460 days ago.

It was 460 days ago that I began this journey of returning to school to finish a bachelor’s degree in accounting and learn Japanese. During that time, a lot happened to me and my life. There have been extreme ups and extreme downs. I would be lying if I said that all the times were good, and I would be lying if I said all the times were bad.

We face a pandemic and uncertainty along with supply chain shortages worldwide. A war began in Ukrainian that many believed would only last a few months but has dragged on for nearly a year. Because of the war and other circumstances involving the pipeline that stretches from Russia to Germany, the world has fallen into an energy crisis. Following the pandemic, the united states have seen inflation that hasn’t been seen since the 80s. There was a period of time when gas was nearly $5.00 a gallon, forcing many people to reconsider their travel plans.

In September, the Japanese Government announced that on October 11, the entry ban would be lifted for tourists. no longer would individuals who had three Covid-19 shots have to show a negative test or self-quarantine for 14 days. I booked my trip on October 10th, 2022, for spring break in March 2023. By the time I go, I will have waited three years since I first booked a spring adventure. The other neat fact is that it will be ten years since I went to France. This makes me think of the old saying, “where will you be in ten years.”

Up until now has been no walk in the park and a testament to how far I have come and how much further I have to go. In my first semester of school, I worked full-time and part-time jobs to get ahead. The first semester had its set back, and although I didn’t fail any classes, I did not get the grades I needed and had to rethink my plans. The class availability did not help, as many classes were not offered when I planned to take them.

The daily grind wore on me more than I imagined, and I found myself in the depths of depression. Winters and lack of sunlight did not help. And my work balance life greatly impacted me and made me question my sanity at times, enough to push harder and dream dreams of going further than ever imagined.

This road began with a lesson in forgiveness. For all the things that could be said about my colorful and chaotic past, it can be summed up with the idea of France. In my senior year, I asked to go with my class to France but was denied the opportunity due to financial struggles. Spite the fact that they were able to do things for others in the family that no financially strapped family would do or consider doing. Spite the fact that I could have resentment or anger over the situation, I instead define myself with the Words of the French emperor napoleon, “I came, I saw, and I conquered.”

I eventually went to France on my own dime and accord and on my own dime, but I didn’t just stop there. I went to Japan twice, L.A. twice, and Istanbul once. Now, I am ready to go to Japan for the third time and begin planning for my next great adventure. Japan 4.0 and Korea 1.0. And, as I begin the end of this semester with one test left in each class, I embark on my last semester before graduation.

Forgiveness: I have a beautiful life and wish to know it as I feel and believe it and share it with others.

Winter break is a time to rebuild and develop my personal projects in art. I want to finish my rough draft for a book, paper, and an idea I have had about life, identity, and our place in everything. There are also ideas regarding economics and politics that I would like to get down on paper. I also have the daunting task of truly putting forth an effort in at least become proficient in learning Japanese.

Spring semester holds the Japan trip and my graduation. With three classes and a world trip, the grind will be honest, to say the least, requiring my very best in everything.

The second half of the plan is to become finical stable again after graduation, right side up in what I refer to as The Revolutionary Economic policy. Graduation is May 16th, 180 days until then. After graduation, I intend to study for my CPA exam and pass it as early as September and October. The goal is to pass my test and celebrate my accomplishments along with my birthday with a trip to Korea and Japan in October 2023.

The additional endeavors regarding these plans are to develop my mental strengths further and become physically fit, lose weight and begin to feel better about my help and position. I am excited about what’s to come and eager to know that great things are happening on the horizon when I talk to my brother and best friend.

Considering how far I have come and intend to go, I place myself in an exclusive group of thinkers. The ordinary person only dreams of traveling but never leaves the safety of their home or country to experience the unknown magic of the world. Others no longer have the opportunity and have regret. I do not intend to live my life like that. The one thing that would make this journey even better would be to share it’s happening and unfolding. I have many supporters, but I am talking about a different kind. I am referring to the relationship where I share my story and make one together. Where the past isn’t as important as the future, and the future is not so overwhelming that it steals the limelight from the present.

But why do all this? Why pursue such a course of action, and why pick Japan and Korea as my destination? I am reminded of JFK’s speech about why go to the moon.

But why some say the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain why 35 years ago why fly the Atlantic. Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE EASY BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE HARD. BECAUSE THAT GOAL WILL SERVE TO ORGANIZE AND MEASURE THE BEST OF OUR ENERGY AND SKILLS. BECAUSE THAT CHALLENGE IS ONE, WE ARE WILLING TO ACCEPT. ONE WE ARE UNWILLING TO POSTPONE AND ONE WE INTEND TO WIN.” JFK AT RICE TEXAS SPEECH

My goals push me to be more than I am right now. And more than most ever strive to be or do. No, I am not in competition with others, but life is out there, and it’s happening right now, and I want to be a part of it. I picked Asia because initially, I went to japan because I was hating my life and picked a place that I knew absolutely nothing about. I loved anime and decided to start with North America’s largest anime convention and then just go to where the home of anime was born. There I learned so much about myself and what I want in life. I had never felt more free and open to being myself than when I was there. The field of study is like learning another foreign language; only once you understand it, you understand the business world.

Day 5 and 6

I have been watching people on social media post this idea regarding that people no longer take the time to engage in posts and thus interact with people unless a post contains a picture of some sort. the gimmick is that if you read though it the post is actually a social experiment to see who will read though it and then re-post it along with a comment, something that acknowledges their friendship.

If you have to first of all resort to some sort of social media post to validate your friendship then in my opinion your friendship is superficial and shallow. I have taken great time and consideration when it comes to the idea of friendship, what it means to me and what it means to be their friend. There is an idea that once you build a relationship then you are responsible for that responsible. Posting posts takes takes out the humanity and makes people unaccountable for their actions.

People who are my friend are my friend. They know who I am what I am about. I don’t have to ask them to validate me or their knowledge of me.

The grind continues as I march forward and further down the road. I am giving it my all and constantly pulling an iron from the fire and striking it hard. Meditation, power naps and the stem room have been my greatest friend in this journey. I don’t allow myself to get too hung up on various ideas and happening I only double down get more focused and work harder. Time and knowing that it’s only a short time until December 16th is a blink of an eye.

Day 4 Thursday.

When it comes to work and the comments that are made regarding your ability to complete the task at hand, or their surprise at your accomplishments I am often reminded of the USS Lexington. When the Lexington was severely damaged in the battle of the coral sea it was thought to be out of action and would miss the battle of Midway. Only 72 hours were given to the impossible task of getting the aircraft carrier for ready status combat.

I make the anthology that often I am given an impossible task and then given a short time period in order to accomplish my agenda. My response is often well, she ain’t pretty but she will put to sea.

Japanese of the day

私愛日本です

I love japan

Day 3 profound insight along my journey

The journey continues and as it does I grow into a new person. Along the way, I have profound conversations with friends who inspire me and leave me full and inspired. I am used to seeing my friend post every day usually something incredibly positive and inspiring. However, the past couple of days I haven’t seen or talked to her and I began to grow worried. Because she is an important friend to me I reached out to her as I do many of my friends each week to talk and wish them well and catch up with them to see how they are doing on their journey.

She admitted to me that she had been in a funk and suffered a setback, that self-doubt had gotten the best of her. I know how incredible this person is and I know how she has put her heart and soul into her journey so for her to say something like that really touched me. The ideas I gave her I feel that everyone could learn something from especially me.

Society, social media has added an additional layer of expectations that seemingly become unrealistic. We put on a brave face all the time for everyone to see that we start to expect it to be there all the time too. Sometimes we have to disengage from reality and pull back and remind ourselves of our own journey, and that we are our own heroes. Not every accomplishment has to be the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest. Nor, do we have to travel at Mach 3 in everything we do. I told her that her team is there for her and will always be there for her. I also reiterated what I have told her from the very beginning; keep being you because you rock and you are my hero.

I apologized to her too for seemingly coming across as always being upbeat and positive. I too have been suffering from self-doubt. Five years out of school it’s been quite the ride getting the hang of things again. One of the things that go through my mind is that I am not smart enough and that I should quiet while I am ahead. I counter that with, yes, this journey might be hard and difficult but this is to be one of my greatest accomplishments right up there with Tokyo and the Oil Field.

日本　

This is the kanji for the word Japan.  pronounced Ni Hon

Day 2: Under way day day. Day 9 work

The three hardest things in life include creating a schedule for employees and accommodating all their needs. The second would be navigating the Shinjuku train station in Tokyo, and the third navigating online classes or at least attempting to figuring out how to buy books and get your classes going.

So how are classes going? Well, to be honest, they are demanding and require a lot of reading and information. These are not the days of doing practice problems like when I was a math major or physics major. I have to admit that I am enjoying it. I have a lot of catching up to do, but that is to be expected considering this is the first week and I am getting used to the way things are done.

The one thing I can’t get over is how fast time is passing. Already day two, a constant grind and a constant happening.

Japanese

Let’s start by building on what I already know.

1. there are three alphabets. Kanji: borrowed Chinese characters used to express ideas, Hiragana is letters that represent the core of their language so to speak. It’s important to note that all words can be written in this form. The third is Katakana, these parallel that of hiragana and are used to express words borrowed from other languages.

2. There are roughly 2600 kanji charters you need to know in order to get buy

3. To be proficient in Japanese you have to pass a test known as JLPT N1-N5

4. I know how to say this: 私の名前はテリです My name is Terry

Day one: learning the ropes and getting use to being back in class

Even before I started I knew that the hardest thing was going to be figuring out the online platform and what each professor wanted. I was not wrong. I started at around 4:30 and didn’t finish until 10:30 at night. There was a lot of guesswork involved and stumbling across various information. Now everything is found and I have access to everything.

There are really three components to online work. One; the professor and expressing what they want is meaningful, two the online platform where the online class is conducted, and third; the outsourced material that is used for the book and the online homework.

Now that I have an understanding and grasp of things I feel that we are well underway. There was a couple of didos cut in the water, but sea trials with work 1, and work 2, are now done. I love my second job making coffee. There are times when I experience rushes but it is nothing like when I worked in the restaurant industry. I actually have downtimes where I can get ready for the next rush and not be pressured constantly.

there is a constant grind to life, leaving me baffled at how fast time is passing and how fast time is going to pass. Today I dive in headfirst and make the best of everything and go on my first mission. Today is Tuesday and I already have assignments due tomorrow, along with bigger projects due later on in the day. I am glad that everything is coming together and starting to take form.

One other hiccup is when teachers don’t properly work with the book store trying to opt-in to your books is hard if not downright impossible. I bought the same book three times across different platforms. I ended up having to call the book store on the east coast and canceling my order.

As for the rest of my team balancing work and school is going to be a challenge. This morning up at 4 am and home later there was a lot of things missed. Chiefly the burner on the stove was left on, and their food was left out. This semester is going to be a journey way up the river.