Overwhelmed by depth

Drinking, and finishing up reading the Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac and The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton and am finding myself fully overwhelmed by the concept of depth of place.

In 4 months, I will leave Kita Ko and Matsue and nothing will ever be the same, yet in all that time, I don't feel I've ever really touched any heart of Matsue or Kita ko... I've gone deep in this place, but there's ever so much more... The realization makes me mourn my travel ambitions... how can I understand souls, places and identities, without living a lifetime in their company...?

Impossible. All of it. It makes me sad in my drunkenness. Most of my friends will understand...

good night brothers and sisters whom I do not truly know...

Podcasting

Hey there. So, over the past couple of days, I've been looking at podcast language stuffs. Specifically chinesepod.com , japanese101pod.com and a french and spanish podcast too. There's a lot of content in each site and the lesson plans are pretty well put together. So what I was thinking, is, why not do this for endangered languages or languages that might need a bit of help, especially with preserving cultural material like songs and stories? I did a brief look around for ojibwe, cree and inuktitut podcasts and, maybe not surprisingly, there aren't any. Maybe there are recordings out there somewhere, but why doesn't someone arrange to build a site like there are for these other major languages? I'm sure there'd be funding available from concerned governments. It sounds like just the sort of thing that would go over in Canada. Maybe with the CBC or Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs or whatever it's calling itself these days. Although, due to the size of the speaking populations, it's not likely that a podcast site could make a lot of money, but most people learning languages do it for fun if they don't have to. If they're doing it cause they have to, they don't need the podcast, but if it's extracurricular, podcasts are a great way to bring it to the peoples... Imagine learning Cree while listening to your ipod in Bali or something...

Podcasting

Hey there. So, over the past couple of days, I've been looking at podcast language stuffs. Specifically chinesepod.com , japanese101pod.com
and a french and spanish podcast too. There's a lot of content in each site and the lesson plans are pretty well put together. So what I was thinking, is, why not do this for endangered languages or languages that might need a bit of help, especially with preserving cultural material like songs and stories? I did a brief look around for ojibwe, cree and inuktitut podcasts and, maybe not surprisingly, there aren't any. Maybe there are recordings out there somewhere, but why doesn't someone arrange to build a site like there are for these other major languages? I'm sure there'd be funding available from concerned governments. It sounds like just the sort of thing that would go over in Canada. Maybe with the CBC or Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs or whatever it's calling itself these days. Although, due to the size of the speaking populations, it's not likely that a podcast site could make a lot of money, but most people learning languages do it for fun if they don't have to. If they're doing it cause they have to, they don't need the podcast, but if it's extracurricular, podcasts are a great way to bring it to the peoples... Imagine learning Cree while listening to your ipod in Bali or something...

Spring...

Wow... so that was some haitus... now that I've decided to blog again, I'm wondering, should I fill in what happened between July and Now? I'm tempted, I must admit. Since then, lots of stuff has happened. New JET year, trip to Australia with my friend Tim's weddin', trip to Totori with Maya, trip to Kyoto with Maya, most harrowing hike of my life with Luke, Ashley and Will up Daisen the back/dangerous way, a trip home at Christmas, and three months of winter. Frankly, there's a lot. I wish I'd blogged it, but then, I wish I'd done a lot of things differently. That's just me. Livin' in the past. As Garth, the guru from Wayne's World once said... "Live in the now, man!". Well, that's what I'm doing.

Since I decided not to recontract, this is my last year on the JET programme. I will leave Matsue Kita High School at the beginning of summer vacation in August and go do something else. The current plan is a bit of hiking in the Japanese Alps followed by the beginnings of a round the world trip. I'm hoping it will be able to stretch for a full 4-5 months (maybe more, but that's another story), but we'll have to see how it goes in terms of cash. Maya will quit her stressful job on Friday and take up a no stress job, making a lot less money than now... something she has mixed feelings about. I have to be honest, I also have mixed feelings about it as although it was incredibly stressful for her and consequently for me, she did enjoy it. Well, she enjoyed making a lot of money doing a job. She's not so keen on doing a job for not a lot of money. However, having 4 months of being not so busy will give her time to spend with friends and family before we bust out of here. Important, for sure.

Our trip is looking like we will spend the fall in Europe. We're a little worried about the tourist season being 'over', but I have a feeling, we'll catch the shoulder of it... maybe everything won't be open, but surely to God people visit Europe in seasons outside the summer. Anyway, Europe for the fall, cheap as we may and then we'll work our way down through the Balkans into Turkey, Jordan and Egypt... then go through the middle east probably by plane... depending on how dangerous people are making things out to be at the time. We'll head down into Pakistan and India, see some stuff, get sick and enjoy the diversity, maybe see Bhutan and Nepal, then move into South East Asia with Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, maybe southern China, followed by Malasia and Indonesia. Then, depending on our money situation, we may pop over to the Philipines, Australia and New Zealand. We've friends in both New Zealand and Aus, so it'll be good to see them again.

Anyway, we're pretty pumped about the trip. really looking forward to it. I'm a little worried about food in Europe as it's the land of bread and pasta and neither of those works well for me... I think India and Asia will have me eating better than Europe will... stupid gluten...

Well, for now, that's where things are. I will try to get on here more often to blog and keep everyone posted on what's going on. For now, matta bai bai.