おは異様ございます！
Almost forgot to hit the git add, commit, and push on this one, but here’s week 9.
Praying for NY! The city is going to burn. Game 3 was madness, so I have no clue how they are going to control the celebrations. I already saw some concerning videos on X and Reels, so my prayers goes out to them. New York deserves the championship, but more specifically Jalen Brunson. Brunson's 45 point masterclass got me emotional. His story is so inspiring, but he is not LeBron Raymone James though. I can not believe it has been 10 years since the 3-1 comeback. It is tradition to go back to the video every month. I will not embed it though, but I will embed the video of the week:
Very well put together video, but I warn you might go down the sports rabbit hole of videos. Be good to yourself this month!
Today has to be one of the most peak days for sports. World Cup, Stanley Cup Game 6 (Vegas in 7), and of course UFC Freedom 250 is here! I cannot believe I am missing and not in the States for this historic event, but thankfully there is no PPV anymore and the streams are not laggy. The Twitter beef between Ilia and Justin actually pissed me off since it is so obviously forced to generate more buildup for the fight that already has enough. Topuria 18-0 and Poatan new interim heavyweight champion is my prediction. 🌹 🤝 🗿
America or North America is getting fed this summer with peak after peak. NHL and NBA playoffs, Freedom 250, return of McGregor, and World Cup is unfair. I can not lie and say I do not have fomo because I do. One of my colleagues posted a photo of the Torrey Pines greens on his story and I shed a little tear. The range and La Jolla is breathtakingly beautiful, and I am so lucky I get to go school there. I wish I would have spent more time exploring SD last year. Luckily, I still have another two years to do, so best believe I will get after it, once I get back.
Update: 64.5/100 on the Japanese test 😂. Passing is passing. Particles and spelling were the main things I lost points on, but it is an opportunity to learn from.
Last week, I got insomnia. The late night practices have caught up to me and are finally taking its toll on my body. The other night when I was about to go to bed at 4 am, the sun was already up. For some odd reason, I am the most dialed and productive at night, but during the day, I am the most unproductive and struggle to stay awake. I am experiencing pretty much the same symptoms as the narrator from Fight Club. Tyler Durden posses me in the late hours 😂. Maybe it is not insomnia, but narcolepsy. Do not want to be one of those self-diagnosed people though.
This week was the most mundane by far. On Monday, I had to go to the Kyoto Post Office and pick up my Japanese SSN card because I am not on a student visa. That was the most Japanese I have ever spoke and the most stressed I have been. I had to write my name “Tristan” in kanji on the spot. The stadium pulse was real. With that card, I can now legally work in Japan. No clue if I wish to execute that option. Living and working in Japan is tempting for sure, but if I were to do that, I would work for a foreign or preferably American company. I do and will not adhere for the Japanese black company and salary-man culture. The only way to do that is probably, get a job back in the States first then ask to get transferred to a Japanese office. I do not know many companies other than FANG and Palantir that have Japan offices. I will do some more research though because I should take advantage of my triple citizenship status while I can. But before I get my hopes up, I need to get my Japanese up 😂.
Moving on, the weather was absolutely abysmal. Typhoon wiped 3 days off the week and the sticky hot weather has arrived. I felt that hot humidity after practice and was so disgusted, but there are no showers at the rink. Speaking of practice, a few XHL (league below Asia League) players from Shiga Blue Rise came out to skate and as washed as I am, I can play in that league. If I took hockey more seriously than I somewhat did and registered under a Japanese club, I might have had a shot at making the national team. I am delusional though 😂. On the real though, my hockey gear reeks and is so disgusting. I do not think I washed them since last summer if I am being honest. I was nose blind to the smell at first, but I walked into my dorm the other day and thought a skunk died in my bag. Do not wish that smell on my worst enemies, it is horrid. On top of that, my dorm is an absolute mess, and I am struggling to keep it clean. The cleanliness of my dorm only lasts about a day before it gets ruined. Thankfully, I am starting the move-out process early. Due to the summer heat, I am packing away a lot of clothes and jackets I will not be needing or wearing for the next two months, and storing them at my aunt's place in Tokyo. I will be heading back there this weekend to celebrate my grandfather's birthday and Father's Day. Last year, I left on his birthday to embark on the Legendary Asia Summer Bender, so I am making up for it this year. Crazy to think that trip was exactly one year ago, and so much has happened. Good and bad, mostly good though. Come to think about it, it has already been 90 days, 3 months since the end of Spring Quarter. So much has and not happened in that time. Some of those issues and problems still linger and haunt me, but I am better than I was. I am so grateful that I was allowed to go abroad despite my GPA, I could not imagine going through Spring quarter with how I was at the time.
The only exploring I did this week was Lake Biwa. I do not think Biwa even classifies as a lake with how vast it is. Here’s a shot of it below:
The spot I visited, doubles as a ski and snowboard resort in the Winter. I might need to come back to Kansai during winter break just for that. Skiing down the slope while overlooking Biwa must be an insane experience, but I want to go to Sapporo too.
There’s still a lot of Japan I have yet to explore. I have yet to make my way to Kyushu, Shikoku, Okinawa, etc. One more month of the semester so I need to take advantage of Japan as much as possible because in August I am going on a China bender. I was planning on going to Busan, 4th of July weekend, but most of my friends bailed, so I need to figure something else out because I do not want a 5-day weekend to go to waste. Maybe I will head back to Taiwan before tensions worsen. I need to book everything soon because airfare costing more each day. The bread is running thin without the 4 jobs I was working last year, but if I was able to make that much before college, I believe it will come back. You can always earn money, but you can not earn more time. Better to do things now while you are young and somewhat healthy, rather than company PTO.
I still have not booked or planned my return flight. As much as there are parts of me that want to go home, there are parts of me that do not want to go back. What is waiting for me back at home? Like I explained in my video or at least try to articulate, I thought coming abroad would be a clean break. Changing my coordinates would automatically change my head. And it did, I got to experience a different rhythm of life. But for the most part, depression did not stay behind, it got on the flight with me. As the end of the semester approaches, I am scared. Scared of throwing myself back in the rat race that broke my baselines in the first place. The endless optimization, the relentless pressure I put on myself, and the hyper-competition all feelings I know too well.
When I talk to Japanese students or other international students, they are always intrigued by the American Dream. Almost intoxicated by it. When you look at it from their perspective, one can understand how the construct of having drive, raw ambition, and the promise that if you outwork everyone else, you win is so enticing. I now know what Anthony Bourdain meant when he said, "No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American." It is beautiful.
But being an American, I also see the shadow side. I know what happens when dreams turn into an obsession with checking boxes. This is where Tyler Durden took a hold of me and gave me a revelation to the meaning of line: "Self-improvement is masturbation."
We or I have been conditioned to think that if we just optimize enough, study enough, track our neural pathways enough, and buy into the perfect routine, we’ll magically fix our lives. We treat "self-improvement" like a consumable to make ourselves feel productive while we are all just frozen, hiding from the world. Bourdain illustrates how seductive the pursuit is, but Durden exposes the arrival fallacy.
So that is where I’m torn. I don't want to lose my drive, do the things I want to do, and reap the rewards of hard work. But I refuse to let the race hollow me out again, and I refuse to let 'self-improvement' become just another ouroboros of mental comfort that hinders me from living. And maybe that is the real shift. Bourdain also said: "Travel is not a reward for working, it's education for living."
Bourdain also committed suicide, so there is a huge disconnect to how much of his words I take into account. It is awfully sad how the most beautiful people are the most broken. Bourdain and Robin Williams are both people who gave the world so much joy and profound perspective, but could not survive the battle between their own ears.
It makes you realize that the exact same depth, sensitivity, and openness that allows someone to see the world so beautifully is the very thing that makes the internal weight of living so heavy to carry. When you turn the volume up on your ability to care, to notice, and to feel, you turn the volume up on the pain, too.
Their stories are a sobering reminder that insight alone cannot save you. You can not intellectualize your way out of a dark room or your own suffering. Just reading enough quotes or understanding enough philosophy will not fix your brain's chemistry. Even therapist need their own therapist.
U2 has so many bangers in their catalog. I wish I would have got into them and appreciate their greatness earlier when my pops was bumping Achtung Baby on roadtrips to CAHA weekends. But the older you get, the more your taste in music shifts. It’s just a product of living. You have to experience a bit of the friction, the heavy mornings, and the weight of the world to actually hear and feel what those songs were trying to tell you all along. Romans 8:18 still serves to be the ultimate verse in the Bible.
There is a lot more new developments this week as my community college courses are starting; Intro to Asian American Studies and Introduction to Psychology. Asian American Studies fulfills my UC DEI requirement and psychology allows me to declare my minor or double major. I am still mad UCSD did not accept my Honor's Women's History and Gender Studies course as DEI. I basically took the course for nothing. The course did not help me get into UCLA through TAP, did not fulfill my other general education requirement, and most importantly; I still do not understand women 😂. At least I can say I tried (trying) to understand women better. That is a lot more than all those performative males out there can say. In hopes of not going further into this tangent, which would eventually get myself in trouble, I am going to end the log here. As always, stay safe and Godspeed!
See you next week!
じゃね！