Total RECALL

25 Person Potluck Party in the Bear Den (two months ago)

The lingering gray of the summer's typhoon season decided to work its way out of mother nature's system on Friday. The morning started with that kind of mist that wasn't quite enough to make you put up your umbrella, but would undoubtedly swell as the day wore on into a constant and dreary drip. It's been a busier than busy, but I have reached a little lull allowing me to reflect on all the stories that I have accumulated and their relative importance.

What truly makes the cut for being worth reporting?

The truth is that much of my life isn't so different than any one else's life. Many, many weekends are spent having meals, drinks, or coffees with friends. Sharing on this blog has become a bit of a strange thing for me. I think I fell behind on posting partially because I was really busy, but more so because I have truly settled in after well over a year of being in Susaki. I think when I returned from home, after noticing so many differences and feeling really quite alien in my own country, I wanted to bask in the amazing familiarity of Japan. I take such comfort in the fact that I can contact friends to either side of my town and within an hour I can be certain I will be having a fantastic conversation that could (and always does) evolve into a grand night of fun. It is really easy to become so immersed in that immediate gratification that I tend to forget that I have ties just as strong (all be they flung far and wide) all over America.

Best beach find of my life. 

It's a bit like juggling two lives, but for some (those back in America) our life together is in a kind of suspended animation. We maintain all the vital signs and begin the auto defrost cycles on our cryogenic stasis pods to keep from developing freezer burn, but everything is slowed due to distance and the lack of shared experience. So, I guess it's my job to share more vigorously to prevent stasis lock.





In my past months I have:

• Oriented a group of 36 new JETs from all over the world to life in Kochi. That was a huge production and took a lot of planning with my fellow PA's. It went better than I could have hoped. 
• I floated down the Shimanto River numerous times with those friends I hold most dear whilst sipping on beers. 
• I hiked about 20 miles in seven hours for my first solo Henro excursion, which was beautiful, peaceful, and so dramatically different and vastly more gratifying than I expected solo hiking to be. 
• I sustained my first sorts related injury, due to the above mentioned solo hike, in the form of horribly shin splints on my right leg. (I am better now.)
• I returned to Tokyo, just two weeks ago on Wednesday, for another PA training session. 

Mike's surprise, Italian Mafia themed, dinner party. 

Amid all of this there were many dinner parties, cooking adventures (if you have never gone to this inter-web interest YOU MUST! She never leads me wrong in the recipe department), and other new and fantastic times with Colin, Marie, Mia, Jamie H, Jamie E, and the whole cast of favorite characters you may or may not know by name from the past year of posts.

Granted this isn't much, but it should at least paint a blurry picture of the past months for me. I will be making a bigger and better effort at keeping up with this whole writing thing. I like the idea of having a blog to look back on whenever I decided to return States side, and, after all, you've gotta keep those stasis pods at the right levels . . .


otherwise your friendships might go cold.
(too cheesy? That joke was made with my father in mind.)



As always
MORE TO COME.

Colin and Miss Mia (two of my very favorite people).