おは異様ございます！
Hope everyone's weekend is going well so far! The log and video are coming out early because I have a late-night practice tonight and will be unavailable to Git, Commit, Push in time for this log. The video is on my homepage on my Instagram story too, but I will include it down here:
It is 15 minutes of a yapping video-essay vlog. Not my best or proudest work, but it is something. The thumbnail is all Gemini generated, and you could probably tell towards the end, the repetitive analysis of "drift" was the AI's script. I wrote the whole monologue trying to imitate a Greg Plitt video log (also the current Video of the Week), but the footage ended up being over 20 minutes, so I asked AI to condense it heavily. The logs you read are 100% written by me without any AI assistance. As you know, the logs always go over the Instagram caption character limit, so I made this personal website. Take some time to explore around the home page, I updated the HTML and CSS, there is now a wisteria or Fuji color on my about section. My aim is to put the same amount of effort and care I put into this site and logs towards my videos. The editing and making of these videos is a very lengthy and long process for me because even though I read off a teleprompter, I want to seem more natural, and I always try to make every take "perfect." It sounds super hypercritical of my overall message, and goes against my journey into the wabi-sabi, finding beauty in the imperfection, but I am still working on breaking that deep routed high overachiever perfectionist mindset. It is taking quite the time. If you have any advice for me on getting over this mindset, or my videos, and content you want to see from me, please reach out or let me know.
I started the channel back up again because I had this idea of making videos based off of a word and trying to apply its meaning into my life. The original title of my first video back was supposed to be "rewire" and the plan for the video was for me to "rewire failure," but I scraped it because being in my negative head-space and I could not do it myself, which is why I retitled it to "surrender." I am still thinking of the title for the next video, let alone what the video would center around because I am in a creativity drought. The "tlee's times" series is more of a "tlee's talks" series if anything. My first two videos are essentially these logs on videos, but that was kind of the intention in the beginning.
Wow! Three paragraphs in, and I have not even got into the week breakdown. It is funny how much more and less you have to talk about when you are depressed versus when you are content. The more being in what I do, where I go in a week, the less being in the details of thoughts and feelings. I have yet to get response to these Kyoto logs so far, let alone engagement on my first video rather than my older brother, Alex. Shout out him and Ian (oldest brother) too! Ian and I are going to go Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Macau next weekend, I am so pumped for that! Ian and I are finally going to set foot in the mainland, the motherland of China! Back to my point, I wonder if I am writing to a brick-walk, or you all only cared about me when I was down on my luck. Again this is hypercritical of my "seeking attention" point in the video, but it is just an intrusive thought I have, and I think most people have as well. I know I have people out there who care for me and are happy to see me happy, I should not have to feel validated by digital icons and notifications. It is late at night here in Japan, I am rambling, and I am on my LeBron Raymone James pondering:
The Lakers need to stop turning the ball-over, and I am sick of these soft foul calls. I still believe in Lakers in 6 though. LeBron Raymone James will get his 5th, I just know it. The rest of the NBA series I do not follow as much. The second round of the NHL playoffs are exactly how I expected and more. The Avs and Wild is a barn burner, Vegas and Ducks is pretty solid, I am salty about Marner doing well (still love him though), Habs and Sabres is electric, but Philly and Canes disappointing me. I thought Philly would put a better fight, I had that series swinging either way. Maybe I am out of the loop for the show this season. Avs are going to win it all. MacKinnon is out for blood on the revenge tour to make up for losing Gold.
Ok put aside everything I wrote above, here is the actual log this week:
This past week was the shortest by far since I had Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off due to the Golden Week break. I was only in class Thursday and Friday. Thursday I had a Python quiz I totally forgot about, made some rookie mistakes on it, but I am not really mad about it. I am not getting any credit towards my major or credit from UCSD for this class, so this class is purely just practice and playing to win. Since the workload for my courses at Kyoto University is light, I decided to enroll in two online asynchronous courses back at my local community college, EVC (Evergreen Valley College) for the summer. I am taking an ethnic studies course in the Asian American experience to clear my UCSD DEI requirement and an intro to psychology course to clear a prerequisite for a cognitive science course I want to take in the future. By the time I get back to La Jolla, I would have completed my entire general education requirements, and can solely focus on my major courses.
California Community College system is superb and probably one of the best things about America. Talking with my international suite-mates, I learned that community college and transferring to a 4-year university only exists in America. The concept is so foreign, new, and unorthodox for the other nations. I am so glad I still am able to take CC courses as a UC student. If I am really ambitious I can pick up another associates while completing my bachelors at UCSD. I still have yet to apply for my Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science associate degrees at EVC and my Data Science one at West Valley College. Although associate degrees do not hold much meaning or power, if it is rare to the rest of the world, and I did the work, might as well get the reward. When I am done with my education, I hope to give back to EVC by becoming a part-time faculty professor. Not only does the job make quite good bank and is a very convenient commute, I get to see the real impact of my work. It is my 生きがい (ikigai), the concept of a perfect balance of professional stability and deeply personal fulfillment.
Also, I want to point this out. If you are transferring from community college to a UC/CSU, getting IGETC certification will make your transition so much better regardless of major, but do not stress if you do not get certified. I do not regret, not getting certified. If I was IGETC certified, I probably would not have gone abroad to Kyoto, and I do not regret this decision at all. I am probably the most content I have been with myself in over 5+ years, but I have hit a plateau. The honeymoon phase of always being amazed about Japan has passed, this is my life now. It does not mean I hate my life, I am homesick, and want to go home; I am just complacent and completely adjusted to living in Japan. I also hit a plateau in my Japanese language studies (hit that a while ago). The 8-Hour a week course I am taking is not as engaging and helpful as I thought, but who I am to complain as I wipe out my whole Humanities general education requirement for it. The rest of the courses I am taking have little-to-no work at all, attendance is hardly required for lectures, so one can imagine there is not a lot of studying going on. I wish this exchange program was more integrated with Japanese students because after a month in, it is essentially exchange students interacting with each other. The only time I really do interact with other Japanese students is hockey, but when I am there, they just want to practice their English or learn hockey slang. I am essentially Rigby in China:
Regular Show is coming back in two days, and I am so happy! Obviously, it will not hit the same as the original, but it makes me smile knowing Carton Network saw the huge impact the Reg had and decided to bring it back. Nostalgia is one hell of a drug, and makes money too. It is crazy that all my international suite-mates watched the show too. We are going to do a watch party when the first episode drops and a marathon of the entire show. There is nothing better than the Reg. It is a Jolly Good Show!
This is it for the log. Thank you for reading and watching the video if you did. Please let me know your thoughts publicly or privately. I am going to go to bed and start filming the next video tomorrow. As always, stay safe, and Godspeed!
See you next week! じゃね！