The Misadventures of José Faxner

For some reason, whenever I try to embed Youtube clips, things get really messed up. I think the last one came out OK (eventually), but I have no idea what it looks like for people subscribing to my RSS feed. If it looked all fucked up, sorry about that. Seeing as how my memory is really bad, It’ll probably take me 3 tries or so to get it right the next time I want to do it, but hopefully no one’s too inconvenienced.

Edit: aaaand now I had to muck around with timestamps to get the posts in the right order. I hope I’m not sending anyone all these posts like 3 times each because of it or anything.

Crazy stuff - this winter has been pretty much entirely snow-free so far, but this has apparently changed - while I was getting groceries, no less. As I went to the grocery store the weather was the same as it’s been here in Gothenburg for the past few months - kinda cold, kinda windy, perhaps somewhat rainy - but when I got out maybe 20 minutes later, it was like blizzard outside! Well, OK, a very mild blizzard, but it was most certainly snowing. Not only that, but the snow actually stayed on the ground!

I’m no big fan of winter… in fact you could say I really, really don’t like it. I don’t have many nice things to say about snow either. That being so, a winter without snow just isn’t right. For all the inconveniences it brings with it, I do think snow can be really beautiful, and if nothing else it helps against the perpetual darkness we get here during our Swedish winters.

By the time I’m posting this, I’m sure the snow will already have melted away, but whatever. Hopefully more will follow, so the winter of 07-08 won’t have been completely pointless.

As you might be aware, I haven’t written much lately. Not at all, even. It’s certainly not the first time, and it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that my efforts to actually start updating this thing on a regular basis were as pointless as I had perhaps somehow feared. I have to say though - for good or for bad - that that isn’t quite the case.

To make a long story short, I’ve simply been pretty depressed lately. My job situation seems to go nowhere, and I’m stuck in a vicious circle where I need to put more effort into job hunting, but the situation I’m in robs me of all the motivation I might’ve had. The fact that it’s getting colder and darker outside; something that usually manages to get me down on its own, is not helping matters. And don’t get me started on how much I miss Japan and all of my friends there.

There have been better days, and there have been worse days, but generally speaking I just haven’t been in a good mood at all for quite some time now. It’s not like I’m crying myself to sleep every night, but those times where I don’t feel anxious and sad, I feel more like I’m staving off the looming unhappiness than feeling genuinely good. My lack of motivation isn’t just limited to the job hunt - I never feel like I can be bothered to do anything, and in fact I seem to have a difficult time finding much joy in anything I do.

I realise that going all emo and whining on your blog about your dark, depressing life is about the most cliché use of internet technology imaginable, but please bear with me. I’ll definitely try not to make a habit out of it. To be frank though, as far as going-ons in my life are concerned, there really isn’t alot more to be said. I still sit around doing very little while dreading going to my job those few nights a week… Of course there are other things to write about, but, well, with the current situation I just haven’t felt like writing. Maybe writing would take my mind off things, I dunno, and it’s possible I’ll give it a try, I guess. But as usual I can’t really make any promises, so we’ll just see what happens.

A few days ago Sega announced the third installment of the Ryuu ga Gotoku series (龍が如く, “Like a Dragon”), “Ryuu ga Gotoku: Kenzan!”, and it is looking pretty damn awesome!

I thought it looked mildly interesting at first (my enthusiasm kept in check by the fact that I haven’t even tried the first two games yet), but seeing the trailer at www.ryu-ga-gotoku.com really got me stoked. Curiously the modern-day Tokyo of the first two games has now been traded for 17th century Edo - at first I was a bit skeptical about the drastic change, but seeing the trailer relieved me of any doubts I may have had about this game. So go check it out already! (but do come back and read the rest of this post, by all means.)

As mentioned, I haven’t played the first two games yet, and that’s something I want to do something about, at some point anyway. Thing is though, that is an undertaking not without its fair share of problems. The reason for that is somewhat complex, but as you may know I’m no stranger to a good rant, so time for a brief history lesson:

The first RgG came out in Japan in late 2005. It was an ambitious action-adventure with shades of Shenmue, set in the underworld of organized crime. It was lauded for its unprecedented accuracy and depth of its representation of the Yakuza culture, and became a huge hit, critically as well as commercially. In a sense, it became the success that the Shenmue games never was. The game was a huge project for Sega, but despite that, as well as its great success, for the longest time there was no word at all on a potential release outside Japan.

However, after a few months had passed, Sega announced that the game was going to be released in the US. Though unfortunately - but hardly unexpectedly - the game was going through a few changes. First of all, the name of the game was changed; in the west the game would be plagued by the painfully generic title “Yakuza”. Worse than that though, Sega proudly announced that a new English voice tracked would be recorded, with talent such as Micheal Madsen and Mark Hamill. It was also announced that due to lack of disc space, the original Japanese audio would have to be omitted in the English-language releases.

“But I was going to the Toshi station to pick up some power converters!”

So 10 months after Ryuu ga Gotoku had made a splash in Japan, us round-eyes were going to be treated by an accurate depiction of the world of Yakuza, as interpreted by Mr. Blonde and Luke Skywalker. Needless to say, I was less than exstatic. Not long after, in the winter of ‘06, RgG 2 came out in Japan, and was as big as the first game, if not moreso. And as of today, there has been no word whatsoever on an English version of the second game being released, since reportedly, “Yakuza” didn’t sell well enough.

I know a lot of people think I’m a snob for it, but in a situation like this where I have to choose between a version I can barely understand, and one butchered by dubbing, I don’t even need to think about it for a second before deciding. I’m vehemently against dubbing in games and movies, not least when the language is an integral part of the story and presentation like it is in this Ryuu ga Gotoku. Playing it in English would be like watching a historically accurate Western movie, only dubbed to Finnish or something. I really want to play these games - not least after having the trailer for the upcoming game make my mouth water in anticipation - but because of YET ANOTHER case of Sega’s brilliant decision making, SCEA’s retarded language policies and the generally stupefying traditions surrounding localization of Japanese games, I can’t. I will definitely try to play these games in Japanese sooner or later, but the situation pisses me off all the same. I’m tired of being shit on by game companies just cause I happened tobe born in Europe, and I absolutely cannot wait to get fluent in Japanese to the point where I won’t have to care about any of this.

So, um… why is it that every one of my posts here seem to start off with me feeling bad about never writing? Well, that’s easy to answer; it’s cause I never write. But I mean, why is that, really? At this point it’s gotten pretty ridiculous - I’m unemployed and essentially I spend my entire day sitting on my ass doing absolutely nothing, yet I can’t find a couple of minutes to spare so I can keep whoever reads this up to date. I mean, I know I’m lazy, anyone know who knows me would say that’s old news… but this is reaching new heights even for me. I enjoy writing, but I still can’t be bothered doing it.

On several occasions in the last, oh, 8 months or so, I’ve seriously considered just saying “fuck it”, and setting aside a few minutes every day to write on my blog. Doesn’t matter if I don’t have anything of value to write about, cause it’d still be better than not writing at all (and furthermore I really can’t picture the day I’ll have nothing to rant about), and hopefully working under some self-imposed pressure I would get something done. Well, obviously that hasn’t happened yet. And I certainly can’t make a promise like that now either. Sure, I’ve got all the time in the world right now, but I know myself. That said though, maybe I’ll try giving it a shot? As it happens, I’m moving this weekend so perhaps I will actually, genuinely, be too busy to write, but I think I owe it to whoever might be reading this to at least try to make the effort.

I want to do something about the site as well. Change the header first of all; for one I’m not even in Japan anymore, and “Jig in Sweden” sounds retarded so I’ll need to come up a new fun name for it. Preferably I’d have some slightly more exciting graphics up there as well.

Not sure if I’ve written a post this long with this little to say (actually I probably have), and while I could come up with a number of things to write about, I think I’ll call it a day. I figure more snack-sized posts would be better than the few-and-far-between essays the blog has generally consisted of so far. Plus, this way, I can come back tomorrow and write a normal post, instead of coming back in two weeks whining about how I never post.

Well, I’m back. After a couple of days of shopping (and catching a cold) in Tokyo, I landed in Sweden about a week ago. It’s a very strange feeling; on one hand things are as familiar as you’d expect, but at the same time alot of stuff feels really alien. Adapting has really on the whole been easier than I had anticipated though, and I’m largely back in my old gears already.

While I suppose I should be happy I’m not suffering from a horrible culture shock, my quick “recovery” of sorts has left me with a feeling that was as unpredictable as it is uncomfortable. Going to Japan had of course been a dream of mine for a long time, and during my year there, even towards the end, I would find myself figuratively pinching myself in disbelief that I had made it there. Returning to Sweden, I knew beforehand that I would miss Japan, and that I would be upset as Japan would once again seem like the most distant place in the world. What I hadn’t been ready for though, was the sense that - all of a sudden - all of my great memories and experiences in Japan would feel like they never happened. And yet that’s exactly the way things turned out.
Almost immediately after coming back to Sweden, everything I could remember about Japan started to feel strangely surreal (well, moreso than it does usually), and memories started feeling kind of hazy. It’s not that I’m forgetting stuff, but what a month ago felt like it happened “a while ago” now feels like it happened in a different life, and the people; close friends, people I love and people I dislike, started to feel like characters in some sort of drama playing in my head.

I’m coping with it, but I can’t lie; it was a really strong feeling that most definitely overwhelmed me at first, and I don’t think I’m quite over it yet. It helps that I’m able to keep in touch at least with a few friends from the previous year, even if that too isn’t being kept up as well as maybe I’d hoped. I have been in touch with quite a few people, and alot of others really aren’t more than an e-mail away, but that said I’ve found myself really starved for attention from everyone that I miss so much.

And perhaps that’s been my greatest surprise coming back here. I worried alot about losing touch with people, both myself and my friends being lazy, forgetful, or for no particular reason just not really communicating much. I certainly wouldn’t say that’s happened - for one, I’ve barely been gone from most people for more than a few weeks - but what I’ve come to realize is that the simple occasional e-mail isn’t quite cutting it, for me personally. I can’t expect people to write to me all the time - it’s selfish not to mention hypocritical, considering I haven’t been writing much to alot of people myself - but basically every moment that goes by that I’m not in contact with any of my friends from AIU is nothing short of agonizing. I’ve found myself waiting for the hours to go by so that friends from Japan, the US or whereever are gonna show up online so I can talk to them. And everytime someone does show up, but doesn’t have the time or ability to talk, it’s like a taunting reminder that this whole ordeal is going to be a hell of a lot more work than I had wanted or perhaps even hoped.

As several of my close friends can attest to, I tend to overthink and worry alot about things that really should be insignificant. Not saying leaving good friends isn’t a big deal, cause it kinda is (in my mind anyway), but I’m suspecting this character trait of mine is kind of turning the situation into an even bigger deal than it already was, causing me a fair bit of mental anguish along the way.

This has made me think. As of now, I’m pretty much not doing anything - I’m not in school, I don’t have a job and in fact I’m not really actively preparing for either. As such I probably end up having, and spending, alot more time thinking about talking with friends and whatnot than perhaps some of my friends in similar situations are. I figured, since this occupies such a big part of my everyday life right now, maybe it’ll get better once I’m actually doing something? I do think that is the case (to some extent), but that line of reasoning in turn made me realize something else - I don’t really WANT to spend less time thinking about this stuff. And I certainly don’t want to spend any less time actually talking to and communicating with my friends from AIU. Hell, if I have the chance, I want to spend more time with these people than I did when I was there!

It wasn’t a happy revelation, but I guess things are kind of bound to be unhappy on some levels when it comes to being separated from friends. I suppose all I can do is to make whatever efforts I can to keep the fire burning, so to speak. I am a procrastinator, and a bad one at that (as anyone who reads this blog knows!), so when it comes to not staying in touch I’m as guilty as anyone else. I’m working on trying to write people I haven’t written yet, and just like I really want to get the ball rolling with this blog again, I really really want to actually get started writing to people as well. I have written to a few people, but there are lots more I want to write to as well. And by the time I’ve made it through the list, I’m sure it’ll be time to get in touch with those first people again. It’ll be a fulltime job, but one that I hope will have results good enough to make it worth it.

On that note, I really want to encourage everyone from AIU to do the same thing. I would really really love it if you dropped me a line, but I’m sure you have a lot of other people to write to as well. I don’t want to get all preachy-like and tell you to immediately write everyone in your phone book - but if you’re reading this, chances are you weren’t terribly preoccupied in the first place. So, if you have the time, please write something to a few people. I’m sure they will appreciate it.

I’ve come to the realisation that I’m really, really bad at blogging. My life isn’t at all as boring as you might think based on how often I update this thing (IE never), I just have a tendency to procastrinate ad infinitum… and while I put off writing about stuff, of course other stuff happens (which I naturally don’t write about either). The whole thing culminates in me feeling monumental (if completely unjustified) pressure to write, and as a result end up not writing anything at all.

But since people have been pestering me about it, I’m gonna try to get my act together and change things. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote - the winter program here at the school has come and gone (rather uneventfully so), I’ve bought a PlayStation 3, Juuken Sentai Gekiranger has started on TV, and, eh, I bunch of other stuff, I’m sure. I’m gonna try to take on the list of things I should’ve written about ages ago but never did, and then try to actually blog for real, and actually WRITE now and then, instead of feeling bad about not doing it.

But, you know, can’t make any promises. >_>

Don’t worry, I’m not dead or anything. Just a bit preoccupied with exams, writing assignments, and a little bit of this and that. The semester is almost over, and overall I have to say it feels damn good. It is in a way bittersweet, as some really good friends will be leaving AIU after Christmas, and more still are going to go away for the winter. The next couple of months are gonna be kinda lonely. But on the flipside, next spring semester (starting early April) is going to bring a slew of new people, both new Japanese students but also new international students. And among them, hopefully, many new friends. But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Before any of that I have to finish my last couple of assignments, live through a christmas without my family and my dad’s awesome christmas food, and make my way through the winter program here at AIU. So, one thing at a time, I guess.