Life update. not great.

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Hey guys, sorry its been nearly a year since I have been on this site.... I feel bad... it seems only when I feel on the brink I get the nerve to come here just to confide in some one.

This have moved but not stayed is the long an short of things...

I did finally manage to get a position teaching in japan (not JET), but I was able to go. While the Japanese themselves we super nice and understanding in every way, the other gaijins, no much. I kinda wanted to leave the states so I could finally get off our culture's damn social metric and earn the leeway of being foreign, which surprisingly earns you much more room for acceptance.

Anyway, while teaching was hard it did become fun and I learned to win over my students and release my id at the same time to give me some much needed venting. the problem was, I was living alone in a country that was so new to me, in a profession where my company didn't want me doing anything with teachers after school. so I kinda had no one but the few part-timers to hang with. I also got sick alot due to the kid diseases.

My mother offered to come to japan for the first time over winter break, and while its been 4 years since Dad died at that point, do be honest, the Irish Catholic in my Mom is now taking over without Dad to balance her out. as much as I was looking forward to having her over, well, even though I too extra measures to prevent her from being lost in Tokyo (by meeting her at the airport rather than her plan at finding the hotel without knowing japanese) she was still pissing and bitchy and basically took it out on me. so that start to our trip sucked. As usual I tried to salvage her mood and for a while succeeded, till Kyoto. my mom... its taken me lots of introspection into the huge expanse between the Swiss side of my family and the Irish side, but as much as mom keeps bitching me out for never telling her how badly I was being bullied at school, I still can't muster the nerve to inform her that I had a bully at HOME,and what good would telling my home bully about the schools bullies do? If I screwed up or couldn't figure something out, dad would calmly work with me to fix the problem or solve where I was stuck. Mom basically belittled me and made me feel like crap and she kinda did that at Kyoto. I have been her son for 28 years at this point and she still doesn't a problem in using her kid's self-esteem as a punching bag a problem. basically mom has this sh***y weaponized false construct: she like to believe that she favors a "broad general consensus." problem is that is largely not true, because she does it when she has only one correct answer in mind, thus anything I get wrong she gets mad over.

Of all the s**t, it was where we wanted to eat. the correct answer she had per-decided was this damn restaurant that had hot sake. (a normal person would bloody just say it, a good person would say it) But rather than Saying "I want the sake place" she says, "well what do you want?" I ask her because I know this is one of those wrong answer things. and she starts listing places, the sake place included, I am trying to narrow down what this place is, Finally I say we should just go to the station and find something, (the sake place is in the station)

So while I wanted her to just take me to the correct place she had f*****g planned on. she starts going to every single resultant along the way offering if I wanted there, or there. by now I just assumed she wasn't up for the sake place and was genuinely opened. well, after a while I start taking her seriously and try to juggle her vetoes, finally we find something just before the sake place, she get SUPER pissed and basically calls me out for not getting this asinine logic she is forcing me through and takes the Chinese place I was considering with all intention of not liking it. (to those not dealing with Irish catholic family, they REALLY use guilt to hurt you). So I tried multiple times just to get her to come out of the shop and go to the place SHE wanted, but she didn't and we had to sit there and eat the entire meal. this like this has happened before where she made me feel like such a piece of s**t I fell into one of my suicidal spirals. I was basically planning out how I could give her, or my sister, my bank book, all my accounts in japan and america, instructions how to get home and then basically take just enough yen to go to the Eiki and throw myself into one of the trains. granted after much silence at the hotel with me planning with out on a note pad, she finally asked why I wasn't talking and I just told her that the whole restaurant thing was unfair. basically through conversation she wrote it off as she was sorry I was upset, but acknowledged nothing for how sh***y and unfair that event was. (note, ANY attempt at being frank with her about her s**t ALWAYS results in her getting defensive and attacking... she doesn't just digest it. ) So whatever, the hope for a comforting visit with a parent after a semester of being lonely became a rather upsetting event becasue once again, I failed her.

Anyway, so that semester went I a bit better, new kids, more authority in the class rooms, still sick on an off, but this time I enrolled in the jet program, got accepted and made a foreign friend and even had a student to tutor in English (though I think she saw this as compensated dating) anyway, the JET was rough, I couldn't intervention in japan, so I had to interview in Honolulu (figure that one out) nailed the interview, had to deal with paper work, customs and time difference issues that gave me my first grey hairs, but largely I was in. then came the end of the semester, and my driver's license was experiencing, and getting Japanese license if you are American is a super long, and time consuming process. The election was going on, Mom suddenly wanted to sell the house, but needed repairs, my sister was getting married and wanted me home. too many things were happening, so I went back home. I gave up JET. I said good by to the family that I was just starting to create and came back.

I came back with more confidence than I started with and wanted to really commit to writing seriously again, get published, but since "you have to have a job" I got a damn job the week after i got back and had to start work the night after even though I was pumped and ready to write, I have yet to feel that itch again, or get to scratch it.

anyway, I started working on the house and did the damn job till the work dried up, then my friend who was supposed to follow my instructions for getting solar on his house basically asked me to do it for him. so I did, things went of, I hired an Electrician I will never hire again, but eventually I got it done, and I also enrolled to be a minister for my sister's wedding so she won't have to hire that out. anyway, then came the holiday gatherings with the irish side of my family, basically a dick-measuring contest of whose kids are doing better. being the only aspie, smarter than my cousins, but without the social inclinations or self-esteem/arrogance I am the oldest and bottom of the pile with the damn question "so what are you going to do with your life." the more people ask me that the more "kill myself" seems the most genuine answer. I hate the metric...

anyway, I took some classes to gain certifications in solar and PV hoping that I could catch the growing solar industry and become part of it. So a few site assessments and many job applications later, I am hearing nothing, I even bugged one of my friends who is now a master electrician if she just wants to go into business, which he wants to do, but like everyone else, he is never responding and I can't make promises or commit to customer acquisition without him on board. also the construction company in town who is kinda predominate in solar wants me to stay away from installations even though I am installing for clients the didn't know existed and hiring me would be the cheapest solution. I really sucks when your fate is at the mercy of other people. I also worked on a book mom was pushing me for to write about my grandfather, Opa also, I wrote quite a bit. Of course with everything I had to deal with her non-stop loathing for my grandfather, and him being a bad man, not directly, but just not being proper. (my grandfather is actually the genetic link that my aspies come from, and he just didn't adhere to social metrics because he thought it was pointless, overall he was a very kind, patient if not weird man) anyway, i bust my ass writing this book, get bitched out by mom, who is "co-writing" is with her three f*****g stories against my 19! I have to get it proof read without getting b***h out by her. all proof readers in town nerf the language to point where everything is flat, we finally go to the conference where we have the publisher we are to pitch for, doesn't really work out, the guy tells us a month later after we bug him that he will do it for money, and mom, whose idea was this anyways, is asking me how important this is to me. In truth, I wanted people just to like the book and the person for whom he was, maybe even mention that part of Opa's brilliance and eccentricity was his aspies and try to put a positive spin on it. that and I would get a published credit that could open the door for future writings. but it didn't turn out, and mom, for as much as she wants me to write about opa, she won't shut up about how much she hates him either, and alot of it is just minor things some one can f*****g ignore.

So yeah... long update. sadly depressing, but until something else gets moving involving other people, I have no idea what to do now. I know I am re-eligible to apply for JET again, so I can apply again and hopefully be accepted, I can try to slug it out at this solar installation business idea if I can get clients and my electrician to commit, I need to stay and be the minister to my sister's wedding, so I can't leave or off myself before that, Mom wants to sell the house, I am fixing a renovating stuff there and will hopefully get it all done soon.

Dating, well, nothing there, I am more or less in celibacy mode right now moral is so low, my mother and sister also don't get why. the book, I don't know if I want to even continue with the trouble. what I am going to do? I don't know, all things I have tried seem to be yielding more empty time, and I NEED to move on, I NEED to get out of here. I just have too many regrets.


I know this is a alot of the offload and no one NEEDS to read this. I just need to write this somewhere so I don't have to keep carrying it...

Sorry.

But not really bad, either.

You got to see Japan and learn the culture.

You learned how to install solar power.

You kept your head above water, in general.

You could be doing worse.

its just, the current plans right now might not go anywhere... I am trying so hard to become independent, but I am STILL living at Mom's house. do I slug it out in america and hope I can get into the solar industry, or do I try to go back to japan?

Seems like Japan is your best bet, especially if you are approved by JET.

With Trump in power, it's possible that solar energy might be put on the back burner for now.

Try to speak to other people who are in the industry; they can tell you what's REALLY going on with it.

it seems like the future for people in the industry, they just aren't hiring though... pisses me off. Again, if I can get my electrician buddy, I can just do installations myself, again, stuck waiting on other people. I just want to build up more cash, get this wedding done and get this stupid house sold. I love the people in my town, but its slowly going to s**t, and the people that really made it special for me are gone now. I guess I still miss dad, he helped make sense of things for me...