Long overdue

     So last month I went to Tokyo and had quite a blast over there. Helped a friend pick a new clarinet. Tested soprano saxophones and mainly went to see Platina Jazz live.  Also A new barrel for my clarinet is here, a recommendation from the friendly clarinet player I met at the conference. I said a ton I would update this and I never did... so I came up with the title just now.

    In other news I signed up for doctor course and scholarship extension, my GPA barely qualifies and that surprises me quite a bit(I got straight As besides one C I got) I did not think it would affect it so much. So if all goes well I will be staying here 4 years, if not I will just go back to the big V.

   I work as an English teacher and a friend asked me what I did during this trip to Tokyo so I explained it to him. I went with someone to give them advice and help picking a new clarinet, he asked me if I paid for my own travel and lodging expenses and he answered with this "You spent the equivalent of your monthly salary just helping out, so what do you get out of it" Since I went with a girl I guess he implied some sort of romantic retribution. When I explained him there was nothing of the sort now or later. He proceeded to explain to me how much of an idiot I was just by adding the equivalent "cost" of my assistance and help so far he was even leaving out any expenses I incurred to provide assistance; seeing the situation, I am starting to think he is right. I like her, she doesn't like me(not in the same way at least), but she is getting clear benefits for my presence so I doubt she gains anything from cutting me off. In conclusion, I guess I am an idiot and don't the value or lack thereof of my actions. I guess I can quote him on one he said "you have people paying here 1500 yen an hour to meet you one hour a week and that person gets taught clarinet from you on almost a daily basis, pays nothing and gives you nothing" so I guess I need to straighten up my act for my own benefit later on.

   This year, that prefecture concert is also happening, this time they chose really difficult songs so I ended up playing first in most of them. Most people know my name even when I have never met them which kinda worries me since I don't know what sort of image of mine is famous. What rumor is it that is spreading, but besides being unable to make a first impression it doesn't seem too bad. Seems I will spend Christmas and New Years volunteering alone since I don't have anyone to spend either date with, should be okay though at least I got my basics covered. Living such an easy life recently puts things in perspective.  All in all I guess I am a mess right now, but all the conditions are set to fix it. Slammer out.

adventures in the land of bears

so I went to an international conference, my first in the field of engineering. It all started normal... long train trip, airport checks.

view from the airplaine.

Sign at the airport about the conference, already felt like a big shot.

this was our room... yes, just that lots of space.

First day banquet met lots of great people.

Kumamoto castle

various views from the top of kumamoto castle

inside the castle

 

souvenir shop... spot the kumamon.

one day I went adventuring to the kumamoto university brass band.

I commend their stairwell decoration.

They were very nice, even gave me a clarinet to play with them... lots of girls too, which is always nice.

mt aso, which is an active volcano... it had some fumes going out so no dice walking to the crater.

Japanese course and the menu.

    It was a good adventure I would say I received an award during the banquet as best student, met a professional clarinetist. Met people that studied with me in Japan before so to put it all together it was great. When I got back to the band everyone kept telling me  how happy they were I was back, how someone seems depressed if I am not around(regular readers should know who if not ask me directly!) Anyhow it became a theme of the week for everyone to remind me my responsibility to that person and if I somehow vanish, she would vanish too. Guess they caught wind of my plans of bailing out... or that topic comes out often nowadays I have heard it from almost everyone by now, guess they caught wind of her leaving and are trying to get me to do something? I need counseling from a pimp named Slickback. I think I have a case of bitch dependency and it ain't even my bitch. For now I will just keep teaching her normally, but honestly first time in my life I keep getting reminded of how "important" I am to someone when I am evidently not. Looking forward to rasmus faber in tokyo too, will try to go see them.

 

unpardonable behavior

     The yearly concert of the band draws near and with that everyone gets more and more jumpy, including myself, during one of the recent rehearsals, since I got everything ready and they kept making clarinets do the same part over and over. I just stood up and left, went to the nearby room to practice other things. The conductor which is another student just like us got pretty pissed at my actions and cancelled the rehearsal and took the rest of the clarinets to the same room I was in for part practice, as it went on he threw jabs at me every time he could to maybe get a reaction from me. well eventually he did, so I just stood up put away my clarinet and said ”good luck with the concert".

     Going back  a bit to the jabs, the rest of the clarinet players never showed up till the recent week, we started practicing in April, they were all "busy" so I practiced all alone till now, every single day. The line that set me off was "Juan doesn't teach anyone shit, that is why I am stuck doing this" I could teach people, they just don't show up, I cannot be held responsible for them. Honestly I was itching for an excuse to blast off the band so when I go it I jumped at it like a shark, never put my clarinet away so fast in my life. As I was heading to the door of the practice hall one girl from the clarinet part stops me and asks me over and over what am I doing I answer "everyone has a limit, I reached mine" then in my book the worst possible thing happened she broke down in tears, but at first it was just a "are you ok?" talk from her then suddenlybroke down in tears, she even had a nosebleed. I thought she hated my guts to be honest so I was quite shocked at this, I always thought she was awesome but I asked her out once when I had the Disney tickets since I got promptly shut down then I just assumed I would stay on that rejected bin(imagine the defective units in a factory) I had two options stay, put my tail between my legs and apologize everywhere or just get the hell out and leave the place burning in my wake. As she was crying she said "the only reason I am playing now is because you are here, all I want to do is play with you" and similar phrases, to even give more details she was in a street dancing club and she quit that to fully commit to this band(when she did that I was thinking clarinets are safe I can "leave" at any time) anyhow after 300 apologies from me to her, I still feel like crap about her crying.Later that day, she tells me she feels a lot better that she could get her feelings out there and she talks for a bit with everyone. I talk to one of my friends and tells me I should treat her as always and not make things worse by blaming myself about making her cry.

       fast forward next day, concert hall practice, things are weird still... honestly I am a bit wary of everyone still, since now I am the enemy of the state or I feel like it. Since we are using the hall I take my stuff to the highest seats and practice alone up there(takes like 3 minutes to walk up there) She comes and finds me and says she wants to practice together and now her tone is completely different towards me. Before it used to be super polite Japanese, now it was friend level and she walked 3 minutes in heels to come and get me so that is worth something I guess, later on everyone goes to get lunch and she asks if I want anything from the store(she correctly assumed i would stay alone and practice) I said no, she obliges... dinner comes same pattern, she asks, I answer "I am fine", she comes back with a huge bag of food and says "I bought this for you" it had large fries, a bento, two drinks a box of chocolate I ask to pay her back and she says "it's on me" which now makes her the cool guy in the group.  Yesterday she was busy so she didn't come to practice. She never messaged me on the phone either and she started doing so... so suddenly I guess are friends now. Also she brought a shitload of food so it was hard to finish it all and I was dying in the last rehearsal because of overeating, but it is ok. I get called the clarinet genie by the band leader... so everyone knows that nickname and that everyone gets three wishes from me, because if conductors ask me to do something no matter how ridiculous I get it done based on that nickname she told me "do I get a wish too?" I said "the first on is for free" she said "I want us to play together in the concert".

bonus flag saturday we got asked to play as extras for another band, she said she would only join if I join. What is going on. I am pretty sure I should ask her out... but strangely enough I believe she has a boyfriend. DUN DUN DUN.

flags

    most of my socializing goes on from the brass band or  branches from it, being busy doesn't help much, so there is one Venezuelan girl around and the girls from the band wanted me to introduce them to her, honestly when it happened it felt 100% like when a guy asks me to hook him up with one of my friends, just that it was female on female. They hit it off really well and to keep things simple I made an arrangement to not speak of whatever info she gets from the girl meetings. She slightly breaks off this promise and tells me they are discussing on of them eventually dating me, which shocked me. I have no idea of who this is and I dont think there is a way to find out. Regardless, even though I am not that outgoing, I do tend to "watch" people a lot... try and guess who likes who, predict relationships and pretend I notice people and their behaviors I am wrong often enough so it is still fun.

     interesting title I guess but mostly unrelated, I am not really the most confident guy on the planet and I guess it shows, but it really shocked me when one girl that I went to college with in facebook asks me if I have a girlfriend right now... when I obviously answer no she flips and goes "what the hell are you doing, you could get any woman you wanted" and some praise words, this is not about her saying good things about me so I will stop right there. While I am not very sociable per se, I will talk to people but generally not say much while I talk, just say convoluted jokes or just keep whatever they are saying going. I will avoid the topic avoid myself strongly.

　　　These pictures are jump from when I worked in a temple as security, big scary foreigner works for me, received sake as payment.

random lizard while riding my bike

nice flavor of pretz, got it from a labmate

books I got for free at the library, I guess I have weird interests in literature.

alright, alright, alright

I keep getting asked to update, so I will... the building I work at is getting renovated so everything is a mess but it is incredible to see japanese construction workers from my windows, their methods always amaze me and comparing them to Venezuelan contractors is always entertaining in my head

     In travel news, I headed to tokyo to renew my passport, got that done and also sent my clarinet in to get maintanance at a famous saxophone shop in tokyo, ishimori... the technician was quite shocked that I had not only one, but two 50 year old clarinets with me haha. Only had enough dough to get 1 fixed. The one in  better condition.

Pineapple soda motherfuckers, I loved this shit in Venezuela, it pains me to say this one is clear color and has no deadly yellow number 5 to poison every organ in my body, shame.

     Mechanical engineering building got renovated, will you look at those kickass outlets that hang fromthe ceiling, isn't that badass.

     I tried to go shoe shopping, I failed, my size is 32 cm or 13 1/2 and I need wide shoes because I got flat feet too! biggest on the king corner was 30 totally dissapointed. I think I spoke about this before. screw it

     Pretty tree!

    I have decided to hide interesting details in the bottom, only certain people will read this far and in english I guess. Recently I have not really been getting along well with the brass band, I feel... used to say the least, throw at me everything they cant play and just assume I want to do it, smiles and politeness, one hilarious example is, I usually get asked to practice with one flute player. So this one girl is recently asking to join us on those separate sessions, she likes the dude, heck I think I am straight up jealous, anyhow I guess I pay attention I have good memory I can see, notice, remember the signs, rolling eyes, etc. So I have just stopped attending those practices we used to have and let those two at it and not be a... burden as you can say. A friend noticed and told me "man Juan, you are picky as fuck with friends" because well from outside it seems like... yeah I just hate everyone in that case and as I have been told before, I guess my demeanor is hard to read, people don't know when I am angry or happy, en English, Japanese or Spanish not that I try to communicate it. In this case I am just impressed, she was willing to put up with me to have more time with flute-dude so I stepped aside. More friendly banter the other guy told me that my issue was the language barrier, that even though i was good I was not Japanese yet, so that animosity I felt in general comes from it.

   In all honestly, I rarely talk about my own efforts or things I have accomplished, I think with good reason. Japanese, I have worked hard.... if the wall is still there, I guess it will either stay or I will work to make it the best god damn wall there is. Unapproachable Juan sounds tempting right about now. My research is going okay gotta publish a paper soon, will see if I get into the conference, I ear-copied a tune for clarinet and have been practicing it non-stop.

To wrap it up, I guess what I want to say about the band right now...but it is weird as heck. I cannot really convey what goes on there recently in a short and coherent way. I practice like a madman because I am used to it, I used to play clarinet for a living so I have that routine in me... and I don't expect them to be good,better or worse than me, I just expect an answer regarding the effort I put in. I never thought I would hate being taken for granted this much. Like all I do has no value at all. I wish I as pissed at one person, but it seems almost global so I guess that is the instance where I am being the dick and I can be even aware of who is being  a douche-bag I guess(me). Recently I take in general that everyone assumes I am some magical gnome that does everything without putting any work or something and the fact that I put my "magical abilities" at your disposal is somehow not even granted with a "thank you". I guess getting this off my chest was good even in shoddy writing.

if I feel like joining the next concert I guess I will be playing this tune.

Clarinetitis

     I bought a clarinet at the end of January, which was a huge financial blow.... my wallet still hurts. It was sort of a betrayal, I worked all year, left me with enough cash to either return to Venezuela and visit my family or buy a new clarinet, I am a jerk so I bought a new clarinet. However, this instrument is not new at all, as a matter of fact it is a 1964 R13 buffet so it is just 50 years old this year. I came to japan to study engineering but it seems my clarinet chops, which were retired since I entered the university hold up quite well here. I joined the University brass band and along it we got to do an inter-university concert called the niigata student wind orchestra, I asked the whole reason for making this in the first place, our technical university has a severe lack of women and the other universities are mostly women so they just want to hook up, music is merely a stage for it. I am the first foreigner to ever participate in this it seems, though I had notoriety I did not have much of anything else. As usual, all I have going for myself is being skilled and not Japanese around here.

   As I said before everyone's main goal was mostly hooking up or just trying to be popular with the ladies, in the other hand, I just did as usual, practice get everything to speed and well, because no one else gave much of a fuck I slightly regretted it. Until I saw in the questinnaires they handed out during the concert, clarinet was the most popular option(even if I was not allowed to do an ensemble, which other parts got to do) so my effort had some meaning to it after all.

My new clarinet

clarinet group at niigata student wind ensemble.

In other news, I got a gig of sorts after that concert, playing at one of the other universities; graduation ceremony, easy money I guess. best part is we got to play in the fanciest place in the prefecture.

Stage from the modern hall

Backstage had signatures from old performers, this one caught my eye.

    Last but not least, I started using twitter now, got a bunch of followers after the concert.... now i gotta cater to a Japanese audience.

New year resolutions

You know, I got a little rodent chasing me around.... asking me every turn to update this, almost as if I am being badgered, anyways research is going slow, because I need to buy some equipment to keep going.... should get the grades for my first semester tomorrow. Practice with the brass band could be better(I am being a lazy bum) and in the ladies department lets just say my disney tickets will keep gathering dust in my drawer, which is a sad  thing. They do a radio show and for it they are asking people their new year resolutions, I guess one of mine would be to get to use the damn tickets... get to play concerto II from navarro in a concert, you can listen to it below... I might need  a new clarinet soon, mine is in shambles. Slammer out.