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.

My aircon finally gave out completely as of yesterday, and it won't even turn on. I have a bathtub fulled with cool water that I periodically go and soak whenever I start feeling overheated. I want to say that it's been 35℃ or higher every day this week, and it hasn't been fun at all. A few days ago, the heat got so bad that it woke me up at 2:00 am. I desperately wanted to take a shower, but I thought it would be disrespectful to my neighbours to take one at that time. I made do with a frozen water bottle instead.

I finally broke down, and contacted my landlord by email to see if I can't get someone in this week to look at my unit. There's my motivation to get this apartment cleaned up from top to bottom, oops! lol...

But with the rain, I was unable to get an guitar practise in at my local park. Due to this, I missed the day before yesterday, and then resumed practise last night. I continued my guitar practise tonight as well. I expressed to my friends that I really couldn't believe how quickly I am catching on to guitar. It didn't feel like it was that long ago that it felt like the chord sequence for Misery was impossible. In addition to this, I really started to focus on mastering Miss You Like Crazy. Miss You is not a difficult song, and I will reiterate here that there is no reason that I haven't mastered that song by now. The chord progressions are very simple, and not difficult at all.

It is funny though, how I've been gravitating to the more difficult song first. But, by mastering the higher difficulty first, it makes the easier songs much easier and quicker to master! I think the next song that I want to start working on is Girl of My Dreams. This song doesn't strike me as one that would be difficult to learn. It would be cool to put together a whole Moffatts set list!

This recent tweet from Traveler's Notebook brought the song, Downtown by Petula Clark back to the forefront of my mind. I used to love singing this song a capella with my students, so it seems like a natural choice to add to my set list. However, I always associate this song, as well as End of the World (1962) from Skeeter Davis with the movie, Girl Interrupted.

Yesterday, I returned to Loft one last time even though I didn't buy anything. I did however, capture the memorial display one last time, and I have the footage ready for another video. I didn't bother to record another tour because: 1. I wanted to save space on my cloud for other things, and 2. Hasn't everyone seen a closing sale? It really wasn't that much different from when Zellers or Target Canada closed. As items sold out, what was remaining in the store was consolidated into smaller sections.

I still have a lot more that I want to discuss, but I will need to call it as I literally have to be up in hours from now for work obligations in the morning. Gnight, folks!

The overall theme of the book really ties into what I have been talking about on this journey, even before I started this blog earlier this year. Enjoy the current, present moment, and tell your loved ones that you love them while you can because your life and reality can very suddenly and quickly change. I was happy to find out that this series has two more installments that I still have left to read.

After I finished soaking my knees, I put myself together and headed back to my local park. I came by at a much earlier time, maybe around 15:30 or so. I practised the same songs from the previous day, putting extra attention and care to Misery, and the secret song.

Despite the state of my physical health, my heart is full. There is something really special about playing music live to promote the band instead of just playing their music over a portable bluetooth speaker or something. I think that the difference is that it takes a lot of patience and skill to play guitar, and do it well, while anybody can play music on a bluetooth speaker. There's also the live interaction with passersby that you just don't get from playing background music. It really changes the dynamic in a positive way.

For a long time along this journey, I struggled a lot with imposter syndrome. I was in denial for a long time, and I had to read emails back to myself as a reminder, that yes, this is really happening! But with every passing day, I feel a little closer to fully realising my dreams even if they are not fully apparent to you now. Everything will become clear when the time is right.

Today, I returned to my local park with a different crowd. Nobody directly approached me about the songs I was playing, but I did overhear some kids talking about how I was volunteering my song. I heard a boy say something to the effect of, "歌をあげた。(Uta wo ageta./She gave a song.)" before running back to play baseball with his friend.

Later on tonight, there was a special event being held by my local kindergarten. When I inquired about it as I was leaving, one of the teachers thanked me for the music. Thankfully, there were no accidents on my return trip home.

These adventures have provided me with a much needed break from video editing. Particularly from blurring out individuals from my videos to make sure that they are compliant with local privacy laws in Japan. I find this task quite めんどくさい (mendokusai, a bother to do), but this is an absolutely important step to make sure that you are in the legal clear. I mentioned in the description of the Loft Closure video and my update on the community page about exactly how difficult the YouTube Studio editor is.

I realised that my Traveler's Notebook is almost full, and I will need to start a new one for the second half of the year. I'm thinking that I might do another livestream to record the process, because it has been a while since the last time I streamed.

I'm going to stop here for now so that I can grab a much needed late night dinner.

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.