meghan9436

Anyway, during the week I had my head in the clouds again ruminating about the past again in one of my Discord chats. There was some discussion about new policy to allow refunds for video games that have been opened. Honestly, this should have been implemented decades ago so that if you buy an objectively bad video game that you can return it. In my post chat commentary here, I think that it wasn't needed in the 90s because most people in my social circles rented video games, so it wasn't a problem. If the game was that bad, we just didn't rent it again. However, video rental stores have gone away in the west, and I think video game rentals have always been prohibited in Japan.

Yesterday went relatively smoothly, all things considered. I managed to catch a wrong train, and I ended up having to take a taxi to the demo lesson. Everything else went okay as I mentioned earlier. When I was finished at the school, I spent some time collecting the stamps for the Higashiyama Line/Sakura-Dori Line Group for the Nagoya Subway stamp rally. I took the time to film some of these adventures, so that will be coming up in a future video.

Selfie in front of the gold clock at Nagoya Station.


I got a quick bite to eat and I managed to snag curry and rice for under 600 yen at Yoshi Nova.

The day's pickups. I got a business card and a free pick from the pop up event.
Next to it is the British Columbia patch that I found in the wild.

I learned a lot from that interaction! I quickly learned that pedal boards are quite a rabbit hole that runs deep. They look like they're a lot of fun. At least for now, I'll want to focus on learning the guitar fundamentals before I spend any money on these toys. But they are definitely something I can keep researching periodically along the way.

Just to express my final thoughts before I close out here is that I am experiencing some buyer's remorse from the new guitar strings. The old ones were cakey and gross. My guitar was also falling out of tune ridiculously quickly. They needed to be replaced. But I absolutely should not have cheaped out on these new strings. I noticed the difference immediately with these strings because they squeak so much, and I can hear every chord change. But it is a lesson learned that you get what you pay for in the guitar world.

This should bring us up to date to the present. I still need to update my blog about my experiences in Mishima and Tokyo, and those will be coming soon. I need a break from writing now as I feel like I did back in my uni days after writing an essay for class.

Notes to self:
* Update the tags on this entry.
* Make a list of recent song recommendations so that I can have them all in one place.

At the time of writing this, I can hear someone randomly yelling outside. While this is pretty common place if you live in any major downtown metropolis in North America, this is highly unusual for Japan. I find it a little odd.

As you can tell from my last entry that a lot has been happening in my life. That fan activism call just barely even begins to scratch the surface.

At my day job, my students are starting to warm up more. I came to find out that the fussy student who complained about studying English is apparently like that with every teacher. So, I don't feel so bad. The other day, I had a different student describe a situation in their family where they were excluded from a major event. I am purposely omitting details as to protect the identity of the student. Their story reminded me of some memories from elementary school.

First, I remember being in sixth grade and one of my classmates was complaining about how her parents went to see the movie, As Good as It Gets without her. As a side note, even though it has been 26 years since that movie was released in 1997, I never saw the movie. The fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes looks promising, however.

The second memory that I recalled is that I eventually would refuse to participate in school track and field day. I remembered arguing with my parents about it. My argument was that it wasn't like I was missing out on any homework, so why should I go? I presented a pretty compelling argument, so my parents gave in and let me spend my track and field days playing Super Nintendo at home instead. Today, I think that this argument would never fly. You will participate in track and field because you have too much unavoidable screen time as it is, and you need the exercise! At least back then, we were still getting sufficient exercise with the play time that we got outside even if I was refusing to participate in school events. In contrast, the internet has become such an integral part of our lives, that we honestly cannot function at school or work without it. If we can try to find ways to reduce our screen time where possible, I think that's a good thing.

I will have to edit this with a more exhaustive update when I am feeling fresh. It's late, and I have an early morning for work. There is so much more that I want to share and talk about!

Edit for continuation.

This came up in a discussion recently. I often remissness over the content from the 1990s before the internet and computers took over our lives. It was a golden age of storytelling in every medium imaginable: everything from books, games, music, and movies. Despite this, I have to say that I appreciate how far the technology has come. I'm not even sure if I can go back to VHS tapes, honestly!

It's already Saturday, and this week has been a blur. Earlier this week, I went on a late night shopping trip to pick up just a few staple items. I ran into one of the regulars that I see working the overnight shift at my local supermarket. When we were catching up, I looked down at the pile of groceries in my arms, and I asked her, "Did I learn anything?" She was confused about what I was talking about at first until I asked her, "Remember?" She laughed when she recalled the salt incident that I was referring to, when I repeated the question and motioned again to the items I was carrying. I followed up the question with an emphasized "NO!"

Yesterday, I played some guitar for a friend over Discord. It was the second time doing so this week, after not playing for the better part of a month because I got too busy at my day job and with back end stuff on YouTube. I put the final touches on an ongoing project, sent the email, and I am just waiting on approvals now. After that, I wanted to get out to celebrate!

I took my guitar project out in public for the first time in months, and those efforts are already starting to pay off. Someone else was at my local park practising on their portable drum kit, so there was a mutual nod a few times after I arrived with my guitar. AND THEN! I was stopped by a passerby on a bike when she overheard me performing a cover of If Life is So Short. I gave my speal about The Moffatts/Music Travel Love/Dave Moffatt Music, and I wrote down the info upon her request.

After that, I played my guitar. And I played. And played. I played until my fingers hurt. I really want to work hard to make up for the lost time in these last 20 years.

I also posted a lot of art updates here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, I worked on a lot of Traveler's Notebook things, and I thought it would be easier to link to those posts directly to save the length on here. I posted a new video here about the impending closure of my local Loft as well.

I still have a lot more to say, but I'm going to end my update here for now. I will discuss more in my next entry, and update the tags at a later time.