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| I'm the poster boy! |
Speaking of work, my vacation's come to its end. It worries some of my friends how dearly I speak of the good time I have at work. "You're not one of those workaholics, are you?"
Eh, in regular cases, not really. But seeing the kids makes me happy. Like it or not, I'm a little lonely in Tokyo, so it's nice to have familiar faces come to play. I'm a big kid, myself, and sometimes this city's a little too serious. As I've often said, I need these kids as much as they need me. As much as I like my workmates, they seem to have a closed circle of friends; one which I'm not part of. So naturally, I relate to the kids better.
It's hard to meet people in Tokyo, man. Damned hard. Thanks to Ken, who I'm pretty inseparable with, and the occasional presence of Erika, I ain't completely friendless in Tokyo, but I'm not a long way from there. In this city, no one my age lives on their own. I get it, the place is expensive. But people here live with their parents until their late twenties and early thirties; totally commonplace. The Japanese folk, they're a tough bunch to connect to, and as a foreigner, it's difficult to just integrate myself to the community without maybe murdering a local terrorist or becoming a J-Pop singer or something.
When people ask me about how people are in Canada, I establish the following comparison: it's easy to make friends back home, but hard to have a meaningful connection. The opposite can be said for Japan. It's hard to make friends here, but I think the bond is deeper. The easy alternative is to make foreigner friends, with the downside being that I won't be learning any of the language at all, and such friendships also tend to be on a shorter term. Unlike myself, most gaijin aren't here to stay. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
So that, my friends, is why I enjoy work. The kids are my buddies. They actually look up to me and that's nice (since no one else in their right mind would.) There's actually this one little girl who seems to be taking after me and wants me to teach her acrobatics. So until I expand my network healthily, the kids will always be around to provide an element of human contact to my life. All I have to do now is sit the fuck down and study hard. 'Cause God knows I won't be making friends if I can't speak properly.
Eh, in regular cases, not really. But seeing the kids makes me happy. Like it or not, I'm a little lonely in Tokyo, so it's nice to have familiar faces come to play. I'm a big kid, myself, and sometimes this city's a little too serious. As I've often said, I need these kids as much as they need me. As much as I like my workmates, they seem to have a closed circle of friends; one which I'm not part of. So naturally, I relate to the kids better.
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| My favorite group! The all-girls Champions class! |
When people ask me about how people are in Canada, I establish the following comparison: it's easy to make friends back home, but hard to have a meaningful connection. The opposite can be said for Japan. It's hard to make friends here, but I think the bond is deeper. The easy alternative is to make foreigner friends, with the downside being that I won't be learning any of the language at all, and such friendships also tend to be on a shorter term. Unlike myself, most gaijin aren't here to stay. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
So that, my friends, is why I enjoy work. The kids are my buddies. They actually look up to me and that's nice (since no one else in their right mind would.) There's actually this one little girl who seems to be taking after me and wants me to teach her acrobatics. So until I expand my network healthily, the kids will always be around to provide an element of human contact to my life. All I have to do now is sit the fuck down and study hard. 'Cause God knows I won't be making friends if I can't speak properly.
That's the right attitude man. Being a workaholic and liking your job are different things.
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