HP and MP restored! …But you’re still hungry.

I am not sure where my lack of energy is coming from all of a sudden. It could be a mix of a couple factors like depression, not eating right, lack of sleep, school, the sudden change in weather. I just feel very much out of it by the end of the day. I think at one point I liked Japanese but I mean I have it for a few hours a day which is really not what I am used to from back in America. I don’t know why I am complaining like this. I should be eating, breathing, sleeping Japanese. I find it so funny how when reading my earlier notes from when I first arrived in Japan, which I have yet to type out, I was still on a high horse and criticized a lot of people for using Japanese. I was waiting to go. I wanted to speak Japanese. How quickly that changed.

What kinds of things did I desire out of this trip, I wonder? I am sure I wanted to get better, but I didn’t expect to struggle this much and maybe that is what I am having a hard time wrapping my brain around. For some reason, I just have this notion that I will never be able to understand the language if I cannot improve my speaking and listening so I disregard other forms of studying even though probably reviewing in any form is beneficial. Sure, it is easy to say something like, “Why not talk to Japanese students then!” Ok, but what am I going to talk about? I am in 400 level Japanese but still have the speaking and understanding of a 200 level student. I know the grammar but I don’t know how to implement it in a situation. Also, what am I going to honestly talk about with the students here? The weather, and introducing myself is basically what I can honestly say with great confidence.

I need to start paying attention to my actions more. I feel a lot of time is just going by. I have ideas but nothing is getting implemented or done which just causes me to complain and wonder why I am not getting better or seeing results. I dread going onto 500 level next semester. If I think 400 is something difficult I can only imagine 500.

A high school theme

I am glad that I have gone back to writing long entries about myself although maybe it is kind of a bad thing because I did spend my high school years in the past doing this which usually helped me deal with my unresolved emotions and anger. It seems like the high school theme is a constant symbol of my time in Japan. The classes are a lot like high school, the bells going on and off, the teachers seem like high school teachers, I feel like how I was in high school over again. One thing I have realized is I could take this as that second chance. I could sit here and whine and cry to myself about how life sucks all over again or I could use this opportunity to start over and make up for the things I regretted. It is my choice even if I do act like I don’t have one.

I don’t know why I quit writing in the first place it’s like when I quit writing my thoughts down I quit thinking in general. I stopped believing in things and lost what I desired out of life except for those brief short term goals like getting good grades and such. I just figured I had my shit sorted out some how after a while but being here in Japan I am realizing that I don’t have my shit sorted out at all and life is an ongoing thing where you constantly need to know where you’re going or at least devote some time to reflection.

I am a human and it for some reason it always bothered me that people act like they have their shit together as if they never felt pain before. I always found others to be so fake in that regard. Putting up a front to hide their weaknesses and pain. I am realizing that no one wants to look unhappy. No one wants to be sad. Who desires this? I spent a lot of the day in my room sad and just sleeping but I did do homework in the community room. I wanted to hold back the feelings I got from being with others but I couldn’t. It felt good to laugh, and converse despite my cold feelings today.

I think for the first time in my life I might actually just cry after the semester is over because I feel like I have grown to have some warm bonds with various people here or at least people here that are amusing. These students aren’t going to be staying longer than the semester while I an a few others will be staying behind.

It is getting colder here in Japan now and is finally feeling like Fall. Before this it was still very much like Summer around here. Classes are difficult as usual and maybe more so than the American classes I am so used to. A long break of about 5 days or so is coming up. I don’t think I deserve it very much because I don’t believe I have tried the hardest I could have up to this point. But this was a mix of my personal issues and genuine culture shock. So I won’t try to be too hard on myself in this regard. Either way I really need a break. I don’t know if I am going to go to Tokyo or anything because I am not really in the mood to think about plans.

Back to doing homework.

I feel sick – Many masks

I believe I am now entering that stage after culture shock where you begin to start recognizing your own faults and then it just makes you depressed. Actually I don’t even think this has anything to do with culture shock and is just something that comes with everyday human interaction which I lacked a lot of before coming here. My feelings of anger are moving less from Japan and more me centered. Everything here feels so much so like my high school years and the pain of that time only comes back to my memories. The days of being alone and not fitting in with any particular group but rather feeling more like a tag along in other groups but no one very significant. No confidence. Lack of direction and motivation. A raging sexual libido but no outlet for my expression or feelings so I make up fantasies that are just illusions with no base in reality.

I always thought that I was a nice guy someone who was a good person. Maybe I am in some instances but I am now realizing that I am no saint. My kindness is a mask for my weaknesses. My lack of having a spine. I just don’t want people to think badly of me and I want to be in good standing so I say and do the things they want without much complaining.

I avoid people, and loathe human interaction to a certain extent mostly because I am unsure of the feelings of the other person. I just assume for some reason everyone is in a rush or I am being a bother to them just by talking so we all need to finish talking so we can move on with our lives. Why do I feel like everyone is in a rush? Why do I feel like a bother in these kinds of situations even though most times it is someone else who starts talking to me? Even despite I myself don’t know what I am in a rush for. I claim that I am very independent, but this is just to mask my fear. And who am I to say I am independent? I am trash. So many people have sacrificed a great deal for me to get here and not to mention many instances in the past. Who am I to just not recognize this and just piss all over their efforts for me? I am so ungrateful. I hate this side of myself.

I let down two people recently due to my selfishness and just being undependable. This goes in hand with my idea of myself that I am in a sense, perfect. Other people might do it to you but I am BRYAN I would never hurt you. The fact that I have hurt other people hurts me because I have brought ill feelings upon them also this ties in with I don’t want people to think badly of me. I don’t want other people to experience and see my weaknesses first hand. Although, I have hurt other people I won’t doubt it due to my passive and aloof personality in general.

I have fallen into a kind of a depression because I am horrible and no one wants to recognize and see their faults, but then I like acting this way because I am hardly ever happy or satisfied for very long amounts of time. Although, I was somewhat happy for a lot of last year since I was seeing good grades and results in my Japanese classes but that could have just been me pushing my feelings a side because I had to get to Japan for the year. But it did all come crashing down once the summer began. I must find some kind of enjoyment from acting like a martyr. I just want people to notice me, and pity me. What kind of person am I. I have many unresolved issues, and unhealed wounds. Why can I not move on? Why do I grasp more to my pain when I encounter it and so quick to want to leave a situation that could lead to more happier interaction and encounters?

If there is any bright side to this I feel some what happy and relieved I recognized these things. I always thought I was a rather flat person. Someone who doesn’t know who he is in general. Honestly, if I could describe the inner workings of my thought processes I would say imagine darkness and that is where all my thoughts should be. I’m not complex. I’m simple and a idiot. I haven’t read many complex books or done any spectacular things with myself. I am hardly very smart at all. I have many issues that haven’t been resolved for many years, and in some way I blame my hobbies which have done its part in helping to softening the blows and act as a world to run away to. I may be 21 years old but my mind is still stuck at a very young age. I am very whiny and angst. I complain a lot and I want things done my way to satisfy my needs. The me I think I am is not the real me.

Why am I even here in Japan anymore? It always comes this way. When the going gets tough I want to move on to something I can do easily without much work and effort, but all things are like this no matter what. I am going to hit a roadblock where I have to work and I will have to fall and experience failure even if I did try very hard. I gave up on drawing because I thought I wasn’t good enough, I gave up my theology major because my heart wasn’t into it and my beliefs and feelings created conflicts with others. And now here I am in Japan doing what? Did I really have no otaku like intentions when coming here or going into a Japanese major?

I feel a little better getting this off my chest.

21

I can and now will admit it to myself that I want sex, and I want to experience it with pretty much anyone. It goes double if you are wearing anything I am attracted to.

Why I feel this why I don’t know. I am feeling kind of down and out because in a city where all the girls seem to turn me on I cannot talk to a single one of them even if I wanted to due to the language barrier.

Out of all times why now to I get these strong feelings like I want and need a female companion? It hurts a little bit on the inside and also it hurts my drive because I honestly have always been one to repress my sex drive in public as in with friends. I love masturbation but honestly I don’t know sometimes about that. I’m tired so I am going to bed. It has been a long day of drinking and karaoke.

I want to change

I think if I didn’t jog every night I would have gone insane by now. Whenever I go jogging it is like I feel so at peace and feel like yes I can do this. I can deal with all the shit here in Japan. I can get better and I can do anything, but then once I am done for the day I just lose it. I lose myself and regress back to having no confidence and holding myself back. It is like my system rebooted when I crossed in Japan territory. I have forgotten myself (The little bit I had realized). The things I wanted to start working on, and most importantly why I am here. I wanted to start reading more, gain some class, eat better, try to form some bonds and relationships and definitely improve my Japanese. But, I keep making excuses to myself about things like, “I haven’t been studying long enough.” or blame some random factors outside myself and how I am not good enough for any girl. I need to stop making excuses. I need to start taking my life into my hands. I need to start noticing when I hold myself back and do the thing that I want to do. I need to shed the old me little by little.

A rant about myself

I don’t understand human relationships and interaction sometimes. I am a shy person, I guess, or rather I don’t say much and I don’t go out of my way to know people deeper than the surface area. I guess this could be a flaw in my character? I do long for relationships and friendships from time to time but I do seem to want my own space more than others.

Oddly enough when I do encounter some friendships it is just I seem to have this tendency to push people away when they want to interact with me too much. I like friendships but sometimes it is such a burden on me because I need to pay attention to the other person, I need to talk, and it just seems like a chore to go through the limited social cues that I know. I’ve gotten used to doing things my way alone. It is just so weird because I complain that I am alone in my head but then when I do make friends and such I get so annoyed when they hang around me too much. It is like I just want them to be around me for the association and to be my entertainment but please don’t ever talk to me for long period of times god forbid.

I don’t quite understand what it means to have feelings for another. I can assume for the 21 years of my life that the only feeling I have for the opposite sex is that of lust because in my mind it is never I want to know you on a deeper level, but rather I want to have you for myself and my own pleasure because in my mind you’re cute and I want to break you. This makes me wonder if that is basically what love is disguised as, and it is just the stories and movies that try to make it any more deeper than it really is. Although, I can only assume that meeting people just spontaneously happens through various things like school, work, and what not by seeing them and interacting on a daily basis, and not by just walking up to random girls that arouse you and getting to know them. But I am sure there are people that do this as well that have more confidence than I could ever get.

I really don’t know why I don’t have a girlfriend or never really try to meet more girls. I keep making excuses because I feel I probably can never be accepted by a girl, my standards might be too high for the kind of person I am, I am poor, I lack confidence, I have no class, I have no real good points and only bad points, I am uninteresting, I have no idea who I am, and the list goes on. Oddly enough, I am interested in someone here in Japan, but as always I really don’t know how to approach the situation because in my mind it is better to just avoid the whole situation than to try anything stupid.

Not knowing who I am is always constantly bothering me. Who am I? What is it I believe in and hope for? What am I for and against? I know I am very passive and have a more independent attitude. In other words, if it doesn’t concern me directly it has nothing to do with me. People can do things themselves so I don’t depend on others for companionship and what not. Maybe this is what has led to my skewed views on love and friendship. But it all really seems like a stance that just allows me to avoid the real issues whatever those may be. It also bothers me that I am not very interested in much or rather I don’t have much to talk about outside my knowledgeable areas, if you can even call them that.

It really feels like a lot of my actions, thoughts and feelings are on auto pilot like why do I do the things I do. This bothers me. The future bothers me too.

Think positive

Things have been rough in Japan I am not going to lie about that, but things I think from now on are going to gradually get better. I have been battling depression and culture shock but I have been getting used to things here and talking to friends have helped as well with the situation.

I think for the first time in my life I am actually going to feel sad and miss people I have gotten to know this semester that I might not ever get to see again. I can say that I have made some great friends and have gotten to know some interesting people that have put my thought into perspective and made me think about some things.

I am also realizing that the situation between my father and me isn’t as bad as I saw it before. I really do go to my dad about a lot of things when I need something or am feeling down. I am just very prideful that I don’t admit it to myself that this is what I am doing, and it is really my other relatives that I am very distant to. They actually did call me today but it was at a pretty bad time so I dunno. The e-mails I get from my uncle remind me of a pedophile’s for some reason, and my grandmother is just overly concerned about the things here so I dunno.

I have really been trying to think positive now and the ending song to Persona 2 has really become my mantra.

Change Your Way

You can go where you want to go
Be who you want to be
Change the way you live (change the way you live…)

You can go where you want to go
Be who you want to be
Try to be positive (uh-huh)

Take your life
Take it in your hands
Starting from today
It’s all yours

Bring’ in the sunshine now
I’ll blow the clouds away
Your world is what you want
Starting from today

You can do it if you try
I’ll leave it up to you
It’ll bring you brand new life (a brand new life~)
Make you feel you’re watching
something you can call your own

I’m here to show you that you’re not alone (No~)

You can go where you want to go
Be who you want to be (be who you want to be)
Change the way you live (change the way you live)

You can go where you want to go
Be who you want to be
Be confident, think positive

Forget how it was (how it was)
Think how it could be (could be)
Only you can take your life to heights

You’ve so much to give
You’ve so much to see
I’m positive you’ll be alright (things are gonna be alright)

You can go where you want to go
Be who you want to be
Change the way you live (change the way you live today)

You can go where you want to go (you gotta change the way you live)
Be who you want to be
Think confident, think positive

You can go where you want to go
Be who you want to be
Change the way you live

You can go where you want to go
Be who you want to be
Think Confident, Think positive

You can be (You can be)
You can change (You can change)
You can live (You can live)
You can go (You can Go)
You can live your life (live if you want to) the way you want

You can be (You can be)
You can change (You can Change)
You can live your life (You can live your life)
You can take it in your hands today… today.

I am beyond depressed

I want to start over.