geez. i write about being all good about blogging, then don't forever. but seriously! it wasn't my fault! no, actually, i should say that it wasn't totally my fault. there's some fault there that belongs to me. but some that doesn't:

a few days after my last entry, the power cord on this here lappy-toppy went to absolute crap. which, actually, i am responsible for. i use this thing for powerpoint with the JAM kids, and i tell the leaders over and over that that they have to be careful with the technology. and, of course, i was the one that pulled the bench out from under the laptop while i was moving it. it landed pretty hard, right on the power cord, right where it comes into the computer. the compy was mostly ok (nothing a good take apart/put together didn't fix pretty quick), and the power cord still worked, but the end was bent at a 45-degree angle. which i could live with. then, like weeks later, as i was using it for non-arobic activities, the tip of the cord just couldn't handle it anymore, and broke off. and, of course, hewlett-packard computers are not the most popular over here in japan-land, so it was somewhere between almost impossible and completely impossible to get a new cord from over here. and then it was golden week, so the HP japan headquarters closed down for that whole week. in the end, in what i fear has become typical ryan-fashion, i went to hard-off ( i can't even write that without feeling weird), found an old HP power cord that had the right size adaptor on the end, but ran the wrong amount of power, and cut the end off it and soldered it to the broken end of mine. and it works fine now.

so there was that.

also, i lost many, if not all, of my most important cards. i don't really like to always carry around a freakin' huge wallet with me, so when i can, i pull my drivers license, my bank card, and my alien registration out, wrap a hairband around it, and carry it around in my pocket.

sidenote: it's really hard to blog while listening to weird al's "albuquerque". i have now rectified the situation.

so, at about the same time as i was taking trains all over japan, trying to find a store that sold HP parts, my cards went missing. truly in denial, i refused to talk to the police, or the city, or the bank, or the licensing center, positive that i had simply misplaced them in my apartment somewhere. for those of you familiar with my rooms, and my history of short-term memory problems, this will seem perfectly reasonable. as time wore on, however, it seemed less and less likely that these cards were in my possession. it's also a little scary to be without the alien registration, as i have been stopped and asked for it before by a bored policeman, who needs no reason to do so. so, finally, i decided that it was not impossible that i had actually lost them downtown, and i went in and started the process for getting some new cards. as was inevitable, shortly thereafter, i received a post card from the police department--not koban--saying that they had some of my belongings if i would be kind enough to come and get them. so, being part-way through the process of renewing cards, i had to go back and fill out still more paperwork, the purpose of which was apparently to anull the previous paperwork.

much stamping of the hanko ensued.

the wedding is a month from tomorrow, which is awesome. there's still stuff to get worked out, of course, but the most difficult stuff is all taken care of. at least, the stuff we know about. if we did no other work until the week of the wedding itself, we realized, we'd still be pretty ok. which is a good feeling. we are, however, rediculously overfull in the chapel. it's seriously gonna be standing room only. people just keep walking by us in the halls and being like "hey, good news! i rearranged my entire life, so now i can come to your wedding!" and we're like "...and your name is......?" ok, so it's not that bad, but there's been a few people--or worse, families--that have given us the "good news" that they are coming to our wedding, when they weren't really invited in the first place, and there's really no room for them. but they're coming anyways! moral of the story--sometimes having your wedding a thousand miles away from anything convenient means that the people that you really do want to come (all you saps in the states) really can't, while people you don't really even consider friends get to come. lesson learned.

in general, though, we've just really let go of this thing. as the college kids are starting to come back, and life's getting crazy with hanging out with siblings, cousins, and friends, we realized that these couple of kids is really just the tip of the iceberg--there's what, about 40 family members flying over from the states? and it already feels crazy, and fun, and sleep-deprived? we can't really imagine what it'll be like when everyone's here. it will be madness. there will be laughing, crying, punching, and chocolate cake. and it really will be an epic wedding. and it's actually gonna happen. weird.

i was gonna post some pictures to spice this up a little....but i looked through the photos and realized that i don't really have any new pics. well, any new ones that haven't been posted on facebook. although, not all of you have facebook. i'd hate to be discriminatory, so i'll make a google photo album again and put it into the bottom of this again. this time, it's pics of how me, nelle, her sister lydia, and lydia's hubby john spent a 3 day weekend a few weeks ago. yay for sunburn!

Hiking Nojiri

So, this has been a while in coming, and it's not gonna be that long, or anything. i'm mostly doing it cuz i realized while video skyping with ro that most of the people who read this are in america, and have no idea what's going on in my day-to-day life over here. i'll write updates when something big happens, and i'll take a long time to do a good job, but 1. it takes forever to read and to write, and 2. there's more than just huge, i-just-got-engaged type of stuff that happens to me. and it's the littler things that define my days. it's like a seismometer. every once in a while, there's huge earthquakes (none here for a while, actually), and they make these huge peaks. but more often, there's little earthquakes that make smaller peaks. and i want you guys to be able to be a part of my life over here.

so, with that in mind:
spring is finally here! about a week ago, on a saturday, the temp got up to 25C (about 80), and we were all in shorts and t-shirts and sandals, and all the sakura and ume trees were blooming everywhere, and life was good! then the next day it was chilly and windy. then it got rainy. and more windy. etc. etc. the low on that magical saturday was like 13C, and the highs for the next week were all about 12 and 13. so we were all pissed off. but now it seems like spring is here to stay, which somehow makes everything better: food tastes better, the air smells cleaner. it's like we remember that everything is an adventure, and it's exciting.

on a sidenote, i also realized that it's pretty easy to make a rough estimate of fahrenheit from celcius: take the celcius, double it, and add 30. so 25C becomes 80F. if you feel like doing the actual math, ((25 x 1.9) + 32), you'll find that the real answer is 79.5F., which is a variation i think i can live with.


wedding prep is going well, as far as i know. i've never really done this before, so i have nothing to compare it to, but things are progressing, and me and nelle are still friends. we did realize last week that we are doing this whole wedding thing as difficultly as possible. for example: we're doing the invitations ourselves, and they're 2 layers, and we commissioned the art on them, so they're really cool. but it took forever just to print them, especially since the printer felt like asserting it's control over me from time to time by jamming for no reason on the really expensive paper we had in there. and we're including a photo in the invite (which you guys now get to look forward to), but rather that being sensible and either getting it done professionally (which japan doesn't really do that well, to be honest), or just having a digital photo made and slapping it in, i (for some reason) thought it would be cool to hand-print the photo. so i've already spent about a full day locked in the schools darkroom making these things, and i'm only about half way.

i think they're really cool when i look at them individually, but really, nothing destroys the beauty of something like mass-producing it.

we could have eloped. nelle was seriously suggesting it. we could have had our wedding in america. the parents and siblings could have put it together. or, we could have gotten married in japan, but somewhere local. and rather than try and do everything ourselves in our own way, we could have just looked at stuff on the internet and ordered it. (sigh) i think it was a good thing that we chose to do this the way we did, but in the moment, it's kind of a pain.

alright, i'm gonna add some photos to this bad boy, and call it done. hopefully before too long i'll be back!

ps. i'm including the link to the pictures we had taken for our invites--they're some of the best of us i've ever seen!

Ry's Pics

Ok, first off, I apologize for the lack of information from me. I mean, pictures are worth a thousand words, but they lack...detail. So, here's some details about the engagement that I'm sure you all want to know.

I'd been thinking about how to propose; where, when, public or private, etc., and I realized I was going about it all the wrong way. So, first I sat down and thought through a purpose statement. I mean, what was I trying to do that was different from just giving her a ring, and why was I trying to do something different? So, upon reflection, I decided that my purpose was for her to know that I love her a lot, and I would show her by surprising her with an unexpected event that she would know took planning and sneaking and scheming. So, that done, I began scheming in earnest.

I decided that I would propose outside, somewhere in nature. We're both fairly outdoorsy people, and I figured it would work well to prepare some place in advance for the surprise. So, I began going out to the woods in my spare time. There was no place that I'd been to that I thought would work well, some place that had a lookout of some kind, was near a road so I could drive in stuff, but was still fairly remote, and had a good view. So, I just started adventuring. I drove out on crazy windy, snow-covered roads (which was frightening in my tiny, bald-tire'd car), and whenever I saw a trail branching off from the road, I'd get out of the car and take the trail for a ways, just to see where it went. Most of the time, I was unimpressed, so I'd hike back and keep driving. The only maps I had for where I was driving were driving maps; I didn't have any hiking maps, which made it even more of an adventure. At the end of all my adventuring, I had driven a few hundred miles (about 300km), but I had found the perfect spot. It was a concrete lookout on the top of a mountain, about 3-stories tall, and about a 15 minute hike from a parking lot. Since it was January, it was pretty deserted, and there was snownd ice on everything. Now all I had to do was figure out what to do with the place.

I decided that I would decorate by putting up Christmas lights, wrapped in tulle, around the railing. This meant that I would need Christmas lights, tulle, and also a power source. So, I talked to a friend who runs CAJ (Mr. Willson), and told him my plans. He told me he would lend me the lights the school uses at Christmas time, as long as I didn't mind that they were absolute crap, and he would look into finding a generator for me to use. The lights were, in fact, absolute crap, and it took me about 4 hours of pulling lights out, switching sockets, and testing the strands, to hobble together enough to cover what I figured was the length of the railing. The problem with doing a surprise engagement is that, assuming you are fairly good friends with the person you are planning on proposing to, they know what you're doing about 98% of the time. As this was the case with Nelle and I, all of the scheming, work, and implementation had to happen when she thought I was asleep. Which means I stayed up till like 3am working on the dumb lights. And tulle-ing them was no picknick either. I got 14 meters of tulle, and had to quarter it lengthwise to use it. Cutting 14 meters of tulle in half, and cutting those halves in half, took a fair amount of time that I wish I had been sleeping. The generator to run the lights was found, and fixed up a bit, and ended up running pretty well. Everything was falling into place. The church here owns an amp that runs off a rechargeable motorcycle battery, so I figured I'd bring that up there too so we could have carefully chosen music playing at the right moment.

The next hurdle was how and when to get back to the place to do the decorations. It is a public building, in the middle of a park, so I figured I'd go up on Friday night and do it then, as Nelle and I were planning on hiking on Saturday (the hike had been planned for about 2 weeks). There were a few problems- 1. there was a concert at the school Friday night that would probably go pretty late, and 2. it was a lot of work to do by myself. I also wanted to have a surprise engagement party at her aunt's house, but I couldn't pass out the invites until the end of the concert late Friday night, or else all the kids would have given away the secret. In the end, I asked 2 HS guys if they wanted to spend the night helping me set up for my engagement in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. They, of course, were thrilled. I then told Nelle that I had made a commitment to look after some guys on Friday night, so we couldn't do our usual Friday-night-date. Because my car was in the shop getting serviced (shakken...what a perfect time...) we were borrowing Nelle's aunt's car, which is big and strong and 4WD, which is good for driving in ice and snow, to drive out on our hike. This also worked well to get Nelle in the house for the surprise party afterwards, as we had to return the car. Wheels within wheels...

As a quick aside, may I just say that getting engaged really, really sucks. Being engaged, now that's awesome. But I honestly hated the fact that I had to lie to Nelle, point blank lie to her face, in order to pull this off. Lying and deception are not things that I think are the basis for a good relationship. Not only that, but the one person that I would tell everything to is the one person that I can say nothing to about the thing that is consuming my life and all my spare time. I'm fairly good at lying (unfortunate result of my high school days), but I almost blew it so many times just because we always talk about how we spent our time that day. And I frantically doing about a jillion things at once, almost driving off the road on ice, having hilarious conversations with her relatives about our imminent engagement, all of which I couldn't talk to her about. I actually started typing letters to her during this time, cuz I hated that I couldn't talk to her about it.

At any rate, I gave the invitations to a trusted few, with instructions not to pass them out until after the concert. I drove Nelle directly home after the concert, as it was raining, apologized for having booked myself with the guys, drove back and got the guys, went home and loaded all the stuff up in the car, and headed out at about 11:30pm. We got up to the building at about 1:30am, and set up until about 3am. We got home at about 6am, I slept from about 6:30 to 8:00, and got up to go out hiking with Nelle. I had been averaging about 3 hours of sleep every night since Monday night. Yikes.

So, Nelle none the wiser, we went hiking. It was a beautiful winter day, snow on the ground, frost all over the ground suddenly caving when we stepped on it. We went bushwhacking for a few hours, thought we were lost, then suddenly found ourselves. We sang hymns at the top of our lungs, bickered over nothing, had good conversations about the uncertainty of life. All this time I was trying really hard not to grin constantly. I mean, she had no idea that this would be the day that she was getting engaged.

We got back from the hike earlier than I intended, so we killed some time at a local noodle shop, sharing a tempura soba. I told her that I had talked to my dad, and he told me about a really cool lookout on some mountian that we should visit if we were out in the woods with a car. I had told Nelle that we should go, so we headed out to “look” for it. Even with the hour or so we killed eating, we were still going to get up there well before dark, which was not good. I decided that we would get lost—the roads out there were all very tiny, windey, unmarked roads, so it wouldn't be unlikely that we'd get lost. In the end we did actually get lost, but not by design or intention. We really did genuinely get lost, which I thought was hilarious. Nelle didn't mind, but she didn't know why I thought it was so funny. I think, in retrospect, it was the sleep deprivation laughing, which was dangerous. Fortunately for me, I am apparently somewhat bizarre anyways sometimes, so she just shrugged it off.

Getting lost had cost us more time than I intended, so we ended up getting to the mountain about an hour after dark, which was not good. Remember, I had a surprise party planned, which means that people were all going to show up at a certain time, so I had to get back by then. Which, of course, we didn't. The entire way up, Nelle was acutally driving (illegally...), and I was fumbling with the map, “trying to figure out where this crazy thing my dad told me about was”. We finally got there, and I told Nelle that I had actually been up here when I was a kid, just like my dad said! There was some hiking involved, and I needed to cover the fact that I knew where we were going. As we got closer and closer, I got more and more nervous (actually, I'm getting nervous all over again just retelling the story), and just when we could see the building ahead, I told her that I really, really had to poo. I'd been building this up for a while—she'd brought a mug of espresso coffee that we'd been drinking all day, and I told her that it had finally worked it's majic on me, and I needed to go. The woods behind us were totally clear, since it was winter and there was snow everywere, so I told her that I was going ahead a ways to poo on the other side of the building where she couldn't see. This was my great escape. I had to get ahead of her and start the generator, and pull the amp out and get it all set up on the top—both the generator and amp had been stored there from the night before. I set up the amp, then ran back down to start the generator. This was the moment of truth. I knew that if anything were to go wrong, this would be it, and it would blow the whole thing. So, I sat down to start the generator. It has a pull-cord, like a lawn-mower, and no matter how many times I yanked that thing, it just would not start. To make matters worse, if I let the cord back in too fast, it would vibrate going back in, which made a really loud, high-pitched sound that was audible for about 100km in every direction. After about 5 minutes of alternately swearing and praying, it reluctantly started, though it didn't sound that great. I ran back down to Nelle, who was freaked out. I told her that I'd been pooping and I heard someone in the building, so I snuck over and saw someone starting a generator. I speculated that perhaps there was some sort of powered weather machinery in the building. She bought it, but she was still freaked out.

It was perfect. It was totally dark, and I had “accidentally” forgotten our flashlights, although in reality, I had mine with me in my bag. I just didn't' want her to be able to see the stuff on the railings, or the amp. We got up on the top level, and I set my digicam up on a ledge, the video function running. Nelle walks to the railing, and you can hear her say “what is this? Hey, there's tulle on this!” and at that moment I plugged in the lights and the entire place lit up, and she stopped talking words that made sense. I had a poem memorized, by E. E. Cummings, one of her favorite poets (“I love you much (most beautiful darling)”, in case you're interested), which I'd been reciting to myself over and over, all day long, but at that exact moment, I totally and completely blanked, and I just knelt there, looking up at her. I had to pull the paper out of my pocket as a prompt, then I did ok. So, I stumbled through the poem, asked her if she would do me the honor of being my wife, and allow me the honor of being her husband. She did manage to say yes, and I put the ring on her finger. Then, we stood, and kissed our first kiss. (sigh) I am a romance MACHINE!

The story's not quite over yet. As we were standing there, hugging and (cough) whatnot, the generator coughed once, raced, then died. Turns out we had run it too long the night before while setting up, and it was totally out of gas! We had a good laugh about it, and headed home, both exhausted. She was driving again, and said something to the effect of “My apartment had better not be full of people when I get home!” which I assured her, it wasn't. We went to return the car, however, and about 25 kids came out of the back room to hug and congratulate us. We hung out with them for a while, told the story that you have just read, and eventually went to our homes.

In spite of the fact that this story is about 2 pages too long, there are about a thousand funny/interesting details that I have left out, like how I had to push my car out of her parking lot for fear of waking her up, how I “accidentally” overslept so we late for our hike late, how she “broke” the news that we were planning on getting married to her cousin, who was in fact helping me plan for the engagement, not to mention all the conversations that I had in secret with people, coaching them to say certain things when me and Nelle came by later to ask about something, etc. My purpose in proposing was accomplished—Nelle had no idea that I'd been working on this stuff into the wee hours of the morning, she had no idea that I had a custom designed ring for her, and, most importantly, until about 1 second before I plugged in the lights, she had no idea what was happening. And she was thrilled that I'd done all of it for her, and she felt loved.

Sometime I'll post some stuff about how I feel about getting married to Nelle, how I never prayed for guidance regarding marrying her, how I feel like a victim of circumstance more than anything, but that'll have to wait for some other time. For now, I have my actual job to get back to!

Just saw this yesterday. it claims to be a face cleaner.












*insert joke here*

Oooh. i've officially been blog-smacked. many thanks to brents and xeryl for the smack to the head. the truth is, my life right now is hectic, more so than usual, which, let's be honest, isn't saying all that much. i'll give a quick rundown of my recent, and not so recent, activities.

For starters, Christmas was a blast. lots of good things, fewer bad things than usual. all in all, i'd have to say that it was one of my most favorite Christmases home ever. first went to the potter home 2.0, where there was ample chill time, although we never really sat around for big chunks of time in front of the TV. played frisbee golf, which, really, i was much worse than i should have been. nelle was there, and she was totally the whole team. which was me and her. the game ended in pouring rain, which was fun. also, freezing cold.

Got a chance to hang out with one of my favorite people, a rather diminutive chap named andrew. i was sort of a bastard and didn't call him or email him for a while, like a year and a half, during which time, for other reasons, his life sucked a lot. so that acted upon my bastardliness in an exponential fashion, and i'm surprised he didn't curse at me a lot more. we walked and talked and chilled, and we are once again good friends.

Had lots of good late-night conversations with brent in our dungeon of a room, which was also great.

Got to hang out with mr. and mrs. cami and deidre potter also, for the first time since their wedding, since they weren't able to make it to tak this summer. it was really great to see them be all married, to see deidre crack the whip on him. it was also great to hang out with nelle, who, at that point, i hadn't seen in three days. we all went bowling, i lost, but we had a lot of fun, except for the part that, due to a miscommunication, we each had to pay what we thought we would have to pay collectively. and we're all pretty money-grubbing people, so it wasn't pretty.
Christmas day was a lot of fun, with the giving and receiving of present, which was as it should be. unfortunately, we've gotten out of the practice of stringing up lights all over creation, though. i think since we're all home for Christmas on vacation, we keep putting it off. i hold myself partially responsible.

A few days after Christmas, i flew to georgia to hang out at the pettit ranch on a mountain. if i've ever been to georgia, i was too young to care or remember. it was actually really cool. they live on this mountain ridge that goes for like 1,000 miles or something. i really liked the space, the feel of the air, the different kind of nature. one of the highlights from my time in georgia was when we were on a hike. there's these crazy vines there that attach themselves up into the branches of big trees, and hang down 20 or 25 feet to the ground, where they are rooted. a little sawing action on the bottom, and you've got a great swing! the best one was partway down a gully, and at the apex of the swing we were about 30 feet above the ground. thrilling.

Came back through portland, and got to see cami and dre's apartment, which i'd heard about, and i got to see their cat in a non-terrified state, unlike when she was at the parents house with the dog. i was only in portland for 2 full days, a saturday and sunday, but i managed to hang out with a lot, though not all, of my friends. i'd like to thank tre and kelly for that, who were considerate enough to plan their engagement and party around my presence in america, causing everyone to be gathered in one place for maximum friendage. flew out to japan on monday, which was also the 8th, which was also me and nelle's 1-year dativersary. it was a short day, though, since it turned the 9th sometime in the early afternoon. by happenstance, seriously, me and nelle landed in narita on the same day, which, if you have been paying careful attention to detail, you will realize we did last year as well. i landed about an hour and a half ahead of her, so i de-planed, and then sat around, not going through customs or immigration, and watched what i figured (correctly) was her plane land and taxi in, then once i figured out what gate her plane was heading to, i ran across the wing to meet her at her gate. this time it had been 4 days since i'd seen her.

Then i went home. everything was still standing, nobody had stolen my car or broken into my apartment (i assume), the youth ministry was still around, and the kids still seem to like me, so all's well. i am planning madly for a retreat in february, and in fact i just stayed up till 4 in the morning making a 5-minute advertisement video for CAJ chapel, which, in spite of it's best efforts not to be shown, did, at the last possible moment, work out. it wasn't saving, then it wasn't exporting, then the sound wasnt' working...etc. and watching it in chapel with all the kids was actually my first time to see that particular copy all the way through, so i was praying that nothing had gone wrong in the middle without me knowing about it. i was a stress case. and now i smell really bad. you know how when you're stressed your BO is worse? well, mine is. a lot. and even though i've already had two showers this week, i'm heading home now to take a third. the funny thing is, seriously, all last week i took 2: one on monday and then one on sunday. that's one thing i like about winter; you just don't smell as bad. except for now.

As for the G4:

It is no more. what with the "nearly deported" story coming up, i forgot to finish the epic adventures of ryan's ibook. as you may recall, i typed up an entry for this very blog on said ibook from the comfort of the donut shop (or, as they say here, the "donutsu shop"). at some point later that morning, the CD drive ate one of said compact disks. you may not be aware, but one of the distincitive features of macintosh laptops is that they pretty much actually ingest the disk. there is no little tray that slides out, you just insert the disk into the side of the technology. had there been a little tray for the disk, there would have been a little hole somewhere that i could have poked a paperclip into and it would have manually ejected the tray. instead, i had to rip open the contraption and re-dissasemble it in order to give the drive the much-needed smack to the head. it was at some point in this smacking process that the motherboard (or "mainboard", which i am convinced they call it just to spite the rest of the computing world) somehow mysteriously suffered an electrical short that pretty much renders the entire machine unusable. so, the ibook will most likely end its miserable life as some kind of a youth group illustration involving a sledgehammer. and yes, i will enjoy it.

As with most of the rest of the northern hemisphere, winter has come to tokyo. it really seemed like fall hardly had a chance. either that, or this is fall, and when winter hits i'll wish i was dead. besides the cold, winters here are really great. it's sunny pretty much every day, which is a bigger deal than you realize when you have to dry all your laundry outside. and i thought washing clothes before was a pain! i totally checked out the weather forcast for today and washed a bunch of clothes last night so i could put them out early. i suppose that makes me all growed up.

The grillfiend and i went up to takayama for the thanksgiving holiday, but we didn't actually have the "dinner" that is so popular with most people. there weren't that many people up there for the break, which was unusual. in the past, thanksgivings up there were great--6 or 7 families, tons of kids of all ages, progressive dinner that takes 3 hours and 4 houses, ending with a fire on the beach. it was still a good time, just very chill. i convinced some of the guys that were there to go swimming with me, which was, as usual, colder than i thought possible. and it turns out it's really hard to dry your butt over a fire. nelle and i got a few good beach walks in, and took some good pictures of ourselves. aren't we cute?

Life here has hit the point where my schedule is finally pretty consistent. out of the 4 weekdays that i work, i have 5 meetings with 6 kids, which takes it out of me. relating deeply to 6 HS kids is pretty hard, actually. i recently had to buy a notebook that i write notes from each meeting in, just so i can keep track of what i talked about with whom. it feels kinda weird to know deep stuff about these kids and write it in a notebook, but my memory's not what it used to be.

I've got my travel plans for Christmas all figured out, so if you want/need to hang out with me over Christmas, here's your chance! i'll be in tacoma from monday the 18th till thursday the 28th, and i'll be in portland from the 5th until the 8th. and yes, during the missing week i will be in a place referred to only as "the south", and abbreviated with the letters G and A.

**NOTICE**
the state of emergency has been moved back from chartruse to magenta. please adjust your calendars accordingly.

so, everything is fine.

the medium short version of the "incident" is that my visa expired, making me little more than an illegal immigrant in japan. i was in a tough spot-turning myself in, proper documentation in hand, and being truthful-i really did simply forget-seemed like a good choice. there are stories, however, of those who did similar things and were "held" for days, (probably not actually being held), interrogated at length (physical abuse is an assumed part of the interrogation process in japan. seriously.) and deported, and, as a kick in the crotch of an already beaten foe, banned from attempted re-entry for the next 10 years. oh, and fined 3 MILLION yen. which, even though it is yen, still amounts to 30 thousand of your earth dollars. which is a lot of money.

all these reasons and more were what was terrifying me as i waited in line, the 7th person of the day. i had weighed the variables, and opted to go in early. on the one hand, any grace that the counter-people might have would still be in long supply, but on the other there was the danger of a bad night's sleep coupled with a bad case of somnambulism, and powerless victims to take out insomniac frustration on. personally, i would fall in the second camp, but the japanese folk are notoriously effecient, so i felt it safe to assume things about the quality of their REM.

i waited until the initial line was as short as possible before i went up to wait in it, mostly because i felt that a little momentum would see to it that the trip to the counter was completed, as i would have less time to lose my nerve. i mean, at least as a fugitive in japan, i would still be in japan, right? once my turn came, i explained with abject and self-flagellatory apologies that the date of expiry had come and gone, and my inattention and inaction to it was my own horrible fault, and what could possibly be done in a situation such as this? the man behind the counter, whose job title was "checker-of-the-documents" reached for a mostly blank lined sheet of paper from a rack behind him, then paused. i had in my posession a letter i had insisted my mission organization write for me, claiming their ownership of me, their responsibility for me, and also positing that i was an upright, steadfast, and generally all-around good guy. they also, i assume (the letter being in very formal japanese, i understood very little) apologized on my behalf in much the same way that i already had. the document checker skimmed my document, and deemed it somehow the equivalent of the empty paper he had pulled out. he told me everything seemed to be in order, and gave me a number. when my number was called, i went up to the lady, explained again, she nodded and took my papers, and passport, checked that all the magic spells were intact, or whatever they do with their technologies, and told me to come back in a few weeks when my visa was done. there was one, only one, thing she did differently with me than with all others who had gone before me:

she gave me a short scolding, and told me not to forget next time.

so, while it was hell on my nerves, with the proper documentation from a reputable organization, it was in fact rather painless. but only because i don't have a phobia of being scolded. if i did, then i just might consider stowing away aboard a russian freighter a viable alternative...

things to do while waiting to go to the immigrations office and beg them not to deport you and ban your re-entry for overstaying your visa by 12 days:

1. write a blog.
2. chew gum at a furious pace
3. dress nice in hopes of impressing those-who-are-behind-the-counter

more to come soon..

Say hello to the first of the Horsemen

It’s the end of the world, folks. As I am creating this entry, I must keep telling the helpful beige-clad workers of this fine donut-based establishment that I do not, in fact, want more “coffee”. I sit and watch the busses come and go, the people come and go. As you may have guessed, what makes this entry particularly new and different is the fact that I am not writing it from the confines of my office. I have become unplugged, as it were. I have thrown off my earthly fetters and now am swimming freely wheresoever I choose, toting my new technology with me (although not actually swimming with it, of course). What makes this event so cataclysmic, so earth-shattering we must now wonder if those crazy preachers on the street corners downtown were right, is the fact that….well, there’s just no easy way to say this. I feel like I’ve become an apostate, as if my actions have damned me, and now I must look you in the eye and say this: I am typing on an iBook G4. My iBook G4.

Sit down, take a deep breath, drink some water. You’ll be over the shock in a minute.

It does not “work”, per se, however, so I feel less bad about it. I mean, it obviously works well enough for me to do what I am currently doing, but in the larger scheme of things, the “capable of still doing what it was created to do” sense, it does not work. I got it from one of my co-workers, who owned it for about a year, then it went haywire. He took it in to get it fixed by the minions at the apple store, and they did not, in fact, fix it, even though it was supposedly under warranty. They “discovered” (or planted) evidence that they computer had at one point gotten wet, which effectively and conveniently meant that they would not fix it for free. The projected cost of the repair was not dissimilar to the price of an entirely new mobile computing unit (MCU), and due to the fact that an MCU is absolutely vital to the work of said co-worker, he got himself a new one, and gave me the old one. Being the kind of person I am, I reverse-engineered it down to its constituent elements, unplugged things at random, and discovered that the wireless unit was the offending piece of hardware. Having removed it, all seems to be well. Actually, to be honest, the optical drive seems to have developed a new, disturbing habit of not ejecting my disks, which is annoying, to say the least, more so since this seems to be something that is somehow my fault, as it never did this before I subjected it to a lobotomy. So we’ll see how long it lasts. It may be that when I take it back apart in about 10 minutes I will irreversibly damage yet another piece of hardware. Once this thing works well for a few days, I’ll commit myself to it, but right now we’re still in the test phase.

Needless to say, for all those that are wondering, while it is nice to be able to work out of the office, there are more than a few things that this machine does and doesn’t do that drive me nuts. In fact, as yet, there is nothing that my MCU does that deeply impresses me, apart from the fact that it is mobile. But, beggar that I am, I cannot be a chooser.

All at once, now!

Now, i realize that in the past, i've spent many days, and many posts, on stress camp, and this year will be no different. except that by no different, i mean shorter, and more interesting. first, the general info, then the stories.

In spite of the fact that the forcast called for pouring rain the whole time, it only rained at night, leaving us hiking in overcast, or sometimes fog. the rain would typically start just after we had finished cooking the food over our real, actually-made-from-collected-wood fire. so we would eat fast and go to bed. it only rained the very last day on our way into camp, and it was really pouring. the kids were very greatful that it hadn't rained like that while we were out. the first day we hiked about 3.7km in about 4:30, the next day we hiked for 13.7km in 13 hours, the 3rd day we went 7.6km in about 8:00, and the last day we did 12.7km in 6 hours (6km were on a level road). for the first time in my experience ever, we had a fire every night and hot food for supper! this year was my first time ever to eat one of the meals (hobo dinner) in spite of the fact that this was my fourth time on stress camp. i had 9 kids in my group; 4 girls: Milda, Emiko, Courtney, and Meg K., and 5 guys: Tyler C., Mark H., Eiji, Donnie S., and Yohan K. somewhat unfortunately for him, tyler decided on the 2nd day that the knee that he had surgury on last year was not doing well enough to take him all the way to camp, so i called in and had him picked up. we all tried our best to convince ourselves that it was his loss...but i think most of the kids were jealous. everyone was really great- very service oriented, helping eachother with difficult tasks, encouraging eachother on difficult sections of trail, giving up food and water for other people, etc. it's really wonderful to be able to see that side of kids, to know there really is more to them than the "cool" people they try and pass themselves of as in school.

For the first time in my stress camp career my group was not the first one in! usually i get worried that the last hike will take a long time, so i always end up getting the kids up and going too early. this year would have been no different, but they decided to walk the last 6km to camp on the road rather than take the train, which is what i had been expecting and (not so) secretly hoping they would want to do.

So, now for stories. the first day was pretty normal, and we found a great spot to camp about an hour before dark. we only got lost once, and the leaders figured it out within a half-hour, so no harm done there. we were being shadowed by another group- they hiked up to our lunch spot just as we were leaving it. the plan was for them to give us a 30 minute head-start, but we never saw them again. the next night we heard from another group that they had met up with them earlier, and they were about 3 hours in front of us... turns out they took the same wrong turn that we did, but they didn't figure it out! so, they ended up on a road, and took it for hours, ending up in front of us. bizare.

The next day we had to have tyler picked up, and the guy that met us ("uncle" bob) told us of a great spot to camp, and a little shortcut to get there, so we decided to head for it. we ended up hiking for about 5 hours past dark, with empty stomachs and increasingly bad moods--the last kilometer of the hike is all stairs. as we were about at the top, i thought i heard something, so i told everyone to stand still and shut up. nothing....then we all heard it--a very loud gaijin laugh coming through the woods from the general direction of our planned camp spot. sure enough, another group had gotten there first--hours ago, in fact. not only that, but the only other good spot had been nabbed by the group that was initially behind us, leaving me with 8 disgruntled, frustrated, and hungry kids. they handled it well, though. we ended up all cramming in a little rest-hut, which we wrapped with our flysheets to keep the rain and wind out. very cozy.

The next day, in spite of the fact that i had promised the kids a shorter hike on day 3 in exchange for a 13-hour hike on day 2, and because i knew that there was only 2 good campspots between where we were and our goal and the other 2 groups would probably get them (i was right, i found out later), we hiked well out away from the other groups- 6 hours due west, when our goal was about 5 hours due south (don't tell the kids! they don't know we were that close!). that night we stayed in a hut that i stayed at last year with the stress camp group. last year, when it was pouring rain, the kids were dancing with joy when we found the hut. this year the kids were highly doubtful when i told them we'd be staying in the hut. it's not much to look at- the corrugated metal roof has rusted through in a few parts, the wood is all old and rotten, etc.- but it's still "inside".

The last day we are supposed to get in between 9 and noon. the last hike down from the hut the takes about 4 and a half hours, and it takes an hour to break camp...so i ended up getting the kids up at 3:15am. they, of course, don't know what time it is, but they did know that it was dark, and cold, and they certainly didn't want to get up. that whole trail is downhill, which can be pretty treacherous in the rain, especially if you're sleep deprived. we got to the train station at about 9, and the kids, assuming, it turns out, that when i said we were 3 stations away i meant we were like 30 minutes away, in spite of the fact that they had maps, and also in spite of my attempts to convince them of the distance, the kids, as i was saying, chose to walk to camp on their own 2 feet. i understand the mentality, but it turns out that a 10 minute train ride translates into a 2-hour walk in the pouring rain, which nobody enjoyed. but we got back to camp and had curry rice and a blazingly hot ofuro, and all was good.

We also had good conversation. the name "stress camp" implies that the purpose of the experience is to stress the kids out, which imlies that stress is implicitly good, which i don't really think that it is. there's no point to have stress just to have stress! it's a chance for the kids to try out their leadership abilities, their teamwork, and to see how much they can serve eachother and encourage eachother when they no longer feel like doing it. so we talked about goals and expectations, frustrations and dissapointments, leadership and followership, and stuff like that. the goal is that they will be able to take broad, general, principles and apply them to real life back at school and home, rather than only thinking of that stuff when they are in the exact context that they learned it in. in other words, it's my job to see that they learn stuff, and teach them how to transfer it to "normal" life. this was the first year i tried really hard to do that, and i feel good about it. i've got different ideas for next year, but for a first try, i'm pretty happy about it.

alive'd! and survive'd! and all my kids survived too! well, i did have to get one sent home, but for non-emergency reasons. more stuff to come tomorrow. but all's well.

It's that time of the year, folks!

ARE

YOU

READY

TO

STRESS CAMP?!

the short answer, is no. well, yes and no. mentally i'm prepared, and that's a fact. i'm excited to go, but i think that shows more that i'm delusional and have a short memory than anything else. every year after stress camp, i wonder what would have posessed me to lead such a thing, and i have serious doubts about doing it again. but by the time october rolls around, all i remember is that it rained a little, and we were exhausted.

if memory serves me, it poured last time, we hiked for 14 hours straight, we slept in puddles on the trail, and upon returning i was so exhausted i slept at 6pm the night i returned and didn't wake up until about 10am the next morning. but i do remember that it was a great time, the kids were awesome, and i learned a ton about me and developed some real, lasting friendships. so there's that.

stress camp starts tomorrow, which means that i should really be home eating and looking over my "must pack" list that is somewhere. if i don't have something at this point, i'm basically stuck without it, since it's 7pm the night before, so i'm not really in a rush. as per usual, the forcast is rain for the next 4 days straight. at some point i expect to become bitter and cynical about this, but right now i'm excited to try out my newest rain gear, and see how warm i stay at night in my new sleeping bag (thanks, cam!). since i've been working in japan i've gone on 4 long hikes: stress camp twice (4 days) summer death hike of '05 (5 days), and summer fun hike of '06 (3 days). every single time, without exception, it has rained. the only variance is the amount or type of rain- 2 were raging typhoons, and 2 were just bad weather. the forcast for the next 4 days has gotten progressively worse- from partly cloudy monday and a clear week, to what it is now- 4 days of solid, unrelenting, rain.

well, as i learned from calvin and hobbes, this sounds suspiciously like an attempt to build character...


pray.

So, i was at Takayama for a total of almost 4 weeks...not a bad way to spend my august, if i do say so. i was there long enough to have a ton of fun, but also sit around doing nothing for vast stretches at a time. by the end of it, i was itching to get back to work in hot old tokyo...well, maybe the itching was from the poison ivy that i am not in fact, immune to.

Highlights from tak include:
-cliff diving
-fire making
-cake eating
-friend chatting
-scrabbling
-jet skiing
-life saving
-munchkin-ing
-light housing
-girlfriend cuddling
-neice playing
-weed whacking
-gutter cleaning
-mom's food eating
-adventure hiking
-sibling arguing (and winning)
-long family talking
-laughing
-potato gunning (well, attempting)



etc. etc. it was really awesome to get to hang out for a long time (about 2 weeks straight) with nelle- we were actually both staying in the same people's house for a while (thanks foxwells!). then the family came and nelle left, and i moved over to my cabin, and had good quality family time with mom, dad, doug, brent, and ro, as well as dougs wife candice and their 2 daughters, keira and kalista (haha, doug doesn't have boys!)

now i am back at work, and the family scattered the globe- ro to korea, dad manila, brent to canada, doug and mom back to america. so, the family is represented in 5 countries within 3 days of all being in the same one. go international family!

I have now posted photo's from my little takayama adventunre onto my electronic photograph collections website, or EPCW for short, where you can peruse to your pleasure. there are some pretty awesome ones in there, to be honest.

IN OTHER NEWS
There was an electrical storm here a few days ago that was about the coolest thing i've ever been through in my life! and i've been through a few things, let me tell you! at about 3am it started raining so hard that the sound of the rain woke me up. then the lightning started, and i immediately ran to my window, so as to facilitate seeing--and perhaps being hit by--the lightning as closely as possible. at no time in my life have i heard thunder from more than 1 lightning strike at a time- until tonight. there was an average- an average- of 1 flash of lightning every 3 seconds. all of the thunder was within 5 seconds of me, so the thunder was constant, just in varying intensities. and awesome. there were a lot of times, a LOT, that i swear lightning hit across the street somewhere.

All things considered, it was a lot like i would imagine the end times or something. i mean, it was straight out of some eco-disaster, end-of-the-world movie. wind blasting, rain coming down in sheets, lightning and thunder constantly, flash flooding...i was almost waiting for an earthquake or something. that would have been the icing on the cake, and i would have been praying to Jesus to take me home.

As far as work stuff goes, if you guys like to pray (to Jesus, that is) i'd sure appreciate prayers for the youth ministry here. i've been trying to collect/coerce high school leaders for the middle school group, but what with one thing and another, i'm looking at 3 (very qualified and awesome) leaders, where last year i had 5, and the year before that i had 10 (although, i think things went better with the 5 than with the 10). i'm not really that worried about this, as i've been praying all summer fairly faithfully and quite intentionally that God will do His thing with the group and He'll work it so the right kids are in...but, to be honest, 3 people are not capable of being 4 or 5, and with middle school, crowd control becomes an issue. so, if you think of it, feel free to ask God to help me out, or help me know who is waiting to be asked that i've been ignoring. etc.

well, all day i've been too lazy to really eat, and now that's starting to be a problem. off, to solutions!

And sliding in at the just-under-2-month mark, we have... a blog! it will probably be a while before i blog again, for reasons that i'll go in to shortly, so i figured it couldn't hurt to spend a little time on the ol' compy.

First, in brief, what i've been up to.

CAJ graduation was on the 9th of june, and for the rest of june, i was basically a bum. nelle's twin brothers had just graduated, and they were only in japan for 2 weeks, so we all hung out and were basically completely irresponsible. they are huge soccer fans as well, so we were staying up till midnight to watch the first of the world cup games, and then passing out during the second, which started at four, then stumbling home in the wee hours of the morning.

I put together another hike, much like i did last summer, but this time there were 5 fateful travelers (including me and nelle), we were only out for 3 days instead of 5, and there was very little in the way of getting lost or nearly dying. this was the first hike where we had far more time than we actually needed to hike the distance we were faced with, and the supplies to match the generous timeframe, so when the second day dawned crappy and rainy, we hiked till lunch, then quit for the day. both nights we were in spacious and roomy "huts"- there was no heat or electricity or anything, but the windows were defiantly double pane storm glass, and there was definitely jugs of water. i did have a tent that i brought, and i would have used it outside just to use it, since it was a birthday present and as yet untested, but there was a problem with wildlife. at both huts, on both nights, we were totally surrounded by deer. now, i'm a fairly manly man, as anyone could tell you, but these deer were fearless, and would sort of surround any hapless hiker wandering off to relieve themselves in the woods. most of the time they stayed out of the range of the flashlights, which was not that great, thanks to the thick fog, but i had my headlamp, which made the 15 pairs of eyes reflect back at me out of the darkness. so, i opted to sleep indoors. for those that are interested in our route, we took the seibu-sen to chichibu, changed to the chichibu tetsudou-sen, and went to mitsumineguchi. from there we caught a bus to the bottom of a cable car, conveniently out of order. we went basically due south to kumotori yama, which is where we spent our first night. this is also where we spent our second night on the "death hike" of aught-five. we then turned our faces toward the rising sun, and hiked easterly the rest of the time, finishing at okutama station.

A little over a week later, i summitted mt. fuji, again with nelle, but this time with 2 other 20-something guys from church. as with everything, it was something of an epic adventure. as this was not "my" hike, but one that i joined by invitation, i was under the impression that some of the details, like where exactly we were to start hiking from, were taken care of. the plan was to start up fuji in the wee hours of the night and time our summit to match the rising of the sun as perfectly as possible. this is a fairly typical method, and the one that i have used on both of my previous summit experiences. we were a little mystified that there were almost no other cars in the parking lot, but we were all itching to get on the mountain, so we thought about it as little as possible. In fact, for the majority of the time, we saw almost nobody else, which is a little strange on one of perhaps the most commercialised mountain in the world. but the path was before us, the night was balmy, the night sky clear, and the moon providing all the light we needed to hike. it was beautiful. it became increasingly evident that we were not on the trail we thought we were, however. i mean, we were on fuji, and going up, so we were getting to where we wanted to go, but there are supposed to be stations all the way up the mountain that sell beer, juice, water, a bed for the night, canned oxygen, etc., and no matter how far we hiked we didn't see anything except closed, locked, and barb-wired huts, or a few posts and some foundation that testified that that hut had at one point seen better days. after 5 hours of hiking, which is how long it should have taken if we had started from the right point, the sun was rising, so we stopped and admired it. at this point, i was wearing: longjohns, hiking pants, snowboard pants, polypro longsleeved shirt, polypro t-shirt, northface fleece, arc teryx shell, and a woolen hat. and i was freezing. my phalanges were all turning white, and i was shivering uncontrollably. what's with that? but, sunrise revived me somewhat, although it took a good hour before i could start stripping my layers. as we got higher, the lack of atmosphere did it's insidious work, and i developed a crippling headache, which increased exponentially if i did anything to raise my heartrate. good thing i was climbing the tallest peak in japan. but, plodding on, we made it to the summit a scant 3 hours after our sunrise experience. we even climbed around the crater to make it to the proper tallest spot- 3776 meters up. we discovered after talking to some fellow hikers, that we had inadvertently gone up one of the longest possible routes, a route that pretty much nobody used anymore. going down, however, was an amazing experience. they use medium-large CAT type machinery to get workers and supplies to the top, and we were able to follow a track pretty much all the way down. the road zigzagged all over at first, but then headed pretty much straight down. it was about 20 feet wide, and made of gravel about 4 feet deep. you just point yourself downhill and try not to go so fast that your body outspeeds your feet. there was one small incident that involved me (of course) clipping the top of a gravel mogul with my foot, the result being that i pulled a beautiful frontal whiplash maneuver and began descending on my face, but no permanent harm was done. that spectacle was actually captured on tape, and i'll see what i can do to make it universally viewable.

I decided towards the end of the school year that in spite of the fact that many of the middle schoolers would be gone over the summer, i would keep JAM going for the month of july. having now been through every sunday in the month of july, i must say that i am glad that i went with what i believe God wanted me to do. there were anywhere from 8 to 18 kids, depending on the week, and as for leaders, there were as few as 2- me and nelle- and as many as 6- alumni that used to to JAM back in the day, high schoolers that were in town and wanted to help out, etc. i gave 4 of the talks, and nelle gave one. every single sunday, with the exception of this last one, was cloudy, a little rainy, and muggy, so we had to play games inside, which seems like such a waste. the weather cooperated for this last one, though, and we were finally able to play water games, much to everyone's delight.

Now that JAM is done for the summer, i've got this week still in tokyo, during which i'm attempting to get my legal japanese motorcycle license, and pay bills, and generally take care of odds and ends, then i'm off to takayama, the missionary vacaction spot on the ocean, for a pastoral retreat. my plan for the summer was to be up there the following week with various members of my family, so after the retreat ends, i've chosen to stay there, bumming around with other families, until my own comes up there and we start our family vacation proper. there'll be very little to no internet up there, so as much as it'll break my heart and yours, blogging might be difficult, to say the least. after that, i go back to my apartment and my church and my ministry, and begin- can it be? - my third year of youth pastoring. crazy.

Impossible mission

Status: Accomplished

For the last few months...like 6, i've been joyously and completely illegally careening around the streets of tokyo in my little car. i decided that the time had come, something must be done about this. i began to ask around, and found that it is indeed possible for me to get my american driving license "transferred" to a japanese one, provided i jumped through all the little hoops that japan seems to love so much. SO MUCH. i, the asker, was encouraged by the not-too-difficult sounding hoops the askee was telling me about. show up, take a written "test"- 10 true/false, and in english, no less- take a driving test, take a picture, get a license. no problem!

Not so, my friends, not so. in japan, they have these imaginary boundaries that liniate between "prefectures", which act and sound and smell much like the american version of "states". on a side note, in the near future i will further explore the very real possibility that these lines were created by putting a GPS tracker on the back of a drunk dog. while driving down the same road in a straight line, it is possible to leave saitama prefecture, thereby entering tokyo prefecture, then enter saitama again, then enter tokyo a final time. again, this is all while driving in a straight line. i am not making this up. *edit*- that link expired somehow...

At any rate, were i to have gotten the gumption to get this all taken care of while living in tokyo prefecture, all would be well. it would have been a pain to get my address transferred and to register at the city hall, but it would have enabled me to engage with a much more "forigner friendly" licensing center. not to mention one that was not on the other side of creation. but, since i did not get this all taken care of until the very last minute (my american license expired on the 4th, and you can't get an expired license transferred now, can you?) i would now have to deal with the dreaded saitama licensing center. i now know that this place is somewhat infamous in the american crowd for being impossibly difficult- far, FAR more difficult than its tokyo brother. it is also, as previously mentioned, very far away geographically speaking as well. not only that, but it was very highly reccomended that i bring a translator- which seems silly. if they're going to have a process to transfer foreign licenses, it seems they'd make it at least somewhat possible to do on one's own, especially with a degree of japanese under one's belt. however, at one point in my day, a nice-ish japanese man instructed us for well-nigh an hour on how to drive on the test course, all in japanese. and not just any japanese, but some of the most difficult, formal japanese that there is, to the point that not only was unable to understand the vocabulary, i was hardpressed to have any idea whatsoever as to even the subject he was talking about. let it be said that translators are not needed for the one in tokyo.

My translator and i got to the center at 8:30 in the morning, on monday, my day off. in order to accomplish this feat, we had to leave at 6:30 in the morning. this is a travesty. there are about 14 forms that i needed to bring with me (american license, official translation of said license, alien registration card, passport, proof of residence in america, etc.) all of which i had. or so i thought. as of 30 days ago, they started "cracking down" on a form that up to this point had been deemed "nice, but redundant". it now seems the powers-that-be had decided that redundancy is good as a hobby, on rice, on a boat, on a coat, in a car, both near and far...you get the picture. so this form was no longer negotiable. they had not bothered to tell anyone this, of course. this form took me about 30 seconds to get from my city hall- about long enough to write my address out. can a form this easy to obtain really be all that important? survey says: no.

That was the only hiccup in our carefully laid plans. by the time we had gone all the way back across saitama, spent 30 seconds getting the form, and getting back, it was about 1:30. i managed to take the written test and pass, although they never bother to tell you what your score is. if you get at least 7 out of ten, you go to the next hoop. if you didn't they send you home. it was at this point that the instructor talked at us for almost an hour in very technical japanese about what would be required to pass the driving portion of the test. becuase nobody on the real streets actually follows any of their rules, they have a 10-ish acre driving course, complete with traffic lights, train crossings, crosswalks, and even some of those rediculously tiny japanese roads.

This driving test was one of those tests where you are required to know exactly what the tester is looking for, and do it, in order to pass. it has very little to do with driving in the "real world", and very much to do with them having as much power over you as they want. for all that, my tester was a fairly nice man, and i did do my very best to pretend like i thought his way was the best way, but he still failed me. as far as i could tell, you get 1 freebie. make 2 mistakes, and you're out. i know what my first mistake was (not stopping far enough back from the stop line), but i'm not really sure what got me my second "batsu". maybe not being japanese enough. or at all.

So, i returned to the dreaded konosu licensing center this very last thursday to re-take my driving test. i showed up early, like they said i should, even though i had an appointment, i then sat around for 2 hours, which was 1 hour after my appointment. i then took the test, and passed it without a single mistake! (well, i did turn the wipers on instead of the blinkers, but it seems there wasn't a slot for that on his paper). all the "passers" were then herded from place to place, seemingly at random, for undisclosed amounts of time and for unknown reasons. i suspect that even though we had passed the test, they still wanted to break our wills. but, 6 hours after i walked in to take a 5 minute driving test, i walked out with my license. and nobody can take that away from me.

As long as they can't catch me, that is...

Pre Post-script:

For the few of you that know or care about my upcoming birthday (i really don't care about it that much myself. maybe it's an old thing), know that i'm going to be at tak, so if you try anything, i may or may not know about it. that is all.

I have a tip for all those youth pastors out there, struggling to find a way to gain renown on the school campus nearest to you. this single, revolutionary idea has created and developed more of my relationships with high schoolers than any other single idea. i'll write a book about this someday, but for now, i'm content sharing my brainchild in this small, backwater arena. get ready and strap yourselves down, cuz this is gonna rock your world.


Date a teacher.

Seriously, guys. i hung out on campus anyways, just in general, but now all these kids want to be my friends because i'm their teachers' boyfriend, and my relationship with their english teacher is an easy, safe, and fun topic of conversation. also, due to my association with her, i am invited not only to attend, but also be involved in, various student body activities. most recently, there was a mid-evil themed banquet, and the ladyfriend and i were asked to be the "king and queen". decrees were issued, knighthood bestowed, much merrymaking was had, and i am now in about 2,000 pictures- some of just the queen and i, or of various groups that thronged our thrones wanting their pictures with the royalty. all you youth pastors out there looking for a way to get known on the campus of a school take note!


In other news, just last sunday was the JAM end-of-the-year party. this is to celebrate the end of the school year, as well as to give the 5th graders a chance to come for their first time. it's a 4-hour long event, with pretty much no down time, which means it's a challenge for the leaders- we have to be thinking at least 1 event in advance so that everything will be ready when the kids are. we played all our favorite games, we had a time of worship, we had 8 costco pizzas, we had a sharing time, and we ended with capture the flag. this is only the 2nd time i've done this event (it's a once-a-year thing), and since the average weekly attendance has been less than last year, i felt pretty confident that this years' party would be about the same as last years- about 35 people total, which last year meant about 25 kids. this year, we had about 40 kids, and less leaders than i had last year. PANIC!! especially considering that i, and i alone, was in charge of a total of over 50 middle and high school kids. we had a great time, though.

My leaders really showed what they were made of- they totally stepped up and made sure that everything was running smoothly, that the kids were having fun and being impacted relationally. there were about a thousand details that were taken care of, and all i had to do was pull someone aside and give quick directions, and they'd get it done, even if i'd been unclear, or they had to be creative or change a few things to get it to work. basically, they are awesome.

If i may digress for a moment, i feel really sorry for any youth pastor that doesn't think that HS kids are capable of being responsible, role modelling, leaders. obviously, not all of them are (i certainly wasn't when i was a teen), but it's just amazing to see them step up to the responsibilities given them. it's not all cheese and crackers all the time, but i've found that if you trust the kids, they will prove that they are trustworthy. if you give them responsibiliy, they will prove themselves responsible. either that, or they'll go down in flames! because of that, there is more risk running a youth group with teens as the main leaders, as well as more work on my part, but i consider them to be my primary ministry, and i'm convinced the middle school group is way better with high school leaders. i mean, come on. i'm old (almost 26!), and i don't see the MS kids much in the course of a normal day. So, Incandescence- I salute you: Blake, Emily, Maika, Josiah, and Amanda. you are proof that quality wins over quantity, every time.

Back to the party. rather than have a single person give the "message", we chose to each prepare testimonies, and invite the kids to share anything they learned from God, or ways that they grew, through the year. it was a little awkward for a while, and i worried that none of the kids would speak out, but once the dam broke (a tiny 5th grader was actually the first to go), they started lining up. very little is as encouraging as hearing the kids sharing. they talked about some obscure illustration from a talk during the year, and how it revolutionized their walk with God. they talked about how they grew in their morning small groups we orgainzed for them. one 6th grader shared, at the point of tears, how he had been reading how Timothy was telling people to be like him, since he was like Christ, and he wanted to encourage us- HE wanted to encourage US- and tell us that he wants to be like us because we are like Christ. i required all the leaders to go, too, and it was amazing to hear them put their own words and personal application on lessons, ideas, and talks that God has used me to put into their lives- ideas of spiritual disciplines, servant leadership, trust. it's humbling, and also scary, to see how i really do affect and teach them. don't get me wrong- i'm not trying to brag about what a great youth pastor i am. usually, in fact, i feel i'm doing a second-rate job. but this really showed me that God really can, and does, use me.

Here's some evidence of the JAM party. for the capture the flag game at the end, we used glowsticks to differentiate between the teams, since we played at night. made for some awesome pictures, and turns out that to middle school kids, glowsticks are hard currency, man. they might have been happier if we'd just passed out glowsticks and let them play with them for an hour, rather than use them to play a game. either way, it made for some pretty awesome photographic opportunities: