Teh Scottie

So yeah, its been a while and what's more my other entry was rather cryptic anyways.

Oh well.

Life is actually going very well, but it;s always more of a surprise to me when it is not. It occurs to me that not everyone is on a path where they know, regardless of the here and now, that they are heading towards what is better. Most people try and figure out exactly where the path is going, get frustrated when they can't, then just give up on the whole thing: choosing (trying) not to care, or resigning to the fact that wherever they are heading is probably bad. But no, I won't pretend to know where I am going. I just know that a year from now I am going to be happier, better.

And now to quote a quirky 90s tune:
Those here without the Lord how do you cope?
Because this morning we all mourned like those who have no hope..

That being said, no path is easy and my life hasn't been easy. Living with people is a challenge, but the other day I was listening to a girl talk about roommate trouble and I was amazed. The trouble that happens in Prepare House is some serious deep stuff. Just one example is how I have been forced to face how my family has always played favorites (my dad, my mom's parents, etc.) and that has always hurt me deep. My brothers and I and my cousins and I were always stacked against one another. And while I always thought in my head that I would never let that happen with my children, I never recognized how it had just naturally worked its way into friendships. I say things to friends that make them feel like they need to compete with other friends, live up to expectations that other people I am friends with have filled. It's terribly destructive, and I apologize to anyone reading this who has felt this way. 

I was hardly aware of it, and it nearly cost me my friendship with Colleen in light of my closeness with Laura. So, hey, big wake up call and now I'm the better for the conflict, the conversations with tears, and the reconciliation. Plenty of other things have happened like this semester to all of is. It's like were learning how to living in a community where we are not our own focal point, but we focus on something else that ultimately puts us together.

People talk about dropping the "I" and focusing on others. But that has its own problems, us who will make idols out of everything (including each other). We in the house are experimenting with dropping the focus on I, dropping the focus on each other, and instead taking up the same focus on the same God. God, who ultimately puts the focus back on each other, back on us.

Then I hear Devon talk about how her roommate doesn't leave her room when she talks on her cellphone and  how that is unbearable. And not to say that it isn't, really. It's just...humans are funny. We aren't mean to live with each other like that, I don't think. And maybe we aren't meant to live with each other like this....but I can't help feeling we're on to something here in good old Johnson house.

Also: I need a job on top of my campus one. Please please please hire me Lindsay Windows

okay, so I'm a jerk for reading all your live journals but then never updating mine. So here goes it!

I'm back in Minnesota and I love my housemates, even when there are 48 hour periods when i hate them for making me get rid of my rats. But beyond that, oh goodness what life is going to be after graduation I feel will have to work hard to compete with living with these girls. 

I was an emotional unstable wreck coming home, coming back from Japan. Joe and Jenna and different and its being diffused now, but only after I learned to be patient. Guys God is amazing. That's all I can say, really, about any pickle I've found myself in. But yeah, thats winding down. And my sure footing has returned, as of about a week ago.

Remember that time I was going to be an anthroplogist, go to graduate school aftere one and a half more years of school? I received a postcard from Japan today that could easily change it all.

But its okay, because I hadn't had my heart set on it, and I knew it wasn't set in stone. If it were, I wouldn't have kept telling God he could change it anytime he wanted. And he certainly called me on it.

This is big. This could be nothing, nothing at all. Or it could be what I do with the next 9 years of my life, at least. Or it could be a healthy medium of huge, that is, it could simply another year of laying down a foundation.

Kaley pointed out my self-defeating ness, and my fear of failure. And how stupid it is. Thanks BBF.

So I am a walking stressball. I have two different kinds of stress. One is attached to relationships and the other is attached to money. I'm well familiar with the relationship one, and I think over the past couple of years I've reached a point where I've learned through enough painful experiences the way that I should play my cards. The money stress is fairly new and I know that I'm learning and growing and all that, but sometimes I just wish it wasn't now.

 

Anyways, Friday was an interesting mixture of the two, and it didn't end so well for me (or probably anyone else for that matter).
I guess I continue in the ways of my Dad in terms of how I deal with it (close up, walk away, get out) and as much as I know that isn't okay... I don't know, I'm tired? And I don't know what else to do.

So looking back at this semester, which I guess I've had to start doing as of late, I realized that I didn't walk in desiring to open up to anyone and...well, I didn't. Sometimes I'll be a bit envious of the relationship that Joanna and Phil have, for example, and other times I'm glad I didn't go there. I'm a naturally honest person, I'm certainly not one for falsehood, but I guess I shouldn't kid myself and mix me being honest about things with the idea that I'm being open. I can wax poetic forever, but that doesn't translate in me laying my soul bare.

So after 4 months what have I learned? Many things of course, but especially this. The reason why Kaley, Colleen, and Jenny are so precious to me is because they did what no one did before. I didn't desire to open up to them either, not truly, not fully. But they chased me when I ran. Colleen put it nicely when she said "We love you and there is nothing you can do about it." That's called unconditional love, and some will scoff at it and say, those are nice words but they'll fall away when things turn uphill. But believe me when I say that I tested it, and those crazies hung on, through all my daddy issues and protective walls and worst moments. They won't waste any time in noting that its not a love built on their own strength, of course.

Lisa kind of commented on my perpetual niko-niko ness. But I guess I am more concerned with what people do when I'm not smiling. And I am one f'`n hard nut to crack. Stressball.

(but he says in a whisper, someday there will be no more walls)
 

There was once a time that me and my best friend made a purity covenant and I could barely go a month before I broke it. But she didn`t love me less or love me more. So now I am writing it out by hand, signing it and sealing it with ink and tears. Because its not a covenant that was made to deprive of us something, it was made to keep us from hurting ourselves. And I went and really hurt myself.

Nagano was great, seeing Hannah for the first time in 2 years and being able to talk with her for the first time in 3. Zeke is a great kid who is going to grow up and do things we would never have dreamed of. Seth is awesome too, but in a way that clashes with me because of the part of me that is so insecure. But I`m changing, and so are my relationships with most people, for the better. One highlight was Friday night when we stayed up for the second night in a row to at least 1 am, and she and I prayed together. This is the first time I have prayed face to face with a person in more than 2 months. I told a friend the other day that I haven`t cried once since I`ve been here in Japan, which is kind of a return to normal for me but also a little strange in light of how much crying I`ve done this past year. But the truth is I cried once in September, but not as much as I wanted to. Colleen typed her prayer in AIM and I cried as much as I could let myself, sitting in J building in a computer lab. I can`t describe how lonely I was and what that meant to me.

I miss singing outloud to worship God. As loudly and passionately as I like, no outside limitations, no inside limitations. It`s something I got to do this past weekend. Vacation indeed. Ive been stumbling upon such awesome music but singing in paper thin walled Japan is a no-no. Let alone singing my heart out.

When I get home Laura and I are going to create some music. I`m looking forward to it. We're so shy around each sometimes, othertimes not. It`s funny to think how my relationship with her, which is so awesome, stems directly from so many so many tears and battles with my insecurities and belief in self. Then when I got finished with my tantrums and my depressions He simply pointed to her and said "This is why" and from there I have a friend like I`ve never had and never will.

Sunday night after I got back the crew headed out to the park. We barely drank, but it kind of made Troof or Troof an especially sweet time. Ever wish you could love people more? Like, love them so much that all their problems fade away and everything is okay for them, and they are just happy and at peace? Love them so much that their hurts are washed away but never forgotten? It drives me, this love. It`s impossible for me to believe it doesn`t exist. And it`s really all I see and hear anymore. A long time ago I forgot what life was like without it. I think Sunday night was the first time I used the term "undercurrent of Hope" at all, and I think I realize what it is that maybe I have that others don`t? It`s certainly nothing I acheived. I just wish Japan could see that is free and for the taking.

Anyone can see the road that they walked on was paved in gold. But where were they going without ever knowing the way?

I`m posting this like 3 weeks after it was written. I thought it was deleted but I guess it was floating around in LiveJournal`s memory this whole time?

Today I talked with Kaley on skype! It was a treat. I hope I wasn't too excessively rude in the computer lab.

Something that stuck out to me was at one point, Kaley was at an angle where I could see the sunroom in which she was chillin' in. In the panes of the door I saw a bunch of pictures and asked about them. I guess everyone in the House (Prepare House, that is) had put up baby/little kid pics in the window frames. Cute! Kaley mentioned how I need to bring some along to add when I show up in January.

Later on I went to the gym and was doing my thing. Lin showed up around 5ish, and he came over and asked me some cute questions about how much I could lift. I really like Lin, which is funny because when I first met him I couldn't stand him! He's this Chinese kid who went to the U.S. for college (Yale in fact) and then I guess decided to pick up Japanese on top of English. He has this kind of cute stutter in both english and japanese too. I haven't heard him speak in Chinese, maybe its there as well? I figure it's mostly the learning a new language thing though. He's in my new small-sized class, and today I was his partner for most of the day. Anyways, back to my story. So I asked him about basketball, which I knew he had been playing with someone, and he got really excited about the prospects of me playing.  We exchanged numbers and so it looks like tomorrow I will be playing basketball before my Culture class which is AWESOME. Guys i love basketball. I'm from Connecticut, it's in my blood, it's in the air there.

So I'm walking back to the CJS locker room and I start thinking about the baby picture thing again. I have some rather sweet pics of myself as a youngin'. Some are on facebook, so go check that out. One of my favorites is this one of me playing soccer prob when I was around 4 or 5? Maybe 6 even. It was just like perfect timing, the ball is suspended mid air just above my foot, and I'm like in this freeze-frame slide position with my giant afro in line with the motion that the picture can only try and convey. I love this picture.

When I was little, I was active. I still am active, but I mean, back then too I loved to run and play and just be outside and do my thing. I remember being the fastest kid in my class in 1st or 2nd grade, but then again I was going to catholic school and I was certainly the blackest kid there. Well, anyway, I get a strange feeling when I look at older pics, before I gained a ton of weight. I hate the fact that I'm overweight and not because I had insecurities or self-image issues (though I had those aplenty until like, may of last semester haha). I hate it because I know how if could shed 100 pounds tomorrow I would be on the track the next, running because I love to run, sprinting in particular. I hate it because I know that I was a cute kid when I was younger and I feel like I let people down? I feel like I let my family down by gaining weight and not continuing the whole cute thing. Now my Grandma has to apologize for me. It's that sort of feeling. Stupid baby pictures.

The funny thing too, though, is I know that losing weight (which I'm doing now, I'm about 30 pounds lighter than the beginning of the summer, and only 15 of that is Japan!) I know I'm sort of losing a bit of a layer of protection. And I wonder how different my personality would be if I had stayed smaller. Would I still have this sense of humor? Would I be full of myself like most other people?

Just some thoughts I'm thinking.

So, considering that my wordpress blog is all happy times and good cheer, (mostly because I don't exactly know who's reading it and I choose to play it on the safe side), I'm going to revive this sucker and just maintain both. I also took a queue from dreamerneva and organized friend groups. I think this one is going out to all ya'll, but consider it a favor if you find an entry locked for whatever reason, you probably didn't want to read it anyways.

So what's been up with me?  I'm over this whole Amy ordeal, or I'm getting there, and its time to move on with me life. It served a good distraction to the sort of drag I went through this September. Scratch that, it served as a mildly destructive distraction which, despite its nature, proved helpful. I just KNOW that it means somehow now the clouds will part and everything that I wanted will fall into my lap...but it won't matter because I don't want it anymore. i.e., Tom as of late. Tom is my friend from Yorkshire (The one in England of course) who I had a brief crush on for like a week in September, then quickly got over it. Somewhere along the way we became friends, and now he comes and spends time with me alllllll the time. When I was in giggly stage a month ago this would have been amazing!... but now I have no distinct reaction to it honestly.

But yeah, that happens with me alot. You know what also happens with me? In October I get this mad unbridled need to be in a relationship. Click a few entries back to last year around this time and listen to me go on and on about Josh. Things with Marlene weren't even settled around then. Freshman year it was Vwaire. And then for some reason it goes away by Fall break. Of course, I'm in Japan right now and there is no Fall break, but oh wait look at that Fall Break just started for you peeps out there at Gustavus. What the heck? Maybe its the fall weather, this whole season that just make me develop crushes. I think it goes back to Acquire the Fire days, late Septemeber fun developed into early October flirting. Well, whatever the reason, time to get back to the other 10 months of the year in which I am sane. Or...mostly sane. For real though, I feel bad for the friends I've made here who must think I'm like this all the time. Guyzzz i swear the other 10 months I am a LOVE NINJA. Now I just have to wallow in embarassment and shame for getting so caught up in this.

Quick side note: November 24 Chrono Trigger DS comes out!!!!! Ahh, I might just be zealous enough to buy both the Japanese version and English. This is awesome btw, for anyone cool enough to get why. When I am nerdy, I am hardcore nerdy.

Also, Ill prob be posting about my awesome homestay family, random japan stuff, etc. here: runscottie.wordpress.com

My blog in Japan:

runscottie.wordpress.com

Check it out!

Every year August does this to me. It's hot. It's humid. It rains alot... and then fall comes. Just the beginning: a few leaves on a few trees change color. The stupid breeze that overwhelms me with nostalgia. Perfect weather. Blue sky, good air quality. August likes to remind me of what I leave every year now, to remind me of what I can't have for at least 2 more years.

I rode around on my motorcycle through page park and up around federal hill, and then back down woodland street towards BEHS, where on a clear day at the top of the hill you can see the lighthouse on Talcott Mountain in Simsbury. Today the air quality wasn't its best though; the farthest visible landmark was the two towers on Rattlesnake Mountain.

So yeah, I was all quiet and introspective today, packing away. I'm not really nervous or excited or anything. I mean, I've done this flight before, I've done this all before. The new exciting is going to pop up when I get settled and find out English isn't going to get me anywhere. But until then I might as well be packing to just go on a short domestic flight.

This summer I have just been pushing and pushing myself, I see a vision of who I want to be and I'm doing it, I'm going there, I'm becoming that person. But this summer has been really just about armchair daydreaming; this semester I will be faced with walking the walk. I think I'm ready? But God is really really pushing me on the finances thing right now. Gettin' me ready. But its tough.

Um....I feel like i didn't talk/see as many people as I should have before I left, but I had to get in Bristol peeps as well as phone convos with Minnesota peeps, so I did what I could. I will miss all you guyzzz!!

Oh, and for Japan I set up a blog the adress is runscottie.wordpress.com
check it out! :-D

So, i felt like I should write...but then I don't really have much to say...

This summer is interesting. I'm kind of regretting not just staying in minnesota, mostly because I am poor and need moneys, and if I had stayed I would have been guaranteed a job on campus, and then i'd have time to get a job in 'Kato too... Not to mention I am really missing pretty much everyone back at school. Still, i can't be that far from connecticut that long... who knows what I'll do when I end up permanently in Japan :-/

I'm rather bored here, I mostly just play video games, study japanese, and then go to work. Then I start over again. Whenever I end up actually hanging out with some peeps its just unsatisfactory...probably because I feel out of place. There isn't a single person here at home who I have spent more than maybe 2 days hanging out with. That number is increasing, but say last summer I had a few people I hung out with consecutive days, you know? Now its just different people one day to the next, and I kind of just feel third wheel. Im not blaming those people, schedules suck and you're less prone to hang out with someone when it takes effort to coordinate or whatever...

It's just lonely.

The other day I was working at Pchops, and it was a night where Shiann was also working, which is always fun because she's one of the people I can just joke around with the whole time, which makes work go by faster.

We we're joking around at some point, and I think she said something kind of odd but funny so I repeated it in my best Shiann voice and said something like, "this is my impression of you." So then she goes, "yeah, this is my impression of Diana...'Like, um, you know, um, like, yeah so...'" or something along those lines. Which made me laugh because it is very true. That is how i sound, haha.

It made me really introspective though, and I think I spent most of my break time that night pondering how, that is in fact the way I talk, and honestly I don't really notice it until someone points it out. I realize it is fairly annoying to have a conversation with me alot of the time. A girl on my track team gets really frustrated with me a lot because she will ask me a question and I guess I don't answer quick enough and coherently enough for her. One of my friends at school would sometimes make comments like, "try and say this concisely." Another friend would often point out how I tend to ramble, and that irritated him a bit sometimes.

And, like when Shiann did her impression of me, I tend to just apologize and take it... I don't like looking for pity, so i generally don't bother to explain about Developmental Dysphasia aka Developmental Aphasia aka Expressive Language Disorder aka whatever else its called.

It is very difficulty for me to talk, especially on the spot. Ever have a word at 'the tip of your tongue'? It's like that, except with every word. I do a few things to get by:

Remember when you were a kid first learning to read, and in class everyone would be reading some text and you would go down a line, one kid reading  a sentence aloud, and then the next kid, etc.? And you would maybe count how many people until you, then look ahead at what sentence you would be reading, and then read it in your head a couple times, so that when your turn came you were ready?

Well, I do that with everything. And by everything, i mean as much as I possibly can. I also like to tell stories, because I might still have to use 'ums' and 'likes' as filler, but its simply a matter of recalling as opposed to coming up with something on the spot. Creating a sentence, I have the thought in my head by articulating it takes so much time, I'll get three words out, pause, three more words, pause, common phrasing, pause. To maintain at least some coherency I just fill the pauses.

Its frustrating. and I hate it. and a lot of times I wonder if its something I can beat, or something that will go away on its own (it won't) and if the fact that I am trying to become fluent in another language (japanese) isn't just a bad idea from the start. I can read and listen really well in japanese, but it's very difficult for me to speak it. Same as with english, essentially.

The most annoying thing is when I'm reminded of how I sound, because in all honesty its not something i notice 24/7, you get used to it like an accent haha. It makes me feel rather burdensome to people, to my friends. People will say things that kind of hurt, because I would change it if I could you know? Sometimes I'm rather proud that its not as bad as it used to be, I've really managed to get through life. Now that I'm out of high school I don't have to worry about inclass timed essays, which equaled death, and if it takes me upwards of 10 hours to write a 5 page paper, then thats my problem. And i adjust. The cognitive anthropologist in me finds it fascinating, and it's sometimes a tool in how I learn other languages, because I have to learn them a little differently than others.

Anyways yeah. I don't tell that many people, a handle of people at school know, but i'm sure maybe half have forgotten. I don't like to make a big deal of it.