Home Is Where My Heart Is

Your back's against the wall
There's no one home to call
You're forgetting who you are
You can't stop crying
It's part not giving in
Part trusting your friends
You do it all again and I'm not lying

...
Standing in the way of control
...

I'm doing this for you
Because it's easier to lose
And it's hard to face the truth
When you think you're dying
It's part not giving in
Part trusting your friends
You do it all again but you don't stop trying

I found myself really missing home for about an hour the other day so I thought that I'd write about it, but I'm not going to moan, I want to write about why I'm so blessed to be from where I'm from.

• I love living near London, its a big city, one of the best and it has everything that the soul needs and loads of stuff that may condemn the soul to eternal damnation... fucking fabulous.



• I love my friends, they're fricking cool, and I knew this before absent made the heart grow fonder. They're a laugh, they know their selves well, they know me well and that is great. They're all individuals with such amazing personalities from different warps of life but they manage to get along like peas in a pod because they know how to empathise and they know how to step outside of theirselves.




• Music, music, music! We export and import the best music in the world. Check out the music player on the side of the page and you will see.
• The food! Maybe you have to be born and raised to appreciate it? I bloody love it, Full-English breakfast, black-pudding, rhuhbarb and custard, rice pudding, I love it all.
• Social evolution and multicultural tollerance... Britain for all it's problems is one of the most forward thinking, inclusive countries in the world and though there may be forces waiting in the wings willing to exploit fear, racial, political and religious tension to serve xenophobic and narrow sighted means, common sense will always win out.
  

So, although I felt homesick on the weekend for an hour or so... I can always look forward to returning to place I'm proud to call home.

All over it!

I’ve been all about it recently, I have blisters the size of peanuts and my arms ache from the swinging but I’m loving it! Even the mistakes are fun, I’m still making the same ones, the simple beat from the first song we all learnt is still giving me some jip, but, I’ve made progress with the second song and learnt a new beat (Don, toka, Kon, kato).

Last week I went outside to practice at school, it was an office day and I was bored of making lesson plans. I started practicing and had been hitting a smashed up wooden barrel for about 20 minutes when a lad rounded the corner and started playing alongside me. I didn’t recognise him, but that wasn’t suprising as it was the last day of school for many of the teachers and a lot of old students had come back to say their goodbyes. He was really good and played a beat really fast that crossed hands and used two drums.

He complimented my playing and I told him that I was part of the Saito Matsuri drumming team, we played for about 10 minutes more and then 5 of my students came around the corner. I had seen this lot playing before and Ryuji, the graduate student, told the rest that I played taiko.

After that we spent about two hours trading beats and playing together. The students asked me to play with them in October at the culture festival, I agreed. I also agreed to practice with them every day during the spring break and every Mon,Wed and Thursday during the term.

I have a performance on Sunday with the Saito team, I think that I will just be playing the one song whilst Pat and Amanda play two songs. It’s all good.

See more progress on: Learn Taiko Drums

Insufferable, tiresome, stubborn. It can't be helped, it's in my blood.

It’s interesting that in Japan there is a theory that blood-type dictates personality type. Here in Japan knowing your blood type is like knowing you zodiac sign, and just like being a Leo, being a person with O positive blood endows you with certain traits… apparently.

This came up in conversation the other day and a couple of people agreed with this theory enthusiastically, using the whole zodiac theory as a counter argument which could be easily discredited thus adding kudos to the blood theory. I however countered that more than blood and in essence ‘nature’, a person is the product of ‘nurture’ also.

we aren’t a product of nature alone, nurture and experience have more influence

By no means am I supporting a fanatically tabula rasa point of view, I think that philosophical theories like meme’s have sound arguments, but don’t know them well enough to quote them verbatim. But my point is, we aren’t a product of nature alone, it’s a combination and I think that nurture and experience have more influence on us than nature.

“blood-type” theory... eugenics... Nazi science

However, the most interesting thing about the whole “blood-type” theory in my opinion is the link between that and eugenics, or as I like to provocatively term it, Nazi science.

I wonder if blood-type is a factor in dating and has anyone ever been dumped because they had the wrong blood?

I don’t know which blood-type I am but from looking at the supposed traits I think that I’m either B or AB.

Type A
Best Traits:
Conservative, introverted, reserved, patient and punctual. Perfectionists.
Worst Traits:
Obsessive, stubborn, self conscious and uptight.

Type B
Best Traits:
Creative, passionate, animal loving, optimistic, flexible and individualistic.
Worst Traits:
Forgetful, irresponsible, and self-centered.

Type AB
Best Traits:
Cool, controlled, rational, introverted and empathic.
Worst Traits:
Aloof, critical, indecisive and unforgiving.

Type O
Best Traits:
Ambitious, athletic, robust and self-confident. Natural leaders.
Worst Traits:
Arrogant, vain, insensitive and ruthless.

303FC: Still Going Poorly

It's slow progress but it's progress all the same. There are now over 200,000 people playing the game, and of those people I'm now in the top 60 with 300 points.

I'm still far far far away from the 7500 I need to get to the top spot and cyberQwert, the current leader is signing people up at an amazing rate, she signed up at least 180 this weekend.

I've made a related Myspace and invited 20 people, it's kind of hard to be all networky on Myspace, for two reasons, 1. the site is poorly designed, 2. it's dull.

I'm sending out a lot more files with the address on, but it doesn't seem to be having as much of an affect. I definetely need a new strategy, so, today the flyers are coming out with me on the 30km walk I'm going on.