One Step Forward, Then One Step Backwards

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I’ve been thinking about how we single people end up doing stupid things like learning to be comfortable alone and independent. As soon as someone enters our life, we begin to unlearn our habits of being alone and gradually open up to the other person our feelings and our thoughts. Ultimately we learn to adjust to life with someone who care about us. We become comfortable with the new.

… and then when it ends we are lost.

When it ends, we have to go back and unlearn everything we learned from the relationship. We have to go back and re-learn how exactly it is to be independent and to be strong. We have to control our feelings and we have to unlearn to depend on another person. Then as we had un-learned everything from the past relationship and re-learned all the things of how a single person is to survive.

… then suddenly someone walks in.

Thus the horrible cycle begins once again. Then the break up happens and again we have to do the same thing once more. This unlearning and relearning cycle is really tiring however with age, it seems to get easier as time progresses. It really amuses me how (at least for me) with this ridiculous cycle, time and time again, I let it happen. I’m not very bright am I?

The Paris Love Story

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It’s been a week in Paris and while I was supposed to have gone back home to NY today I managed to miss my flight all because my friends here was telling me that it’ll be fine if I got to the airport at 4pm to make it to my 5pm flight. I should have known better…

400 Euro later, I have a new ticket issued for the following Monday. Ugh… No more shopping for the next 3 months.

Since I’ve been here I’ve been having an odd relationship with Ryan. We hold hands, we kiss, we occasionally hook up and we spoon in bed. While we don’t have very deep conversations, we do have chats that make me laugh and smile. The faux relationship was giving me a reminder of how puppy love is like and oddly enough I was beginning to fall for him. In fact, I began to imagine how it would work if I were to move to Taiwan for him and such… kind of creepy even I can admit. In fact, I was also getting a bit jealous when I kept seeing him text message a certain “monseur” messages that contained words like “amour” and “j’taime” and also annoyed when he would go quiet and to another corner to speak friend to the certain “monseur.”

While I never bothered to bring up any of those things, Ryan would always end up redeeming himself at the end of the day by doing something sweet or kissing me at the end of the day.

Then today happened. Well it wasn’t anything that Ryan did or anything but when he was taking me to the airport I tried my best to have a conversation with him… at that moment it occurred to me that it was difficult to really get anything out of him or at least I didn’t feel comfortable being silent with him.

When I got back to Ryan’s apartment from the airport I was thinking a lot about how I was always the one initiating sex, how I was always the one to think so much about us, how I was the only one that would ever say “I like you” whereas he would never respond… If he was thinking of it as just a fling, why couldn’t I have done the same?

We met at the apartment and we began to heavily make out and from there he started undoing my pants whereas from there we started hooking up. While we were hooking up, when resting, we talked about his sexual history prior to me coming to Paris and I found that he had slept with numerous guys here in Paris and that he was hinting that I was bad in bed. (That’s fine btw) He also pointed out that for Sat and Sun night that he was arranging that I go sleep over his friend’s apartment too.

It’s funny how I thought that my Paris love story would just be a very romantic love story. Who knew that with me missing my flight that I could have such a huge wake up call. I feel as if I got married and divorced all within one trip in Paris.

I don’t really feel much towards this situation… but I think… c’ est la vie. There’s no use to think any further. I can’t wait to go back to New York ASAP, but at the same time, I need to really maximize my time here- especially since I don’t think that I’ll ever come back.

What’s Going on Japan?

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I’ve been kind of going back and listening to all the old Japanese music that used to listen to. I’d forgotten how amazing Tetsuya Komuro was having produced so many songs and groups/bands. I suppose Korea’s JY Park could compare to him but somehow I feel like Komuro was much more powerful than JYP his music actually had power to them and you really could listen to his songs over and over- the same can’t really be said for songs like Nobody.

This got me thinking about how I kind of dislike J-Pop now and in fact, these days my music rotation is mostly flooded with K-Pop. (Seven years back, the only K-Pop I really listened to was mostly just S.E.S, Koyote and Finkl) These days when I look at the Oricon charts the popular groups are acts like AKB48 and Arashi- yuck, I really dislike their high-pitched voices. At first I was thinking, does this mean that I’m getting old? These “new” trends and popular acts aren’t getting through to me because I’m no longer of age to enjoy stupid things like AKB48? Then I look at all the current K-Pop selections that I listen to and I do like what I hear so that couldn’t be it.

I really do miss the old stuff from Japan… even veteran Amuro Namie is really sucking so badly recently. However, overall… what happened to Japan? When I was in high school, I remember having encountered J-Pop by chance and falling in love. The Japanese video games that I would play on my Super Nintendo. The amazing Japanese cassette tape walkmen that could skip songs. The really meaningful Japanese TV dramas. I loved it all. Now… nothing. Had I grown up in this time period I might have begun to study Korean rather than Japanese.

First off, there was a time when all the big video games were made by Japan. I remember loving the RPGs that would come out from Squaresoft- Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy. Now that we live in a Xbox era, it seems as if there are fewer Japanese developers- games are now being made in America and Europe. Wow.

The music, while we did have acts like Morning Musume… they were still more impressive than what AKB48 could bring to the table. In addition, they didn’t portray themselves as sex objects. Aside from the cutesy, we really did have really powerful singers. Kudo Shizuka, Tomomi Kahala, Ryoko Shinohara, etc. They all provided very different sounds in the market- now every one just sounds like AKB48.

The electronics used to be so amazing in Japan. I remember the first time I set foot in Japan, going to Akihabara and seeing the different and really advanced electronics really was an eye opener. Their CD players looked so cool at the time and the Japanese cellphones were so amazing back then, they could tell your fortune and you could raise a pet in your phone. Now, it’s as if the situation is backwards… America seems to have trumped Japan in cool consumer goods. In fact, I’ve seen more interesting things in Taiwan, Korea, HK than I do in Japan now. Everything in Japan now just seems ordinary and no longer amazing or exclusive.

Anime and TV used to also be more interesting back then too. I’ve tried my hand at trying to watch a few different Anime but couldn’t get sucked in like how I used to be able to. However, this one I will let slide since in general TV hasn’t really invoked much interest me- both American or Japanese.

Finally, this past Sunday when I went to take the JLPT exam… these exams used to always be in Harlem at Columbia University. A pretty good spot to take the exam… this year they had us all travel over to the Bronx to take the exam… Why? At the same time, it also didn’t feel as if there were as many people taking the exam as well.

I wonder… is Japan losing it’s number one status? In terms of pop culture, it really does seem like Korea is overtaking them. As for technology, it also seems like America and China is overtaking them. Oh dear.