I don't know what to say....

I don’t know what to say.

At least in the sense that I don’t know the specific phrasing to use to put everything in perspective. When life feels like you’ve been hit with a concrete block, each piece of the gritty texture tearing into you and clearing away the old rough parts leaving things new and raw under the surface exposed to the cold air, exhilarating, worrisome, and familiar all at the same time. Yet at the same time nothing feels the same this time around. I’ve made mistakes all of my life and I seem to live for the little lulls in between the feelings of anxiety caused by my mistakes. If there’s one thing to be said about messing up, it’s that when things go right they feel amazing and to relish such a feeling of things going your way is almost like feeling a cool breeze on a hot day.

Speaking of old mistakes one my most common ones is re-opening old wounds so that they never heal. I’ve done so over the last day or two talking to a former similarly employed person, I hesitate to use the term co-worker as the mutual fact is known that we’re immiscible in any capacity. In a brief conversation that can only be described as abusive, I found myself wondering, ‘Just who is the bigger man, and what determines that?’ While there is no good answer and either side will come up with their own answer I believe the best option was the ‘block’ button at least for now, and extensive evasion in situation where we may meet, though the other side of the coin and I rightly feel that I know enough about the person in question, would feel that my death is the best option. And in all honesty I do feel correct in my assumptions here. Though as to who is the bigger man? So far as I am concerned it is neither of us as one personality has a superiority complex as well as extensive issues relating to basic manners, in my opinion anyway. And I have chosen the avoidance option, however, that is of course after trying to deal with the issues in a polite manner. Sure, there are people that will never get along, yet nobody need be hostile, to do so is only a waste of effort. All conflicts are avoidable; I’ve been a firm believer in that for many years. As for my other mistakes, they’re all of a more general nature, nothing worth talking about really so I’ll just move on to the next topic then.

As far as things that are going right, well this is where things feel like that cool breeze after a hard work out on a blisteringly hot day. For one, I’ve managed to get my girlfriend a few perfect gifts for her Birthday/Valentine’s day, which I am actually quite proud of. While you needn’t know exactly what said gifts were, know that they were of a more thoughtful nature, and while not complete surprises to her they couldn’t have been more appreciated. Something else that is going right, at least potentially. I used to be a photography major in college, or at least was on that track, major or not I have more than enough skill to do what needs to be done in an artistic and professional manner. And considering I live in the Tokyo area now it makes perfect sense to attend the 12^th Japan Fashion week as an International Photographer. Pictures will be posted here of course, I also plan on contacting a few newspapers to try and sell the fruits of my labor, and well hopefully I’ll be successful in that regard. In not I’ll simply gain a slight amount of experience in Fashion Photography over the two days that I’ll be able to attend Fashion week. Sure, I am spending a bit on equipment, new lens, monopod, quick release base for the monopod, and some lens filters, perhaps a new flash thrown in there, but it will increase the scope of what I’ll be able to do so far as my longer range photography is concerned. So for me, either way, being able to attend it or not it is a win/win. Or at least is according to where I stand, as much as I’d love both new equipment and being able to attend fashion week (I’m already registered as an official photographer) I’ll take either of those options any day of the week. Other things that are going right include my cooking and fitness. I've been experimenting with cooking, fish predominantly as it's cheap and i know how to cook it, at least for the basics. The experimenting comes form the side dishes I make. Week one that i cooked the side dish was Matsutake mushrooms and apples cooked in cider, which came out excellent. And just this Sunday the side dish was carrots and mushrooms cooked in white wine, with the same type of fish for the meat. In all honesty I'd love to share my cooking, yet i don't know anyone willing to try my cooking. I promise, I won't kill you. For having an under equipped kitchen set, and improvising my dishes and preparation utensils, I do have a great eye for ingredients and how to cook things, note that I do everything off the cuff, so if you want to try my cooking and don't mind a chef that experiments, and live in my dorm, let me know, i'll cook dinner for you.

I’ll close with this because I’d rather you not have to read more than about 1000 words for this post. Nobody is perfect, nothing goes flawlessly, and opinions are always wrong looking from the perspective of someone else. My suggestion is simple here, do what you feel is right, legal, and just, you’ve lived as you should, people can tell you how to live according to their views on right and wrong, but they aren’t you, nobody is you, none of you are me, and all of us are always wrong according to someone.

Change and consequences

Things need to change, and they need to change now or my time in Japan is up in 90 days. I know making this public may be seen as an illogical step for some, but I am not doing this to be brooding and melodramatic, I am doing this to open up and hopefully remove some weight from my chest. Hopefully this works, writing has always been therapeutic for me. Some may see this as a cry for help, and it is to some degree, but I am not suicidal. I have psychological issues, not stupid issues.

Back in May, May 13^th 200 9 at about 1:30 Pm, I was making a left hand turn on a back country road when I was struck by a motorcycle. I’d done everything right, stopped, signaled, looked in all directions at least twice and I proceeded on when that motorcycle flew over the crest of the hill while I was in the middle of my turn and there was nothing I could have done. After checking myself over and not feeling anything I proceeded to force my car door open and check on the motorcyclists. Rushing over to them like any good first responder I did everything the Air force had trained me to do, check for consciousness, breathing, circulation. I got as far as consciousness when the man that lived by the road came to assist; shortly thereafter I called my father and my Supervisor to let them know the situation. I’d called an ambulance while checking on the people.

The woman died at the scene and the driver died while being airlifted to a hospital. I’m proud of myself that I tried to help. But what will really stay with me wasn’t pulling glass out of my own arm, not seeing my car totaled, not the surrealism of calling my father to let him know what happened, but looking into the eyes of that man as he lay there on the asphalt. Looking into those blue grey eyes wide with shock has stayed with me since then and still affects me to this day.

I have been diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) from this incident and it is affecting me. To say that things are easy for me as far as dealing with it would be a lie as it’s affected me professionally even though I told myself that it hadn’t. Sure I’ve been sleeping well for all I know, and my appetite hasn’t been affected by it, but it has made an impact on me, One that may cost me my career in the Air Force. My command believes, and I agree, that this has affected me in all aspects of my professional life. As I said, I agree with that I need to sort out my anger issues, continue to seek help for my PTSD, and finish my upgrade training as well as proving that I’m a good person and a good Airman. I have 90 days before I go up before the MAJCOM and they decide my future in the Air Force, that if I do not show great improvement within those 90 days. But what really gets my goat is that my supervision feels that I may be a danger to myself or others. I may have psychological issues, but I don’t have stupid issues.

My immediate issue is this, personal faith. I know that people always say ‘if you can believe it you can do it”, Bullsh**. Someone can say something all they want and have it not make a lick of difference without true and honest faith in oneself. I do not have that faith in myself, not anymore. What I need to do is find that faith from someplace or from someone and I have a good idea who those someone’s are that might be able to help me. I will do everything I can to speak with them and find the inspiration I need. It may take time, I may have found it already and not noticed, but you know what? I’ll do everything I can to forge a new me.

So to you all I say good bye. While such a thing has a final ring to it, and I have a pragmatic, bordering on fatalistic view of things, this is not a good bye to this mortal coil, merely a good bye to this life as I know it now. I will be reborn a new man tomorrow morning, not one wallowing in self-doubt and guilt but one looking forward for inspiration. I’ve already found some trying to piece it all together, I have to just get through it all and forge myself into somebody new. I say good bye to you now as the old Matthew, and hello to you as the new.

Observations and Life in Japan

Well to start off my shipment of household goods would seem to have arrived, if anything I’m quite happy about that, so I was finally able to implement my plan to brush up on my photography skills and get out into town and take pictures. I felt really gung ho about it and took a chunk of yen out of the bank for ‘walking around’ money, and my camera an old model Canon EOS Rebel X2. I took on the order of 500 or so and as most photographers are wont to do only used a tiny fraction of them. I’ll generally use 1 out of each set of pictures, so I should have 35 usable shots, I have far fewer than that. Because it seems my camera/lenses are broke, namely the autofocusing feature. So I’ll have to get those replaced, fun time, not looking forward to paying the price for those good here in Japan, at least I can just go to Akihabara and get what I need.

If anything living here in japan has changed my perspective on a few things that most people will consider ‘normal’ and take for granted, the biggest thing would of course be the langage, being American and having lived in the States, namely the Midwest for most of my life I’ve generally come to expect that most people will speak English as a first language. Of course I’m not expecting to be able to communicate 100%, but well that’s one thing to get used to. Also actually being the ‘foreigner’ is another big thing for me, especially as I’m a ‘big’ foreigner, not fat,, just tall. Hence the blog title…I’ll get lost is a huge group of people, but I’ll still stand out. And here is where the difference is big, but in a great way. Portion size, having all of these meals in japan is quite refreshing, small, filling, generally pretty healthy and it all tastes amazing so far. Then I went to the Chili’s on base the other night and couldn’t finish my meal as it was like 3 ‘japanese’ meals.

Fresh fruits and prosciutto Salad from Forbidden fruit


I will say that I really enjoy Tokyo and the environment, the food is awesome, and generally looks good as you’ll see here. I had a nice salad in a little café place called ‘Forbidden fruit’ while I was down in Harajuku. However eating isn’t all that I did while I was down there, also picked up a brand new coat, just a nice sport coat like design. I will say this, it feels nice wearing designer clothes. By the way, I didn’t find out about this issue until I uploaded the pictures and found out that most of the pictures were incredibly blurry. *sighs* At least I got a few of them post worthy, so yeah…gratuitous pictures in 3….2….1….

And here's my Flickr for more http://www.flickr.com/photos/58409124@N03/


The Meiji Shrine





Dinner (Udon noodles and tempura fried eggplant)




An expensive cake 'worth' 40 USD

Fah who lah who

Ok. So Christmas has come and gone with New Year’s just around the corner. And although I dislike quite a few things politically back home, over here, and just in general. I’ve been ‘re blued’ or have become a patriot again. My reasoning for this is simple. Because we’re overseas not everyone gets mail on time, from everyone, etc.. So they’ll provide cards for us from varied sources. I pick a card out of the box addressed to ‘our hero’. Sure heartwarming sappy, whatever….But the card itself. The card itself brought me to tears.

It was just a generic card though Santa with a tree, the printed lettering saying ‘Merry Christmas’, but thee text written inside it is what brought me to tears. So there I am on a chilly December day in Tokyo opening a Christmas card from god knows who in the door way of a chow hall. And what I see written is the last thing I expect. In simple black pen in young, yet not childishly messy handwriting I see the lone sentence. “Thank you for our Freedom.” I broke down right then and there. It made me realize that I’m not serving to defend my country, the politicians, the overly fattened political system that we have, no. I was fighting for that. The innocent naiveté that is present in all of us at some point. I’m here serving not my country, but hope. I serve to defend that hope in some kid’s heart, hope that will be destroyed if we fail as a country.

That said, yes, we need to change our ways or that innocent little line will be for nothing and there won’t be any more American heroes to thank for freedom, there won’t be any Americans as we recognize them today. All there will be are members of a country that none of us alive today can fathom. It’s that hope, that one innocent line that has renewed my faith that making the choice I did was the right one. Some may question the morality of serving at all such as certain radical churches in Kansas, but seeing such innocence displayed in that way leaves no doubt in my mind that service to defend hope, to provide people with the freedom to be thankful for such an intangible thing is what it’s all about. On paper and in voice as follows:

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

But in my heart and my soul, I serve the hope of all those thinking that we are doing the right thing.

Anyway enough of my proselyting and time for an actual blog entry…how about that hmm?
Well a few days ago while cycling to PT in the cold December rain I misjudged the amount of water on the road, went off of the road and straight into some train tracks. While I sustained only minor personal injuries ( a few scrapes and bruises), I still got checked out to make sure I was fine. Something that is smart to do whenever severe pain is felt in the chest. Believe me, landing on hardened steel handlebars hurts like a sonovagun. Anyway I was reporting into my superiors every step of the way, and the doctor seeing me gave me the ‘likely’ injuries from where I sustained impacts. I caught hell for that later as word of my potential injuries trickled up to my Commanding Officer. Mind you, when I reported in I made sure to use the words ‘possible, might, and could be’ in the same places the doctor had used them before broken, cracked, internal damage respectively. They wound up calling me good and prescribing me antibacterial cream for my wounds. Yet I still caught hell for reporting in as I was given information. I didn’t inform them I’d be riding my damaged bicycle over to the base hospital, and the people I informed rightly assumed I’d be doing so, but well. Let’s just say that I learned a lesson about disseminating information that should be obvious. Anyway I’m done complaining as it’s not my style, I learned a lesson about information dissemination, so I’m fine now.
Moving on…

Christmas was decent. Had Christmas dinner at the house of one of my superiors, it wasn’t what I expected in that there were no fresh vegetables on the table, just mayo and sugar covered salad and green bean casserole. I tend to like peas, corn, carrots and other vegetables not out of a can, cooked into other things, or covered in goop, my definition of fresh is, simple plain vegetables either raw, or lightly cooked. Everything tasted good and the bosses’ wife makes an amazing pumpkin pie, so it was overall a decent meal.

As I’m going to a new shift soon I’ll need to alter my sleeping habits and I have that planned out already, it involves another All-nighter, or a set of them in Roppongi. I’ll stay away from the main drag with all of the strip clubs and actually go to someplace where I want to. I likely won’t drink much, but I think that new years at Roppongi could be a very cool thing to do, provided I actually go in a mood to have fun, which of all things is my biggest fault. I tend to take things quite seriously, value meaningful conversation and intelligence and have my sun issue from that. Mingling with a group of strangers is new for me especially for long lengths of time. Then again…if I can strike up a conversation with a German woman in McDonald’s at 3 AM I can mingle at a club for 8 hours right?

One month in Japan

Well I've been in Japan for one month to the day and I must say it has so far been a wonderful experience. If you've read my blog so far you'll know numerous things that have happened that I won't recount here.

I will say that hubris has gotten the better of me and smacked me down on one major occasion, the penance of such was a pie in the face literally and figuratively. I learned quite hard that not everybody is up for everything when not stated. There is generally such a thing as implied consent, however respect is another thing I also need to recognize in people. I've never blogged about work until now. For you all to understand this well we had some fun with our commander, the guy crammed into an Elf costume on Christmas because we paid to get him into it via a fundraiser. I thought I could do the same thing here, so i put some money on my commanding officer....bad idea. Didn't get paperwork, just told that 'I don't play that' and to remove the money. Of course I did so within the hour of being told to do so. Later that week I paid for it via a cherry pie. No this isn't a euphemism for anything, I got hit with a cherry pie, in the face.

Now I deserved it, I know it. If anything I thought I learned my lesson from that but well, a few days later I gave myself some more problems, I really need to learn to keep my big mouth shut. That would honestly be best for me in most if not all situations that don't require me to 'slackjaw'. Anyway enough about hubris for now It's something I need to deal with on my own.

Now so far this country has proven to be incredibly beautiful in most aspects of it. Walking down a cramped and oh so crowded side street in Harajuku feeling almost 'closed in' to some respects, yet perfectly comfortable in others. Nobody standing around and lingering everyone moving with a purpose and a drive that i rarely if ever got to see in the States. The amazing thing about it all none of it was what anyone from the US would consider 'loud' sure there were vendors and advertisers on the street trying to get people to 'go here or buy this' but despite the hustle and bustle that everybody was encased in, very quiet overall. While it may be a stereotype that the Japanese are incredibly polite, it seems to be one that is well founded, I've only encountered one or two rude people so far in my time here, and even then that was because I didn't know the custom relating eating a bowl of Ramen.

Living in another country has really been an eyeopening and life changing experience, I'm quite curious as to how I'll view the United states when i eventually return there after my tour here in Japan, or overseas in general is over. Truth be told of the camaraderie that I've experienced so far it has been better than anything I encountered back in Oklahoma or in Texas before that. Perhaps if I felt this close to my co-workers, roommate, or the other people on base, maybe my career would have started in a better place.

I made a promise to someone and I plan to keep it. That doesn't mean I won't experience the culture here though.

All-nighter in Roppongi

Well….



Pulled an all-nighter in Shibuya/Roppongi last night just acting as the wingman of one of my buddies. Interesting experience, being well not-single in a place filled with whores and strip clubs, but I’ll get to that soon enough. The night started well enough, going to the Enlisted club trying to win the 900 dollar jackpot. Surprisingly they had a rather amazing buffet there and it provided an awesome free dinner. Sadly nobody won the 900 dollars so I’ll go next week maybe when it’s up over 1,000. I mean really? Woman that had the winning ticket left, what is there more important than wining nearly 1,000 dollars and making a 1,000 dollar profit. Hopefully the person had a sick kid or an emergency at home.



After that I left with my buddy to head down to Shibuya so he could meet up with his date and get the night started with a few drinks, while I abstained personally from alcohol as bad things happen and considering I have a girlfriend alcohol in a place filled with whores and strip clubs don’t mix. Shibuya itself was cool, mostly a shopping district with a few clubs and bars. I’d go back there I think, so long as I have the money but I think I’ll save up for a good while before going out again, spending money on coffee got expensive. Speaking of which I’m a victim of Brand recognition, had some vending machine coffee and the only reason I had that coffee is because I thought the Tommy Lee Jones commercials were funny as hell. Let me make this clear I only had the coffee because Tommy Lee jones was selling it……. I hate being a victim of advertising campaigns, was good coffee though, so yeah.



I have no idea how many times I had to say variations of ‘No thank you’ to people trying to get me to go to strip clubs, or whores offering massages with ‘happy endings’ than I care to count. For that reason not a place I’ll go back to during the night time. I did however go see Tokyo Tower at night, long cold walk, past the Russian embassy and Aston Martin dealerships, past pricy business and then up a very steep hill, and get to look up at the bottom of a very well lit icon of the Tokyo landscape, quite breathtaking if taken in the right context. Hell even the police guarding the entrance were marveling at the thing.

If you’re wondering where my buddy was all this time, he was at a club I had no interest in. I’d rather not pay 2,000 yen to get into a Rap club where drinking is mandatory, we did keep in touch with our phones so I didn’t abandon my wingman, and the night ended well for him.



Anyway after walking up and down the street for the millionth time saying no to the same club pushers and whores I dip into what turns out to be a rather fancy restaurant and order a few things. I had what turned out to be an appetizer, grilled beef with potatoes and Miso, now it was an absolutely amazing use of my money, should have gotten a bowl of udon but well que sera sera, I also had pumpkin mousse, and that was an absolutely amazing choice, the rich creamy texture with the strong pumpkin flavor was absolutely marvelous. Now at this point it’s about 2:30 AM trains have stopped and I’m tired of saying no to the same whores, so I dip inside Starbucks and have a coffee, black and wind up dumping 6 or 7 packets of sugar and honey into it to try an improve the flavor, that worked for about 15 minutes until Starbucks closed, then over to Mc Donalds to use the restroom. But only place open was the ordering area, McD’s had private security guarding the upstairs where the seating areas and restrooms were. Let that sink in for a little bit, Private Security At a fast food restaurant. Typical rent-a-cop uniform, and deformed security guard and everything, guys ear looked like it had been chewed up and spit out, but yeah so I order another coffee, and let me tell you, I STRONGLY prefer starbucks over Mc Donalds, but that doesn’t mean the coffee tastes much better. So I’m sitting at Mc Donalds just watching the street and a girl winds up sitting next to me, blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin. I figure ‘what the hell’ lets hope she speaks English. So I start up a nice and polite conversation with the woman, turns out to be German, and just finishing up an extended vacation before she starts college. Nice person to talk to while waiting for the crack of dawn. Then I see what may be my first encounter with yakuza activity. The two of us ‘me and the german woman’ are watching from the 2nd floor window when this guy gets kicked out of a big van with blacked out windows, approaches the drivers side and kneels, forehead touching the ground, for about a good two minutes before running back into the van. NO clue what he did to insult the driver, but from what we could see they looked like Sterotypical yakuza, nice suits, strict behavior customs, young.



Anyway so 5 AM rolls around and me and the German say our good byes and go home to our respective ends of Tokyo, should have gotten her facebook she seemed very nice, and by this point I’m fighting off sleep like Indiana Jones fights Nazis. The lyric from an iron Maiden song comes to mind ‘He’s walking like a deadman’…that’s how crappy I felt. And yeah finally make it back to base and PTFO for a few hours.

So that was my all-nighter.

Akiba Thanksgiving

Ok, so today is thanksgiving in Japan, well on base anyway. Yay! So I get up have a light breakfast at the chow hall hop on my bicycle and ride to the train station and head down to Akihabara (Akiba). Akihabara also known as Akibahara Electric Town or simply Akiba is one of the main consumer electronics centers in Japan. You need a computer built or repaired? You can find what you need on the street there in these little stalls. How crowded some of the streets are reminded me of Harajuku except only about 5 streets were that packed (I went on Thursday) and instead of designer clothing it was hard drives and comic stuff. That’s another thing about Akiba, very VERY Otaku centric place. I walked into an Internet Café to see how they do It, all I see is a long empty hall way with a computer room at one end filled with the bluish white glow of computers, the acrid smell of old cigarette smoke, and the lights of a vending machine that promised ‘hot meals’. It was the same for a Pachinko parlor I stepped inside of except then you had billions of flashing lights and high pitched electronic music so loud that not even Rambo with a machine gun could be heard over the music. Anyway….i went there in search of Gundams for my girlfriend, couldn’t find any I felt like purchasing as they were either cheaper in the states or too big for me to carry on a bicycle with no backpack with me. So I got something else that I know she’ll like. Why does blue hair have to be such a staple of Anime?



Lunch was after a few hours of walking around, had a bowl of Sushi for about 1,000 yen. Was just a big bowl of rice, shrimp, egg, tuna, shrimp, salmon eggs, and other raw fish I can’t place. It was very good, cheap, and quite filling. It came with Miso soup and some type of egg stuff I couldn’t figure out what to do with. Tasted good, but I’ve made enough faux pas already, Hell one of the other patrons was laughing at me trying to pick up the salmon eggs with my chopsticks. I did it…but I guess the big American at the bar he was too small for was quite funny. Speaking of they tell us to not attract attention to ourselves….oops. I wore red, so there I am, big American wearing a red shirt, blue jeans, surrounded in a sea of Japanese businessmen all in suits. I I don’t mind attracting attention due to my size (It happens anyway), but I was very conscious of HW much I stood out today. May go to Roppongi next….or back to Harajuku, good food there, that or to Shibuya and try to find the Stormtrooper.