The Post I Can't Even Pretend is Full of Syrupy Goodness

The less said about this, the better.

But since this blog was intended to be an account of my days, I've got to do the customary thing and put this here as I file away my backlog of entries I was too depressed to update for many years...

I'll just say that my father passed away 3 December 2015 of pancreatic cancer, the same thing that killed my grandmother (his mother), her brother, and her sister within a year of each other.  It's the same thing that will kill me if I live long enough.

He left behind a dilapidated house, several pensions, and a lot of family issues I had to spend the next 2 years cleaning up.

But I'll come to that when the road so leads me.

Back to the...Past (Return to America, Oct 2015)

I returned to America in Oct 2015, five and a half years after I left it.

Can you believe I've been blogging that long?  Me neither.  Well, despite the fact that I sometimes don't update at all and am now backlogging everything after a 2+ year absence.

Before I tell you about the circumstances that forced me to leave Japan, I need to tell you this story.

What I find appalling is that I have changed so much, and yet my country seemed much the same--people are still bitching about the economy, The Terrorists are still the enemy, we're STILL involved in shitty Middle Eastern wars, the climate is still getting worse despite the fact that STILL no one in America believes it...etc.  Even my 60-something year old mother still has dark brown hair.  It's like I haven't been gone a day.

At the same time, everything has changed.  The smartphone revolution took full hold of everyone, which has perceptibly shifted interactions.  My little sister became the semi-responsible adult I still struggle to be.  My parents are working on retirement.  My mom got a smart car.  My step-sister's kids are no longer babies.  Everyone's moving up.  Everyone but me.

I came back to get my driver's license renewed so I could drive my ailing father places...discovered I had to re-take the test (which I did, passing with the lowest possible score).

My mother and I also took a brief trip out to Valley Forge, because I enjoy abnegating my responsibilities the way people always have for me.

This was actually a very good trip--we visited historic Philadelphia and saw the Liberty Bell.  I ate a rabbit at a traditional restaurant.  I remember I used to call it "The Unsanitary Place" because everyone dressed in these 18th century clothes and served drinks in pewter glasses and served me uncooked meat or something.  I was convinced 18th century hygiene was still in place.

I didn't get sick either time fwiw.

I also had these random memories of George Washington--and for the life of me, I couldn't remember if it was at Valley Forge with my cousins, or some past life I had vague memories of.  Turns out it was the former--I remembered this monument, and they likely were talking about visiting Washington's quarters next.

The trees put up an unusually beautiful display as we drove through the Pennsylvania countryside.  It was an oasis in the terrible place my life was before, and continued after, with my father's final illness.

I think I better tell you that story though.

Let's advance the plot.










I'll update you about my father in the next entry, and may eventually update this with some pics, if I can ever find my camera.

Fleeing Japan

So there I was, stuck in Japan, unable to earn enough to escape, and without anywhere to go.  Depressed beyond recognition, detesting my job, locked in my room.  I was trapped.  I became a semi-functional hikikomori wishing only to end this tormented existence.

Then, I did.

To the heavens above, I swear this was all set up somehow.  It pulled me out of one fated misery into quite another.

In September of 2015, I received an email quite out of the blue that my father (living in the UK) had been diagnosed with the old family curse, pancreatic cancer, and needed me to come at once.

Though I was not speaking to my mother, she clearly had to bail me out of Japan as I no longer had a functional credit card to purchase a plane ticket with.

She did.  I flew to the UK, after several days of packing and fighting Emirates airlines for bullshit luggage policies that their Asian employees are too rigid, unintuitive, and unintelligent to know how to operate.

I flew out of the misery that my life had been in East Asia, and into a situation even uglier.

(Backdated 9 June 2017)

The Dark Time VI: Typical TELF Indignities, and the Toll They Take (2014-2015)

I've been backdating entries all day (I'm writing this about 2 years after the fact, trying to get my life back in order...sigh).

Well, I just don't feel like saying much.  Partly this is because I'm tired.  Partly this is because this was...well, a very Dark Time in my life and recalling it is emotional, and emotionally draining.  Perhaps cathartic...but these are things I'd sooner forget.

I just want to say that TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) is probably one of the most degrading, abusive jobs one can have, aside from being literally forced into bondage.  I don't want to bitch, but that's just what my experience has taught me.  I was warned years ago before I started, and I can only corroborate it.  For this reason, I am hoping to get out of this endless mill of language prostitution (more later).

Just, if you're a prospective English teacher, a bright and perky youngster who wants to see the world--as I once was--just know what you're getting into.

Yes, it has it's bright side--you do get to travel, to meet like-minded people, possibly to even impact lives for the better.  There are people who've build entire careers out of it, who love it despite its flaws.

But let me tell you something about me.  I was once considered intelligent.  I was considered to be a young person with a bright future.  I was considered a prodigy by many of my professors, a solid worker by my bosses, a fiery woman by the odd admirer.  I thought of myself as being supremely competent, a top-notch employee, a hard worker, a smart person.

I don't believe this was just the arrogance of youth talking, or the "wobegone effect"--I really was willing and able to apply myself, and I had a strong but realistic sense of my own capabilities.  And people commented on them, I don't think just to give me a false sense of pride.

Before you roll your eyes too much, I'll just add that if you consider yourself to be smart, reliable, and competent, TEFL will almost certainly wrest that away from you if you stay long enough.

Understand, you're an expendable talking head.  In many countries, the fact that you have white skin is all that matters, and you WILL be paraded around as a marketing tool.  You have to smile like an idiot and give a hyper-enthusiastic "HELLO!!! :D".  If you enjoy performing, this might be right for you, I don't know.  I personally can't stand it.

Probably Cambodia was the country where I was accorded the most respect--of all places.  And if you look back, I've written about my frustrations there, too.

But likewise, since I'm getting out all my resentment against Japan today, I certainly must tell you that it was there I ran into the most disrespectful attitudes and arbitrary treatment.

The Japanese are the master race, and they know it (I say this without bitterness!).  And consequently, even foreigners there feel compelled to conform to the Japanese Way--even when interacting solely with other foreigners.  I've said that in an earlier entry; well not only did they keep whacking me for my physical appearance, they whacked me for my basic competency as well.

They'd set me up to fail, demanding I be at a certain location at a certain time and then refusing to give me any information on it.  Things like that.

I remember one time I was asked to work on the central database--so I went in, and they told me to sit down and wait till I was called.  Without any training whatsoever, they put me in front of the computer screen and told me to "improve" it.

Well this project was supposed to last a couple of weeks, but instead I got myself fired.

They tried to insist I didn't do quality work and showed up late, when in fact they had ushered me into a room for ten minutes prior to beginning and hardly explained to me what quality work even was.  No one gave me instructions about leaving either, so when I was finished, I just left.  They got on my case for that too ("leaving early"), as well as some of the notations I used (eg, there was total gibberish at one point so I was like, wtf?  And they poured molten lead over me for that--despite the fact that that isn't even a bad word and was on a private database to be reviewed by my superior, who insisted it was really alright and then fired me behind my back).

That's right, they fired me behind my back without even so much as giving me a chance to explain my point of view--I think that's rather sickening.  By all means yell at me for my lack of professionality, but ffs, don't go behind my back.  (For all it's faults, I cannot say I was ever treated that high-handedly by Cambodia; simply, the Japanese are so affluent they no longer understand what's really important).  The final indignity came when they made me do it all over again, unpaid, even though I was fired...I was strongly--VERY strongly--tempted to march out on the job that very moment.

Again, you're welcome to tell me my employer is right and I'm wrong, but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD set up your damn parameters before we begin.

In China, my supportive American manager suddenly started blaming me and telling me I was a shitty employee when I got food poisoning one time, when I first started and wasn't even aware of the scheduling system, and when they put me so far from campus I had to take taxis, which sometimes never drove past my remote location.

Like they set you up to fail, and then hold you accountable.  I consider this a form of abuse--perhaps not what an enslaved plantation worker would deal with, but smaller indiginities that constantly wear you down psychologically.

Note, these were all Westerners involved in these rather arbitrary and arrogant decisions.  Wannabe otaku westerners who've been in TEFL so long it's robbed them of their souls, dignity, reason, and any sense of fairness they may once have had.

At the end of 5 years in TEFL, I feel like an incompetent slacker, a human cockroach eking out a marginal living.  I can't take my employers seriously anymore since clearly they never take me seriously; I can't even take human society seriously anymore.  I consider my intelligence to be below average, and am deadly certain that everything prior bosses and instructors raved about in me was mere formality.  I no longer believe I have anything to offer the world.

In short, I no longer believe in myself.  I've become a haggard, useless, middle-aged woman who has long ago accepted her rightful place at the bottom of human society.

And that's what this job can do to you if you're not careful.

I'm not writing out of self-pity.  I'm writing to avenge myself, and because I hope this message will get through to the right people at the right time.

My final piece of advice is, Just don't be part of the problem, guys.  Avoid TEFL and ffs, if you happen to be a manager in a TEFL-oriented institute, or ever become one, think twice about what you're doing to people.  Not everyone in TEFL has the happiest of circumstances, as perhaps this blog is testament to.

Manager, please think twice before you turn on an employee who you think has done something wrong or give them a condescending lecture (I mean LISTEN to yourself)--it's just as likely you're a miserable arbitrary soulless little lapdog for exploitative powers.

And that is something even worse than what I've become.


(Backdated on 20 April 2017)

The Dark Time V: The Psychopath (29 Dec 2014)

It pains me to relate this story, but I believe this information may prove useful to an innocent party somewhere...


So I met this guy.  And believe me, I'm the most blatantly unattractive human being you could possibly find, so the fact that I found some guy automatically should have raised a red flag for me.

But I was too far gone, mired in depression at this point to actually care what the hell happened.  Perhaps that's why this unfolded to the degree that it did (though we're still talking a mere 24 hours here).

Well we went out for dinner together, and it went without a hitch.  It was a good dinner, despite the fact that he kept pressing me to eat more, which I couldn't do due to the stomach ulcer that had bothered me since 2011.

But that aside.  We agreed to meet up the next morning to go to Kyoto for the day to see the temples.  And that's where we went wrong.

It started with the guy telling me he'd read everything about me--my blogs, my Facebook page, all my profiles...ok um creepy, but you know, I put that stuff in the public realm.  It's there to be read, and could actually be interpreted as flattering that someone would even care to read it.  Eyebrows raised; no actions taken.

Then he started getting onto a topic of Japanese men who like preteens--he informed me this was some sort of power play.  To this day I have no idea if he was talking about himself, but in retrospect, it would have made a lot of sense.

He then starts in on my physical appearance...nothing extraordinary in and of itself as males have been making derogatory remarks about my physical appearance since I was in the 3rd grade.  In particular, a number of my Japanese students made snarky marks regarding my age, just another reminder that women aren't allowed to age.

And for some reason, this guy reads my mind, and starts asking about my health before dramatically adding his reasoning, "Because you look older than your age".  Which is, of course, The definitive red flag.  He kept insisting, "I'm worried for your health", but you--and I know--that this is the kind of thing emotional predators use to dominate weak, insecure women.

Sure, I was depressed, I hated (and still do hate) what time has done to my face, and I was suicidal all over the place...but I was not weak and insecure, and I was NOT going to be preyed upon by a Japanese psychopath 15 years older than me.

I simply said, "You're right, I'm sick...I don't feel good, I wanna go home."

His response to this was simply not to acknowledge me but get onto the freeway towards Kyoto.  (Believe me, I considered hurling myself out onto the shoulder of the road, but instead silently decided to slip away when I could and take a train home).

Of course, when we arrived (and we did arrive, he didn't haul me off to a field somewhere and cut out my ovaries or anything), he had to park the car...he told me to get out and walk and he'd pick me up later.  I started walking, and because this...thing...could read my mind, he asks me if I'm secretly going to the train station to go home.

I just told him the truth.  I said yes.

He reasonably asked me to get back in the car, saying we could maybe discuss our differences.  I should have refused, but I just got back in.  What was I supposed to do?

On the way, he added any number of other sick and creepy things, the most memorable of which were,

"You're insulting my hospitality" and
"But you don't know what I want you for".

Like, what??  What he wanted me for???

Well, let me just skip to the end and tell you how this shameful scenario ended.  We wound up in a restaurant...I was WAAAYYY the hell too distraught to even be able to eat anymore, so I just picked at whatever he gave me.

He started in with the, "You seem so depressed and that's why you're failing at life" spiel, then with the "You're insulting my hospitality" thing again.  I told him to his face, if I was insulting his hospitality, he had equally insulted me ten thousand times over making assholic comments about my appearance and demeanor.  (He of course denied this like the putrid demon spawn he was.)  "No, no, that's just a fact--you really do look quite old."  He really said that to me, and no doubt it is true, but to just say that to a woman you've just met.  To anyone you've met.

Guilt-tripping me mightily about my social skills (and I admit, I am susceptible to guilt-tripping that way, because I know I'm a socially-awkward encumbrance), he told me I had one last chance to "make it right" (despite the way he tried to vivisect someone who was already clearly down for the count and clearly didn't give two shits about that) hauled me to Starbucks, and then coerced me to buy something.

I kid you not, he coerced me.  He gave me a list of drinks and told me I had to buy one; I said I wanted tea instead (not to be difficult, just I literally didn't want a fancy drink), and he literally told me I "wasn't allowed".

I said, I don't want anything then (again not to be difficult).

He went ballistic then.  He started ranting at me inarticulately and stormed out of the Starbucks.  I yelled some sadly understated, ineffective comment after him ("You're a jerk!"), spat bitterly on the ground, and just thanked God I can shake out the assholes really easily.

I wasn't even the one who had to create the drama this time.

I didn't feel anything at the time--I was completely numb; I just unceremoniously went to the train station and went home.  As I recount this 2 years later, rage is coursing through my body.  I would like to pulverize this piece of human trash beyond recognition.  Castrate him, cut off his dick and shove it down his throat.

To this day, I still don't know what he wanted me for, but obviously it wasn't for purposes of sex or attraction.  I believe I wound up in the cross-hairs of an organ harvester to be honest--a misogynistic, hateful organ harvester who enjoys cat-and-mousing his prey before finishing them off.  I shudder to think of the other poor women he's crossed paths with, and their fate in his hands.

He is, unfortunately, the message I am taking away about Japanese men--arrogant domineering UTTERLY IRRESPONSIBLE manipulative psychopaths who should be fed radioactive sludge and made to publicly confess what Japan did in Korea and China before being brutalized and their wounds shat upon by every female in the country.

(And if you're reading this terrible excuse for an entry...if we ever cross paths irl, don't even THINK about using this against me.  I will smell your foul manipulation a mile away, and I will not take the passive stance I wrongly did the first time around.  Consider yourself warned.)


(Backdated on 20 April 2017)

The Dark Time IV: Final Proof I am a Horribly Self-Destructive Person (Sept 2015)

OK, so the tone of this article will be heavily biased because some little old man ruined my day this morning.

I don't know what it is about this place--possibly the accrued years and decades of social abuse and emotional repression--but there are a number of elderly people in this country who could best be described as "assholes".  Also, "bigots".

So I was walking down the street and this old guy comes rushing in my direction.  I actually shifted to the side and stood by, letting him pass, but was that good enough for him?  Oh no.  No, of course not.  He cursed me most evilly in his native language.  No idea what it was he was saying, but it was clearly abusive in nature.

And you know if one person says it, 80% of everyone else is thinking it.  Thus opening a mass of unending hatreds against humanity as a whole.  They are such jerks.  Bigots, racists, jerks.  Selfish, greedy monsters.  I could go on.  All the anger I spent the last year trying to repress has re-opened.  I am NOT in a good mood.  But I digress.



So I managed to break the screen of my computer several weeks ago.  Just the screen.

This computer was a throwaway $150 piece of shit anyway, but it's got my private journal, some artwork, and any number of creative works on it.  Another one gone.

So I took it to the repair shop today, and it's going to cost the equivalent of $400 to get the screen fixed.  Which is about as much money as I earned last month because I have no job security and I'm not likeable enough to get a lot of students (yes, really).  I didn't have the power cord, so I couldn't do anything about it anyway.

Might not be much of a problem, except--and I have no idea how this happened--I somehow managed to throw away my old wallet, which had my credit card, my bank card, and about $1000 worth of cash for the upcoming month.  Right after I got back from Cambodia.

No, I don't know what happened.  No one stole it.  It was with all my stuff; I think I must have put it in one of the multitudes of plastic bags they give you for every single purchase ever in this country...forgotten about it...and assumed it was trash.  A good argument against plastic bags, though I'm pretty sure you just think I'm an idiot.  Fine, I am.

You know what else?  I'm hopelessly self-destructive.  Everything I touch turns to dust and ruin; I'm some sort of "counter"-success, the "example" God puts on this earth to warn everyone.

Don't even tell me "It could be worse" because, goddamn it, I know.  I'm like...struggling for ANYTHING positive to say in this blog anymore...I'm not being "biased against the good in my life" or anything...and I am frankly stumped.  Illness, robbery, neglect, loneliness, depression, and a whole host of other things over the last year I'm trying to update (except my computer).  These entries will involve (among other things) a sociopath, a major depressive crisis, extremely judgemental people at work, and a crap roommate.

The most positive things I could possibly say revolve around the fact that there's candy at the convenience stores...no that's not a delusion, I've held off for months just trying to spin this in a remotely positive manner so I don't have to deal with more abuse from stupid people bitching about how I'm "too negative"...AND I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT HOW I'M COMPLAINING.  YOU HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT I HAVE ENDURED OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS, SO SHUT UP!  Just shut your fucking mouths.

Also my dad is probably dying of pancreatic cancer but NO ONE IN MY FAMILY CAN BE BOTHERED TO KEEP ME UPDATED.  So if you guys are reading this, you're shit heads.

I'd like to get out of here, but alas.  I have no means to do so anymore and no better career to run to.  Probably I'm psychiatrically incapable of even holding down a regular job at this stage.  I'm not cute and young anymore, so no one will save me (actually, they've been quick to point out exactly how undesirable my age makes me)...it's bad, it's only gonna get worse, and that is my life.  It is utter fucking garbage.  I can tell you, life has pulled me into an undertow, and I'm not sure I'm getting out alive anymore.

I'll update the rest so at least you know why and will see I'm not just being unreasonable.  Of course, you'll tell me I'm being "over dramatic" or "too sensitive" or something.  That's cause you're sitting there in a first world country without a care in the world.  I very seriously say, you may not hear from me again beyond what I am about to tell you.


(Backdated from September 2015, on 20 April 2017)

Did you know...?

Did you know that today, June 18th, is the 200th anniversary of Waterloo, the epic battle in which Napoleon and his armies were destroyed?

Like everyone else, his life was a failure by age 45.  Power and glory are no guarantees.

Like Napoleon, I am also a failure, and all my stuff was destroyed on this day too.  By water, appropriately enough.

I left all my stuff in an apartment here for the last year, as it seemed cumbersome to take to Japan.  It was a cheap basement apartment, and I expected stuff to get a bit mildewy with the elements.

But damn.  Wouldn't you know.  The waters of hell apparently rose and engulfed the entire apartment complex sometime last year.  Two feet of water flooded the area, including my apartment.  And they did their damage.

I unlocked my apartment this morning...and the damage surpassed my worst expectations.  The roof had caved in and fallen on top of my bed...upon which lay the skeleton of a dead rat with it's head in a box of rat poison.

My books--many of which were in top condition--now lay partially decomposed, having been overtaken by a recent flood.  Everything was covered in grit and grime, and when I picked up my PlayStation, I was unhappy with the sheer quantity of roach shit that fell out of it.  I did not neglect to notice they had eaten most of the rubber bits off my controller (?).

So, I took all the games, DVDs, electronics, Arabian perfumes, toys, and clothes I might conceivably need in the future.  All I have to do is clean them off.  And then I guess I'll store them with me in my spaceless room in Japan somehow till I go back to the US.

Dunno.

THAT is what I call Waterloo.  And God.  It sucks.
Three cheers for losing everything you own to water on June 18.

It's also the anniversary of the king's death, which I detrimentally blogged about some time ago.  Up next.

N for Napoleon
N for NOOO...!

Back in Phnom Penh

I am back in Cambodia.  I wish it were permanent; alas, it is not.  I must return to Japan shortly.  I haven't written for a very long time, over a year, because frankly, life has sucked.

It sucked so much worse than it ever did in high school, which I've discovered, really ARE the best times of your life.  Despite the fact that I had no friends and was subject to what must surely constitute legally-institutionalized slavery behind a desk all day long.

It sucked more than it did in college, which is supposed to be glorified high school, but found me alone and depressed for seven years.

It sucked worse than the Great Recession which forced me to leave the US in search of work.

It even sucked worse than being ill in Cambodia, in some ways.

Dammit all.

I intend to write the back story very soon--it's an interesting one, I assure you.  Although it didn't seem that way at the time--it felt like an enormous boring waste of life energy.

You don't want to miss it.  I do.

The Dark Time III: Depressive Episode (Jan. 2015)

OK, so last time I told you about my rocky, indignant beginning.  You could accuse me of being anti-social, intolerant, poor-sportsmanlike, and over-dramatic.  You could.

Except my reality was that, as people who've survived trauma often express, all this was incredibly overwhelming.  This was my inner reality--one of extreme torment, and one I could no longer acceptably discharge into the environment.  Laugh at that for being dramatic, but that was exactly how my mind was, and it wasn't really a matter of "positive thinking" or "will power".

And about 3-4 months inward, amidst all my rage, indignity, self-disgust, and shame, I wound up in the middle of a true depressive episode.

I don't mean the whole "I'm depressed and lonely" shtick I've been doing nonstop since adolescence.  I mean like an actual crisis where it takes over your mind and body, you can't get out of bed, you can't concentrate, you can't sleep all night, and then you feel tired all day, you can't eat, you start sobbing randomly for hours on end, and the only thing you can think of is suicide...pretty much the stereotype there.  Sleep, when I could even do that, brought no relief.  I just had nightmares about it.  It physically hurt me.  I mean, a dull ache literally took over my entire body.  I stopped menstruating even, because I just couldn't eat.

The toll this took on me psychologically is obvious.  What it did to me professionally, I am still trying to climb out of.

There was no treatment.  No one even to talk to as my friends and family had repeatedly cold-shouldered all attempts to reach out.  I'd sit there for months, listening to the celebrations of young people going on around me, and the irony struck me--such joy and light, and on the other side of the wall, there sat a black hole.  Life's cruel juxtapositions.

No, I'm not even going to try to pretend that's OK.  But I have to tell the truth on this one.  My time here sucked.


(Backdated from June 2015, on 20 April 2017)

The Dark Time II: Arriving in Japan (Jun 2014)

So the first thing about Japan is...well, we all know the "Japanese Proverb" that "the nail/blade of grass that sticks out/grows too high gets hammered/cut down.

Yep.

I knew that was a thing even before I came here. I knew that from living in the US suburbs for 22 years and going to a suburban high school where EVERYONE had to wear black and white Adidas or be socially stigmatized. A red shirt meant you were gay. A trenchcoat meant you were going to kill everyone. Lol, the 1990s. 

I knew what to expect, and they still managed to flatten me here. Worse, they were all foreigners, too...absolutely no excuse in my mind.

Remember the movie The Seven Samurai? And there's "that one guy". You know the one. The drunk guy who bullshits everyone and chronically screws up...but shows everyone up on their hypocrisy. 

I was that guy. "That Guy".

The first day of training I miscalculated my time and got lost (reading signs and understanding the change in cultural spatial setup is actually a thing), thus staggering in 45 minutes late. Not even drunk. Far worse--thinking for myself. I'd dyed my hair red in recent months, because I liked it. My luggage having arrived the evening before, I hadn't managed to iron my shirt. Unable to afford shoes, I was wearing a highly scuffed pair I procured in Cambodia. 

Because, shit, this was a training session amongst other lost foreigners, not a public presentation.

(And I didn't have any way to contact the organization, not having been given any advice on how to obtain a functional phone and SIM card. )

I was promptly dragged out into the hallway and yelled at. 

It didn't get any better after that.  I went to my new location, and the manager there, while a very nice person, could also be considered a "mom".  And I felt that.

Amongst the other crimes:
- I was then forced to dye my hair and tie it back, which is NOT in the handbook regulations.
- Expected to wear makeup
- Yelled at for coming "on time" (on time is 15 minutes late)
- nailpolish
- sparkles on shirt
- "you're not going out there looking like that?"
- remarks about my hair
- remarks about my eyes
- being on time
- getting lost in a train station

Over the next several weeks, each time I would redouble my efforts, only to be yelled at about something else. It was...hard to endure, to say the least. Basic things.  

I mean, one is inclined to say "culture shock"...but I have never had problems like this in any other country. Not once. Even in Dubai where I was the poor scholarship kid amongst the rich, I didn't quite encounter this level of petty bourgeoisie/nouveau riche idiocy. To my battle-weary, sun-baked, jaded, hell-surviving psyche, it sounded like the biggest bunch of bullshit ever.

That's right. I've been deathly ill for years on end, starving, living under the yoke of terror (thyroid-induced panic attacks, I kid you not), too sick and aching to get out of bed, every symptom known to man, accosted and robbed of my only valuable possession, kicked out of several homes, survived dengue with permanent ocular damage...all of this ALONE...and I'm being subject to humiliating remarks about my personal appearance by soft little people who know NOTHING about what "life" really is.

I was so enraged that...I just forgot. I just rolled over on it. There was no way to humanly process the utterly un-gratifying indignity of it all.

For a week or so, I nearly--VERY nearly--pulled out, despite the love, care, energy, and life savings I'd put into coming here. In retrospect, I kind of wish I did. (though where would I have gone?) Cause I withdrew into a mire of shame and self-disgust, right back to my angsty, self-pitying days as a lost 10 year old wondering why the hell everyone had rejected me. I avoided all contact with my superiors, and just pretended (with limited success) like I could even respect the judgemental people I was teaching. I'd go home, lock myself in my room, and just stare at the walls, unwilling to be seen by such a wretched mass of humanity. I wore my hair over my face, so they didn't see the alcoholic-looking rings left by my thyroid disease. Ugly, disgusting, and now, aging. 

Because yes, the men in this country are nasty enough to tell me exactly how old they think I look. If it were women, I'd imagine they were jealous of my lighter skin tone or something...but the men? Well, the boys are just as nasty 20 as they were years prior in grade school. I apparently revolt people, as these shameful incidents prove yet again.

You know, I never complained, never told anyone about my feelings. I did get angry and hurl something out my window in a state of rage, and I did lose all respect for humanity permanently. And I tried to reach out to Facebook friends, but they only reacted with contempt. But you, the readers, and I are the only souls upon this earth who know.

And to this day, I feel melancholy, this job being a degrading daily ritual to be endured. Thus, my utter separation from the civilized world has been complete. I'll never belong back in a first world country.

God, I can't even write this up like it's funny or epic. It just makes me disgusted to be human.



Wait till I tell you what happened at New Years.


(Backdated from June 2015, on 20 April 2017)

The Dark Time I: Sorry (June 2015)

Well, it's been, what, a year since I updated?

Sorry.

I'm still in Japan. Dealing with moments even bleaker, impossibly enough, than they ever were in Cambodia--and in retrospect, I have no idea how I even survived that.

My time in Japan has been interesting, I assure you, though it seemed more like a boring drudge at the time.

So far, it's included:

- Utter humiliation at work, multiple times over
- A major depressive crisis
- A very painful Japanese class
- A cringe-inducing run-in with a legit psychopath
- An amorous stalker
- Absurd amounts of McDonalds
- Unfair dismissal

Sorry if this sounds like the cover of a Lemony Snicket book.

The other 99% of my time was spent locked in my room staring at the walls, just watching the time slip away...for a year. So whatever stories I write to make it sound like an epic adventure, I consider this year lost. Utterly lost, just like the 4 that came before it. 

I will be staying another year, dreadfully enough, and I will be updating my backlog shortly.



--

So about the job itself. I'll make no bones: INCREDIBLY disappointing.

The main thing that keeps getting to me is that I'm here in a foreign country. I can't speak the language, I can't even read the signs. I have no idea what I'm doing.

I'm far from my family. I have no friends, I'm alone, and I'm am, in all reality, incredibly vulnerable--a penniless foreigner in a closed community.

So of course the company I'm working for doesn't arrange accommodation, doesn't show me to the visa office (they expected me to just go in and register of my own accord, because I totally am capable of asking around), doesn't front any money (so I'm stuck eating a cup of ramen once per day, and that's it). Asking one's superiors gets a response of "I can't help you with everything!"

The idea is that I am "independent" and therefore I am here on my own terms so I have complete freedom and flexibility...except that I still get in trouble for being late (which here means, "not early"), I still get yelled at if I get a negative review, I can't cancel classes without a supervisor's consent, I still have to follow the "dress code" which even students think is retarded...I could go on. 

Additionally, they sponsor my visa. So obviously I am completely beholden to the company.

It's marketed as "adventure", but basically, it's a slimy way of them refusing to take responsibility or trouble themselves with foreigners. A form of exploitation, and an example of the crass callousness that mankind really is. Even the Chinese weren't this bad. They realized I was far from home, and even if accommodations were basic (and in my case, utilities unpaid), it was a good-faith effort.

Now I knew this coming in. I knew it, I resented it, but I told myself it was better than slowly being psychologically pulled under in Cambodia. It probably still is...but Oh, how I resent it.

And the money.

I was promised I'd be making about $2500 per month. I've been lucky to make half of that. So I've been starving and living in a dorm room, just trying to save money, since of course that was the object of coming here to begin with. I haven't had the money to do anything of interest around the country, or the city. Just sit at home and stare at the walls.

It's basically a popularity contest, getting people to take your classes (they register for your classes)--and I'm so anti-charismatic that of course, I lose business. For months, I was so hungry from not being adequately cared for, that I was just plain crabby, thus making the non-popularity even worse. A self-perpetuating spiral.

I've spent 12 hours a day, 6 days a week just sitting around, hoping someone would show up. I literally sat on my butt so long, my rectum started destroying itself. The mile I ran when I first came here is now an impossibility; I've atrophied in ways that are quite sad (this coming ON TOP of 3 years of illness). I can't even clean my room without my muscles getting sore. I'm getting as soft and useless as the rest of the population.

So as it now stands, 

- I've spent more money coming here than I've earned
- I haven't been able to do what I came here for
- I can't afford any form of distraction
- I can't respect my employers
- I'm completely out of fitness

Why do I stay, you ask?

I'm a prisoner. A financial prisoner; and the only place I have left to go back to is my beloved, hated Cambodia, where all my bad Karma was burned off and which threatens to utterly destroy me if I return for any length of time. And I'm STILL earning more here per month than I ever did there.

I haven't managed to think of anything that I'd "rather" do in an entire year, and I no longer trust myself to make a beneficial decision. See the blog title, "BAD CHOICES"? Exactly. Everything I've done since the age of 26, while gloriously adventurous, was ultimately self-destructive. I've brought myself down through my own ambitions and dreams. I'm a failure. I'm a NAPOLEONIC failure, and I may as well resign myself to my little island.

That's why I stay.

(Backdated from June 2015, on 20 April 2017)