There is nothing like having a baby to scare the shit out of you (on multiple levels). I had always been told that you don’t make yourself a parent, the baby makes a parent out of you and after the princess was born I was rather shocked to learn how true that is. In fact, I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say the parents easily are taught more from the baby than the baby can ever get from the parents. Rolling over? Nah, she figured that out on her own after getting sick of laying on her back all the fucking time. Opening up the kitchen cabinets and throwing pots all over the damn place? No, I’m pretty sure she figured that out by herself as well. Smoking blunts and drinking 40’s? OK, she probably got that one from me.
Anyhow, I had always thought of babies as being born with the whole tabula rasa thing going for them and that theory always made the most sense to me mainly just because I really, really wanted to believe it (and had no reason to think otherwise). In essence, not believing in it is basically admitting you have absolutely no control over your own life, which can be a pretty damn depressing way to think, and which of course is why I was so suprised when I saw a very distinct personality in the princess quite literally days after she was out of her mom’s stomach. There is no doubt about it in my mind: the princess was the princess the very day she was born. She’s not even a year old yet and she has a VERY distinct personality. Shit, take about 10 infants in the same room and compare them. It will honestly scare the hell out of you how different they all are.
This of course doesn’t mean that nurture doesn’t play a part in the game because of course it does. I was just utterly amazed at how much nature (genetics?) plays a role. It’s down right scary. So my theory as of now kind of stands like this (even though it is most likely totally wrong; it just works to explain my experiences): people are pretty much born with a personality (genetically), be it because of the tendencies they have to react to stimuli or whatever. Nurture than plays a big part from there on, but only in as far as it collides and works with that personality that is already in place.
When you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. It would explain for example, why kid A mimics his abusive parents’ behavior while kid B spends his/her life trying to avoid being anything like them. It’s easy to think of nature and nurture individually and most studies I have read have always focused on one or the other, but I get the feeling that the real magic lies in the interaction between the two. At least that’s what I keep telling myself, because 100% predetermination depresses the living shit out me.
Side note: isn’t nurture ultimately a natural progression consisting of nature and chance (read “circumstance”) to begin with? If that’s the case, can we possibly find a way to get rid of this fucking “fate” word once and for all? I really wish I could, but the older I get, the harder it gets. Maybe the best policy is just to avoid thinking about it completely.
Ever since I got out of college, I have seemed to have this problem trying to figure out where I’m going in life. From what I hear, a lot of others seem to be in the same boat though. Life was easy for me in college because I wasn’t forced to think too hard about where I was headed. I already had my general goal set out for me: to finish school, to get a job of some sorts afterward. Shit, the biggest decisions I had to make in school were what major to take and whether I wanted to go abroad to Japan for a year or not — both of which I decided on pretty much a whim.
Oddly enough though, even the big decisions I made after graduation weren’t all that hard. I picked up a job and decided to pack up my life to move to a different country without batting an eyelash. These days I can’t even decide on what type of toothpaste I want to use.
I think a lot of it is that once you come far enough, it gets kind of hard to think of things you want to do, mainly because you have just already come from so much and you’re so busy maintaining everything you have, you really just don’t have the time and energy to spare like you did when you were younger. That and you have a lot more to lose. I kind of hate that. There is really so much more I would like to do. I even know what a lot of it is if not all of it. I just find it hard to attack things with the vigor that I used to. Or maybe I am, but the progression is just so much slower that I get to feeling I’m not getting anywhere.
The thing is this: I keep getting in these modes where I’m telling myself internally that I don’t know where I am going when the fact is I actually have a pretty damn good idea of where I would like to be. It’s just much more of a balancing act than it used to be and it’s something I am going to eventually have to learn how to get better at.
Or maybe I’m just talking out of my ass. That’s probably more likely.
We picked up a rental car this morning and spent the day driving around looking at houses. We are still, still trying to decide on what we want to do with the outside of our house (and of course having to do so within a rather strict budget). Anyhow, today ended up being rather educational. The siding we were originally considering didn’t look as good as we assumed it would, and a sample we saw at the builders that we didn’t like all that much turned out to look surprisingly decent. So at the moment, we are leaning towards the latter and still mulling over what color we want.
On a totally different subject, I have been rather enjoying TwitPic. It’s really cool to be able to post random photos from my cell phone whenever. I might have to look into upgrading my cell phone plan if I keep it up at this rate. Anyhow, I have added links to my TwitPic feed on the sidebar and on the photography page so check in from time to time if your interested.
My spell checker was doing it’s best to change the title of this post to “Anal Haircut.” Not really what I was going after but granted, my hits to this website would probably increase significantly overnight.
So yeah, I finally got around to getting my hair cut. I couldn’t decide if I wanted it short or long so I just said screw it, kept the front longish and cut the back real short, and now I just look like an asshole (hence the before mentioned mistake by my spell checker — it was just trying to be helpful). In all seriousness though, it’s a bit different than what I usually do and I kind of like that. Change is always good. You know, that is when it isn’t horrible.
So I did the healthy thing today and walked to the hairdressers rather than taking the train (while smoking). I also brought my little camera along and took some pictures to keep me entertained. I kinda like these:
In princess news, we picked her up this cute not-yukata today. I say “not-yukata” because when I called it a yukata, the wifey was quick to point out it is actually a some-word-I-forgot because it’s not one piece; it has pants and a top. Ah, there it is, it’s called a jinbei. So there you go.
Nothing too fabulous going on right now. Had band practice last night and got our set list for next month’s show together for the most part. We got a pretty long set to play this go around. It’s probably going to kill me. Other than that, I have just been continuing my ritual of Kanji studying at lunch, working on editing my book, watching the first season of “Heros” (whenever the wifey and I don’t end up passing out while putting the princess to sleep), and more of the same old.
We still need to make some time to decide on the exterior of our house so maybe we can handle that this weekend being that we don’t have much else big planned at this stage. Oh, and I got a TwitPic account setup now so I can update photos to Twitter from my cell phone if the mood ever strikes me. Which it probably wont.
Something odd is going on today. I started noticing it once I got to the train station to go to work in the morning. On the typical day, there is a pretty good blend of people going in and out, but today, it seemed everyone was walking out. And usually the “in” ticket gates are on the far right but today there was only one open on the far left. Then when waiting for my train, a massive crowd of people got off but I was the only one that got on. And then even after I got to the station I work at, everyone was walking in the opposite direction I was down the street, even thought considering the time of day they should have been walking the same direction I was; toward the offices, not the train station. It doesn’t stop there though:
The building I work in is pretty big and has two sets of six elevators. The ones on the right go to the lower floors and the ones on the left go to the higher ones. So I go to the ones on the left and all six of the elevator doors are wide open — empty, like no one was in the building at all. Only after I finally got to the office did everything seem normal again.
So, I’m thinking something really bizarre is going on today. I wonder what else is going to happen. Maybe the earth has reversed polarity on me? Am I anti-matter Scott today?
Last weekend, we picked up a rent-a-car and drove out to Karuizawa to meet up with some friends for a BBQ. We had a cabin rented and stayed the night with the other two couples (all international), ate way too much food, drank too much, and played Texas Holdem through the middle of the night. It was a really good time. It was especially fun to get all the kids together.
More pictures here.
This Saturday, I went into the studio again with fit to record “Above It.” To be honest, it was a really brutal session. We were having a time getting the rhythm track down the way we wanted it and finally ended up changing things up and just taking the bass and drum work down first without the other parts. Lucky that seemed to work well and gave us a good boost. I was still a bit worried about how it was going to turn out but it all came together really well. The mix was fantastic this go around which helped a lot too of course. All in all, it was a long day but I’m rather satisfied with what we got out of it. We sure as hell had to work for it though.
Yesterday, the wifey and I took the princess to a trial “Worldwide English” thingy. In short, it’s a company that sells a subscription for various educational DVDs, toys, and books that are all in English. I usually hate kid DVDs because I think they are rather stupid for the most part, but this stuff was pretty cute and educational so we figured we would check it out. Now that I think about it though, it seems a bit bizarre that we took the princess to an event where a bunch of Japanese people play with the kids in English considering, you know, I’m a native speaker. That is, at least theoretically anyways. The princess was still a bit young for it all but we are thinking of getting her some mess when she gets slightly older. The plan is to try to keep the vast majority of books and videos we get her English because she will already be getting more than enough Japanese naturally.
I finished my novel today. To be honest, even if it just sits in my hard drive from here on out it still makes me very happy. Just the fact that it exists means that I won’t ever have to get to the end of my life and say “you know, I really always wanted to write a novel and I hate that I never did.” It feels like such a big accomplishment even though it doesn’t necessarily mean all that much. Funny how these things work.
Anyhow, it is still really rough so I will probably take some more time to go through it and edit it. From there on, to tell you the truth, I really have no clue what I want to do with it. I never really thought it that far through because I didn’t really expect that I was going to be able to finish it. Maybe I’ll find a publisher or two to send it off to just for the hell of it. Maybe I will self-publish a limited amount of prints so I can have one to stick on my bookshelf. Or maybe I’ll just say screw it and let it sit there collecting digital dust, waiting to be found and read by the time I have totally forgot about it. Maybe even my daughter will stumble upon it in a pile of crap long after me and the wifey are gone and past. The thought of that kind of makes me smile, and even just that alone makes it worth all the effort.
According to my horoscope, I’m supposed to be super cool or something today. At least I think that is what it said. It was on the monitor in the train this morning and I didn’t have enough time to read the whole thing. I’m going with super cool regardless.
We’re going out of town this weekend for a BBQ with some friends so I’m going to be absent from the web for a couple of days. I may be a dork and post some twitter updates from my phone though. We will see. I found another Japanese twitter-like service that lets you post random pics from your cell phone and that looks kind of fun. I might play with that someday.
So being that I have to go reserve a rent-a-car anyway, we are probably going to take the opportunity to drive out and see some houses while we are at it. We are trying to design the outside of the house we are building and are having a hell of a time. It’s really hard to image what it’s going to look like with just little samples and it’s all just so expensive. We are really working within a tight budjet at this point.
Well, the princess’ fever seems to be a lot better but now she has a humongous bump on her face where she managed to bash her head into a table leg. It’s never ending, I tell you.
Went to band practice last night. We have a recording the week after next and so we started doing some preparation for that but like always we ended up getting side-tracked and making a new song. Not that I’m complaining though. I like the new tune. It’s a loud one, which we haven’t been making a lot of latley. The plan is to play it at our upcoming show in August so if you want to hear, then there you go. Might even end up being next on the recording list. Who knows.
And I am in one of those scatterbrain moods again were I can’t seem to focus on anything for over a minute at a time. And our AC is still fucked. And the seal on the sink facet broke. And, and… bah!
Oh, and I really want to do something fun and exciting. Like sleep.
