. That’s my baller moment.

Admittedly, dinner and drinks were worth a bit more than a few cookies, but I also had a significantly better wage than a high schooler in the middle of nowhere. If you ever read this sir, you taught me the value of generosity back then, and I’ve done my best to pass it on.  

That’s all folks.

I’ve written a bit about my experience navigating what it means to be masculine, aka being a man. I’ve spent a lot of time doing my damnedest not to be “toxically” masculine over the last few years for fear I would turn out “like him.” My friend recommended thinking about some times I experienced some “positive” masculinity. I’ve been listening to Scott Galloway quite a bit recently. I agree with a lot of his talking points. One of the qualities he thinks men should possess is generosity.

My father doesn’t actually have any brothers, and my mother did have two brothers. If we want to get technical, I had two uncles, but all of my parents’ friends and older relatives are people I grew up calling “uncle.” Once while working a summer job my coworkers and I bumped into two of my uncles and an aunt within an hour. I greeted each of them with “hey uncle/auntie.” After we got out of earshot of the last uncle my coworker told me, “CHRIST. Everyone is your uncle!” Here’s a little episode from the early days about one of my generous uncles.

After my birth parents split it was just me (3ish) and my father couch-hopping with two trash bags full of our belongings for a while. This is when I acquired my blankie. I remember staying with one of my dad’s friends for a few days. Like any gracious host, he set us up with some bedding. I guess I really took to one of the blankets and carried it all over the house. It had a warm side and a cool side. As we were leaving, he made sure I took that blanket with me.

My dad’s friend didn’t have a lot, but he did have a roof that he was willing to share while my dad figured out our next move. He also made sure that a “nephew” would not leave without a small comfort that he could carry with him. That blanket is still in my room to this day.

Men have a lot to work on, but we get it right sometimes.

“He’s a fool, but an honest fool.” (Gandalf, LOTR).

This post is somewhat inspired by the political climate in the US.

Like most humans, I’m guilty of being arrogant enough to think that I’m a decent person. I’ll let others decide whether or not that is the case. As mentioned in previous posts I felt a bit different from other men in terms of masculinity in my hometown. One of the reasons I felt that way is that I was never really into “guy talk.” Though I knew how to talk like a “guy.” Or imitate it at least. Thanks to my mom, who spent a good portion of her life in big cities, I thought of myself as a fairly open-minded person. I ended up going to university in another rural state. I’m sure if you had met me in college most would have judged me as liberal/progressive.

Of course, being conservative or progressive is relative. For a country boy, I was liberal, but compared to city folk I seemed conservative or ignorant I suppose. To some degree, sure I was ignorant and/or inexperienced. Though I always had a willingness to learn. This became even more true after my semester abroad.

After I returned to the States, I was eager to share my experience with my friends. However, I noticed their interest waned after five minutes tops. Can’t blame them for not wanting to hear me monologue any longer than that since I can be pretty long-winded lol.  That didn’t stop me from trying to tell anyone and everyone about why they should study abroad. Eventually, I ran into John. He was in the international travel/study abroad crowd, so I quickly decided he was my pal.

John had a work-study gig as a tutor. So, I’d stop by and talk his ear off once a week. At one point he got around to asking me about dating while I was abroad. I told him I was in a long-distance relationship with my former conversation partner. Then I, in turn, asked him, “What about you man, you seeing anybody?” He informed me that he was single.

From that day, I started hyping him up every time we met. “Bro, you’re a good-looking dude. You just gotta get out there. There’s definitely a line of girls waiting for you to look their way.” John would always smile and say something like, “Yeah, I don’t know man.” And then we’d resume our usual travel-oriented discussions.

John graduated after that semester and took a job in the twin cities. I would go on to have my second international experience the following summer. After my second return, I was thankfully a little less cringe than I had been the first time around.  I was just chatting with some people at the Native American center and John came up in conversation.

“John is really handsome. Yeah, I remember Rachel was going to ask him out, but then I let her know he’s gay. Lots of the girls around here were surprised to find out he was gay.”

Me: “Huh? John? John the tutor??? He’s gay? I had no idea.”  

I’m an idiot. (☉_☉)

I felt a lot of shame.  I had made so many heteronormative comments. He mentioned what kind of traits he found attractive, but never mentioned gender. I definitely did lol. Two international experiences under my belt and I was still that sheltered kid who grew up under a rock. I said a lot of cringe-worthy stuff, and it wasn’t just limited to my heteronormative worldview. Before studying abroad, I was one of those people who said, “Why would I learn another language? Everyone studies English.” And after I studied abroad, I asked someone, right in front of John I might add, “Where are you REALLY from?” I still die a little inside every time I think of that. RIP.

Though in all of our chats, John never stopped me to correct me. But looking back I do seem to recall him making a “YIKES” face at least once in every conversation we had. I can only guess he saw that I was slowly figuring things out. He let me slowly move into this new space, and never made me feel like an idiot when I said something (and I did this a lot) cringe. 

Another friend told me that John was going to be visiting soon. So I messaged him and we met up at a bar right next to my apartment. The first thing I told him… “So uh…. I just found out that you were gay…”

“Yeah. I was wondering when you were going to figure that out.” We laughed. And then I filled him in on my upcoming adventure.

I wish I could say that my cringe days ended after that last visit with John, but they didn’t. I met the REAL liberals when I started teaching abroad, and oh man did I feel inadequate. I was more aware this time around, but it just seemed like I was never making enough effort. Our values were the same for the most part, but a lot of my colleagues in the program were ready to bite a guy’s head off. I’m pretty sure I got off lucky on occasion because I am THE MINORITY of minorities. My mother weighed in with a “You also had a certain innocence about you back then.” My white and white presenting pals didn’t get the same consideration. This experience in turn resulted in me lecturing my friends and family back home about how they needed to be better. Which was not the move. THIS IS STILL NOT THE MOVE.

Let’s try not to jump down people’s throats. Especially because there are most likely a lot of people out there who have the right values, they just need some time to figure it out.

I meant to write this in January, but here we are, a month into the Gregorian calendar year. However, the lunar new year was last week, and I’m a worldly guy, so I think this is still a reasonable time to write about New Year’s resolutions. It is 2025, but today I want to write about one of my resolutions from 2024, losing weight. To do that we have to go back to December 2023. Just a few days before Christmas, I hopped on the scale at my friend’s house. I was 235 lbs (106.5 kg).

“WOAH.. That can’t be right. HEY BRO! Is this scale a little off?”

Best friend: “OOOH NOO. I’d say it’s PRETTY accurate.”

“Oh. Huh.”

That was the second time I had been told I had gained some weight in the year 2023. My best friend from childhood had let me down easily compared to the other friend who let me know in a much less subtle manner.

Jump back to my vacation in South Korea in May 2023. It had been two years since I left Korea. I was visiting my old stomping grounds, Hot Shot. I walked into the bar. My friend, the manager, saw me and with zero hesitation, as is typical of Gyeongnam (경남) people, yelled in perfect English, “OH! YOU GOT FAT!” Good to see you too buddy. Lol

The last straw was seeing our family Christmas photos. I had always been the tallest in my family, but now I was officially the tallest and the biggest. I knew I had to make some changes. On January 6th, 2024, I started a gym membership. In addition to working out 4/5 days a week, I also gave up beer, bread, and rice for 3.5 months. I would occasionally have rice or bread if I was eating out with friends. By May 2024, I was down to 205 lbs (93 kg).

There is a bit more backstory to how I gained weight. It wasn’t sudden, but that’s not really what the focus of this entry is. I have a history of reacting poorly to criticism. So much so that nobody in my family wanted to tell me that shaving might be a good idea. One might even have described me as volatile. Hell, I still have a hard time accepting compliments, so you know I don’t do well with any comment that might even be slightly negative. Thankfully, I’ve had some character development over the last few years. I have two messages to share after this experience.

Talk to your friends/family:

Let your friends know they have a problem. Of course, you’ll have to judge how direct you can be based on the person it is you are trying to help. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to change. Most of us possess enough self-awareness to know what our problems are, but we can be really slow about taking the first step in solving any of said problems. It can take a while, but keep on giving those friends who are going through a tough time a nudge in the right direction when you can. And give them a shove at moments when you think they can handle it.

Listen to your friends/family:

You are the only person in your head (hopefully), so your loved ones can’t know exactly how you are perceiving/experiencing life at that given moment. However, there are times when they can see how well you are or aren’t doing. They care about you, so listen to them. Do your best not to overreact when someone is trying to help you. You will have to do most of the work when tackling your problems, but it helps to have a cheering section.

As with all of my posts, there isn’t anything special or groundbreaking here that you probably haven’t heard before. Look out for your friends and family. Happy New Year.

I enjoy drinking… Probably more than I should. LOL

Japanese vocab:

Izakaya: Japanese pub

Nomihodai: all you can drink

Occasionally I have a profound realization while drunk, or at least it feels profound in the moment. This time was while I was studying in Nagasaki. I went to an izakaya with my friend and his girlfriend. We partook in nomihodai. 2500 yen for an hour and a half. I always shot for at least six drinks to make sure I got my money’s worth. I became pretty proficient at ordering a “whisuki roku” aka a whisky on the rocks. I’m not totally convinced I was always getting my money’s worth because I think they watered down my drink after the first two glasses, but in hindsight, that was probably for the best.

An hour and a half goes by. We had a great time. My buddy asks if I’m okay walking back to the dormitory by myself since he is going to stay with his girl. I say, “Of course.” It must be around 11 pm. The buses had stopped, and I was pretty bad about getting on the right one anyway, so I started the 2.2-mile (3.5 km) walk back to the dormitory. I had already done this end-of-the-night walk with friends a few times so I knew the way.

Most izakayas require guests to order food in addition to drinks, so I wasn’t trashed. Google Maps says it takes 47 minutes to get from point A to B, but I’m 6’5” (196cm) tall, so I’m pretty sure I did it in 30 minutes at most. People walking with me still complain about my walking speed to this day. lol

Anyway, I’m cruising. Anyone who hasn’t been to Nagasaki needs to know that a good portion of the city is built into the hills. There are a few anime that are set in Nagasaki, and they usually feature a scene with the characters on one of the many sets of stairs around the city. This results in sidewalks and streets at different elevations. In some places the sidewalk is essentially boxed in by a “wall” and the street. *see the picture*

I get to one of these stretches where it is about 200m of wall and street. Only it’s late at night. There are lights along the wall every 10 meters or so, I think. Anyway, I’m just trudging along. Not really paying attention. A girl (college age) enters my line of sight, about 40 meters ahead.

“Huh, someone else is also out pretty late.”

I continue at my giant’s walking pace. Just trying to get home. Incidentally, I am slowly closing the gap between us because she’s a Japanese woman. Significantly shorter than me. My legs get me places quicker. She looks over her shoulder and notices me. She continues walking at the same pace. About 10 seconds later she looks over her shoulder again, my looming figure is significantly closer. She looks ahead and picks up the pace a bit…. Looking back a third and final time, I must be too damn close for comfort. She starts running…

My drunk self realizes, “Oh… She’s afraid of me. Should I catch up to her and tell her that I’m not a bad guy? Wait. That would require me to run. If I run it looks like I’m trying to get her. No, no. That is not a good idea.”

Suddenly I lost my buzz. I guess the internal dialogue I just had was quite “sobering.” It didn’t feel good to think that my mere presence scared someone. Hell, I had never thought of myself as a threatening person. Sure, I stood a head taller than most people, but I wasn’t much thicker than a bamboo tree. That’s when I realized that this is the reality for women around the world. Even in Japan, a country that is often praised for being safe, women always have a healthy fear of men.

I’m sure most of us know more good men, but we all have heard stories about bad men. Can’t blame that girl for keeping herself safe. Also, very happy drunk me still had some sense about him that day. I really don’t think there was any way I’d be able to explain that situation to the police or anyone for that matter.

Inspiration for this post: I was watching Vinland Saga S2 Ep. 10.

Scene: The prince had a flashback to playing a game with his older brother.

As “a smart child” I was always told I was going to university. It was the goal that was given to me before I chose it for myself.  I liked school so it seemed like the path for me once I learned more about it.

But after a 6-week summer program (on a university campus) as a middle school student, it became something I wanted desperately. I was officially college-bound five years later. The hardest thing about leaving was that I would be far away from my siblings. I got a letter from one of my brothers a few weeks before leaving.

“You’re the best big brother ever.”- he wrote. As soon as he could crawl you better believe he was right behind me everywhere I went. I was his first hero, but the truth is, I wasn’t always a good big brother. I was a mean brother. I’d wager that I even had moments when you would consider me to have been cruel. If you’ve read the other trauma-heavy post then you’ll have some idea why. As a child and a teen, I took out my frustrations on the only other person I had power over. We’ve all heard it, time and time again, “hurt people hurt people.”

The transition to being the “best big brother” happened after I found an outlet for my frustration, weightlifting. I figured it was weightlifting because of a conversation with my best friend. I mentioned that I thought his older brother was awesome. He told me something along the lines of, “He wasn’t always this cool. He used to be really mean. Thankfully he found *sport*.”

My parents had very high expectations for us, which I think was a great thing. After years of working with children, it’s obvious that kids need structure and discipline. Any child development class will tell you that. We all contributed to our household and while we might have complained about it, as kids do, it gave us a sense of pride in our home that my brothers and I still exhibit to this day. However, any little mistake was grounds for criticism. There wasn’t a lot of patience in our house. One parent, in particular, expected us to perform a job perfectly only after being told once. There wasn’t any physical abuse while I was in the house, but we were always walking on eggshells.

I learned the formula for keeping the peace in our home. There were chores that needed to be done every morning before school. Ideally, we boys would tackle them as a team, but like most kids, we weren’t very motivated after just waking up. If things didn’t get done in the morning, then we’d hear about it later for sure. Eventually, I started doing most, if not all, of the morning chores. In the past, I had been annoyed that my brothers didn’t chip in as much, but I had two realizations early in my junior year.

The first was that I was the big brother. Of course, I could do more than them. Trying to enlist them to help every time required more time and effort than just doing everything myself. The second was that if I accomplished chores quickly, I could be on the lookout for anything else that could potentially disrupt the harmony in our house. Acting on my own ensured peace for all of us. Most of the time, if our household had a good start to the day there wouldn’t be anything to worry about in the evening. Guess whose barber found gray hairs every couple of months?

Without more context, this might sound like a normal family dynamic to some. Though I will say, my friends used to think I was crazy for being so anxious about my parents. To everyone in the community, we looked like the perfect family. Two working parents and their fairly well-adjusted and successful children. We didn’t get into trouble at school very often, and when we did, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. We were good kids, why would we need to walk on eggshells around our parents?

Once I left for college, I felt like I could finally breathe. I feel guilty of sloth. I was out of the house and pretty far from home. I thought, “There’s nothing I can do from here. I can only take care of myself.” Home was out of sight and out of mind. I’m not ashamed of going to university, but I am ashamed I didn’t do a better job of keeping in touch with family and friends. Maybe if I had called him more it would have kept the peace.

I think it was sometime during my sophomore year that I first received a desperate call from my brother. “How do I make him happy?” That’s when I knew that the equilibrium in our house had fallen apart. Those calls would come every few months. The only advice I could give was, “Just stick it out. Do everything before they ask. You just have to make it a few years. Go to college and you don’t have to deal with him anymore.” (Except for during holidays)

The story doesn’t end there, but I suppose that’s enough for this post. A couple of years ago, my brother did tell me about how terrible I was when we were young. I just listened and told him he was right. I wasn’t always a good brother. He should be angry and hurt. It wasn’t his fault.  We all really need therapy LOL.

I’d give myself a 6/10 this time. My lack of Japanese is definitely my downfall. In all three interviews thus far I’ve been asked, “Why did you apply to our city?” My answer is, “This city is close to Tokyo. I have friends and family in Tokyo.”

Tokyo is massive, so it shouldn’t be surprising that I have friends in the area. However, people are often surprised that I have a relative in Tokyo. Honestly, I was surprised, too. About three months before I went to Japan for my semester in Nagasaki (2016) I got a call from my birth mother.

“I have a (half) brother in Japan. He makes video games in Tokyo. Will you be near Tokyo?”

Growing up, I always had a bit of a struggle relating to men from my hometown. That’s not to say that I didn’t have respectable role models. My father replaced jeans as soon as there was a hole in the knees (hated the ripped jeans trend). My football and basketball (the few seasons I did play) coaches drilled the value of teamwork into my skull. My older brother found ways to include me when he could get me to tag along (ex. open gym). My best friend’s older brother always gave me a ride home after our knowledge-bowl competitions. I always had good men in my life helping me along the way, but you know, I was on the knowledge-bowl team.

Yes, I was on my high school’s knowledge-bowl team (the limit does not exist). But you couldn’t get me to sit still through the Superbowl. I did not join football to “HIT SOMEBODY.” I couldn’t tell you who my celebrity crush was because I was watching Cartoon Network. In the sixth grade, I used a bluebook writing test to write what I guess we would call a “fan-fic”sequel to the Eragon & Eldest because Paolini was taking too long. We all know it can get lonely being a little different.

“I have an uncle in Japan?”

I had no idea where Nagasaki was relative to Tokyo at that time (LOL). I’m sure your first question was also, “Is he Japanese?” And the answer is no. I reached out and let him know I would be heading across the pond in the spring. Neither of us were very close to our mutual relative, so I didn’t have any expectations.

Turns out the two cities are not close at all. He asked if I had plans to visit Tokyo and I told him I had just enough money to cover all necessary costs (flights, dorm, food). I wasn’t planning on leaving Nagasaki City for the entirety of the four months. (Though I would later take a trip to Osaka thanks to the generosity of the director of the museum I worked at part-time.)

Luck would have it that my uncle and his girlfriend had been planning a trip to Kyushu. So in May of 2016, I met my uncle for the second time. Turns out our first meeting was at my other uncle’s wedding. I was only a year old so I don’t feel like it counts. I was happy to learn that we were more alike than I thought. Naturally, we are both fans of Japanese culture, although at the time his appreciation was less cringe than mine as I was in my weeb phase (LOL). We are also both massive Star Wars nerds.

Since then I have met him and his then-girlfriend now wife at least once a year. Being able to see them more often is definitely one of the things I’m looking forward to once I make the move.

It’s not much of a conclusion, but in case you’re wondering, I did not share this entire story in the interview. I don’t speak Japanese very well, remember?

Just when you thought this would blog would be some lighthearted slice of life stuff.

I spent one night in foster care when I was 6 years old. I was staying with my mother and her boyfriend in a city a few hours away from my hometown. My folks had a shared custody agreement. I spent weekends and holidays/breaks with my mother. This worked for a while, until one morning I woke up to an empty apartment. Some guy passed out in the living room. Cans and bottles everywhere. Can’t remember if he was my mom’s boyfriend or just one of their friends. I was definitely familiar with him though. What I do remember is that sometime that day I was picked up by the authorities and brought to a foster home. The foster parents showed me their kids’ old super-nintendo or sega console. I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before falling asleep.

My HEROES, my father and adoptive mother, showed up first thing in the morning. I had just finished a bowl of cereal. Soon thereafter the courts changed the custody agreement to every other weekend with my mother. Waking up to her not being there wouldn’t be a one-time thing. *from here on I will refer to my adoptive mother as “mom.”

The first and only time I went to therapy was when I was seven or eight. Don’t really remember it well. I vaguely remember telling my folks something like, “My chest feels empty.” My father was against it initially, but my mom pushed for it.

It should come as no surprise, but I had abandonment issues because my birth mother was a bit of a Houdini. I had one session. Then the therapist said she wanted us to do family sessions as well as individual sessions. My father wasn’t up for that. My hometown is one of those “men don’t talk about their feelings” and “rub some dirt in it” kind of places.

So fast forward years into the future. I must have been 17 or 18 because I had my driver’s license. I’m suddenly dragged out of bed by my father in the middle of the night. “Put some clothes on. You’re driving.” *20 minute drive to a bar* “Hurry up. Step on it.”

Some man had said something disrespectful to my father. My father said, “I’m gonna tell him to say it again in front of my son.”

We get to the bar.

Bartender: “He’s not old enough to be in here.”

Father: “Shut up. He’s not drinking.”

Luckily, the man who had “disrespected” my father wasn’t there anymore. On the way home I was told it was my fault for driving too slow.

Been listening to a lot of podcasts related to masculinity recently. It’s pushed me to do a lot of self-reflection. I don’t think he knew where this is the direction I was going to take this, but a friend suggested I start a blog, and here we are lol.

I’ve done some embarrassing things in my life. Acted like a jackass because I thought “That’s how men are supposed to act.” (there’s an incident involving free tequila shots at a club in Busan that still haunts me regularly. If you end up reading this pal, I’m sorry.) And oh boy, don’t even get me started on my romantic relationships. (though I’m going to write about that later if you decide to stick around)

Something especially tragic happened a few years ago, and I’ve only recently come out of the very dark place I was in. I am moving forward again, so don’t feel too bad for me. And yeah I know, I need to see a therapist lol.

Welcome to, “A Little Lost.”