New Horizons

How's Mexico? That's a question I'm planning on getting asked a lot in the coming week when I'm at home packing some more things to bring down here, and heading to some gaming events that are within a week of each other.

Mexico has been phenomenal. I can only say that it is the reason that I've developed a new attitude towards life, and namely my career. As anyone who has read this before will already know, I was pretty unhappy with my teaching job in Japan. Originally, Christian was going to come and live with me in Japan upon completing her degree in May, but things happened and she wasn't able to join me. I decided to get out of the increasingly bad situation and move to Mexico. I didn't (and still don't really) speak Spanish, and I had only visited for 2 weeks previously.

I also moved down here with no thought as to what I would be doing for a job. After I stopped freaking out over the fact that I have no real job lined up, I started looking at any opportunities I might have that I had never really taken seriously in Japan. I still have my job as editor of StarCityVs.com, and dove into that as much as possible. I started organizing everything that I hade been putting on hold for months that needed to be addressed. I also paid $75 to join a big Freelance site, Guru, but would recommend against it to anyone thinking the same thing. I still haven't found any worthwhile jobs on there that pay more than the equivalent of minimum wage, or often less. As such, I decided to examine the possibilities of doing more freelancing work with gaming companies.



The picture above is me (at the table in the background) doing feature match covaperage at a recent Pro Circuit for Vs. I went to Indianapolis last the weekend of August 11-13, and worked like crazy for three days. It seems like the opportunities in the industry are something I can really take advantage of, and combined with the low cost of living here in Mexico, I think I may have found something I truly want to make a career out of. I contacts and resume are growing by the day, so hopefully I should be making a good amount of money off of this in the near future.

While previously my experience was limited to writing about Vs., I've started looking at other games that are coming out. One of them, Dreamblade, is a great game that is being released with the support of professional level tournaments right from the start - something very important to the marketability of a game. I've been talking with the company to get some work from them, and hopefully will be showing off my stuff next weekend in Atlanta at a $10K tournament that is being held there. I'm going to start off playing in the tournament, and assuming I don't do well, I'll write some articles for their event coverage after I'm done playing. If I do well, I make money and earn a reputation regardless, so it's a win-win situation I think.

On that note, I'll let everyone go as I get back to work. The hard work I've been doing over the past month and a half seems to be paying off, so there's no reason to let up now! I would say I'll be back with a post tomorrow, but one thing I obviously need to do is stop making broken promises at the end of my entries. I always seem to promise new posts within a day, and a day turns into twenty. Therefore, I'm going to tell you right now that you're not going to get anything more out of me for another three weeks! See, now if I miraculously get on here and post something, you'll be pleasantly surprised!

No Eres Feo, Tienes Personalidad

For those of you who aren't Spanish-inclined, this post's title means "You're not ugly, you have personality." I saw it on a Coca Cola billboard while on the way into Cancun after our trip to Christian's hometown several weeks ago. Ever since, I've been looking for all the other Coca Cola ads that have different sayings on them. The best one to date has to be, "Smile, You're In Cancun!" While not funny in and of itself, it's funny when you think that we saw it on the back of the bus in front of us while riding on a croweded, hot, sweaty bus in the less-than-touristy side of Cancun. Now that's a cultural experience for you!

After about a month here, the melancholy and negativity that sank its claws into me in Japan have finally started to loosen their grip. It was difficult at first, as I told Christian, I had become so used to living by myself, that even though I was happy to be with her again, it required a bit of adjustment from the months of learning to deal with loneliness by getting used to living alone. Re-adjusting proved to be a bit of a chore, but luckily I have a patient fiance.

Over the past few weeks, I've been noticing that I'm missing just about every useful cord or cable that I need for all my electroic needs on a daily basis. When we went to Dziuche(Chris's home town), I let the kids play my video games until the batteries on both my portable systems were completely drained. I went up to the roof the other day and took some pictures of the skyline from the roof of the house we're staying in, only to come down and realize that I don't have my USB cord for my camera either. I managed to get a decent shot with my cell phone I brought back from Japan, which captures the neighborhood we're living in pretty well I think:



And while I'm at it, here's a picture of Christian with her little sister, little brother, and aunt:



I'm going to be in the states again next week, but I'll talk about that more in the next post, which will hopefully happen tomorrow!

Down Time

The time I spent at home was a nice break after all the stress and seclusion in the months prior. I spent most of the time enjoying things I wasn’t able to find in Japan. Unfortunately, we are in the process of trying to sell my car, so I wasn’t able to drive my beloved Matrix, but luckily my mother was able to lend me her car. I don’t think a lot of people in America realize how much they take having a car for granted. When I was limited to where I could go in Japan by the train schedules or the amount of time I was able to spend biking somewhere. Even being able to borrow my mom’s car while I was home was a tremendous amount of freedom comparatively speaking.

One thing I really enjoyed while at home was playing in a card tournament in Charlotte and seeing all my friends who I hadn’t seen for 5 months. That was one of the social activities I really missed while I was in Japan since the language barrier usually segregated me to the sidelines even though I usually did well in any tournament I played in. I did make some good friends while playing cards in Japan, but the language and cultural barriers kept them from being as strong as the friendships I’ve made in my years of playing cards in The States. That said, I still hope I get to see some of my Japanese friends at the bigger tournaments in the near future. While I didn’t do as well as I would have liked in the tournaments in Charlotte (i.e. I didn’t win money), it was still a lot of fun being back around my old friends. One of my teammates also swept the competition, winning 14 straight rounds to take the trophy and $2500. Proving me right when I was telling people he was the best technical player in the tournament. I didn’t get to look at the comic convention that was taking place at the same time as the tournament, but I didn’t really have money to spend on comics anyways, so it all worked out in the end.

As I raced around trying to see friends and visiting people, I think I maybe could have used another week in North Carolina to get more accomplished, but I honestly couldn’t wait any longer to see Christian. Since I’ve gotten to Mexico, it’s felt like all of this past year was just a bad dream that passed in a blink, and I’ve really been enjoying getting used to being in a new culture. While Japan is a different culture at it’s core, on the surface it’s still very much like the US – safe, clean, and sheltered from the rest of the world. Being in Mexico is the opposite. Here it’s very similar at the core, but different on the surface, so while it is easier for me to navigate my way around and understand what people are doing, I’m experiencing tons of new things. Not to mention Spanish is a million times easier than Japanese. After being here a week, I’m occasionally using complete sentences, which is a pretty big accomplishment for a guy who hasn’t been in a Spanish classroom since the 7th grade. I wonder how much better my experience in Japan would have been if I would have been in a real classroom where I had been able to use Japanese whenever possible. I guess that will be one of the great what-if’s of my life. Christian wants to spend time in France teaching eventually, so we might spend time in Japan together as retribution. Only time will tell though. I do miss the students I was close to, and I’m planning on spending the next few days writing e-mails to everyone and catching up with them.

I’ll be back in a day or two with more tales of what I’ve been doing since I got here, but as for now, I just wanted to get everyone up to speed on what I’ve been doing lately.

The Road (or Sky) Home

At long last, I have a chance to sit down and write about everything that has been going on in the last three weeks. I suppose that I should start with how I left Japan…

I arrived at Kansai International Airport with more than enough time, the result of paranoia of airports that has come about after years of painful experiences at the airport. As I went to check in and check my bags, a friendly clerk told me that the flight was full, and that if I went on the next flight at 9pm (my flight was scheduled for 1pm), I would be able to fly business class. Since I was only going to be stuck in the air for an extra 8 hours, I decided I would do it, but the greedy inner-Ryan that likes to get everything possible wanted more. I asked if I would also get free ticket. When he said I’d get a $750 ticket voucher, both the inner- and outer-Ryans went, ‘Boo-yah!’ in unison. But the story isn’t that simple.

They gave me some food vouchers and asked me to come back at noon. I went and found a sushi place that gave me some horrible concoction of cucumber, wasabi, rice, and seaweed that they masqueraded as kappa sushi, which had been one of my favorite foods while stuck in Japan. I returned only to find out that I was going to take the original flight anyways. This meant I would have to rush through security and immigration, which aren’t always the quickest endeavors. The final weight was lifted from my shoulders at immigration when the officer checking my passport asked me informed me that I wouldn’t be able to use the same work visa if I left the country without a re-entry permit. I emphatically told him, “I know.” With that, it was done. I was finally free of the job that had been the cause of so much frustration for five long months.

I arrived at the gate to see that the flight was indeed full. Not only would it be a long flight (about 12 hours or so to Detroit), it would be packed. Luck, it seemed, was on my side, because right before I got on, the clerk who had helped me before came up and told me they still needed a volunteer, so after years of always volunteering to fly standby in an effort to get free tickets, I finally got to cash in. They took me to another counter to figure out how I would be getting back. The new flight would be via Honolulu, and although the woman asked me if I would like her to book the tickets a few days apart so I could spend some time in Honolulu, I declined due to the lack of funds and the fact that I was going to be in Mexico soon anyways. There really wasn’t a need to spend a few days in a tropical climate when I was headed to one in a few weeks’ time. I wish Christian had been there with me so I could have said yes, giving us a free trip to Hawaii! Oh well. Looking at the dates for the arrival times, I noticed that I was scheduled to get into Greensboro (my home port, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it) a day later, which meant I would be spending an extra 20 hours traveling. Yay. What seemed like an easy proposal had turned into something I actually had to work for. Not only that, I wouldn’t be able to get a vegetarian meal on the flight from Honolulu to Atlanta, which translates into me not eating much.

While they were straightening out the tickets, they told me they would bring it to me in the Business Lounge. This is a special place at airports reserved for people who fly business and first class. Inside this hallowed place, they give you free drinks and snacks. I wish I was more of a drinker, because they had unlimited beer and liquor, but the free coffee and orange juice was just as good to me at that point in time. I passed the time actually writing something for once, making some money while I was stuck waiting. When the time finally came to get on my new plane, I happily sauntered up to the gate in my tie-dye shirt amid all the rich people who were actually paying to fly business class. I boarded the plane, put my bags away, and immediately began checking out the different goodies I had at my disposal. Well, first of all, the seats in business class (on Northwest Airlines) are like Lay-Z-Boy Recliners in an airplane. They go almost completely horizontal, and you can curl up in them to actually sleep while on the plane, a far cry from the torture they subject you to in economy. While this isn’t a big deal flying for a few hours, when you’re in the plane for more than six hours, it makes all the difference in the world. This is on top of the drinks and food they give you in business class, which is a far cry from the stuff they subject you to in coach, mainly because of all the snacks they give you in addition to the meal. The second you walk on the plane, they’re kissing your ass and asking you what they can do for you.

I was sad when the flight arrived in Hawaii, meaning I had to go through immigration again, and possibly customs. This fear was realized when I got subjected to a ‘random’ check at customs because the woman there saw my bag full of Pocky I was carrying for all my family and friends. She informed me that they often had illegal products in them, such as pork fat, for flavoring. Obviously she chose the wrong person to pick on. I told her I was positive they didn’t since I was a vegetarian who read enough Japanese to know that I wouldn’t eat anything that had something like that in them. Clearly she was trying to confiscate them so she could eat them herself. So in the end, my years of studying Japanese culminated in protecting my stash of Japanese junk food for all my loved ones to enjoy. Not the most noble of purposes, but you have to take what you can get, I guess.

In Hawaii I enjoyed a Veggie Burger from the airport Burger King and then went to wait at the business lounge in that airport. Following an uneventful six hours or so, I boarded the flight to Atlanta, which was on Delta. My dad has always said that Northwest was more like Northworst, but Delta’s first class was pretty much economy with wider armrests and private TV monitors. While in the previous flight I couldn’t touch the seat in front of me with my legs completely extended, Delta was the same leg-cramping experience I was used to. On the bright side, while I wasn’t able to really eat much of my meal since it was all dripping with gravy, they did serve ice cream sundaes complete with whipped cream and hot fudge. The bagel I got as part of my breakfast was also delicious, since bagels are something not easily found in Japan. I also got to watch a new movie, The Matador, which was probably the best movie I’ve ever been able to see in-flight. So while the seats had something to be desired, everything else was pretty nice.

Once I arrived in Greensboro at around 10am, I had to stay awake until at least 10pm or so in order to try and fend off jet-lag. All sad, besides the small naps I had taken on the various longer flights, I had been going for about 48 hours, and it took me the entire 2 weeks I spent in the states to fully recover, but that's a story for a later post (albeit, not a very exciting one).

¡VIVA MÉXICO!

Thought I should post after being absent for about 3-4 weeks...
The job in Japan ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. After a few days in Osaka with my friend from Japan Camp days, Cleveland, I headed home to spend 2 weeks doing nothing with my life. Most of it's a blur. This was probably due to the fact that I was just anxious to get the lull over with and be in Mexico, which is where I am now. The last few days have been filled with awesome food, sleeping in hammocks, and time spent with Christian, which was all long overdue. I'll post more later with pictures and explanations, but suffice it to say that I'm finally content after being upset with life for so many months. The only bad news is that either Italy or France is going to win the World Cup today, which is sad news indeed. Arrogant Europeans holding that trophy in the first year I followed the tournament is enough to make me cry, but oh well. Anyways, I need to get back to my busy schedule of enjoying the time spent here and not understanding a single word people are saying to me! ¡Viva México!

5...

5 more days and I'm free from what descends deeper into my own private hell every day. I get yelled at so much at work, I'm starting to wonder if I'm really just a jerk or an idiot. But on the other hand, I've never been yelled at from any boss who is worthwhile before, so I know I have a decent work ethic. I was also thought highly of by teachers who have more experience than everyone I've met here put together. Was I really just put in a place where nobody cares about improving the status quo? I know that I have a severe fault in my personality by not being able to settle for just doing things the way they are. I feel like I always need to make things better, because very little, if anything, is perfect in this world. I think that striving towards that ideal of perfection is the very thing that makes life worth living. Being content with the status quo simply blinds a person to the imperfections and inequities that eventually cause people harm (or in most cases, already do so). I don't understand how some people can just be happy following orders that they know to be inadequate, and have no qualms about them. Maybe I'm destined to be at odds with the majority for the rest of my life, but I feel it's worth it if I can at least cause some change for the better while I'm around.

Ok, on to some lighter subjects.... As you may know, I've been getting more and more into soccer lately, so the last few days have been awesome. Mexico destroyed Iran 3-1, but that was the only good news as far as results go. The States lost to the Czech Republic 3-0, which may knock them out of contention for the elimination rounds. Japan was doing well against Australia with a 1-0 lead...until they let Australia score 3 goals in 8 minutes to take the match. This is of course aweful when you remember that Japan is in the same group as Brazil, so the other 3 teams are playing for second place in that group. It's not that I had any special affinity towards the Japanese team, but the bane of my existence is Australian, so it would have been metaphorically satisfying to watch them get stomped. Oh well. I guess everyone needs to be on the lookout for the Togo team... I think after reading that article, you will understand that I consider Togo the next keychain I need to find in my ever-growing collection:

I have accumulated an extra 3 Mexico keychains past the one for my collection, so I will hopefully have enough to go around as gifts when I get to Mexico!

Speaking of collections, I was rather sad when I finished my Mario game recently. By finished, I mean completely cleared. I uncovered almost every secret level, etc by myself, which was really fun, but rather sad now that I have nothing else to do in the game. As far as the collections go, I have recently been collecting these little stand-up scenes from the original Super Mario Brothers game:




Next week should be pretty fun. I'll be in Osaka with my friend from Kansai Gaidai, Cleveland, staying for a few days and getting all the gifts I need for everyone at home. I think we're also going to swing up to Kyoto to relax one day also, so that should be a nice way to wind down and leave Japan on a positive note!

The Final Countdown!

Cue that song from some Swedish band! This is officially the (dada duuh duh, dada duhdada)Final Countdown! I have just 10 days of work left. Thankfully, as I've said before, time is flying by at a numbing speed thanks to the fact that I've been so busy with work and everything else. It might also help that I've really been enjoying playing my new video games and reading my biography on Che Guevara. All of this has helped to ease the pain of working with idiots and assholes. I found out that I'm being moved to another branch on Friday because a photographer is coming into the branch I normally work at to get some pictures of everything. I guess this means I'm not an attractive foreigner. Luckily, while the other branch is slightly further away, it's also at a really fun mall, in addition to being pretty slow and the only staff member is actually a decent human being. The mall part isn't such a big deal due to the fact that I have $120 to live off of for the next 8 days, but other than that, it should be nice.

One quest that I have recently taken up is collecting the assorted poker chip key chains that are given away with each bottle of coke/diet coke here. There are 32 different chips, one for each team playing in the World Cup. They seem like they'd be fun to use when I'm playing cards when I need tokens to keep track of various things, so I'm trying to get as many of them as I can before I leave. I'm also trying to find as many Mexico ones as I can to give the family when I get to Mexico. As you will notice from the picture, I haven't found any yet. I feel rather self-conscious when I'm at the convenience stores, so I only look through the coolers trying to find the elusive Mexico key chains for a short period of time before putting the bottles back and settling for some other country.

I am trying to drum up some interest in Soccer, because my future brother-in-law, Hector, loves soccer, as does the rest of the family. They got me a Mexican World Cup jersey, which Christian is wearing in the picture below (along with Hector and Carolina, my future mother-in-law), and I'm starting to get into it. I figure the rest of the world loves the sport, maybe it's not so bad! It can't be as bad as Baseball, that much is obvious.

The next big hurdle is packing everything up. The biggest task is going to be fighting the urge to just leave a ton of stuff behind, which I may end up doing anyways. It just seems easy to leave sweaters and things of that nature behind when I'm moving to a tropical climate. Christian told me I would be able to get by with wearing Sandals, pants, and a nice shirt to work if I get a job as a teacher in Mexico, and that absolutely has to be the nicest thing I've heard yet. After 5 months, I can say with certainty that I am not the type of person who likes wearing a tie and long-sleeved dress shirt everyday. I long to find myself in a cluttered office as a college professor, having freedom to enjoy teaching without the unnecessary restraints of a heartless company watching over me, but that is still years off, so I'll simply have to keep that in mind as a goal and work steadily towards it. For now, I'll have to settle for working on my Spanish so I have an easier time finding a job when I get to Mexico! With that in mind, I'll leave everyone with a countdown that has been adjusted to my newly purchased ticket to Mexico and Karla with her cat, Fido, waving goodbye from their Hammock!

Of Codes, Warps, and Anticipation

Last night wasn't a complete bust. I went to the late showing of The DaVinci Code, which was mediocre, but to be expected since I already knew how the movie was going to play out, having read the book already. The price of seeing a movie here is way too expensive though. As opposed to other countries, there is no discount for Matinee showings, only a steep price of roughly $17 for every show except the last one, which is the Late Show. This last showing offers a big discount, allowing one to spend only $11 for a ticket, nearly double what I would pay in America (two cheers for not throwing away my student ID when I graduated last spring!). I also had to spring $3.50 for a small bag of the caramel popcorn that I fell in love with at the theater Christian and I went to in Mexico! Of course, $11 there would get us 2 tickets at the full blown evening price, and it would get us tickets and snacks during Matinee hours. Just one more reason Mexico is a better place to be right now...

On a lighter note, I've been playing the hell out of my new DS Lite that I bought! It always feels good to get some enjoyment when I spend that kind of money on a video game, and the New Super Mario Bros is a game that has me addicted. There are a crazy amount of secret coins, and quite a few levels that you can only access through secret 'warps' much like the original Mario for the Nintendo. Unfortunately, I've spent about 2 hours trying to unlock said warps only to find that they lead to levels I've already beaten... A friend suggested I look for a game guide online, but it feels so dirty when I use a guide to help me, and I don't want to taint such a great time I'm having playing this game.

I realized today that I haven't really been as excited about something in my entire life as I am about moving to Mexico. When I was a kid, I never felt this excitement waiting for any christmas morning or an upcoming birthday like I'm feeling for my upcoming move. Hard to believe that I'm just 5 weeks or so from being in Cancun with Christian, and I absolutely can't wait! I feel like I'm bouncing off the walls and going crazy waiting for the moment when I'll finally be able to fall asleep in a hammock again. With that final thought, I'm off to bed in this futon, wishing it were a hammock with my future wife laying in it.