oh i'm definitely gonna blog when i'm there!! i've been dreaming about going to japan since i was in elementary school, and i know how quickly you forget things (even just one year later you're going to forget over half of what went on, what the buildings look like etc), i also really wish i had more videos and stories from when i was living in iceland (though i couldn't understand icelandic so there was a lot less going on that i could write about really). but i have NO idea what the internet situation will be like or even what our computer situation will be like, or if i'll be so busy doing stuff all the time that i won't really have time to update anything even in the evenings. internet is kinda a big cost when we don't have jobs so i've been trying to convince my wife that we don't really need internet IN our apartment until we get jobs (we can go to the mall, library etc for it instead) for example.... when i don't even know how much we'll be home, i don't really want to buy internet. and frankly if i have internet i'll probably waste my evenings using english or something when i'm trying to make myself only use japanese while there. i don't know what the phone situation will be like either, i probably have to get a japanese phone or something and i almost never use my phone to begin with so it feels like a waste of money and i don't know what'll even happen.
there's other people like me out there!! somewhere!! i think the americans who move abroad are a lot more like me. it already takes a special/non-normal kind of person to move abroad of their own free will, most people are too scared of leaving their comfort zone (protip: it's not freaking difficult, life is just life, it's like you moving to the shelter, it's not like your entire world actually turned upside down). it's just sad that i can't help you guys find jobs or anything...
yeah, america's really everywhere. and not in a good way. i think you'd probably have to go to china or something if you really wanted to escape US influence, but even there they do stuff like have translated american musicals on the chinese version of broadway...
like my wife puts it... "americans aren't actually poor. no one who claims they're poor seems to be. if you were poor, you wouldn't scoff at a healthy diet or only want to eat fast food and cake. you'd be going FOOD!! SOUNDS GOOD! and eating anything you could get. you stop eating for taste and start eating for nutrition and just to stay alive. my ancestors literally ate grass soup and made flour from tree bark." and then due to our diet / money situation, "when i'm walking around in town, i don't think "nah salads taste gross", i think "I'M HUNGRY".
i haven't manage to get even 1% of the people i've talked to about good diet to actually switch to a good diet. it doesn't matter what tactic you use. you can briefly mention it, you can have them try your meals (and they think they taste good), you can talk to them in detail about it, you can show them research, you can give them recipes to try, you can talk about how it'll get rid of their kid's allergies. it's exactly the same as when i try to teach people a language. not even 1% (of people from english-speaking countries anyway) actually, really listen to me. it's because they're so closed-off to anything new and they already think they know everything there is to know, basically... which i think is part of the bad diet.
the people who listen even a little bit are always those who are ALREADY on a strange and pretty good diet (ex. for some reason they already weren't eating white flour). i even talk to people who USED to be on a diet like mine and then quit, and haven't managed to get them to go back either (even though they know they felt better when they had the healthier diet). your brain literally works differently when you're on a bad diet, it's so much that it's like you're a completely different person. your sympathy, empathy, logical reasoning, memory, reactions (how quickly you get angry or scared) etc, all this is completely different on a good diet. it's so much it's scary. like, when you go walking around and suddenly remember an embarrassing moment from your past? THAT'S ACTUALLY FROM YOUR BAD DIET! my wife mentioned it yesterday (i hadn't even thought about it but then i realized it's true in my case as well), when she's on a good diet she's literally never bored. she can be sitting there with absolutely nothing to do, but she doesn't feel bored.
in fact, thinking about all this, it's really a miracle i even listened to that research and changed my own diet... but that's what you get from being curious/skeptical and wanting to improve. i just wanted to see if a no-sugar, no-white-flour diet for 3 weeks WOULD actually make me feel different, like a science experiment. i didn't think it would be so huge because i didn't think i had any problems that could be cured by diet (the same thing everyone says whenever i try to talk to them about diet!) but since i'd actually seen/read research on it, i was convinced it'd at least help me not die from cancer in 20 years. and then it helped so much i never went back. and that's how i figure out how to learn / teach languages too. i just try new stuff all the time. in real life i'm more reserved and don't try doing new things (like... horse-riding) unless i'm in a group that wants to do it, but if it's just "learning" new things i'm fine.
anyway. about other people... you can't get things back the way they were, and you can't change people. if either of those things are wrong you've just hit a one-in-a-million lottery jackpot. you can influence people, but even if time and time again you've shown that if they follow your advice their lives will drastically improve, they still won't follow your advice. i always get people going "that makes so much sense and i should really try it except i won't!", and it doesn't matter what topic it's on - you can even just be recommending them a TV series and they still won't even try it. so i think you should always assume that people WON'T change or improve, and just be pleasantly surprised if they do (but never expect it). if they have a good personality and don't improve, sure that's fine, but most of them have bad ones and that's when i can't handle it.
i've also found that you get a lot of people actually hating you because you seem to have it "better" than them, because they think you're happier than them. i mean, i'm almost blind, i live in an abusive house, and both me and my wife are unemployed.... but what do people see? we're not super sick and stuff every day (=good diet!), and small stuff doesn't usually bother us. one thing in a long string of things is what we'll complain about, not one-time small stuff. when i went to the clinic for the tuberculosis test, they were 15-20 minutes late in getting to my appointment and the registration desk that was supposed to open at 7:30 didn't open until 8 (my appointment was at 8). but with my mindset now, i don't think that's even worth complaining about or mentioning to anyone, it's barely even irritating. what IS worth complaining about is that the test results will take 1-3 weeks to arrive and i needed them 2 weeks ago. but since you're not angry and unhappy at everything people think your life is so easy. like this american in japan. i could have the EXACT same salary as her, be living in japan too, she's not disabled, and she'd still find some way to claim my life was easier than hers and that i have some magical reason why i can afford to eat healthy and she can't.
for example, whenever i go to the doctor's office all the doctors and nurses act super scared of getting yelled at, as if half the patients are pissed off all the time. i've literally been told by doctors "this is when the patient normally starts yelling at us" one time, he was so shocked that i just accepted it (=my surgery date was pushed back due to, guess what, emergency burn victims who needed surgery before mine otherwise they'd die. how selfish can you get to yell at a doctor who needs to save someone's life, eh?). or, all the time on the bus there'll be a foreigner who yells angrily at the bus driver when the doors don't open for some reason. that's just... not something to get angry about. but when your diet is bad, you do get angry and you think you're justified in getting angry, and you stay angry for longer. every time i eat some food i shouldn't have, i get angry about stuff and stay angry for like days. when i don't eat that food, i'm angry for hours or minutes. it's so simple, the way to have a stress-free, happy life... it's mind-boggling...
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2017-06-17 05:59 am (UTC)there's other people like me out there!! somewhere!! i think the americans who move abroad are a lot more like me. it already takes a special/non-normal kind of person to move abroad of their own free will, most people are too scared of leaving their comfort zone (protip: it's not freaking difficult, life is just life, it's like you moving to the shelter, it's not like your entire world actually turned upside down). it's just sad that i can't help you guys find jobs or anything...
yeah, america's really everywhere. and not in a good way. i think you'd probably have to go to china or something if you really wanted to escape US influence, but even there they do stuff like have translated american musicals on the chinese version of broadway...
like my wife puts it... "americans aren't actually poor. no one who claims they're poor seems to be. if you were poor, you wouldn't scoff at a healthy diet or only want to eat fast food and cake. you'd be going FOOD!! SOUNDS GOOD! and eating anything you could get. you stop eating for taste and start eating for nutrition and just to stay alive. my ancestors literally ate grass soup and made flour from tree bark." and then due to our diet / money situation, "when i'm walking around in town, i don't think "nah salads taste gross", i think "I'M HUNGRY".
i haven't manage to get even 1% of the people i've talked to about good diet to actually switch to a good diet. it doesn't matter what tactic you use. you can briefly mention it, you can have them try your meals (and they think they taste good), you can talk to them in detail about it, you can show them research, you can give them recipes to try, you can talk about how it'll get rid of their kid's allergies. it's exactly the same as when i try to teach people a language. not even 1% (of people from english-speaking countries anyway) actually, really listen to me. it's because they're so closed-off to anything new and they already think they know everything there is to know, basically... which i think is part of the bad diet.
the people who listen even a little bit are always those who are ALREADY on a strange and pretty good diet (ex. for some reason they already weren't eating white flour). i even talk to people who USED to be on a diet like mine and then quit, and haven't managed to get them to go back either (even though they know they felt better when they had the healthier diet). your brain literally works differently when you're on a bad diet, it's so much that it's like you're a completely different person. your sympathy, empathy, logical reasoning, memory, reactions (how quickly you get angry or scared) etc, all this is completely different on a good diet. it's so much it's scary. like, when you go walking around and suddenly remember an embarrassing moment from your past? THAT'S ACTUALLY FROM YOUR BAD DIET! my wife mentioned it yesterday (i hadn't even thought about it but then i realized it's true in my case as well), when she's on a good diet she's literally never bored. she can be sitting there with absolutely nothing to do, but she doesn't feel bored.
in fact, thinking about all this, it's really a miracle i even listened to that research and changed my own diet... but that's what you get from being curious/skeptical and wanting to improve. i just wanted to see if a no-sugar, no-white-flour diet for 3 weeks WOULD actually make me feel different, like a science experiment. i didn't think it would be so huge because i didn't think i had any problems that could be cured by diet (the same thing everyone says whenever i try to talk to them about diet!) but since i'd actually seen/read research on it, i was convinced it'd at least help me not die from cancer in 20 years. and then it helped so much i never went back. and that's how i figure out how to learn / teach languages too. i just try new stuff all the time. in real life i'm more reserved and don't try doing new things (like... horse-riding) unless i'm in a group that wants to do it, but if it's just "learning" new things i'm fine.
anyway. about other people... you can't get things back the way they were, and you can't change people. if either of those things are wrong you've just hit a one-in-a-million lottery jackpot. you can influence people, but even if time and time again you've shown that if they follow your advice their lives will drastically improve, they still won't follow your advice. i always get people going "that makes so much sense and i should really try it except i won't!", and it doesn't matter what topic it's on - you can even just be recommending them a TV series and they still won't even try it. so i think you should always assume that people WON'T change or improve, and just be pleasantly surprised if they do (but never expect it). if they have a good personality and don't improve, sure that's fine, but most of them have bad ones and that's when i can't handle it.
i've also found that you get a lot of people actually hating you because you seem to have it "better" than them, because they think you're happier than them. i mean, i'm almost blind, i live in an abusive house, and both me and my wife are unemployed.... but what do people see? we're not super sick and stuff every day (=good diet!), and small stuff doesn't usually bother us. one thing in a long string of things is what we'll complain about, not one-time small stuff. when i went to the clinic for the tuberculosis test, they were 15-20 minutes late in getting to my appointment and the registration desk that was supposed to open at 7:30 didn't open until 8 (my appointment was at 8). but with my mindset now, i don't think that's even worth complaining about or mentioning to anyone, it's barely even irritating. what IS worth complaining about is that the test results will take 1-3 weeks to arrive and i needed them 2 weeks ago. but since you're not angry and unhappy at everything people think your life is so easy. like this american in japan. i could have the EXACT same salary as her, be living in japan too, she's not disabled, and she'd still find some way to claim my life was easier than hers and that i have some magical reason why i can afford to eat healthy and she can't.
for example, whenever i go to the doctor's office all the doctors and nurses act super scared of getting yelled at, as if half the patients are pissed off all the time. i've literally been told by doctors "this is when the patient normally starts yelling at us" one time, he was so shocked that i just accepted it (=my surgery date was pushed back due to, guess what, emergency burn victims who needed surgery before mine otherwise they'd die. how selfish can you get to yell at a doctor who needs to save someone's life, eh?). or, all the time on the bus there'll be a foreigner who yells angrily at the bus driver when the doors don't open for some reason. that's just... not something to get angry about. but when your diet is bad, you do get angry and you think you're justified in getting angry, and you stay angry for longer. every time i eat some food i shouldn't have, i get angry about stuff and stay angry for like days. when i don't eat that food, i'm angry for hours or minutes. it's so simple, the way to have a stress-free, happy life... it's mind-boggling...