after having lived abroad in Japan and Australia for 11 years, i've finally moved back to America, turning a long distance relationship into a.... not... long distance relationship...
over 11 years after first leaving America for Japan, the time has come for me to finally try my hand at life back in the States…
One-third of my life. That's how much of my life I've lived outside of America. My so-called "home country."
…soooo, i just had a 1.5 hour conversation with a random Nigirian guy at Starbucks and i need to let off some steam. so, as you’d predict, i met random Nigirian guy completely randomly when i got off a train one night after work and he came chasing after me to strike up a conversation. me being the overly nice person that i am who finds it hard to say “i’m tired, go away.” ended up engaged in a short conversation with him. he seemed like a nice enough guy and i couldn’t help but feel for his situation of being the sole non-Japanese person at his workplace and not having anyone to talk to because he can’t speak Japanese. when he asked to keep in touch after i finally got up the nerve to tell him i had to go i obliged, although i knew well enough by now not to…
as a follow up on this post about losing my job and a general life update, i guess: after a month of what felt like running a 40km marathon of creating multiple resumes, writing cover letter after cover letter, waking up at 4am to catch the 6:20am train to Tokyo and back for interviews and such all before going to work for 8 hours that same day– i’ve finally got a new job…! and not just any job, a job that’s better than my current job in every possible way minus paid vacation– ouch. the new job is going to be really challenging for me because while i have experience teaching high school students, i have never actually taught at a high school let alone an international one! as much as i could jump out of my own skin right now out of anxiety, among other things, i’m also excited…! except for the…
a while ago i wrote a random post titled “story time: when “African” is more important than “American””. well, it’s time to follow that up with another even more random post. back when i lived in Brisbane, Australia i used to use public transportation (photoed) a lot to get around before eventually getting up the courage to drive on the “wrong” side of the road. i met people from all over while living in Australia, but in so far as i can remember, i only ever met one African-American person during the 3 years that i lived there. bad luck on my part, perhaps. maybe. not exactly. but i tell myself that it is to ignore the other factors at play because the truth is that no matter what country i’m in, it’s a novelty to meet another African-American abroad and i’m well aware of the various reasons for that.…
two weeks ago any vague plans that i’d had for my immediate future were abruptly shattered when America elected Trump as the next president of the United States. two weeks later, i’m still struggling to cope with the news and the resulting blow to my already poor mental health. in this video, i give voice to my thoughts on being forced to navigate HRT in Japan and forgo (for the time being) other gender-related medical things that i’d hoped to pursue in America. i also talk about possibly moving to Tokyo in a year’s time, having been outted to my dad via Twitter and a new book by Ashley Mardell that i highly recommend. longass video is long, so here are some jump points for those of you only interested in specific things. @00:00 – post-election mental health @03:50 – shattered future; staying in Japan @08:55 – name change, HRT…
…today America decided for me that i can’t “come home” for at least another 4 years. i might not have anyway, but at least the option was there. there’s a lot of talk of people wanting to leave America. i get that. i said the same thing living in America when Bush was elected. if only i’d known that leaving America doesn’t actually mean escaping it. not like i’d thought, anyway. next year will be my 10th year of living abroad. i never imagined i’d ever live abroad at all let alone for as long as i have, but the longer i do the harder it becomes to envision a life back in America again. even so, 4 more years on top of the time i’ve already spent abroad puts me that much closer to having spent half of my life abroad… but perhaps that doesn’t even matter, because after today…
a former coworker (W) and i were in Tokyo today at Sensoji, a major tourist trap in Asakusa that’s in every foreign EVERY guidebook ever. a place that i generally avoid except i was playing tour guide for the day. i was off somewhere snapchatting, as i do, and when i came back to where W was there was a random middle-aged Japanese man excitedly talking to him about where he was from (Colorodo). i’m standing there for a minute or two half listening to their convo while taking random photos, as i also do, when the man realizes that i’m with the guy he’s trying to chat up in broken English. he decides to do the same with me, except… man: ooh, where are you from? me: Las Vegas. man: no, where?? me: Las Vegas…? America…? *confused as people generally know Las Vegas* man: no no, where are you from long…
…so earlier today i was interviewed for an upcoming podcast for queer people of color. it was great! i spilled my guts all over the place in a rather embarrassing way and it’ll be available for your amusement in the near future! but now i feel a need to unload some disjointed, messy feels about intersectionality. tl;dr: it’d be nice if intersectionality could happen on more than just two (occasionally three) axes at a time, but that’s unlikely to ever happen.
