06.06.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:14 pm by Max
Jeez…it’s the twins’ birthday tomorrow, which is June 7, 2009. They will have been on this earth for a whopping four long years. And I use the term “whopping” without irony. This designation would probably make more sense to someone who’s a parent, since when you’re a parent, your kids seem to grow up incredibly fast. Life in general seems to speed up as you get older, which only compounds the problem. And the problem is that we all get old and die. No sir, no happy endings. My sister recently told me that life is something of a “blur” for her nowadays. That’s a neat word that applies nicely to my life as well.
And yes, I would like to stop talking about the travails of being a mortal. But the fact of the matter is that I’m unable to escape such thoughts. Every day, my brain confronts me with the harsh knowledge that I am mortal. Obviously, the fact that we are mortal is something every mentally competent adult recognizes. It’s just that with the majority of the human race, this knowledge is generally relegated to the subconscious. However, the knowledge that we will die is a heavy burden to bear, which I think explains a lot of our behavior: drug abuse, alcohol abuse, overeating, workaholism, sexaholism and all other kinds of addictions and excesses. Basically, we need to distract ourselves.* It also explains intrahuman violence. Violence against other people, you see, is a form of “othering.” By crushing the other, those who we consider subhuman, we somehow feel we are affirming our own existence over theirs—we are the strong, who will survive, while they have perished. It’d be best if we could confine this impulse to enjoying violent movies, violent sports (hockey and boxing), and violent video games, but there’s always the threat of it spilling over into real life (think: genocide). We desperately need a specieswide, intelligent discussion of this impulse towards violence, and I think we are slowly heading in that direction. I don’t think we could get rid of this impulse. The best thing is to channel it, rather than act it out for real (better videogames that recreate war instead of the bona fide deal). All of this discussion brings me to a tangent. I keep thinking of these life extension advocates who think that modern human beings could theoretically live for ever (by using ever improving technologies). If you could somehow get a gold-plated guarantee that you couldn’t die, wouldn’t that have a profound effect on our nature, our makeup? What I mean is that if you take away the sense of urgency (you can’t die), I think life would have a lot less meaning. Life is special precisely because, to borrow from capitalism, it’s only being offered for a limited time.
On to lighter things. Just got off the phone with the old lady. She told me that the mp3 player we ordered from Amazon.com should be delivered tomorrow morning. Nice! I spend about 2-3 hours a day driving, and I really need my music. Basically, I can’t drive without it. The car’s CD player is on the blink. A really, really flaky piece of hardware. It’s got a whole bunch of bugs, which I won’t bother to detail here. Anyway, somehow it still manages to work OK most of the time, but then it will flake out on me and stop working properly until I park the car and leave it alone for a couple of hours. Like I said, flaky! I really, really need this technological upgrade. We’ve also picked up an FM transmitter which will allow me to listen to my mp3 player via the car’s FM radio. As they might say in Korea, nice-uh!
Lots of work, but that’s the way it has to be. Had I been rich, I could have hired someone to do the housework and then I could have spent more time with the kids. But I will refrain from complaining, because I know that things could always be worse (and often are). The universe is brutal in it’s randomness. Today you’re mobile and walking around, tomorrow you’re paralyzed below the waist. I try to stop thinking about how things might be and instead just try to enjoy each day as it is. Each day is a gift, my health is a gift, my wife and kids are a gift. So I try to be grateful. I don’t think there is any higher wisdom in life than that. All the money that you could make in the future, all the girls you could fuck, all the sports cars you could drive…none of that means squat. What matters is here and now, having a set of values (I will not fuck other girls even though I could), and adhering to those values. It has taken me 35 years and a lot of diverse experiences to reach this point of maturity. If it seems like I’m tooting my own horn, I’m not. I’m just explaining how I’ve reached this point. I’ve gotten here by taking many cold, hard looks at myself and at reality, and seeing things as how they are. I read in Time magazine recently about the phenomenon of Filipinos working abroad. There are a lot of them. There was a story about one mom who left her little boy to go work abroad. She sent back lots of money over the years and he got a good education. But he never got to know her. And now that she was back in the Philippines with him, he was really bitter about it. Case in freaking point! Being with your family is what matters most.
You know, I could have other girls, but I won’t. Because I’ve had enough experience to learn that, while such forays might bring fleeting pleasure, they won’t bring lasting joy. Because it’s dishonest, to my wife, with whom I made a social contract. And to my kids, because I should be spending my spare time with them and my wife. And to society, because I live in a monogamous one. Yes, things might have been different if I had been born as a Saudi, but even there I suspect that one man can’t have a truly fulfilling or caring marriage with each of his four different wives.
Milo has been really close to me lately. He always waits up for me at night. Well, both Mickey and Milo are awake when I get home. But Mickey needs to sleep next to Mommy and Milo needs to sleep next to me. So each of us puts one to bed. Milo won’t go to bed until I have lain down with him. It’s wonderful when he says at night, “Hold me.” Yeah, you see the thing for me about being a parent is, I need to be needed. I need my kids to need me. And I have no problem confessing my neediness. What else is human relations about? Why do people have cute little lap dogs? We all need confirmation that our existence in this world is not for naught. And that’s much of what I think being a parent is all about. Having some littl’uns that affirm the importance of your existence on this fragile chunk of rock that miraculously supports life. More like a mote of dust spinning on its axis in the universe—an infinite, chaotic, infinitely cold and callous nonentity, thus far seemingly devoid of other intelligent life, which could see fit at any time to bombard us with meteors or make our sun go supernova. That’s our existence.
Anyway, last week when I got up early to go teach at Honda, Milo woke up and called out, “Daddy!” I went to our bed and asked what was up. He answered, “Where is the scary horsey? Where is the scary [some other animal I don’t remember]?” I replied, “There’s no scary horsey, honey. You must have had a nightmare.” As it was really close to the time when I had to live, I did my best to quickly soothe him back to sleep. It worked, and I left. But I learned when I got home that night that Milo woke up again soon after, found I was missing, and wandered downstairs into the parking lot, barefoot, crying and looking for me. Poor guy! I love to love him. Today, too, he was upset at me having to go to work. Oh well, I guess the corollary would be that if I were around all the time, he would take me more for granted.
What else is new? Oh yeah, Shiho is about five months’ pregnant. I haven’t been able to give as much attention to her or our developing baby this time around, but I’m doing my best. We hope that the baby is healthy and so far the tests and ultrasound show that it is. Oh yeah, we also have to delay our return to Canada. Shiho doesn’t want to go back in March, as the baby would still be an infant. Oh well, that’s life. Life is a game of you constantly playing catch up with life, as opposed to the other way around. What else is new? Oh yeah, my hair is much longer. I’m growing it out again. And I’m starting to put on muscle again. A supplement I use called Novedex has helped. But man is that shit strong. See ya.
Oh, I wanted to say one more thing. I often tell a version of the following story to my kids before we go to bed. The kids love skulls a lot. Mickey likes what in his imagination is a cute, pink skull. Milo likes what he imagines is a scary green or black skull. (When they ask whether they can set a picture of a scary skull as the background for my computer’s desktop, I say no. “No scary pictures on the computer,” I tell them. After which Mickey responds, “When I’m a big boy, can I put a scary picture on my computer?” Upon which I say, “Of course. When you’re a big boy, you’ll be able to put whatever picture you want on the computer, and I won’t be able to have any say in it.) Here’s the story about skulls.
[Slowly and softly]
In a dark, dark world,
There is a dark, dark continent.
On the dark, dark continent,
There is a dark, dark region.
In the dark, dark region,
There is a dark, dark forest.
In the dark, dark forest,
There is a dark, dark wood.
In the dark, dark wood,
There is a dark, dark house.
In the dark, dark house,
There is a dark, dark room.
In the dark, dark room,
There is a dark, dark bed.
On the dark, dark bed,
There are dark, dark blankets.
[Now quickly and in a louder voice]
And under the blankets there is a dark, dark skull!
[Mickey wants me to say “dark, dark, cute pink skull” and Milo wants me to say “dark, dark, scary green skull].
Finally, I have to thank my friend Eric for admonishing me to only speak English to my kids, and, more importantly, to force them to answer me in English. They now speak English fairly well and understand amazingly well. Amazing, considering it’s only me, sometimes my wife, their once-weekly English class at school, and the music and videos they watch that consist of their experiences in English.
Oh yeah, and I had the opportunity to write today because the kids are taking a nap at mom-in-law’s. I had to work this morning so the wife took the kids over there, and they were still over there when I got back today.
* In that way, I find that a day’s hard work is an excellent salve or balm. Actually I’d rather be with the kids than working but working is much better than being alone and being stuck with your brain thinking thoughts you don’t want it to.
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02.22.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:05 pm by Max
…and here I am on the PC at 10:34 p.m. Funny thing, too, because I was dog tired today, from about 4:00-6:00 p.m. On the way home after five, I was barely able to drive back home from the local Jusco supermarket.
It’s weird that now that night has rolled around, I’m not tired. Despite the fact that I usually go to bed with my kids and often get up before them, my body sometimes seems want to revert to a night-owl schedule. But I won’t be up too long tonight. I had the writing bug and thought it would be best to get this out of my system.
I just put Milo to sleep—little Milo, about three-and-a-quarter years old, is no longer so little. He was funny. I was sitting in bed with a book, ready to read to him, but not ready to lie down, as my hair was still wet from my bath. Usually, he would want to sit up for the first couple of stories before lying down to go to sleep. But tonight he said that he wanted to lie down and for me to do so along with him. And then he changed his mind and told me to stay seated. Sleepiness does that to kids: it can make them a bit fickle.
Well, as I sat beside Milo and read him the first story, he quickly fell into dreamland. That was unusual, too, because it often takes three or four stories. The kids just love storytime before bed. And I just love my children. Sitting there beside Milo, stroking his head as he drifted off to sleep, I thought to myself: “Well, I think maybe this is as good as life gets, as fundamental in purpose as life can be. Here I am, stroking my son’s head, full of love for him, doing my best for him. And my ancestors must have done this with their children. And one day I shall grow old and Milo shall have children of his own, and give them all his love.”
Life is a pretty strange thing. Quite the mind-fuck, as I like to think of it. We are only allotted a finite number of years on this earth. We are usually (barring tragedies like accidents at a young age or other unfortunate twists of fate) given the chance to seed this earth with our DNA. Part of our DNA will thus mingle with the DNA of future generations. And that might be all that it is about. If you’re not religious, as I’m not, then our existence on this planet might just seem like one, huge, improbable, galactic contingency. I don’t want to spend too much time dwelling on what it means to exist, but the universe ultimately seems to me a dumb, blind, insensate and therefore amoral thing. Our existence here is pure chance, though much of our existence involves a struggle to put a meaning to it. When your family could at any second be taken away from you, through an earthquake, a car accident, or a stray bomb, you can’t help but wonder that life itself might not really have any meaning. This is probably the hardest truth of all to accept. We need the concept of “God” to tell ourselves that this can’t all be for nothing, that the universe can’t be so blind and amoral, that it just can’t be possible for the evil to live long, self-serving lives and go unpunished in the afterlife, that it just can’t be possible for a man to lose his family and that be the end of it.
Back to more mundane matters, lots of funny stuff happens with the kids. We tell the kids ghost stories, and they seem to believe in ghosts, Milo in particular. I have a ghost story I tell about “The Ghost of Sagamiya [a local supermarket].” Told in a deep, ominous voice, it goes something like this:
In the dead of night,
Everybody’s sleeping,
It’s dark outside,
Sagamiya is closed.
In the dead of night,
When everybody’s sleeping,
The ghost of Sagamiya rises.
From across the way,
Down the road,
Over the bridge,
Down towards the rice paddies,
Turning at the pile of rocks,
Down through the rice paddies,
Around the bend,
Down past more rice paddies,
Into the dark forest,
Over the highway,
Down the road,
Towards our home,
Into the parking lot,
Under Daddy’s car,
Under Mommy’s car,
Around the sandpit,
Up the stairs,
Ringing the doorbell:
Ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong, ding-dong-ding-dong-ding.
But can the ghost get in?
No! We are in bed,
Like good boys and girls,
So the ghost can’t get us!
Don’t ask me why I chose to associate the ghost with the local supermarket, it just came into my head that way. These days, the ghost is one of Milo’s main conversational interests. At night, he is very willing to snuggle into bed with me, asking “Ghost coming?” “Yes,” I say, “so we’d better get in bed and go to sleep.” Our ghost story draws on the lore from this Japanese ghost story we read, which is about a ghost that will take you away from your home if you’re not in bed when it’s late at night. The ghost takes the child away and the child turns into a ghost. Quite funny, really.
Mickey usually sleeps next to Mommy in bed, but sometimes he wants to sleep between me and Mommy, which means Milo sleeps next to the wall. On those occasions, Mickey wants to be close so he can better listen to the stories I tell, and better see the storybooks. Sometimes, Mickey is funny about things, saying “I want to see story,” but unwilling to sidle over closer, wanting instead to remain next to Mommy.
The kids show a lot of wit. I don’t get a chance to write it all down, but I try to take some notes so that I can later blog about it. Here’s one anecdote.
During the winter holidays late last year and early this year, we all drove to Jusco for some shopping. We parked the car in the parking lot and Mickey, who I think was sitting in the front with me while I was driving (it must have been some short trip), fell asleep in my arms. I was also sleepy so I decided we would wait while Milo and Mommy did some shopping. Later, when we got home, Mickey was somewhat jealous to learn that he didn’t get to go shopping at Jusco that day. A few days later, we drove down to the house of the father of Yoshiyuki, our friend. After eating and playing, Milo and I had a nap in our car while Mommy and Mickey hung out inside the house. When we all hooked up again, Mickey told me, “[paraphrasing because his grammar wasn’t correct] Today Mommy and I went to Jusco. Milo and Daddy slept in the car.” I love how kids’ minds work.
Mickey seems to be the more social of the two, and he is often the first to greet others. The kids like to talk about the man who lives downstairs or the man/men who drive the delivery trucks that bring packages and mail to the residents in our little complex. When the kids are playing outside, and one of the aforementioned men arrives, Mickey has been known to run up and say, “Hello, downstairs man!” or “Hello, truck man!” I like how they try to be friendly even if they haven’t got the polite forms down pat. The kids don’t usually get an answer in English, because English is not the lingua franca here, but I applaud them for trying. It’s a little sad, too, that they can’t interact properly with others in English here. Anyway, you gotta love their earnestness.
Another anecdote. Once, when it was time to put them to bed, Mickey wanted to watch a video on the PC with me, but I was too tired and said, “No video tonight.” Mickey got angry and pinched me, so I felt a little guilty and changed my mind. I thought I should be less selfish and just watch a couple of short videos on YouTube with him. But then Mickey said, “See tomorrow.” So nice and cute.
Another story. The kids are progressing in their toilet training and now learning/trying to wipe their own bottoms. Several weeks ago I was surprised to see Mickey and Milo in the bathroom together. Mickey was wiping Milo’s bottom for him. How sweet. Mickey is only the older brother by one minute or so but he sure plays the role well, sometimes acting a little more mature. He is even physically bigger/larger/heavier. I can’t imagine Milo being the older brother, nor can I imagine them swapping names. Certain notions must have been preconceived and become fixed in our minds.
From about age two to age three-and-a-bit, Milo wanted only Mom to put him to bed. (When he was littler, I used to give him formula and put him easily to bed, though then he started crawling back to Mom’s bed when he woke up in the morning.) Now, though, Milo waits up for me every night, and won’t go to sleep without me. Even Mickey, who has basically needed Mommy every night since he was tiny, sometimes falls alseep listening to my stories (after Mom has already gone to bed). (Though I can remember when Mickey was about one or two, I used to take him for walks along the river on hot summer nights, pointing out the things around us in the dark, holding him in my arms until he nodded off, his head falling softly onto my shoulders.) It’s nice to be needed. It won’t be forever. One day soon they’ll be more independent. But in the meantime, I love having little ones. I love being a dad. And a husband.
Like I said, I think life is in the simple things. The simplest things always bring the most joy and happiness. I like to live life mindfully, trying to soak in and soak up the details in my surroundings. No walking around with a cell phone glued to my ear for me. I want to get the most out of life. I give thanks every day that I am young, healthy, and able bodied. I think about all those people in wheelchairs who would give so much just to be able to walk. I try not to complain, knowing that someone, somewhere, always has it much worse. Life is both beautiful (blossoms on a tree) and terrible (random violence and brutality), but I love it, and will always try to make the best of it. Over and out. Keep living.
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12.26.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:32 am by Max
Yeah, yeah. I keep repeating myself here. Long time no post. However, I feel it’s worth repeating myself, just for my own sake…
Just the other day, I remarked in an email to my friend Kevin how I don’t blog unless I’m really inspired to. And the writer in me only tends to get inspired when I have what I consider ample free time (I think “down time from work” would be a more suitable expression). I am on the third or fourth day of a whopping two-week paid vacation. Not having to go back to work soon is a real plus. My mind feels like it needs to write. So here comes an outpouring.
When I said “whopping two-week vacation” above, it was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. It is certainly more than the average Japanese worker gets. Our friend in Tokyo, Yoshiyuki, is a top-notch chef at a restaurant for the upper-crust of Japanese society (the kind of restaurant where actors and entertainers go). He only gets a few days off this holiday season. That said, I get a lot less vacation than I used to. When I was in Korea working at my old university, I got three months off a year.
Still, although I get more vacation than the average salaryman here, I get fewer benefits. Read: no pension, no help with the health insurance, no subsidized cafeteria meals. I do, I’m sure, have fewer working hours than the average salaryman. But that again could be debateable, because I spend a lot of my time driving between classes, and that time isn’t paid for. Nor is the down time between classes, or the time needed for class prep. A typical Tuesday goes something like this, with all the classes being at different places:
- 5:30————Up and at ‘em
- 7:30-8:50——Class at an Automobile Company
- 10:00-11:20—-Kindergarten Classes
- 12:50-4:00—–University Classes
- 5:15-6:45——Class at a Chip Manufacturing Company
All told, that’s basically a twelve-hour day, with only about 7h10min teaching time. On other days, I have more down time, which I manage to fill with other things, such as working out, shopping, going to the dentist, or other things which I can’t name here.
But hmm, I haven’t had a workout for ages, really. I’ve lost lots of muscle mass—and some fat, too, which is a good thing. I’m devoting myself fully to (1) family, (2) work, and (3) keeping myself in good condition, because I can’t afford to let the machine that is me break down.
The above comment about vacation brings back a memory. In Korea, I met a guy working at Oxford University Press in Seoul. Oxford has a large share of the English textbook market in Korea, thus its presence there. I guess about six years ago, this guy told me he used to work for a university in central Korea (read: boondocks) teaching non-credit courses only six months a year. I guess that was about 15 or 18 contact hours a week. This dude got six months paid vacation a year, and you know what? He quit. He said he needed a bigger challenge. That was what he got (and far more work hours) at Oxford. Well, no offense, but how do you say “idiot” in the all the world’s 6800 or so living languages. Can you imagine six months paid vacation? Crikey! Just go back to the U.S. and get another job while you’re getting paid for being away from Korea! Some gifts are wasted on some people.
There has been so much to write about with the kids. They are a super basket of fun. It’s great spending all my vacation with them (which is what we are doing). Lately they are being somewhat rebellious, especially Milo, who enjoys saying no and going against our will. There are all kinds of approaches to handling this. You can be uncreative and midly spank a bottom or two. Which is what I do when I feel the situation warrants it. Like when I am softly explaining something that is not received well and I get scratched in the face for my efforts. It’s far better to be creative, though. Like nowadays, when the kids climb as high up on my chair as they can, or when they get up on the table, I look away and say out loud, “I can’t see Milo. Shiho, can you see Milo?” Shiho answers, “Nope. I can’t see him.” This has the intended effect right away, as Milo dismounts the table and comes up to me, saying, “Daddy, Milo’s here!” whereupon I say, “Oh, now I can see Milo.” But then it can turn into a game as Milo renegotiates the chair’s heights to get the process to repeat itself all over again.
I often get surprised at the things kids say, because they show awareness of ideas I didn’t know kids held. Tonight, in the car, Milo was sitting on my lap and nodding off, when I said, “Shiho, look at Milo” and Milo quickly answered, “No sleeping.” Even at age three, he is seeming to feel that sleeping can be a kind of weakness, perhaps? But then again, sometimes we tell them not to fall asleep in the car because it is too late in the day for a nap….OK, this is getting pretty rambly. I’ll have to log on a few more times before the vacation is out.
Just a few more thoughts. Lately, it doesn’t seem that I can go a day without reflecting on the human condition. I’m far too conscious of the idea that life is just a potential absurdity. If you’re not religious, as I am not, then life can seem really pointless or frightening at times. All this beauty (my beautiful wife and kids, the wonderful countryside we live in, the bounty of food on our plates), all this horror (as I write some kid in Africa is dying from some ridiculously preventable disease like dysentery). It’s the utter randomness that makes life seem really absurd. There is no rhyme or reason to why or how we are here. Somehow, life was able to carve out a slice for itself on this planet. The conditions of the universe (gravity and other laws of physics) and this planet (having an atmosphere, water, and energy sources, e.g. volcanoes and sunligh) were appropriate. Life evolved and intelligence was selected for, and here we have human beings, a bunch of thinking monkeys. Our brains, our consciousness are our greatest gift yet also our greatest curse, for we alone out of all the world’s species are able to ponder our fate. Well, life is a gift. Is it? I think it is, but only if you have health, enough wealth, security (freedom from harm), and are surrounded by people who love you. That’s why, I really just try to concentrate on what I deem important. Thirty-five years of life on this planet has enabled me to distill what wisdom I have into a short little philosophy. Here goes.
There are only three things that matter. That’s it. They are, in descending order:
- Family, friends, other people, and our relationships with each other
- Nature, animals, the environment
- Money and possessions (a really distant third)
As far as (2) above is concerned, one day I might stop eating real animals. If and when in-vitro meat comes to market.
Each and every day, we gotta have perspective. When your favorite coffee mug falls to the floor and shatters, you just can’t give a shit about it. Right now someone is being raped or murdered somewhere on this planet.
Keeping perspective, of course, is really hard to do. Although I don’t know much about the world’s religions, I can see that they all try to teach the importance of keeping perspective, and they try to teach what is important.
If life is a gift, I am grateful for it, and for what I have, especially as a healthy citizen of a rich country. I don’t know why I am here on this world, or even if there is a reason, but I will try to enjoy my gift, and give back to others. I will try to maintain a positive attitude and appreciate life. Because you never know when it will be snatched away from you. Each and every moment then, is a moment to be savored, to be cherished (yes, many of the painful moments, too*). I really try to avoid thinking things like, “Only two days until the weekend.” Because then what? Seventy percent of your life will have been wasted as you always waited for something better to come along.
Time to hit the hay. Have good principles, and try to stay true to them.
* I am proud of myself for recently getting my dental fillings replaced without anesthesia. I told the dentist I didn’t want to have a numb face, because then I couldn’t teach (i.e. talk properly). This was partially true, but the main reason is that I am trying to learn how to embrace physical pain. Because it doesn’t seem that life is possible without it. On my second visit to the dentist (can you believe it takes three or more visits to get a filling done in Japan? but this is another story in itself), I felt a brief, titanic wave of pain go through my body as the dentist’s drill hyperstimulated one of the nerves in my tooth. It was awesome.
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08.26.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:04 pm by Max
Allergies have been bad the last few days so I finally relented and took an Allegra, which I have a small stock of. I’m not dead set against taking anti-allergy meds, but I don’t want to be on them year round, and I didn’t feel I needed them from late last fall until this summer. Summer seems to be the peak season for dust mites, but the other seasons aren’t nearly as bad. In winter we can hang the bedding out every day, and the cold kicks the dust mites’ asses. This summer is so darn damp and humid, and the dust mites love it, and we can’t even air the bedding because it’s never sunny and the balcony is always moist and damp.
The other day I burned a CD which didn’t burn right, so I turned it into a piece of art (I drew little animal faces on it). The twins liked it and they tried to play it on my PC’s CD-ROM drive. Last night I told them no, but this morning I found out my CD drive was jammed. Someone had stuck that CD in the wrong way! I didn’t panic, though, and instead used my head. I figured out that with a straightened paper clip, it was easy enough to manually open the drive and extract the offending CD. Lots of little antics like this. Today the kids detached the curtain apparatus from the wall, which I’ve now jury rigged with plastic twine.
Anyhow, today I had the morning and afternoon off (just one class in the evening), so yesterday I asked Shiho if we could keep the kids home from daycare. Shiho agreed and she said she would go to work at her mom’s* and I would stay home alone with the kids until lunchtime.
However, that plan fell through as Mickey cried and said he wanted to be with Mommy. Though much less of a momma’s boy than he used to be (last year Shiho couldn’t even go number one or number two alone), he is still pretty much of one, but sometimes he likes to do things with Daddy and it’s OK to leave mommy for a while (getting changed with me in the swimming pool changing room, taking a quick drive to the convenience store).
I had a good morning with Milo, who was happy to be alone with Dad. A few times he asked “Where is Mommy?” and I told him the answer, and he was OK with it. We fed the birds, did some horseback rides and tickling, spilled and wiped up some juice, went for a walk around the neighborhood together, and then came home to a snack of cashew nuts and apple juice / calorie-free sports drink. Milo was very quiet and sweet with me.
When Mickey came home, the dynamic really changed. Mickey started fussing and crying quite a bit, even though he had been quite over at mom-in-law’s. It’s totally different with two. They really egg each other on, inciting the other into mischief. After lunch, my wife and I were trying to vacuum and they kept sitting on the vacuum cleaner or interfering with the hose. I was a little pissed off and slapped them lightly on their bums (they had taken off their pants and were pretending to pee on the floor) but it only made them laugh. Then it was about 2:30 and it was time for bed, and that was when I became an even more bad dad.
The kids wrecked the curtain holder thing, which they had already weakened before, and I lost my temper, shouting things at them that I don’t want to repeat or commit to internet memory. Then they wouldn’t go to bed and I was quite physically rough with the kids. I slapped Mickey with a magazine, but it just made him laugh. I accidentally hurt Milo when I yanked a book away from him, because he had the book in his mouth. Then I was mad at Milo for not going to bed so I placed him in the empty receptacle of the washing machine and he cried. I went there after a minute or so and I had an angry face but he just stared at me seriously and then his serious face turned into a smile and a laugh, and despite my anger, I couldn’t help but laugh, too. It turned out that Milo had peed his pants in the washing machine due to fright or unhappiness. Poor kid. Despite my meanness and anger they still wanted to laugh at me, I don’t know how you get kids to take you seriously. Shows you what short memories they have. One minute they’re crying loudly because you’ve timed them out, the next minute you let them back into the bedroom and they’re laughing and fooling around again. Then they went ahead with their usual pre-bed demands, such as asking for cream applied to their feet, asking for their nails to be trimmed (even though they were already really short), asking if they could bring their (current) favorite toys and books to bed. Finally, after much cajoling, nagging, and threatening and repeated attempts to put them to sleep the kids went to bed.
Anyway, I feel bad for losing my temper. I hit them a little and was rough but I didn’t really hurt them, as they laughed at me. Of course that doesn’t excuse my behavior but sometimes you just lose it when they’re not listening to you, still laughing out loud and egging each other on when it’s their naptime and if they don’t go to bed now then they’ll have a late nap and then not want to go to bed until 11:00 or midnight.
God I love my kids so much. I wish I could always control myself, but sometimes I don’t. Thankfully they have short memories and don’t hold it against me, and judge me by the balance of my behavior to and treatment of them. I love having two three-year-old boys. It’s a very precious age and I’m very glad to spending time with them. One day they will be thirteen years old and won’t want to spend much time with their dad anymore.
* Shiho’s mom is basically her employer now. Mom-in-law bought Shiho a brand new $10K car, and Shiho is paying it off by doing household chores at mom-in-law’s pad (a hop, skip, and jump away). (Ah, the word household brings on another tangent, which is a funny mistake by Korean/Japanese learners of English. When I ask salarymen what their wives do for a living, I often get the answer “housekeeper” or “houseworker” or something like that. Definitely not the low-status image they wanted to convey. Of course what they meant to say was “homemaker” or “housewife.”)
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08.25.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:25 pm by Max
Long long time, no post. It’s nearing the end of August here in Nikko, Japan, and this year it hasn’t seemed like there was much of a summer. It was pretty darn humid on some nights, but there has been nary any sunshine for the last 10-12 weeks. During that time period I can recall no day on which Mother Nature graced us with a full day of unadulterated sunshine (it might have started off sunny but clouds always eventually intervened). The last two weeks have been super cloudy and fairly rainy, but it hasn’t been hot. The net effect is warm dampness, which isn’t as bad as heat and humidity but isn’t as good as cold dampness, in which case the dampness can be mitigated by a heater, which lets you dry things up and warm things up at the same time. It’s not hot now, but using a heater would just make it feel muggy inside.
Life in general has been good to/for us. Of course, as usual I remain perplexed by and aggrieved at the mystery that is life. Why are we here and why do we have to die, and so on and so forth.
There has been so much to write on the kid front. The kids are really wild these days, being quite mischievous at home. There has been a lot of fighting during the last two months (though not much of it the last few days). It is not uncommon for the kids to hit and bite each other. Funny things happen. A few weeks ago, Mickey bit Milo and once Mickey was chided/scolded, I picked up Milo to soothe and comfort him. Then Mickey, presumably wanting to get his own share of the attention, then bit himself on the arm. Yes, three-year-olds with self-inflicted bite wounds.
I spend a lot of time at home shirtless. That’s the only way to do it when it’s this hot. Often, I’m eating breakfast or vacuuming, and the kids (especially Milo), will run up from behind and slap me on the back. “Slap!” for lack of a better onomatopoeia. Just as I’m turning round to deal with that slapper, another slapper comes from the side and gets me again. It’s like tag-team wrestling, two boys against Daddy. Yesterday, I was in bed, still sleeping around 8 a.m. and Milo and Mickey kept slapping me on the head. It hurt! Milo had gotten up at six a.m. with multiple demands, e.g. help me go poo / rub cream on my skin / fix me a drink, and he had gone to bed at midnight the night before. I tell you, I can think of few jobs that are as hard as parenting.
All human beings have the need for an other or a victim to denigrate, and I don’t think kids are any exception. Milo, and Mickey too, but somewhat less so, love to say “Obaka! Oni! Pen-pen!” (Dummy! Devil! I’m hitting you!). Oftentimes the target of their insults is a book or a toy that has ostensibly wronged them in some way. Mickey loves to say, “Daddy dummy!” in an effort to get my goat, but name-calling by my own kids doesn’t bother me. Milo, however, gets a really angry look on his face when Mickey calls him stupid. And Milo got angry at me last night and called me “Obaka” after I had taken his toy away.
They twins’re in a continual body-exploration phase as they get a big kick out of fooling around with their bodies. Both of them like to pull off their pants and run around the bedroom on the futons, crying, “Pee-pee! Pee-pee!” in a mock gesture of spraying urine on the bedding. Also, they like to stick their fingers up their butts and then smell their digits, giddily pronouncing, “Anus smelly!” or something like that.
Mickey (more so than Milo) and Milo are able now to recognize their own printed names (in English of course). There are many stages to reading and one of the first ones is simply word recognition. Maybe you haven’t thought much about it before, but words we know well are instantly recognizable but words we have never read before can make us stumble. I find the same thing with reading Japanese hiragana. Even though I’m easily able to pronounce new words, it takes a much longer time to read them because I haven’t seen/visualized them before (even though I know them very well orally).
The kids’ Japanese is much better than their English, but I’m OK with that. I don’t speak Japanese to them, and I don’t let them speak Japanese to me. I think that is key. When we move back to Canada they will be quite a bit behind in English but they will have a strong foundation. They are not very good with articles (a, an, the) or prepositions (to, from, for) and they often omit these words, but they have a good grasp of word order (”eat food” but not “food eat”) and their listening skills are really good. They’re able to listen for gist and don’t sweat it if they don’t get all the little words, unlike many of my students, who often seem to be unable to listen for gist (maybe they are trying too hard to understand every single word). The kids know how to answer a “Why” question (they say “Because…” in chorus) and “Where” and “What” questions, but “How” questions will take a little longer.
I have a day off from work today (Monday). No classes until 6 p.m. on Tuesday. That’s real nice. The kids are at daycare and I’m cleaning up the place a bit. The wife is cleaning up her mom’s place (her job right now) and she’ll come over and we’ll eat lunch. Getting hungry. Well, it’s another cloudy day here. Hope to write more soon. The major stock market indices are down quite a bit and I think it’s a good time to buy stocks. Wish I had more cash. But anyway, this recession is good news for people seeking to acquire cheap positions in large-cap companies, like General Electric and Pfizer. Gotta make money for our future. Signing off…
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06.22.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:22 pm by Max
It’s 5:05 pm here on a rainy Sunday in Nikko, Japan. It’s been plenty hot and humid lately. I almost up and hit the futon for a nap, but decided against it. I slept quite a bit yesterday (a three-hour nap and a ten-hour sleep) and I will probably get at least eight hours tonight, so by the time tomorrow rolls around I expect to have recharged my batteries enough for the coming week (when I won’t be getting eight hours’ sleep a night).
Today we went to the pool (a decent indoor deal that’s part of a hotel-cum-hot-spring-resort-cum-vegetable-market-cum-conservatory—a whole bunch of different attractions bundled together. It seems to be an odd admixture of destinations, but it’s nicely put together, clean, well maintained, well designed, and so on. I thought the pool would be really crowded on a Sunday, but it was only somewhat crowded, and not unnavigable, as I had feared.
Although there are no plastic thingamajigs dividing the pool into lanes (and thus no actual lanes), it is possible to do lengths/laps, but only on a weekday, when there would be few people. Today the pool was just full of people frolicking, playing with their kids, and walking back and forth in the water (a popular exercise in Japanese pools).
Mom’s got her own car now, a brand-new Honda Life (yes, she has a life), so she’s doing a lot of driving on her own now. Preparing to go to the pool, we came down the steps and unlocked mom’s car. The kids, however, began to fight over who would get to sit behind Daddy. As mommy was driving, Mickey wanted to sit behind dad, who was to plop himself down in the passenger seat. Milo, however, also wanted to sit behind dad, so he was unhappy with Mickey being strapped in behind me. An idea then came to Milo, which he repeated over and over: “Daddy drive! Daddy drive!” However, since mom was driving, this was not going to happen. Milo then calmed down a bit and then I told him that I would rest my (right) hand on his leg, which he gladly accepted and further calmed down. So off we went.
These days life has a lot of demands, and I find I can have a lot more peace if I just keep things simple. I try to limit life’s requirements to work, family, exercise, and managing our finances. When I’m at work (between classes and not on a gym day), I often set up my laptop and scanner. I have an old laptop that still works OK (although very slowly) and I leave me scanner at work, and I use my spare time to scan old family photos and upload them to my server. For example, I’ve recently scanned my kingergarten-Grade 3 photos. Eventually, I hope to have as many photos of my and Shiho’s childhood online as possible. Saving money is paramount now if we’re going to be able to afford a move back to Canada and build up a financial cushion that will allow me to survive the first few months without a job, if necessary. We were going to go back to Canada during my nine- or ten-day vacation this summer, but the airfares are really looking exorbitant (probably around $2,000 each for four people) and if I spend money like that there’s just no way I can save it up. The wife is home now with groceries so I’ll help her unpack. Later.
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06.05.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:25 am by Max
The title to today’s post owes a nod to the Guns N’ Roses’ rendition of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”
Lots to blog about, as usual, but not much time (really, these days) to write. I’ve been paying through the nose for a lot of things lately. Like:
- about $2,500 to secure the contract for our new apartment (price includes damage deposit, first month’s rent, insurance and other fees)
- about $900 to pay for additional repairs required for our old apartment (kids tore up the place good)
And on it goes.
I’ve been thinking, lately, about how expats get dinged. We get fleeced by fees of all different colors. Here’s a sampling:
- exchange rate fee (currently 2.5%?) incurred whenever I use my Canadian-dollar credit card abroad
- wire transfer fees whenever I send money from my Japanese bank account to my Canadian account (they get you both ways, sending and receiving—but, like a friend of mine recently quipped, “Why does the receiving bank charge you to receive a deposit?”), along with the profit the sending bank makes on the money exchange itself
Anyway, too many darn fees these days. As for the kids, they are doing well, and when they’re with me they are able to say and understand quite a few things in English. Lots to say about the kids, but it will have to wait for later. OK, just one thing, then. When I take a bath with the family, Mickey likes to get out first with Shiho and Milo likes to stay with me to the end (I also need to warm up in the water for a while as I can’t fit in the tub with the wife and the kids and the wife gets cold really easily). When I started to towel Milo off the other day, he said, “Baby cold,” which I thought was really funny. Before, he might have just said, “Cold” or “Milo cold,” but he knows I like to think of him as a baby, so he made this interesting connection. After the bath, I often pick him up and cradle him, naked, in my arms as we go to the bedroom to get dressed. At those times, he often says, “Baby” too.
I have to write about my adoptive father, Robbie. Robbie passed away on Friday, May 23, 2008, at a hospital in Vancouver, Canada. He was holding my mom’s hand when he passed away, which was nice. At least he didn’t have to go alone, my mom said. Robbie had been sick for several months prior, and his condition began to worsen as the year 2008 progressed. The cancer in his esophagus was eliminated, but his various treatments, unbeknown to doctors until too late, had created a hole in his esophagus. Some of the food and drink that he consumed passed through this hole into his body cavity, creating an infection. Shortly before his death, doctors also found a blood clot in his heart. Robbie also suffered from a degenerative spinal disease (he was not able to walk very far) and a type of slow-acting leukemia. So in short, he had many health problems. Robbie’s life, like everybody’s life, had its ups and downs. He suffered from a lot of pain towards his end, which was sad. But all in all I think he lived a fairly complete and fulfulling life, and a fairly long one, too (he was 81). I am happy, too, that before he passed he was able to see the publication of his book, even if it did not sell well. Rest in peace, Robbie. My thoughts will often be with you. Love, Max.
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05.04.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:48 am by Max
Well, we’re moved into our new place, which is about 28 km away from the school where I work. Before, we lived a hop, skip, and a jump (a mere two-minute bicycle ride) from my place of work, but now it’s a considerable haul. More later, time to try to get the kids into bed (9:51 pm).
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04.28.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:40 am by Max
I was feeling sorry for myself, too sorry, so I decided to surf the web a bit, looking for articles on the topic of “marriage and happiness,” and then after that just “happiness.”
What I read surprised me. I mean, I am familiar with most of the principles I read. But it’s so easy to forget these essential principles and stray from the path. Meaning, it’s easy for one to get sucked up into the vortex of being so concerned for one’s own happiness.
On this page, I found the following excerpt quite provocative:
Everyone thinks happiness is to be found in objects and experiences. Everyone thinks, “If I could only attain certain objects, if I could only possess them, if I could experience them, I will get happiness.” In spite of countless disappointments and disillusionments, man never learns. There is not an iota of happiness in earthly objects. No object is perfect. They do not have in them the power or ability to give you lasting happiness or joy because they are finite and they are imperfect. Otherwise, they must be able to give a homogeneous state of happiness to all beings at all times under all conditions. But what do you actually see?
If you like milk and you take a glass full of sweetened milk flavored with spices, the first glass may give you satisfaction. And if you are pressed upon to take another glass, the second glass may give satisfaction, but it is not the same degree of happiness or pleasure as was the first glass. And if your stomach is already full with two glasses of milk, if you try to take a third glass of milk, it becomes unpleasant, it becomes undesirable. And if it is forced upon you, a fourth glass of milk produces nausea and you will have to throw it up. Where then is real happiness?
At this stage in my life, I am a fairly consistent adherent to the notion that material objects don’t bring happiness. Here’s my ranking, in order of importance, of the things that matter in this world.
- Family, friends, other people
- Nature / The environment
- Money and material stuff
So while in my day to day life over the past several years, I’ve kept on repeating to myself how my happiness doesn’t depend on whether I drive a shiny, new Porsche or a beat-up old Honda—despite this accomplishment of mine, I’ve somehow forgotten how the pursuit of hedonism is no less a chimera.
I’ve been dissatisfied with my sex life of late—there hasn’t really been much of one. But I’ve been a fool to have thoughts along the lines of, “If I get divorced, I could have all the nasty sex I wanted and I’d be happier for it.”
This page’s tone was a little overly religious for me, but I liked this excerpt a lot:
The second secret weapon [for being content when circumstances make us feel miserable] is to turn our obsession to satisfy ourselves into love for others. Rather than focus on others, too many Christians have bought into the cultural value of individualism. We think personal independence is so great that we no longer recognize the beauty and blessing of shared life. But Christianity is concerned with interdependence. God doesn’t tell us to live for our own convenience. One reason he puts us in marriages is to help us find real satisfaction and real joy in serving others. Marriage is the first place where we get to live out God’s many commands for serving, accepting, encouraging, forgiving and submitting to one another.
OK, if you can cut through the (as I see it, unnecessary) references to God, there’s an excellent point being made here: people are too intent on trying to make themselves happy by finding ways to please themselves. I will agree that greater happiness is to be found by thinking less of oneself and thinking more of how to make life better for other people.
Finally, this page cited some interesting research: when you’re unhappily married, there’s no evidence that divorce will make you happier.
I have to learn to live less for myself and my own petty concerns and more for others. I find that when I have a lot of anxiety (what if I get sick? what if I die?), I just try to tell myself, “So what? We all die someday, the world will go on without us. Just try to do your personal best every day, and that’s all you can do.” Even as I type these words, a baby is being abused, a woman is being raped, somebody has lost their home. I’m getting pretty fucking tired of my selfishness. Which reminds me, a cousin of mine in New York had a stroke a couple of months ago and I haven’t even written her yet. Part of the delay is fear and anxiety (what should I say?) but the other part is just pure selfishness and excessive self-involvement.
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04.26.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:32 pm by Max
Man, I’ve known about internet radio for a long time, but I never really got into it. Now, all of a sudden, I’m into it—and I’m into it big.
Check out Live 365 Internet Radio. A few ads, but I don’t mind them. I’ve only listened to two stations so far, and they’re both fantastic. One (Radio Dismuke) is American music from 1925-1935 and the other (Basement Tapes Live) is Underground Hip-Hop, which I’ve been wanting to learn about for a long time. This link shows you the incredible number of genres, each with their attendant station or stations, available on Live 365.
Go ahead, give it a go. I, for one, am not turning back. This is just the thing I needed to push ahead with my lifelong goal of broadening my musical tastes, exposure, and experience. Rock on.
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