So it’s 10 years since the earthquake/tsunami disaster in Japan. Altho I was not directly affected, the memory is pretty vivid. Just a few months previous, I had decided that Japan was a place I should set my sights on in a more real way than I ever have. My attempts to learn the language or even visit the country up to that point could be considered “not serious” in hindsight. But several career prospects having fallen through, and my habit of daily day-drinking beginning to inhibit my ability to stay living, I needed something new to focus on, and maybe moving to Japan to teach English would be just unreasonable goal I needed to work towards. And then this thing happens. It didn’t put me off it whatsoever, it just seemed like another thing to work around. It definitely made me more committed in a way; even now it separates my friends into two distinct groups of the affected and unaffected, and it became difficult to feel as close with the latter group. And now the distinction feels even sharper. The comparison to 9/11 is pretty apt for a number of ways, (I’m thinking how one you watched happen on live broadcast tv, and the other on the internet, intellectually, the media evolution is interesting.) but personally, the decade following that event were the ones that made the least sense in my life. I could say I made some bad decisions, but I almost didn’t make any decisions, I just kind of let whatever happen. But I did start this blog? Yeah, I definitely did that. It’s a good one, right? I mean this kind of writing seems equally as pointless and self-indulgent in a hand-written private journal as a facebook post, but as a blog post that anyone could read but probably no one will, it just seems a perfect way to organize my thoughts at the moment. So thanks for indulging me, if you have. It should be noted that I did not move to Japan to teach English, but I did actually enroll in Japanese class, and I passed the JLPT, and I did go to Japan (for a week, in 2016), and I did realize I can teach English in America (a country I have mixed feelings about, but nobody’s perfect). And I will be posting more.