Hmmm. Three good things about today. Let’s see. I went to the gym sick and I feel so much better now. Soo fucking won. Henry is back from his trip and we’re gonna have a party weekend. Hehe. Life is good.

The good thing was that somehow went to the gym today. I guess I really gotta thank my habits. Today was the GSL at 630pm. I told myself I’d just go to the gym for a 15 minute run and some chill recovery time in the sauna. When I got there… even sick. The 15 minute run felt quite easy. I guess it’s a sign of goodness, if I can do the run while sick… I can’t wait till I’m healthy. It’s almost 6 months so I gotta hit the 30 minute 15km/h checkpoint. My yearly goal is 60 minutes of 15 km/h or 9mph. So I gotta make sure that I’m making consistent progress.

I’m so grateful that I’m living in Japan and that Japan has the same timezone as Korea. GSL RO8. Watching it live. OMG. Watching it live is so good. and watching Soo come back 0-2 against TY to win 3-2. That just blew my mind. Who doesn’t love the underdog story? Also… Soo… the silver surfer and the sufferer. I feel like… you just gotta root for someone who doesn’t give up despite all the setbacks that he’s endured. Soo is probably my favorite player to cheer for just because each time he got so close to the championship but each time someone else crushed him. I don’t think he chokes so much as that the other person is just better. Well… maybe a little bit of choking. But it’s so great that… he came back 0-2. That’s like… the champion mentality. It’s so easy to give up. But to come back from 0-2…. that’s manly.

Henry came back from his hike. So this weekend will be Japan clubbing. Hehe. Also drinking party and bbq. Damn. The other thing is… even though I was wasting a crazy amount of time watching Ice Fantasy… I still managed over 4 commits last week. I think… 4 commits per week while not ideal… is a pretty solid ‘shitty baseline’ and that’s pretty amazing. Yep. Life is good.

Wow. Feburary is almost over. Damn. It’s… kinda unbelievable how crazy fast time went by. Henry visited for like a week and I got pretty distracted. It’s just so much fun to hang out with him and he’s on vacation so he’s in chill explore and get food mode and in Japan you can do explore and get food mode forever and not run out of options.

I haven’t been working recently at all. It’s kinda crazy. Sigh. It’s like… I’ve been meditating every day still… but it’s like I’m just do the action without putting in the effort… which is bad. Today… on my way back from the gym I just totally spaced out and then realized that I walked past the grocery store… I then had to backtrack to the grocery store to get my snacks.

What was I thinking about? Don’t really remember… probably thinking about the future and how it can get even better? Even though I’m doing no work. Recently… I think… I just don’t want it badly enough. It’s like… I think when you’re back is against the wall… or you’ll starve if you don’t succeed you’ll work harder and succeed. But it’s like… my life in Japan is so good. I can just play video games and eat delicious food. I think… dullness is just too addicting. Just living the path of least resistance… it’s… so… what’s the word. It’s actually so captivating. To be swept away in the monotony of the day to do.

There’s only a few more things on the android app.. and honestly I think if I was in the zone I’d be able to crank it out in about 3 days. It goes back to… professionals always work. Right now… it almost feels like I’m not a pro. I started watching this uh… chinese drama on netflix. Each episode is like 45 minutes long of dullness. But it’s like… so addicting.

The other thing is… I think you just default to taking things for granted. I recently found out that my spa has an amazing sauna and ice bath. So I can do the sauna -> ice bath training which is really good for your health. Oh yeah. For dinner I had a delicious donburi, takoyaki and a mocchi for dessert. Just writing that sentence brought a smile to my face. hehehe.

Tomorrow I’ll be getting desserts with a cute japanese girl. On one hand it’s like… damn. My life is so freaking good. On the other hand it’s like… blargh. I haven’t been finding the ‘motivation’ to work. I’ve been lazy and just not being thankful and enjoying things. Weird. It’s like a paradox. Although… looking back. Even when Henry was visiting I did commit code at least 3x a week. Which is pretty good.

I guess I should just celebrate the good things. Things can always be better… and I can always theoretically do better. But looking back… I’m doing pretty great. My japanese is at the level where I can almost listen to random conversations without trying… and the other day I was pure japanese almost. Starting from march I’ll go pure Japanese to solidify my learnings.

I really wanted to get my app out by feburary. It’s still within the realms of reality. I guess it’s more important to focus on the process. One commit per day. On average will always bring you closer to the goals.

Well. Writing about how great my life is made me feel better. heh. So I think I should start doing the 3 thankful things again. That always helps. It’s like… you think you don’t need it… but you always do.

So I just got back from the gym. My legs weighed a ton each as I was trying to run on the treadmill. lmao. Sigh. The funny thing is… I kinda knew I wouldn’t be able to run… and lift and that I regressed. It’s like… I just wanted to avoid reality.

Today is Friday. Last week thursday was my rest day which consisted of cheesecake and junk food. Friday night was a double dinner, followed by a japan night out until 6am, followed by ramen at 6am followed by sleeping in until 3pm. Sunday, was a bbq + izakaya + desserts. Tuesday was tiramisu + thousand layer crepe cake. lmao. Yesterday was.. just junk. sigh.

My sleeping has been messed up since I stopped using alarms. I’ve been sleeping at 3am and waking up around 1130. That quality of sleep is bad… and I feel that I lose my most productive hours. blargh.

Well. What’s the moral of the story? It’s a combination of you keep doing what you do and you keep getting what you got. Or rather… I think I’m at the point where I can no longer eat junk and workout to balance it out. Which is unfortunate… shit. I’m the oldest I’ve ever been. Actually, yesterday I was actually full. Like… to the point where I couldn’t eat. Normally I only get ‘full’ when I’m at an all you can eat buffet… but yesterday I got full from normal food. O.O. It’s a sign I’m getting old. lmao.

Someday I’ll write clean and concise articles for the entire world.. but for now it’s just for me. I gotta take care of myself first. I’ve been enjoying japan a little too much I think. Well. I told myself if I took an entire year off to play video games… it would be okay. But logging 100+ hours for FFXV and 100+ hours for Persona 5. That’s 200 hours. That’s…. uh. 5 weeks of full time work. At the same time… I haven’t been coding as much. Another lie to myself. I think it comes from not wanting to confront reality almost. In my mind… one app a month was so easy. It’s only 3 hours per day. I think 3 hours a day is actually doable… but that’s 3 hours of perfect coding zen. Which is kinda hard to get into.

I renewed my working holiday visa yesterday. It’s actually not completely renewed since I gotta go back once more once they mail me some shit. But that was essentially an entire day wasted. 1/365 of my japan was spent doing visa.

I guess something that’s good is that… I’ve been recently watching this time travel taxi drama on netflix raw. Not only is it expanding my Japanese vocabulary… since I can figure out the meaning of words via context and filling in the gaps… it’s also hella entertaining and funny. I guess it’s good that my Japanese is at the level of bootstrapped. This girl didn’t know the translation for metabolism and then I asked for the Japanese explanation and then I totally got it. hue. hue. hue.

I think I’m still struggling on finding the balance between work and play. I mean… work is almost play for me since I enjoy coding. But at the same time… playing video games is like… so much better.

Sigh. I guess… the moral of the story is… it’s time for me to truly eat healthy. I was watching this stand up comedian and he was like… McDonalds is poison. He was making fun of salads and healthy shit existing in McDonalds when you know it’s fucking poison. Desserts is so delicious… but it’s essentially poison. It makes me weaker and at this point is preventing me from reaching the fabled 5 minute miles and getting my gainz. Sigh. I guess… I gotta give it up. Desserts will only be once per week. Probably.

The thing is. My fridge is stocked with delicious goodness. And I don’t really believe in like… depriving yourself. It’s like… counter intuitive. I think… just suffering through a 5 minute run where my legs weighed like a ton… will definitely affect me the next few times I’m about to have dessert. So it’ll all work out for the better. But damn.

Recently, I’ve been taking it mentally easy. Sleeping in. Eating junk. Meditating poorly. I think… it kinda spills over. I can’t wait til spring is here and I don’t have to turn on the heater before hiding back into bed. Right now… I have two alarms. One to wake up and turn on the heater… and another to actually wake up. Man. I miss California.

tl;dr - junk food ruining my gainz. mental laziness spills over so don’t get lazy

Okay. I’m writing it down in public. I’m going to consistently write twice a week. Thursdays and Sundays.

Today… I quit on the treadmill. It was… disappointing. I’m not gonna be too hard on myself since I hit a pretty big milestone last week. I hit 16 km/h for 7 minutes 2 days ago. I took a day off to rest… and I was expecting to hit 16.3 for 7 minutes today… but I quit at 6 minutes. =__=. Sigh. My fitbit said my heartrate was a measly 172. The thing is.. I know that my body can handle it… yet I mentally gave up. And that’s the worse.

Recently I’ve been farming FFXV so much. I’ve killed Angelus probably 200+ times. I got 9x V2s already and I think I’m gonna stop. 9x V2 and 3x ribbons for my 12 accessory slots. Heh. Man. I got really obsessed with farming my FFXV v2 gear for some reason. It totally distracted me from work. It’s one week from January 29th. Which means January is almost fucking over. Shit. I’m gonna get my android app out in January. That’s the plan. I still believe that I’ll be able to do it. But shit… I took a pretty big break from FFXV.

I gotta work on practicing more Japanese. I think I’m at a level of fluency where I can communicate brokenly, but at the same time. Whenever I’m with people that speak english/chinese I have a tendency to revert to a language I’m actually fluent in instead of practicing Japanese.

Recently… It feels like I’m always on the edge of being sick. And what happens is on my ‘rest’ days I tend to go out with my friends and take the subway. I think taking the subway and going out just makes me sicker. Bleh. I think city life is full of sick people cause it’s a never ending cycle of infection. Blargh.

Well. Gonna clear the final mega dungeons in FFXV before doing new game+ for super easy ap farm and a 2nd pair of zwill crossblades. I gotta give ignis a pair after all. Heh.

A raw paste from my personal diary.

so i was walking to the grocery store and i was thinking about my ffxv grind and how i’m looking forward to spending like 10 hours getting all the gear, farming ap, and reaching level 99. even though i know it’s fucking pointless. s ure. it’s fun to be able to one shot everything… but the grind is just stupid. and yet i enjoy the ffxv grind. why can’t i enjoy the grind that is working on my own projects? well… i do. but not to the extent of enjoying the gri nd of ffxv. and i think… the reason is that video games and ffxv. effort / grind leads to direct results. i’m 100% confident that if i spend time, i’ll hit level 99 and get all the best gear. but in reality… there isn’t the guar antee. hard work. grind. all of that can end up being worthless. and so… without that guarantee… it makes it har d to stay motivated. so.. all the best people have faith in themselves. just belief that all the hard work will lead to success. but faith isn’t the only thing that’ll lead to success. it’s like. you can have faith and fail, but you won’t succeed without faith because without faith you won’t be able to endure the grind. so it’s like… back to th e uncertainty. i guess.. i gotta work on having more faith. lazy work and effort leads to results. i do believe that . and yet… it’s like… still not the same. the effort of real life grind vs the game grind. damn. i guess that’s why so many people are whales in video games.

My last commit was December 24th. That’s when I last wrote code. So I basically took a 3 week vacation… and recently I still haven’t been coding. But it’s okay.

I think I use to be too hard on myself. So I’m just gonna chill and take it easy. I’m gonna believe that I’ll naturally gravitate towards making my dream a reality. I still been having residue sickness… today I went to the gym and actually coughed on the treadmill. I’m so much weaker compared to my peak before my hiatus. I also been missing dance classes. Jpop dance classes has restarted…. I’m looking forward to it. Hehe. The other day I coincidentally went to the gym during jpop dance class time and ran into my instructor who gave me a personal invitation hehe.

Oh man. The new years resolutions are in full swing at the gym. I guess it’s good for them… I hope that they make it to the end of the year. But for me… it’s bad. I had to line up to take a shower… it was a bunch of naked guys dicks out in a line waiting to shower / seat shower. -.-“ Not something I’m used to… but I guess I’m getting accustomed to it.

I started playing FFXV more… I think I’m just gonna do the first playthrough in English… because otherwise it’s kinda annoying. I mean. Hmmmm. I guess I’ll stick with Japanese first. But the point is… I looked at the guide for getting Ultima weapon. Apparently you can get it in chapter 3… and now I can’t wait to get it. I had to switch to english to realize that cid was asking me to unequip my sword before he would upgrade it. Anyways, initial thoughts are FFXV is a worthy sequel to FFXV. It’s better than FFXIII. I’m gonna pretend that FFXIII didn’t exist… FFXII was an amazing game imo. So I’m hoping FFXV will be just as good. I already know it isn’t as good as Persona 5. FFXV just doesn’t feel polished. The long ass loading screens, the stupid quest exp system to be more western like. I wish they just went full Japan like Persona 5. Persona 5 takes place using the fucking tokyo subway system. Like damn. Can you get any more Japanese than that? Yet… it’s a masterpiece.

I need to schedule a haircut… it’ll be my last haircut before my Atsushi. It’s still too cold… else I’d Atsushi it up now. Man. I had… Aburasoba today. OMG. It’s like… so good. It’s like ramen without the soup. Different from tsukemen though. Shiet… Japan life is just so amazing. I seriously think it’s too good… like. When Japan ends… I think that’s one of the reasons that I’m almost anti working. Like. If Japan goes perfect then I can theoretically just Japan forever. But on the other hand… the future is uncertain… and uncertainty makes me lazy. In a way. I guess I gotta embrace uncertainty and yet still work hard. /shrug.

When I’m fully healthy. Hehe. For now… gonna play some FFXV… after watching the GSL. Shit. I’m watching the GSL in korea time. Japan time == Korea time. Damn. Like. I’m watching GSL live… without struggling. It’s right around dinner time. My life is so good. I’m so thankful. Thanks to past alan I’m able to live such a good life. I gotta work hard so that future alan can live a great life. heh.

So I was suppose to wrap up my annual retrospective today. What actually happened was my new years resolution of messaging everyone in my diary. Turns out… there was a lot of people. And a lot of them responded, and responding to the responses took some time. I’ll say about an hour. But that’s not what took the most time. I started watching code geass on netflix. Omg. It’s still so good. It’s a masterpiece. I’m watching it Japanese subtitled and it’s crazy. Well. I know the plot inside out so it’s more like I’m learning the japanese way of speaking. It’s just… code geass is so good.

But honestly, I feel like a wasted a whole day watching code geass. On one hand… I appreciate it. I enjoyed it. I told myself I wouldn’t be hard on myself. I’m still borderline sick. But maybe my recovery is slower because I’m enjoying myself too much. I spent my days sick just play Persona 5 and watching anime. It’s so… enjoyable. It’s almost like I don’t want to go back to work. But it’s not work… since I really enjoy it. I have found that I’ve struggled to… meditate. I still meditate… but I struggle to focus partially because I’m sick… but also partially because Persona 5 and anime is just so… simulating?

One of the lessons that I’ve learned is that… I always get out of self prescribed laziness. So it’s probably good. I should keep letting myself watch anime and eat food. I ordered two donburi’s for my meals and I didn’t leave my house. OMG. 12 manga volume of code breakers arrived today. It only cost me $15. For 12 volumes. So about $2 per volume. My mind is blown. I spend $15 for 3 hours at a manga cafe. Shit. I can start building my own manga cafe almost. rofl.

I definitely feel really spoiled. Having the manga… it’s so nice. Just arrive to my door today. Ordering delicious food. I gotta pinch myself to make sure this is reality. I mean. Wow. www. Okay. I guess I’ll write out my annual retrospective properly now that I’ve expressed how lucky I am.

Emotion - For some reason I still have a fear of rejection. Even though I know that my fear is irrational and my anxiety doesn’t reflect reality. I mean. Logically, I believe that there’s nothing that I can’t handle. But things still scare me. It’s weird that I have a fear of rejection despite the fact that I’ve been rejected by so many jobs and so many girls. /shrug. After writing the relationship part. One thing I want is to be more honest with myself. And recognize when I’m running away due to fear. The other is… I wanna allow myself to be more vulnerable I guess. It’s easy to be a selfish asshole… or is it? One of my friends, her new years resolution was to be more selfish. I think… I’m already selfish enough… so it’s probably time for me to… be nicer? I think I’m already too nice though. I dunno. I think… just being more honest and open with myself and others is my emotion goal for the year. That and recognizing real fear from fake fear.

Physical - I’m close to the best physical shape of my life. I can run a 7 minute mile as a warm up now… and my goal for this year is the 5 minute mile. I’ve been going to the gym 5 days a week in Japan and I’m diligently training for the human flag. I think I’ll finally hit one of my life goals… when I can do the human flag this year.

Relationship - I think… I’m autustic. LOL. It’s like I’m KY (can’t read the environment) but rather I think I need more mental effort to read the environment. Hmmm. Even that’s not true… when I was burned out and tired I could still read other people’s emotions and grasp subcontext in conversations. But here’s a funny story. When I was leaving SF. I was talking to a friend of mine… and I was like “Come visit Tokyo you can crash at my place”. And then he was like “Yeah, I wasn’t thinking about visiting Japan but now that a friend is there I’ll try and plan it”. And I was like. Wow. What a coincidence. Another one of your friends is going to Japan?! I didn’t say that… and it was like… months later when I realized “Shit. I’m the friend of his that’s going to Japan”. Uhhhh. I guess maybe that makes me KY. But I’m not gonna use autisim as an excuse. It’s self diagnosed and I’ve thrived in social situations… so it doesn’t really matter. I just think that it’s interesting. That was a pretty big digression… mabe that should’ve been in the emotional section. The other thing about relationships is that… I think for my time in Japan I’ll try and have a serious girlfriend. But not only that… I want to be more vulnerable? I think I’ve approached all my relationships in the past.. not caring because I didn’t want to expose myself. In all my relationships I never really exposed myself. I think I’ve read too much on negotiating and how you always want to negotiate from a position of strength with a good batna or whatever. In reality… you always have an alternative. So. I guess I’m gonna be even weaker? But… I want to be strong. hmmm. Well. I’ll see how that turns out I guess… expose myself for heartbreak more. lmao. That’s a quirky new years resolution.

Financial - Shit. I did pretty bad here. Well. Aside from the fact that I quit my job and have no income… my spending in Japan is basically unmetered with no budget. The good thing is I planned for this… so it’s not like I’ll run out of money. The other thing is… I was really stupid in the financial market. Man. I lost alot of money to this raging bull. The thing is… the bull market now… it just defies logic because everywhere I go and everyone I meet… it seems like everyone is struggling to make money. And yet stocks keep going up. Dafaq. It’s really like… the market can stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent. The funny thing is that… I think I lost around $10k. That’s uh… really messed up. It’s not even the 10k that bothers me… of the 10k… probably 8k of it was a repeated mistake. Like. It’s the same mistake I made previously. Urgh. Man. Maybe because I like Never Learn by JJ Lin I purposely never learn? Nah. I think I learned. I paid a 10k investment lesson.

Spiritual - I started meditating everyday in Japan. I’m also reading this meditation book. It basically outlines the 10 levels of meditation. Once you reach level 10… your god tier… or dalai lama tier. I’m not gonna lie… I’m meditating for really selfish reasons. I want to be god tier. The way I see it is… anything that you can achieve through drugs you can achieve through meditation. Marjiuana is great. But imagine you could be in a permanent marijuana state… through meditation. Or Molly. Shit. Molly is an indescribable feeling… and you can always feel like that. Without the negative side effects… through meditation. I’m probably only level 5…. but apparently you can reach level 10 through 3 years or so of dedicated meditation. Meditation actually helped me out a lot. It’s helpful for stopping the negative spirals… and just recognizing your fears and emotions. It’s definitely one of the meta skills. Working out and meditation is like the two pillars that support everything else that I want to achieve.

Time - I spent the first quarter of the year… just being super busy with work. Most of my diary entries were about me napping and missing workouts and yoga sessions and then beating myself up over it. That and getting high on marijuana and then writing down my brilliant insights. Food is so delicious etc. It’s funny though. One of the posts was me really looking forward to Persona 5, Star Ocean 5, and Final Fantasy XV. Persona 5… I really did enjoy every moment of it. Nerd chills man. But I have Star Ocean 5 and Final Fantasy XV right behind me… and I’m choosing to watch code geass in Japanese. Watch code geass for like… the 7th time. Well. I guess it’s the first time since I’m watching it with japanese subtitles. It’s crazy but… I actually didn’t start shuffling until this January. I met so many cool people through the SF Shuffle group. Also Miles is just super cool in general. He plays guitar/percussion/piano… yeah I have a huge man crush on Miles.

2nd quarter - I went to dominican republic for my cousin’s wedding. That was so much fun. I surfed for the first time and went ziplining. You know what’s funny… both activities were so much fun when I went. But the thought of ziplining.. I distinctly remember worrying about ziplining. Watching the video’s and the first person point of view of ziplining… I kept thinking I’d fuck up and die. Hehehe. It’s like… little kids go ziplining… but I’m the retard that’s gonna die. I was already starting to … uh not want to leave SF. I had the most beautiful studio. It was so fucking prime and it was rent controlled. Work was a 10 minute walk. I’m living the silicon valley dream! But I knew that I had to leave… because… if I didn’t it would just get harder and harder. I think people give up on their dreams because… the alternative is certainty. Certainty is good. It’s so comforting. I also went to Phoenix, Arizona. That was pretty fun.

3rd quarter - travelling the US while I wrapped things up in SF. I went to EDC. Going to EDC was… it was really fun. It was also a really strange event because it’s like… the think and grow rich came true. You know how when you have a dream or a thought… and it just stays in your mind? And then somehow the universe hands you a golden opportunity? I really wanted to go to EDC but none of my close friends were going… and I didn’t want to plan a trip solo or travel all by myself to a big event like EDC. Then I found out my dance friend was going to go cause her sister wanted to spend time with her. Then in May… as I’m talking with my shuffle friends they ask me about renting a car for them since their under 25… and I’m like what for? Oh… they going to EDC. Shit.. so of course I ask them about it. Is there extra space in the car? What about the hotel? Turns out there is extra space in both the car AND the hotel. Shit. Ok. I’m gonna go. Just gotta buy a ticket. Go to work the next day and I was like… I’m probably gonna go to EDC since the stars aligned blah blah blah. Coworker was like. Oh. I want to sell my ticket. I’ll sell it for the original price that I bought at the earliest possible time. DAFAQ?!?!?! I thought that I was in an anime… that level of coincidence… it’s just… I can’t believe it’s reality. But that was reality.

Besides EDC I went to LA for anime expo and just to hang out. It’s funny. In LA… I retraced my steps from the year before to end up at the EXACT same restaurant and I think I ordered the exact same thing. I think… I was really stressed from work. They say when you work a lot.. your memory goes whack. Anyways… this was 2016 july. And I didn’t remember that I went to that spot in 2015 july. I ended up in the exact same location ordering the exact same thing. Taking lyft/uber to and from the same place. Well. My housing was different. And of course I was a different person. This was after I quit work so I was a lot more chill. It’s just.. crazy that I would not remember and end up in the same place. I went to new york for like… one week. But that one week was so much fun. My friend took time off work to show me around. I feel so spoiled and lucky. New york is so beautiful. So much media / film takes place in new york. Walking in central park and grand central station… it’s like being transported into the movie. I definitely want to live in NYC and learn the subway lines etc. To be NYC fluent. That’s something that I want for myself in the future. And finally I returned to Toronto. My home of 23 years. It’s funny. I was only in Toronto for… 6 weeks but it felt so long. Sigh. My time in Toronto I was living with family. It’s weird. In SF… I walked from my house to the gym and it takes like 25 minutes. In toronto… the gym is also 25 minutes away yet I take the car. It’s like… walking is dangerous or something. Or rather… I think your brain is different depending on the location… that’s my current train of thought. It’s like… when I go back to Toronto… I regress to back when I was a kid. Maybe because I spent most of my adult life in SF and most of my time as a kid in Toronto. I just feel weak and kid like in Toronto. Or maybe because I was living in my parent’s living room… and that just feels sad as opposed to having my own place in the heart of downtown in a major city. /shrug. That’s weird. That having your own place makes you think and act so differently.

4th quarter - I finally arrive to Japan. I ended 2016 on a great note and feeling. On Christmas day… I went to bbq in a public park, and then we went to an onsen. Then we went and got famous delicous ramen and karaoke. My American senpai visited me and he treated me to gourmet yakiniku. It was $250 for the both of us. The beef was so good. It literally melts in your mouth. It’s so think and flavorful… yakiniku is different from steak. But the taste is just so good. Then on new years eve… I went to karaoke with new friends. Japanese futago to boku no america no senpai de. It was so much fun singing Arashi/Exile/Deep/Eminem. I think my english has gotten slower though… I struggled hard with eminem when it used to be so easy. So that was basically my last week of 2016. But when I first moved here… my diary entries were kinda sad.

I moved into a sharehouse initially and the conditions were really bad. The ceilings were super low and I would hit my head at night when I took a piss, the place was kinda dirty. But I was living the dream in Japan. Finding housing when you don’t speak Japanese… is pretty damn hard. When you’re unemployed… no one wants to rent you their place because Japanese favor stablility over all else and not having a job means your unstable and worthless. After finding my place I had to furnish it… and that was a struggle because I couldn’t order from nitori/ikea online since it’s all in fucking japanese and I was illiterate. Even now… I’d say I’m mostly illiterate. Hmmm. One of my goals is to reach the level of fluency to be able to order from nitori online and have it shipped to my place. I didn’t have a bed… and when I first moved in there were roaches. Fuck. Roaches. Roaches scared the shit outta me. I think I was in fight or flight mode at night because I had to kill a roach my first night here. Now… I’m used to it. I’m like desensitized to roaches. It’s like. Fuck. A roach. Sigh. I’ll go spray it to death and then clean up.

I only had one friend when I moved here and in Japan everyone everywhere only speaks Japanese. So it was a very lonely and isolating experience. I mean… even though it was lonely and isolating… it wasn’t too bad. I mean. I think once I set up my TV and PS4 I was pretty happy. But then playing Yakuza 0… I understood nothing initially. Things were so fast. And text made no sense. It was weird. I told myself to just play / watch anime / practice talking to people. Eventually it’ll click. I just had faith I guess. I remember going to sign up for a gym. The person was like… if you sign up online we’ll waive the $30 fee. I was like… the online is too hard. Then she’s like… bring a friend that’ll help you with the forms. I just went - fuck it. I can figure this out. It took me like 45 minutes to fill out the paperwork to join the gym in Japanese but I did it. Same with my ID card… it took me a solid 3 hours of struggle and waiting in line but I did it.

What’s weird is… looking back at the struggles… when I was struggling. It did feel like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I’d never be able to speak Japanese and converse with Japanese people. Yet… now I can do it. I can feel my Japanese just getting better and better. Even though I was struggling with the FFXV tutorial. You have to HOLD triangle to teleport to a place… I kept pressing triangle. Too jokes. I guess the 2 months of struggle in Japan made me stronger and better. Just having faith… turned out to be the correct decision.

I guess it did help. It reinforced what I knew. It’s always better to believe and to be optimistic. Beating yourself up is never the correct solution… even though I still tend to beat myself up. I think… that’s the consequence of growith asian parents. They just beat you up verbally when you fail. I don’t think that’s healthy… but I can’t blame my family / parents anymore since I’m an adult now. But still… it’s hard to reprogram that voice. Maybe I’m actually crazy since I have an abusive voice that talks to me. lol

Anyways. On the whole - 2016 was fucking amazing. I met so many new people, went to so many new places. Almost everything that I set out to do… I did. I’m living the dream in Japan. There’s pocky in my place, green tea ice cream in my fridge. Onigiri is 5 minutes away. Ramen is 10 minutes away. Manga is on my desk. Final Fantasy XV is sitting on my PS4 stand. I don’t even. Life is fucking good. I’m really thankful for the opportunity that I’ve given myself. I have ambitious goals for releasing apps in 2017. I have faith that I’ll do it. I’ve envisioned it for so long… like how I’ve envisioned EDC. I think the stars will align and I’ll make it work. I’m super excited.

What did I lose this year? I lost my amazing home in San Francisco. The california life was so good. I’m not going to lie. I think most of my social circle is in california… but it’s a choice I’ve made. You have to make sacrifices in order to achieve. So in reality I guess I didn’t lose that much.

What went great? I moved to Japan. I’m living in Tokyo. It’s been my dream since I’ve found out about the Japanese/Canadian working holiday visa. I have a decent Japanese social network of people to hang out with and I built it from one friend that was introduced to me by another friend. So I came to Tokyo with one friend… and now I’ve built a decent social network from scratch. That’s pretty badass. I did that without speaking Japanese much.. that’s pretty mind blowing. I guess my years of training in SF paid off.

What sucked? This might be beating myself up. But I don’t think that’s the case. The reality is… I didn’t take advantage of all the opportunities. Effort. Only you can judge your effort. I know that there were cases when I could’ve tried harder and done more. And… it’s disappointing. It’s weird because… even say 10% effort or 20% effort.. is probably better than 100% effort of me from 3 years ago. And yet… since I didn’t give 100% effort… it makes me sad. It makes me sad when I KNOW I can do better and yet I don’t. It’s strange. It’s like when fat people eat junk food when they know they should go on a diet. That’s really frustrating. I was talking to a friend / mentor. I guess… what he says makes sense so I’ll write it here. You shouldn’t beat yourself up. A person has defects and mistakes. A rational person corrects said defects and mistakes. So by definition, the defects and mistakes you’re left with are the hardest to correct. /shrug. That’s deep.

What do I wish was different? That I mapped out my decision making more. There are so many choices and it’s hard to choose the correct choice when you don’t have a framework or priorities. I could work on my app, or I could go party with my friend whose visiting from America. It’s hard to make the decision unless I know what I’m optimizing for. There are times I wish I worked vs times I wish that I went out partying. I think I codified my 2017 goals a lot better though. So that should be good.

Overall. 2016 was fucking great. There were definitely some low points. But it’s through the lowest of lows that you get to experience the highest of highs. I think… I’m starting to see and believe in the cycle of life. Everything is a circle. That’s why the circle and pi is a magically number. Also… pi is really delicious.

I’m gonna end by writing myself a self reminder and a note. What you look for will be there… it’s your RAS or whatever. I keep searching for roaches and then when a roach appears it’s like validation. It’s time to stop looking for failure and pain and time to focus on the good. Look forward to the good moments and enjoy them properly. When you try to look for things that scare you… everything fucking scares you. But when you look with a curious and non-judgemental mind… you find that whatever it was that was scary… wasn’t that scary after all. Whenever I just calmly and non-judgementally looked at my problems and fears… impossible starting to look easy. So let that be a reminder to myself for 2017. Stop making it hard for yourself and just accept that it’ll be easy. Look. It’ll work out. It has worked out so amazingly so far. You’re in fucking Japan. The important thing is the action not the result. Results follow the correct action. Happy 2017 everyone!

I started going over my diary entries for 2016. It’s… kinda crazy. The early parts of 2016… it happened this fucking year. Yet it felt almost like a lifetime ago. Reading the thoughts of my January self… wow. I think I was really stressed / focused about work. I would take naps at 10pm and then fail to sleep at night. Struggle to make it to yoga class because I couldn’t wake up despite having enough sleep and the weather being warm.

I’m still recovering from the cold. I got sick… around christmas time.. and it’s knocked me out up until now. I think I’m about 50% recovered. I spent most of today just going over my 2016… and reviewing it. There were actually some dark times despite me ending 2016 on an amazing note. Specifically, in October/November I was struggling hard with the language. I came to Japan having only one friend and struggling to read karaoke in katakana. What’s funny is that… looking back… I was really hard on myself. Which isn’t the answer. Sure, you can always be better and work harder. The way I see it is, when you have a problem you either elevate yourself to solve the problem, or you reduce the problem to something of your level. I can’t really force myself to speak perfect Japanese.. so it’s fine to just meet bilingual people. Although I do eventually want to learn Japanese via Japanese. I think I have sufficient Japanese to bootstrap my Japanese learnings to learn like a kid now.

I only put 2 new years resolution for myself. One is to release 10 apps, 5 android, 5 ios. And the other is to be more true to myself. Identify when I’m doing or not doing something for the real reason. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s laziness. But the initial reasoning… generally isn’t the truest one. I think with meditation and metacognition. That’ll make things easier.

I spent christmas and new years eve doing karaoke with new japanese friends. It was so much fun. Especially the new years eve where we had a nice 6th floor view too. I feel so spoiled. I’m definitely living the dream now. I think the other thing is.. I need to be more focused. The sickness probably is gonna end up taking out 2 solid weeks of productivity. So I should work more whenever I can. Well. I guess this is a v1 brain dump of what I memory based recollection of 2016. I’ll probably do a proper one and post a retro with goals. What’s funny is… 2016 was… so jam packed for me looking back. So much happened. But during the day to day it’s hard to see the amazing things that I’ve accomplished and how much I’ve grown. I guess you gotta take a step back sometimes. That’s the whole point of the new years retrospective.

I was surprised when the guy I follow said it takes 2~3 days to do an annual retrospective with a new yearly plan. I guess he was right after all. Plus… I’ve been writing diary entries pretty consistently so I have a lot of data to work with. It’s so crazy. The person that I felt on a certain day… even on October. He’s like so different from current me. I think… it’s almost cyclical in nature. Life is a circle. To be continued.

I’ve been sick for the past 3 days. It kinda blows my mind. I mean… I haven’t been sick since… probably 2 years? Or maybe it’s just selective memory. Wow. I’ve been sick for about 4 days. That’s crazy.

I went to comiket… despite being sick. I was coughing really badly, but then I went to the gym and ran a mile without coughing… so then I decided that I was good enough to go to comiket with my friend. Comiket… genshiken in real life. Lol. Heh. It’s like a dream come true… except I think I’m already beyond that dream. I didn’t buy anything and the experience of the crowds.. bleh. But comiket was right next to odaiba which is where the gundam statue is so I got to visit the gundam after comiket. Then after that… I went to luxury yakiniku. My senpai from america treated me to luxury yakiniku. Hue hue. It was like $150… I feel so lucky. Before that we had $5 donburi for lunch. While I definitely enjoyed yakiniku more… I think if you price enjoyment/dollars the donburi is much better for me.

I spent the last 3 days basically just playing persona 5 on new game+ in safety mode. I miss new game+… it’s so satisfying to one shot everything. Especially shit that killed me in the original playthrough. It’s like… boom. I’m back for revenge. loool. But seriously, I was suppose to wrap up the ios app and get that submitted… and I’m gonna just give myself a two week extension… cause the new years is a time for me to focus on the macro and the big direction. 2016 is pretty much in the books… I’m really excited to review my 2016 compared to what I originally predicted / wanted. Heh. My rough guess is that.. I hit all the major ones while also being overly ambitious in my plans resulting in too much unreached goals.

I’m thankful for Maishoku. It’s the eat24 of Japan. I wish I could use ubereats, but that’s only in the shibuya area. I ordered two donburi’s to my house for $20. It was delicious and it arrived in 30 minutes. I didn’t have to leave my house at all today. The shut in life… is the dream. lol. but seriously, the donburi was so delicious. I just had chocolate chip cookies for dessert, I have pocky in my house. And lots of green tea ice cream. heh.

This is a thankful post and a short report I guess. My new years week is… going to be interesting since I already have plans with people. But besides that, I want to remind myself to work hard when I’m healthy. I’ve been taking it really easy since I’ve been sick. Just relaxing and playing persona 5… that’s fine - but at the same time I gotta focus more on working when I’m healthy. I’ve been taking it for granted… since it seems that I’m always healthy… I can always wait until I feel even better / more in the zone before I work… but that’s not the case. Meditation -> focus -> work when you can leads to results.

Three months in Japan… I wouldn’t say I’m even close to fluent… which was my initial goal. But at the same time… being able to understand 90% of persona 5… heh. I feel pretty badass. In that way maybe I exceeded my goals. lol. todo - work and push myself more when I’m healthy and don’t take my perfect health for granted. Just enjoy each moment as it is :)

Yesterday I spent Christmas with my some new friends from Tokyo. It was the earliest that I’ve woken up recently. I woke up at around 9am… and then took 4 trains to get to Chiba. I actually got lost… because bad data / bad google / bad line maps made me walk to the wrong point. I took an one hour detour and just walked around chiba before I ended up at the park. That was an interesting experience. Lucky I bought my headphones… and dressed warmly. I could barely feel my fingers at the end.. but totally worth it.

We had yakiniku in this park and I got to meet many new people who only spoke Japanese. Yoshi is the friend who invited me to the BBQ and only him and Emi spoke English so I was forced to use my Japanese. That was so much fun. Hehehe. Just being forced to use Japanese… it’s exactly why I moved to Japan in order to improve. BBQ was delicious.

Then we went to a hotspring. I got the true Japanese hotspring experience. Heh. So apparently, the hotspring only cost 1000yen. I feel scammed. When my sister visited we went to a touristy hotspring which cost like… 4k yen. I guess yelp reviews help get the foreigners.

Post hot spring… some of us decided to karaoke. I got to experience Japanese non taxi driving… and then we had ramen at a famous place. I could actually read the menu. Except I read the kanji wrong. Zenbu hairi miso. Everything miso ramen. But then I learned that it’s zenbu riri miso. :D getting japanese lessons from a local. life is good.

went to karaoke. still struggling to read at singing speed. it’s mostly the kanji. but karaoke is actually a good kanji learning experience. everyone was so good at karaoke I was kinda intimidated. but it was so much fun. ended up taking two trains to get back home. the seibu to get to takadanobaba and then the yamanote - my favorite train. left house at 10 and got back at 11:30… so about a 13 hour trip. hehe. life in japan. christmas in japan… I’m living the dream. and for that I’m so thankful.

In my last post I wrote about disappointment… cause I know that I can do better. Christmas was pretty amazing. I also finished Yakuza 6 and uh… I’ll write a review for both Persona 5 and Yakuza 6 sometimes soon. The thing with Persona 5 was that… I actually beat the game at essentially the max level. My gear was actually really shitty. Before starting FFXV… I started looking at the ideal gear already… cause you don’t wanna miss the zodiac spear*. I think that actually ruins the enjoyment of the game when you do that though. I mean… I enjoyed p5 so much without using a guide… except for the strength social link. I mean… for establishing social links.

I’m thankful that I’m in Japan. I’m thankful for all my Japanese friends. I’m thankful that I’m living the dream. I get to wake up… meditate. Eat cheap amazing japanese food. Write code and build my own apps. Watch anime and play video games. Life is good. It’s almost the new year. For January 1st~3rd… I’ll be working on the masterplan. To make sure I make the best use of my time in Japan.

Sigh. Okay. This is kinda embarassing to write. But I’m writing it for myself.. actually I lied. It’s not really embarassing because I don’t really get embarassed easily… it’s more. Disappointing. Like. I know that I can do so much better. So it’s more like disappointment. Sigh. It’s funny. Just before writing this… I read a post of mine in 2015. Of when I did the isolation tank. The isolation tank let me see I guess some bad thoughts and beliefs that I had stuck. And reading the post from 2015… I feel like I’m such a different person. Like - I improved so much. I’m much more positive and self loving. And thankful. I’m doing daily meditation and life is good. Anyways… while life is good… there’s always areas that I can work on. But something that I know and still get wrong. It’s disappointing. It’s not even to the level of rationalizing bad behaviour… it’s to the level of self sabatage.

So the other day. I was getting a coffee with this cute Japanese girl. She was raised in the UK as a child so she speaks english with a UK accent. The UK accent is probably my favorite english accent to listen to. So just listening to her speak was enough to bring a smile to my face. There I was… having coffee with a cute Japanese girl who speaks near perfect english with a UK accent. She’s a nurse. It’s like a dream come true. A date with a cute japanese girl AND she speaks english with UK accent AND she’s a nurse. I don’t even. It’s like… literally a dream come true? Well. Kinda.

I told myself that I would.. enjoy my time in Japan more. To focus on the positives. I think a lot of the times… I had it really good. In SF… I was really spoiled. Life was really good. Looking back… my time in SF was really great. It’s like. Toronto -> SF. SF was literally a dream come true. But when I was there… all I could see was the negatives. Things that bothered me. Meditation and life has taught me to appreciate the journey. I can retroactively appreciate SF… but it would’ve been so much better if I had appreciated it in the moment. Anyways. There I was… talking to this really cute girl and trying to just enjoy the moment. But all the thoughts in my head were… it’s like the voices of anxiety and unworthiness. I was aware… like I recognized the environment… and the action. But I chose the wrong action. Basically I self sabataged myself. I knew that she liked me. She took time out of her rare time off to spend time with me… and yet I acted atypically. In a self sabataging way. It’s like… I knew that I was doing the wrong behaviour. and… I just kept making it worse. Urgh. I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like… instead of letting her reject me… I rejected myself. And that’s the worse.

I knew what I was doing was wrong. I recognized that it was going downhill. Yet I still self sabataged. I stepped on the gas when I could still recover from the situation. And I guess that’s what bothers me the most. Knowing that I’m better than that. Okay. Time to take a step back and write about the good things.

I’m so glad that I moved to Japan all alone. I moved here barely speaking the language with one warm introduction that turned into a friend. That’s pretty badass. I attended meetups and went out to events to make new friends and built a social network from scratch. That’s like… unthinkable level from just 3 years ago. Me from 3 years ago… would think that I’m a super saiyan. I care about the girl.. and what I screwed up. But at the same time… I strongly believe that I can meet another cute Japanese girl that I really like and go on a date with her. But the fact that I self sabataged to that extent… it just disappointing.

At this point it feels like rambling. Well. I know that I’m better. That I can and will do better. And I guess it’s time to move on. Just a funny story for the future I guess. For when future me looks back… and goes. Wow. I was so bad back then… but now I’m so much better. I do believe that I’ll get better and better. Things will get better because I make it better. Heh. too jokes.

最近ペルソナ５たくさん遊んでる。超楽しみ、思いえより以上で楽しみ。でも僕終わりの時間もう知ってるだから選ぶことちょっと別です。

今日抹茶アイス食べました、嬉しそう。簡単なことでも嬉しいかった。

お爺さん心臓悪い、僕は同じことで思います。たまたま心臓麻痺の気持ち、死ぬのようにでも絶対死にたくない。変の思い出した、例えば僕が死ぬ僕の体たぶん数週間後で見つかった。まその時僕はもういないだから無意味な。

村上先生すげ。僕の日本語まだまだです。

Well. I haven’t written here in awhile… just because I’ve been keeping my laptop in OSX mode and I could only previously write to my blog via linux on my laptop. I’ve been trying to work more on the iOS app and the easiest way to do that is to make my life easy. So I always leave my laptop with OS X and Xcode open.

Persona 5 is blowing my mind. It’s just… so good. I mean… I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying it. That said there are some downsides. The classroom questions are… sad for me since my Japanese is lacking. I don’t want to play with a guide so I end up failing all the classroom questions.

I started streaming on youtube but I already got two strikes from atlus. Some guy from the company manually flagged my videos. Then he manually flagged the leftover videos he missed and now I have two strikes on youtube from the same company / person. Ugh. I guess I’m not meant to be a youtube star lol. Anyways… I switched to twitch to stream my video gaming. It’s mostly there for me to rewatch and learn Japanese.

I just had green tea ice cream. It was fucking delicious. That’s going to be my heal memory for the day. Just me enjoying delicious green tea ice cream and listening to beautiful music. I was feeling like I was getting a heart attack… I think I inherited the erratic heart beat from my grandfather. He would always be like… shit I’m getting a heart attack and then ask me to take him to the hospital. Then when he got there his heart would be back to normal. I feel that too.. it’s like my heart is beating really fast / struggling. But then it passes and then I’m alive. I always think I’m gonna die… but then I know that I’ll live. And if I did die from a heart attack - did you know your heart can randomly stop for no reason? It’s statistically possible. You could get a heart attack technically at any age. Anyways… so the weird heart feeling made me think of death. If I died in Tokyo… I think it’d probably be a few weeks / months before someone found my body lol. That’s kinda dark. But at the same time if I died… I don’t think I’d care if anyone / no one found my body.

Back to the greatness of Persona 5. I spoiled myself by looking at some of the guides. Basically you play the game day by day… and I looked up the final day of the game. Spoilers below: I kept thinking the game would end in December. I’m currently in October. I’m like… shit. I won’t have enough time to max my social links. Or my skills… so I’m thinking… how can I just prepare myself for new game+. In reality… the game ends somewhere in March/April. So I have an extra 90 days of amazing gameplay and grinding. But… what I wanted to mention was that the way I approach persona should be the same as real life. You just play it day by day. And each day you try to improve your stats / relationships. You don’t know when you’ll game over or when the game will end. It goes back to death. I mean… if I could know what day I’d die… I think I’d definitely play it differently. But since I don’t. I gotta play it day by day. I guess… I’m disappointed that I spoiled myself and changed my approach to the game. To optimize and whatever. The game is all about having fun… and I was having so much fun. Until I thought the ending was in December and I started rushing towards the ending. Rushing the game made me enjoy it less.

I’ve been struggling with the initial screen on iOS for the longest fucking time. Programming… is a really weird thing I think. Because it’s like.. everything is easy when you figure it out. It’s impossible / retiredly hard because you don’t know. Until you figure it out. Almost every problem is a 0 -> 1 problem. You go from nothing… to knowing it. It’s compounded when you’re working with new technologies. So basically… I was being an idiot. I tried to build an iOS app the fancy way. Fancy being modular, following best practices. When you first start… just build it shitty. The first step should always be keeping it simple and easy. I got stuck… and really sad. Well. Sad isn’t really the word… it’s more like. I put in effort with no visible results. And then I went fuck it. Destruction -> start anew. Then I figured it out when I started anew.

Wow. It’s already December. That’s kinda crazy. I still need to get the iOS app built and shipped for December. Yakuza 6 and Final Fantasy XV are in my backlog. I think I’ll play Yakuza 6 first since FFXV is out worldwide and everyone is already streaming it. Also I have really fond memories of playing Yakuza 5 last December. When I took my 3 weeks off from work just to play Starcraft 2 and Yakuza. That was dope. What’s more dope is that I’m fucking living in Japan. Damn. It still blows my mind.

I had chocolate chip melon bread. Also chocolate melon bread with chocolate chip and chocolate creme. It kinda blows my mind that I’m playing Persona 5… in Japanese. So far I’m understanding like 90% of it. I understand pretty much all of the main story. Well… I fill in the Alan translations of when I don’t understand. But I’m pretty sure my guess is pretty accurate. There’s also a lot of fluff / general dialog that you can just guess.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in manga cafe just reading shounen since… it’s a good way to learn kanji. Learn from the furigana. The furigana is fucking small. Like… I struggle to read it with glasses and with the book like… right next to my face. My uh… manga sense is so strong. That I can predict what will happen with crazy accuracy. I started reading magi and at first the first volume took me like 3 weeks. Then the second volume took me 2. The 3rd volume I finished in one 3 hour sitting. I could probably read it faster if I skimmed… but I make an effort to read each symbol. I could predict the page when a character was gonna die. You know when an old person is like - I want peace and I’ll be a nice person. I gotta trust the other side blah blah blah. My life has been good. I gotta protect the future -> They gonna die. It’s basically their death monologue. Well. All stories basically follow the same archetype. I guess that’s why they call it shounen.

I talked to the NHK guy today. I was really fucking confused. He knocked on my door and was like. I’m from NHK. You have a TV? I’m like yeah. He’s like. You gotta pay. Get your credit card and sign contract. I’m like. DAFAQ?! He hands me a pamphlet in English. I read it over and it says you need to have a receiver with the intent of receiving a signal. So I’m like. It says I don’t have to pay because I’m not receiving shit. He’s like no. You gotta pay. You have TV? You gotta pay. I wasn’t gonna sign shit that I didn’t understand and give him my credit card and I think he knew that so I told him to come back tomorrow.

I looked up the information. Basically it’s like a mandatory tax that’s fucked up. They tax you in a roundabout way. The language is weird. There’s no penalty for not paying. So - fuck it. I ain’t paying shit. The weird thing is… I guess there was a time when I would’ve been pressured into just paying it to get the guy to fuck off. Now I can just tell him to fuck off. I guess I’ve grown into an asshole. He’s only doing his job. I’m not pissed at him or anything… but I’m kinda looking forward to telling him to fuck off.

I finished all 3 seasons of black mirror in one week. It’s so crazy scary and good. I’ve been watching it English with Japanese subtitles. It’s kinda cool that I can read about 60% of the subtitles in Japanese now in the short time that it shows up on the screen. And for characters that I can’t read / pronounce properly I know the meaning / can guess the meaning via Chinese and the character composition. Thanks grandma for teaching me Chinese as a kid.

So I’ve been reading Norwegian Wood by Murakami and I’m currently on Chapter 4. I read the Japanese first and then read the English translation. So in chapter 3… I read penis, vagina and orgasm in Japanese katakana. I was like… what the fuck am I reading. I knew what I was reading… it was the main character describing a sex scene. But it was not what I expected. It feels like I’m reading erotica / harlequin. Basically - it feels like I chose the wrong Murakami novel to start with since it feels very shoujo-esk. My understanding of the Murakami novel is about 40%. I only understand the general plot… but not the finer details.

The thing is… reading the English translation. The English translation of Norwegian Wood. It’s fucking beautiful. It just reads like art. It blew my mind. I read chapter 3 in Japanese… and then I read the English translation. The brilliance of the translation / writing made my eyes water. It was literary genius. My English reading could appreciate the English translation - I can’t wait until my Japanese level can appreciate the true Japanese literary work. I took me 9 hours to read chapter 3. It took me like 30 minutes to read the English translation. So… my English : Japanese speed is 18x. Damn. Plus comprehension and appreciation. Damn. I think the translation of Murakami… it was more of the style as opposed to the substance. The underlying plot isn’t bad.. but it’s plain. He just has a way with words that makes it so eloquent. That’s the word I guess I’m looking for.

I guess that’s it for now. Going to be taking December off to focus on getting my app out the door. I planned it so that the first iOS and android app is more of a warm up. It’s just to put in the quantity. Build my first standalone app and get it on the store. Then 2017 is when I start on real projects that I want to sell. Okay. I guess I’ll just write whatever I feel like in Japanese instead of attempting to translate it.

はい。タイトルはちょっと誤解を招くかもしれません。今日シャワールームのjpopクラスの後。私はシャワーを浴びた後に歩き回っていました。最初はそれは… Dafaqの男のようだった…私は彼らのディックの外で他の人と会話に慣れていない。しかし、日本ではそれはまったく正常です。ちょっと変わった部屋はどこにでもちょこちょこです。人々はたわごとを隠すことはありません。はい。物語に戻る。彼は私を止め、私はああのようなものだ。私は日本語が悪いので何も理解しません。しかし、私は実際に理解しました。彼が言ったことの私の解釈は、私がその動きをどれくらい早く手に入れたか、そして私が完全に追いつくことができるという事実に驚いていたということでした。ほとんどの人がすべての動きを覚えて、時間通りに練習するのに苦労しないので、私はとても幸せだった。私はちょうどドモのようでした。ドモ。それから左に。

あまりにもジョーク。私を訓練したAmber / Dさんに特別な呼びかけ。私を訓練し、私と一緒に訓練したSFの他の人々。それは当日のハイライトの1つでした。笑。

もう一つは…私はアンドロイドストアに最初のアンドロイドアプリを提出しました。 Woot。 Woot。一口。おひさしぶりですね。これは本当にシンプルなアプリです。私は主に楽しみのためだけで暖かいようにしました。そして、馬鹿げたグーグルが、私に冒涜についてのコンテンツスクリーニングに失敗したというメールを私に送った。くそ。くそー。だから彼らはあなたが記入するこのアンケートを持っていますし、私はデフォルトにしておく必要があります。原因は一連のイエス/ノー質問だったし、あなたのアプリがポルノを持っているかどうかで始まりました。あなたのアプリには著作権がありますか？だから、私はすべてデフォルトのnoをチェックしています。彼らが実際に人間のスクリーンのすべてに行っているのならば…なぜか、あなたは最初の場所でフォームに記入しているのですか？それは文字通り無駄な仕事です。なんでも。誰かがchlldrenを考えないだろうか？私はnetflixでもっとスタンドアップを見てきました…そして、私はちょうど今だと思います。あなたがブレント・モリンやルイ・CKのようなコメディアンを見るときのように。それは好きです。ファック。自分自身をファックしてください。または、おならを吸う男のように。それともそういうものか。

私はすべての形の冒涜に完全に敏感になっています。まあ…個人的に私は会話に色を追加することが分かります。またはインパクト。私のアプリでは、f単語の2つのインスタンスがありました。 1つは “私は邪悪な船を操縦する”だった。もう1つは「ファックのルールと規範」でした。両方の場合に…私は冒涜が私が言うことの価値に追加すると思う。私は船を操縦するだけではありません。私は邪悪な船を操縦する。雌犬。他の人たちは私が邪悪な船を操縦している間、海に漂っています。実際に、私はスティーブからそれを盗んだ。しかし、スティーブは超クールで、私は彼が気にするとは思わない。                                                                                               私はペルソナ5を演奏しています。私はそのような85％のような理解をしています。おっ好き。くそー。私は想像以上に優れています。それは…狂気のようなものです。私は今かなり良い場所にいる。プレイストアが私のアプリを承認した後。 iOSポートの作業を開始します。私は実際にはおそらく2週間かかると思う。私は最終製品がどのように見えるかを知っているので、ビルドする方がずっと簡単です。私のペルソナ5のゲームプレイこちらをご覧ください。                                                                                               まあ。人生は良いです。私は手動でこの記事を中国語と日本語に翻訳するにはあまりにも怠惰です。私は中国語に堪能だが…翻訳するのに10分かかる。まあ。これを書くには約10分かかりました…実際に中国語に翻訳するのに20分かかります。うーん。私のマンダリンの冒涜レベルもかなり低いです。だからそれは不自由だ。今のところ私はおそらく中国語を除外し、英語/日本語のみに焦点を当てます。日本語はまだGoogle翻訳によるものです。しかし、私は今10分ですべてを読む能力を持っています。それで私は全体の悪い気分になる。

Okay. The title might be a little big misleading. Today after jpop class in the shower room. I was walking back after showering and then the jpop dance instructor stops me to say something. At first it was like… Dafaq man… I’m not used to conversing with other people with their dick’s out. But in Japan it’s totally normal. Like.. the change room is just dicks everywhere. People don’t cover up shit. Okay. Back to the story. He stops me and I’m like oh shit. I won’t understand anything since my Japanese is bad. But I actually understood. My interpretation of what he said was that he was surprised by how quickly I got the moves and the fact that I could totally keep up. Cause most people don’t struggle to remember all the moves and do them on time… and I was pretty happy. :D I was just like domo. domo. and then left.

Too jokes. Special shoutout to Amber / D who trained me. And other people in SF who trained me / trained with me. That was one of the highlights of the day. Lol.

The other thing is… I just submitted my first android app on the android store. Woot. Woot. Sigh. It’s been a long time. It’s a really simple app too. I mainly did it just for fun and as a warm up. And fucking bullshit google sent me an email saying I failed the content screenings about profanity. Fuck. Fucking bullshit. So they have this questionaire that you fill out and I must’ve defaulted to no. Cause was a series of yes/no questions and it started with does your app have porn. Does your app have copyright shit. So I just default checked no for everything. Fucking… if they are actually going to human screen everything… why even have you fucking fill out the form in the first place. That’s literally wasted work. Whatever. Won’t somebody think of the chlldren? I’ve been watching more standup on netflix… and I think I’m just old now. Like… when you watch comedians like Brent Morrin Or Louis CK. It’s like. Fucking. Go fuck yourself. Or like motherfucking dick sucking bastard. Or something like that.

I’m totally densensitized to all forms of profanity. Well… personally I find that it does add certain… color to the conversation. Or impact. In my app… there was two instances of the f word. One was “I steer the motherfucking ship”. And the other was “Fuck rules and norms”. And in both cases… I do think that the profanity adds to the value of what I’m trying to say. I don’t just steer the ship. I steer the motherfucking ship. Bitch. Other people drift in the ocean while I steer the motherfucking ship. Actually, I stole that from Steve. But Steve is super cool and I don’t think he’d mind.

I’ve been playing Persona 5. And I’m understanding like… 85% of it. Holy shit. Like. Damn. I’m so much better than I imagined. It’s like… crazy. I’m in a pretty good place right now. So after the play store approves my app. I’ll start working on the iOS port. I actually think that’ll probably only take 2 weeks. Since I know what the final product looks like… it should be much more straightforward to build. Check out my persona 5 gameplay here.

Well. Life is good. I’m probably too lazy to translate manually this post to chinese and japanese. The thing is… even though I’m fluent in Chinese… it takes me a good 10 minutes to translate. Well. It took me about 10 minutes to write this… it’ll actually take me 20 minutes to translate it to chinese. Hmmm. My mandarin profanity level is also pretty low. So that’s lame. For now I’ll probably exclude the chinese and just focus on english / japanese. Japanese is still via google translate. But I now have the ability to read everything in like 10 minutes. Which makes me feel like a total badass.