Blog EntriesComing to America
April 16, 2006 in USA
The first picture I ever took with my Canon Powershot S2 IS in Den Den Town, Osaka.
In response to my post on Kagoshima, Alanna commented that she’d experienced a total lack of motivation to keep up her blog after returning to the US. Dylan seems to have followed a similar path, his posts growing much less frequent since his return to Oklahoma. And no matter how many times I’ve tried to tell myself that I’d keep this site interesting, I just don’t have the passion to write that I did two short months ago.
I can only hope that I’ll somehow make it back to Japan, and my creativity - both in writing and photography - will reawaken.
In the US, I’m not a celebrity. But in Japan…
Many of you may be wondering what I’ve been doing with myself since returning to the US this February. Well, it’s been a very interesting time in my life to say the least. First, there’s been the emotional rollercoaster. I generally consider myself to be a very motivated, positive-thinking individual. Whatever I choose to undertake I do so to the absolute best of my abilities - be it studying, programming, traveling, and yes, even partying. But during the first month or so after returning from Japan, I found it really difficult to be passionate about anything.
I came up with a number of reasons for this unusual slump: culture shock, reluctance to let go of my life as a student, apprehension at the start of my professional life, sadness at the thought of leaving Japan, and of course, missing Chie. No matter how many times I told myself that I wasn’t going to go through the difficulties that my friends predicted a return to the US would bring, I just couldn’t seem push away the sadness. Honestly, I can’t remember even a single time in my life when I’d felt that way for so long.
I am, indeed, back in the USA.
But with the love and support of my family and friends I’ve managed to work through my bad days, and have at last started to push forwards with my life. It’ll be interesting to see what the next phase has in store for me. I suppose only time will tell.
I would like to post at least a brief commentary on the culture shock aspect of my trip home, but I’ll save that for a bit later. For now, here’s a summary of what my life in America has consisted of thus far:
I had some fun playing with my camera in New York.
-Unpacking my bags, pulling out stacks upon stacks of dusty crates, wiring up my room, and creating a new (temporary) place to live at my dad’s house.
-Visiting a dentist, orthodontist, and doctor for the first time in a year and a half. Ouch.
-A trip to New York with “The Rat Pack,” my best friends in the world since 7th grade. Most excellent.
-Working on my GPR imaging software for Dean, which has been officially released to the public as of this month.
-Catching up with various friends and family, including a number of visits to my grandparents in San Diego.
-Reformatting/fixing nine computers for friends and family. Sometimes being a computer engineer really sucks 
-Trying to create some measure of organization in the gigs and gigs of pictures/videos/etc that I accumulated in Japan.
-Learning the ropes of the LA/Hollywood nightlife scene with my party-animal best bud Nick. It’s insane how well connected he is in this city.
-Initiating a lawsuit against Pontiac for their refusal to honor the warranty on my car.
-Attempting to get Chie a visa to come visit, only learning that the US immigration laws are written by a bunch of A__holes.
-Studying for the GMAT (MBA program entrance exam).
-Perfecting my resumes (one of which has been updated on the resume section of this site).
-Signing up at Bally’s and trying desperately to regain the more than 15lbs of muscle I lost from a year of living in Asia.
One of my more artistic shots from the trip to New York.
A chicken-hat!
-Learning PHP/CSS and reprogramming this site from scratch to create a respectable web presence for myself.
-Writing more detailed project summaries and taking screenshots of my coding projects for the projects section of this website (for the job hunt).
-Compiling a huge list of video game developers in Southern California and Japan (also for the job hunt).
And that’s all I have to say…about that.
7 Comments »
I know you are young. Onr thing i will predict is that one day when you are older you will wonder how you could have left Chie.
Sorry it has been so tough for you to get your life back up to speed…..I know that is never fun. I would love to hear about some of the culture shock items when you get the time to post.
Also, contrary to what you seem to be thinking, I would enjoy it if you kept posting to this blog
papa & bubbi LOVED viewing this post..so much so they wanted more. i also showed them nick’s blog w/the middle school pic of the two of you which they also enjoyed. xxxxx
Everything will fall into place for you soon enough Justin.As cliche as this may sound- one thing I have always known about you is that are destined for many great things =)
Andy: I know, sorry to be so crappy about posting…hopefully the job hunt will bring me back to the land that we BOTH seem to have fallen for
Aunt V: What?? you read NICK’s blog? Haha…our darker half…
I know you miss Japan but IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII missed you!! good to have ya back, even if it ends up being not for too long 
hey justin!
it was nice to see you last weekend =) had a blast
hope you are doing well!
