Semester End Senryu

Semester's over
but this *sigh* is not of relief--
A stack of blue books

Long time no see

I can't believe that its been a year and a half since I've written anything here. I think I've been watching too much TV. I really should focus on the act of writing again. It seems to me that everyone is into social media and other forms of instant information--which usually means something short and sweet a well--so I don't expect anyone to read what I write here anymore, but I will try to write something.

As an academic, I'm expected to research and publish. Well, I do my research but I'm not very good at writing, so I think I just need to get into the practice of writing... just writing. I don't need to write a thesis here or anything heavy duty. Just the simple act of writing is what's important for me now. And with summer coming soon, I should get into the swing of writing so I can hit the ground running when I do find myself having to pound the keyboard and putting some scholarly ideas into text.
But we'll see. Only time will tell.

Tired

Work is really becoming a drag.

I love to teach but recently it is more about administrative work and internal politics and as a relatively low man on the totem pole, I find myself in situations that spin out of my control and simply defeat me.

I'm just tired of it and am seriously considering changing my surroundings.

New Years Greeting 2012

I rarely post anymore, mostly because I'm too busy to write anything. But I did write a New Years greeting for friends and family--this in itself is rather amazing as I am very bad at sending Christmas/holiday/New Year's greeting cards. Not to make excuses, of course, but grading finals usually take me up to Christmas--depending on volume (and mood), it can take me until after Christmas. In any event, I'd like to share my greeting here with my fellow Xangans as well.

---

2012 is the year of the dragon and I’m sure many will associate this with an old Bruce Lee film. Personally, I prefer to relate it with something more representative of me, so I’ve added the Kirin Beer logo that I’ve conveniently—and undoubtedly illegally—copy-and-pasted from the Internet (how did I survive before Google?!?). It is based on the Chinese Qilin 麒麟, a Chinese chimera of sorts that is a combination of different animals—hooves of an ox, tail of a lion, scales of a fish (How did I survive before Wikipedia?!?). But its most obvious feature is the head, which is based on a dragon, and I have viewed it as such over the years. So fittingly, it is now my personal symbol for the New Year: The Kirin. It is, after all, the harbinger of good fortune, and I’m sure we could all use a pint or two of that, no?

Anyway, I just thought I’d jot down a few things to let you know what’s been going on lately, which is not much. But, of course, that might actually be a good thing
I’m still at the George Washington University, teaching classes on Japanese language and literature—both classical and modern. I’m still assistant professor and I’m working on an article to start the publishing record going. I’ve only written a chapter in a book in the past few years, so I need to get more research out. You know the old adage: Publish or perish.

Still, life is not so bad. I have a steady—if busy—job. I have a small home. I have my health… well sort of. At 56, I finally decided to get serious about my health, so I’ve been running pretty regularly for the past 6 months. Recently, I’ve been doing about 30 miles on the treadmill every week—I have hay fever so I don’t run outside so much. And while the treadmill is not as arduous as running outside, I still put in the miles. Like almost 900 miles since July! (No, that is not a typo.) Now, I don’t run fast, and I am not a marathoner. The treadmill is set at a low speed—between 5 to 6 mph—although with my short legs it feels pretty fast. As a result, this is the first year since I’ve been back from Japan where I’ve lost weight during the fall semester, almost 20 pounds! Okay, I confess that I’ve gained back about 4 pounds since Thanksgiving, but that’s still a net of 16 lbs. which is pretty good for me.

Unfortunately, being 56 also means having a less-than-cooperative body. In the last week of December—the 30th to be exact—I strained my left calf and I’ve taken a couple of weeks off, although I continue walking.

Musubichan—former aerobics instructor, now my “will-you-exercise-already?” motivator—is doing well, as usual, although we had a scare in September when she had an abnormal mammogram reading. After a couple of x-rays, a biopsy and a titanium clip implant, we learned that she is fine, thank God. Speaking of which, after about three weeks of waiting for this or that test result, and countless of Hail Marys and Our Fathers, I discovered that I may be more religious than I thought. I guess there’s nothing like a medical situation to test one’s religiosity. And as you might imagine, the semester started out rather hectic and kept me busy until the very end of the year.

Still, all in all we got through 2011 relatively unscathed and there is nothing wrong with that. As they say in Japanese: 体は資本. Your body is your capital.

So Happy New Years everyone. Here’s hoping that you and your loved ones have a healthy and prosperous 2012.

January 2012.

Memories in bits and pieces

There's a song I can't get out of my head. It was by the Classics IV called Traces:

Faded photographscovered now with lines and creasesTickets torn in half,
memories in bits and pieces...

My first "real" girlfriend friended me on facebook. I hadn't seen or talked to her in over 35 years. Naturally, I didn't know her married name and didn't recognize her immediately, but after a quick Google search--since she friended me first, I don't consider this stalking--I realized who she was and was quite surprised.

Not a bad kind of surprise, mind you...

I accepted her friending and we've messaged each other a couple times since. I was rather blown away by her memory. She was mentioning things that even I had forgotten, and I consider my memory to be... well, never mind. Maybe her memory should be better than mine as my mind has gone into some kind of other worldly mode in the past few years. I think they call it aging.

In any case, I have the urge to write a whole bunch about my high school days again, but as I pondered those year--I actually should have been grading but this has been the best excuse to procrastinate without really realizing that I was procrastinating--I've come to realize that most of it is a collage of memories, no recollections of a string of events that might constitute a narrative. A kiss on the dance floor, an Japanese X-rated movie, her playing The Fish by Yes on the piano, giving each other the flu back and forth, Andy's Pool Hall, Sears, rabbit jacket, arguments, throwing up in her car after drinking too much champagne at the wedding of the band's drummer's brother... Geez. With all this, you'd think I could come up with something.

Well, maybe I just need to ponder a bit longer. Maybe she'll message me something I had forgotten and it will jog my memories more completely. Until then I will be satisfied with letting the bits and pieces wash over me and amuse me during the downtime of teaching and grading.