Sofia's Journal

8:45am: Writer's Block: Speak and spell

I would choose a spell to give me protection from making any decisions other than wise ones. Ithik that in life there are so many confusions and temptations that in order to choose the right path, one would have to be very focused.

11:38am: Getting used to life
I'm finally getting used to life here. I don't think that I will ever be as free or as happy-go-lucky as I was in Cali, but maybe that is part of life and growing up or taking responsibilities.
The new school year started. All of the new teachers are here now. The Japanese School Year begins with the beginning of spring. Teachers, and other public workers, are told to change location, or to stay where they are. Each person works on a random rotation of three years on average living and in a city or town in the prefecture. Most teachers have a house about an hour and a half away, which they return to on weekends. Their wives or husbands also live there. Many people in Japan do not live at home. This happens with large companies as well, with men living very far from home. It is apparently very common. It is unimaginable in my own country.

My mother emailed me last week. She told me that my father has an infection in his heart and is in the hospital. I called as soon as I could, and found out more details. Since then, he has been brought into stability, but there is still an abnormal growth in his aortic valve, one of the two that they replaced two years ago, in two open heart surgeries. The my father has been through so much in these past few years. He had a stroke after those two surgeries as well. He was just getting over those things, when a bug bit him last month in the hand, causing a dark streak of infection up his arm. He got a fever, and went to the hospital. He got pumped up with antibiotics, but still had a fever. I told them that wasn't good, that if the medicine was working that he wouldn't have a fever, but they didn't listen and he went back home. Then I got this email last week. I wondered why they would take that chance in the first place. Anyway, they want me to believe that everything is all right.
I tried to figure out what I would do if he was really bad. My mother's email was like "I need you now, I wish you were close to me so that I had someone to talk to." I was ready to go, but I thought things over.
I have to think of things objectively. The company said I can take a month off, but no longer. If anything happened, I would have to be with my mother for at least three months. But the school children, the school, my company and my livelihood are dependent upon me being here.
If I were to leave, the company might be able to find a replacement. However, there is no future in Mexico. The town of Puerto Vallarta is lovely, but it is not a place to work. It is a place for retirees, or people who don't care about stability in their paychecks, or only want a low salary. What about my future?
If I lived in the states, sure I would be closer, but not that close. It still takes half a day to fly down, plus $500. And my vacation time here is really good, two weeks in winter, a week in the spring, a month in August. This might give me time to go down. If I lived in the states, my vacation time might be two weeks per year. Not much time to go to another country. Also, here, my husband can become a lawyer, but in the states, he can't do anything, really, because he doesn't know English. If I were in the states, I might study something like Chinese Medicine. But is the money really that good? Here I teach. I don't really like my job, because I am like a small cog in a machine. They don't let me teach, they only want someone to play games with the kids. But if I had my own English school, my husband says that I couldn't take long vacations because I would lose students. If I were to leave, who would teach? How could I depend on my employees? If I closed the school for a month, I might lose a lot of money. If I had a school, my husband thought that in the morning I would help him with his office, and then at night we would work at the school. But that would mean we would have absolutely no time to ourselves! I told him no way. If I work and he works, we need to be working on the same schedule. If not, we will never have any time to play each day, or even eat dinner together.
Well, all of this talk is of the far future, but the far future connects to the present in that it is created now.
If I were to go to Mexico because of an emergency and try to come back and get a job, my options might be severly limited. Last time I tried that, I couldn't find work at all.
So what I have decided is that the best option is that if my mother wants to be with me, she will have to come back to Japan with me and live here for a while. It is the only way that I can deal with the economic situation adequately, I think. But I don't think she would want to do it. What do you guys think? Do you think that I should go back to the states?

11:36pm: Cherry against the blue sky
Spring comes
beating like a heart
the beat of every year
life curses through the veins of the world
the monotony of every year
but I in my tiny world
think that spring is great
this one heart beat
this one moment

If you had only 30 dollars
for the rest of your life
spending one would be a lot
one year is one dollar
one measly dollar
to the millionaire
that is infinity

By Sofia Penabaz-Wiley
March 1st, 2010

3:09pm: Missing you
"I miss you like the desert misses the rain..."by Everything But the Girl...

I miss my friends in California so much. I have so many memories, and I am so far away. I feel like I have cut my life in a big chunk and started over. I wish that I could talk to everyone, and see you. I wish that everyone had Skype or Windows Live, so that we could use the webcam to chat. The time change of being an ocean away creates an almost unchallenged rift in communication. It seems amazing to me that I have chosen such a life. Yes, for a few years, it was fine. It seems as time passes, the roots that everyone builds over time I have realized are not there. I am sure that there are positives to this, but I am caught in a full blown "the grass is always greener" feeling. This doesn't mean that I want to leave my husband, but that I miss my friends. I am struggling to grasp who I still am.

3:09pm: My Journals
I have a new journal for work that I wanted you guys to know about. It has only positives, because it is a work journal, but there are a lot of pics that I have uploaded to it. Please visit!
http://sofias-myriad.blogspot.com/

10:48am: New life in Nishimera
I moved to this tiny town in the mountains in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, exactly a month ago.
It is an hour and a half away from any significant town, and is surrounded by a wall of mountains. My townhouse is on a river, just within the town boundaries.
The people here are very friendly. I teach as an ALT at all of the schools: a JHS, elem. school and preschool. There are a total of around a hundred students, with an average of 5-10 students per class.
I moved here with my husband, Shinpei, so that he could study for his law exam in November, and so that I could support us easily. We were struggling to make a living in Fukuoka City. With the blow to the evonomy in the States, Jaapan has also suffered a bit, and the English teachers who have jobs here now didn't leave this year to go back to a horrible economy and jobless market.
So we're here. If anyone would like to come and visit, let me know! There is a lot of fishing for Ayu and unagi on the river, and it is a really lovely place to be. Its very peaceful and comfortable for most of the ppl who live here.
I am happy back in Japan. It is so different to be with someone who is interested in being with me most of the time, who knows what is going on when some cultural mystery pops up, and who loves me.
We fight quite a bit, though... sometimes I think its good. We communicate and are trying to improve negative aspects of our personalities. We also have difficulties sometimes because I can't understand what he is trying to say because of the language barrier. Sometimes, especially during those feverish moments, I wonder whether our marriage will even last a year. Can anybody else reading this relate? We fight pretty often, but we're married. Its not like we can just split up like bf and gf, especially being in Japan, and my being a foreigner, and his family, and everything... not that I want to split up, but sometimes I feel so frustrated and isolated. I have no house phone to call the states, and even if I wanted to the time change is too significant. We have no internet at home. I feel like I really want to get involved in an international community in Japan, but I'm so far away from anything.
I also wonder what I will do when we move to the states at some point. What work can I get? I can't seem to sign up for online MA programs, because I'm not living in the States.
hmmmmmm......

10:45am:

10:37pm:

10:26pm: Puerto Vallarta
I am in Puerto Vallarta with my brother and my parents for the first time in 3 years. I have forgotten the loneliness that was Japan, and find myself missing the Japanese people but not enough to want to go full time to that place where I have spent the past three years of my life. Here I have made so many friends, met with so many friends who were my friends in childhoood, I am quite comfortable here. I hope to bring people from Japan to this place that so many call paradise, and share the warmth of heart and climate.
I have been working hard on that, and on a mural of Japanese Characters at a friend's spa.
It was really nice to see my friends in the states, too. It was so nice to spend time with them and for them to show me that they appreciate me so much as a person... Some things never change.
Life is a spiral, it goes on and returns in flux, like waves, crashing rebounding turning, again........

10:24pm: I'm at the house in Palo Alto. It is lonely. I am alone. I am driven, I want to succeed, I am listening to Chinese and Adult Alternative, and studying my new paths.
Listening to destiny call, in its endless resounding so hard to hear in my understanding so limited.
Zaichien.

7:20am: I just took the Myers-Briggs Personality Test and am ENFP type! Anybody else? http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.a s
People I want to meet include: William Dembski...
I have been thinking a lot about what to do with my life...
I know what my personality is like. I am spacial and special and intelligent enough to be a great asset to a company in the right area. Like a think tank.
I think I should join one.
Someone MUST need me. I know that my abilities are rare, I just think that because of that, its hard for me to fit into a box. It starts with blood type AB and goes on and on.
Anyway... mulling. I need to meet some super smart people who will rock my work and world.
I've been seeing lots of friends. Its really nice to be back in the area. I missed real people, I missed feeling free to be myself. I missed people who appreciated me as more than a Foreigner.
I have been hanging out with Asians, too. I don't miss Japan so much if I'm with them.

6:30pm: utena!
Jimmy translated a document for the character designer of Sailor Moon$B!"(B Evangelion$B!"(B and Utena$B!"(B Hasegawa-san$B!"(B and he drew me a picture of Utena!!

6:26pm: OMG YUUUMMMM!!
NONOBUDOU
My fav Japanese restaurant. An organic foods buffet of traditional and int'l foods$B!"(B on the 14th floor of the IMS Bldg$B!"(B Tenjin$B!"(B Fukuoka.
luvluvluvluvLUV! o(^-^)o

4:54pm: Shojima Elementary Goodbye!!

7:36pm:

9:30pm: goodbye karaoke
today Arisa and i got together. we had a really nice time$B!"(B but its probably the last time i$B!&(Bll see her for a while.
the first time i met her$B!"(B she had just finished singing a spectacular accapella. i ran up and told her how awesome i thought she was$B!"(B and since then i$B!&(Bve sung at the same event.
today we went to seattle coffee co where i ordered my favorite - a macha shake. we talked for a long time about eachother$B!&(Bs lives.
she is having the same troubles most assistant mgrs. have; employee enthusiasm is not as high as is required for a clothing store at the busiest building in Tenjin$B!"(B the buisiest part of the biggest city on kyushu. and if they aren$B!&(Bt watchful$B!"(B half the merchadise ends up in customer$B!&(Bs purses... aside from that$B!"(B she can$B!&(Bt take more than a meager 5 day holiday in december this year$B!"(B which means she can$B!&(Bt come to Mexico to visit. this is so typical of japanese companies - i hate it so much. like someone couldn$B!&(Bt cover her. it happens in 98% of j-co$B!&(Bs i$B!&(Bll bet on a $B!^(B 3% that i$B!&(Bm right. poor slaves. anyway$B!"(B then we talked about me.
after that we went and looked at books. she taught me about a singer she loves named Chara.
then we went to karaoke. for all of you guys in sf$B!"(B there is a karaoke box in japantown. its funto go with your friends and pick out songs you love. you can suck and noone$B!&(Bs looking except them.
then we took purikura.
and ate ramen.
o(^-^o)(o^-^)o

10:50pm: i$B!&(Bm on the train. couldn$B!&(Bt sleep well last night. worries. taught 4 6th grade classes today. luckily$B!"(B i had recorded most of it previously.
after school i went to interview Mr Hidetoshi Shigyou and his wife Noriko regarding green roofs and their landscape architecture business. They pretty much said if I come back to Japan$B!"(B i can draw for them. That is really exciting.
Then they drove me home due to the 'buckets' of rain. i almost didn$B!&(Bt go to Rachel~s for dinner$B!"(B but she didn~t pick up her phone$B!"(B so i went and for the first time we had dinner$B!"(B the 2 of us. it was really nice.

10:24pm: Permaculture, Green Roofs, and the future of humanity
Yesterday, as I was sweating away at yoga, Jimmy turned from the computer and asked something about agriculture and sustainability, or permaculture. He was reading an article on desertification. I felt my eyes focus, green, as my mind played into the reality. Permaculture is a sustainable form of agriculture. The reason why I will explain is not in your biology book. Plants like to be with other plants. There is something about different kinds of plants together, competing for light, playing their lives out in the same soil, close to eachother, the use of different minerals, variable amounts of moisture, moisture given off by the different strata to the others, perhaps even that smell that tells us humans that we are in a place where it has just rained, or that it is a hot day because we can smell the plants, perhaps even those smells are things that create an environment of contentment for the happy plants,are things that make plants happy. It makes them thrive. In contrast, take a normal agricultural field. How many chemicals are needed to make that monoculture give huge fruit? What is the flavor?... ask organic food supporters the difference, they'll tell you its highly inferior.
There is a microcosm and a macrocosm. Observe one, you know the other. The universe is a collection of repetitions, a statistician's dream is all around us. You need but observe and you will understand.

What I don't understand is the blunt-brained, short-sighted way that people so often refuse to look at patterns, refuse to achnowledge that perhaps the way that things have been isn't the best way and WE MUST CHANGE IF WE ARE TO SURVIVE.

Forget the way I might sound like a hippy. Use your eyes and your mind to see. And then maybe your heart will follow. The truth is that if things don't change, we are doomed to suffer. No one disagrees with that, but they don't want to change. Weeeeeell. Isn't that the brave and admirable thing to do.

I have a dream. Of cities where from above, all you see is warm green, with a web of gray lines connecting everything... not an endless sea of gray death radiating heat waves into the summer sky. I believe in this vision. It is so clear in my mind...
We have this perfect Earth. Observe the way the planet functions in its perfect self-sustaining way. It is an organism. It breaths. It drinks, it eats, it shits. It does everything, in its myriad of ecosystems to make one, perfect organism. An organism can only live for so long under imbalance, sickness ensues, and then death. If the imbalance is not so offsetting, the organism may recover. So, we have many ways to rebalance the organism which we call home. One is lowering population growth rate. We are like a cancer, growing far too quickly in population and taking, taking, taking. Well, we're working on that, I see. How about the air that our organism breaths. That is one thing that will interrelate to everything else. The trees disappear, forests disappear, this increases temperature. Agriculture, not permaculture, creates deserts by robbing the soil of nutrients, creating a flat place for the wind to rush over and steal moisture, by diverging rivers and natural water sources. And plants don't like it there, so they have a hard time growing. Cities create what is called the "Heat Island Effect", up to a 10 F degree difference in the city versus the surrounding area. If only our cities were covered in lush green, the heat island effect would be mitigated, not to mention the prevention of pollution because plants absorb pollution into their soil when it rains, and put more oxygen into the air. The cities would be alive. Not dead things that surround us. The moist air would not stay in the cities, but spread to surrounding areas; places that are becoming desert might not do so quite so quickly. If permaculture were understood by the areas that are creating desertification in so many areas on the planet, that might not be a problem anymore.
But my dreams are wishes, and nothing more.
So I'm learning ArchiCAD and I take don't use disposable chopsticks. I can only speak for myself.
-Sofia Penabaz

7:47pm: Today
A little girl drew me, she was so sweet.
and
A woman was so happy that I liked her tea,
that she made some
for my lunch
and for my thermos.
and
I had a raspberry chocolate shake with my friend
who I might never see again
or see tomorrow at the goodbye party.
and
I made a few little boys cry
But I made them think, too
and I hugged them
and told them that they were OK
and they were.
and
my student wrote me a haiku
which read;
"I see the full moon
It is very beautiful
Like Sofia's smile." by Kaori

Thank you....

9:03am: I am leaving in a little over a month. The stress is incredible. Moving from one city to another is one thing, moving from one continent to another is another. I was here for three years. there are still opportunities, if I wanted them, I could take them, come back. But at this point, there is one thing that is too close to my heart, and if I left, stayed or came back, at this point that thing is the primary influential factor. So I'm not coming back. Because that thing can not imagine me in his future.

8:56pm: So,　Ⅰ'm　going back. Jimmy'll probably come, too. But who knows. Everything feels so uncertain. Especially my future.
Today I rode my bike backe from school in a torrential early summer rain, soaked through I arrived home and took a hot shower, forgetting everything in the heat of the water, the heat of fantasy. For almost an hour I was lost there, where no one could see me.
I got out and got ready. I felt so hesitant to come to Jimmy's today. There seemed to be so much I wanted to do. Only 8 weeks left and I feel like painting.
Today a teacher, an older man who used to work at one of my regular schools wrote me a recommedation. It is so rare for me to be attracted to older men, but I remember that I really thought he was interesting about a year ago. I didn't feel the same way today, but I remembered the feeling fondly, and thought about how everyone worries about not being married before the age of 35, but i think I could find someone at any age, because I am open and young at heart, and I don't think that will end. I will always have character and always have talents, and that will not change with time, even if my face and body do. I can't imagine being with someone long term who didn't appreciate me for who I am. Well, these are the thoughts of someone who doesn't know her fate and fears the future for lack of dreams.
I don't want to wander forever, lost in the present, with no goal. I don't want to wander forever, but I have no dream left. That dream was lost when I came here. That ATTAINABLE dream.
"Wandering, wandering in hopeless night...out here on the perimeter there are no stars..."
I have dreams, yes. But my dreams seem unattainable, like clouds whisping away in the asure heavens, like catching an eggshell out of the clear white mucus where it has fallen. I feel like I need to be alone for a long time, just looking out at the ocean. For a long time. A long time. ............ . . . . . . . .

1:14pm: $B$"$j$,$H$&".!*(B
$BK\Ev$K!"Cf?4$+$i!"A4It$G(BThank you!!o(^-^o)(o^-^)o$BK:$l$i$l$i$l$J$$$h!*(B
(^_^)b
-Sofia

8:55am:

7:14pm:

4:48pm: amano iwato