i don't know when i wrote this

He sits in his living room with his wife and his cat. They have just finished watching a drama about a zombie apocalypse. Their beautiful son is in the other room sleeping on their futon. He is happy, she is happy. The cat is being a cat. Always in a state of let me sit on your lap and you may stroke me ,but only ten times on the 11th stroke I will bite your hand. Why? Because I am a cat.

He reads his last blog post which was in 2015. He thinks about what has changed since then. A lot has changed. A lot. 

3 + 3

I am writing this post on the eve of my 33rd birthday hence the 3 +3 which is more like a 3 and 3. Too many threes in one sentence, so I started another one. Almost 3 years have passed since I wrote my last post. If I had any regular readers then I am sure they would have long disappeared.

I am free.

I have three jobs I teach English, translate from Japanese to English and teach a dance that I am still learning. I deleted a lol from the end of that sentence as I don't want to use lols in my blog but I have used two lols in this sentence alone, now three.

I live in Kyoto, Japan and have done so for three years with my wife who I married three years ago and we have a three-year-old cat and a son who will be three next year. It is funny how you can make links to something if you try to. For example, I have two brothers, but that means there are three of us.

I have enjoyed this, it feels good. I actually love to write. I hope people still love to read.

You don't even know you

How much is actually real? 

How real are you with yourself?

 As in how true are you to yourself?

How much do you know about yourself?

One of the things I remember from my previous life is a training session we had in which our personalities were tested based on answers to some awful questions. There was a section before the questions which talked about the Johari Window.

The Johari Window suggests our personalities are split into 4 rooms. Room 1 (Arena) is the part of ourselves that we see and others see . Room 2 (Blind spot) is the aspects that others see but we are not aware of. Room 3 (Facade) is our private space, which we know but keep from others.Room 4 (Unknown) is the most mysterious room in that the unconscious or subconscious part of us is seen by neither ourselves nor others. WHAT?

I want to know what is in Room 2(easy enough to find out).  Room 4 is probably really scary, surprising and weird and Room 3, well that is NOYB.

I always think about this though especially when I hide info from some people. It got me thinking that maybe we would be happier if  Room 3 was smaller and we knocked down the wall between Room 1 and 2. I have no idea about Room 4 but I'm sure it governs what is in all the other rooms.

 I did say that we may be happier if we reduced the contents of Room 3  but  I believe I actually mean free.That freedom may only be temporary as those private thoughts could get you locked up.

Are you lost?

OK. I will get to the point.

There is a part of you that you don't know about that others do and apart of you that nobody knows about. 
YOU ONLY KNOW HALF OF YOUR SELF

You only know half about other people

Stay with me.

Half of this half basically a quarter (thank you maths)is unknown to anyone.

Where is it?

fin

Can't commit

I planned to write something every single day. That didn't last a week. Every week and that didn't last a month. I can't be angry at myself because for the most part I am for lack of a better expression a lazy so and so. I don't even punctuate properly. I think it is disgusting behaviour. So what is the point of this post? I guess it is another attempt at getting back to writing in this blog. I enjoy writing, I like it a lot but I don't make enough time to do the things I love. I enjoy making stories up and telling them to my kids (my students). I'm not great at it but I'm getting better and who knows I might write a famous novel or a children's book or a poem. Too many ors? But let's start with putting more effort in the blog.

slowly but surely

YAYE high fives all around I made it to Kyoto in April this year. It took 6 years since my first job application which I never got, 2 years in Ibaraki-ken the least charming prefecture in the whole of Japan and many many many great nights good experiences made many good friends who were hard to leave. Everytime I tried to say goodbye something would work its way into my eye and make it seem like I was crying (which is ridiculous). I passed my JLPT level 2 and am aiming for level 1. I have started teaching Kizomba here dancing more salsa and bachata which is great. I have danced more in the last 2 months than I did in the entire 2 years I was in Ibaraki.  My new school is great, co worker is great bosses are cool. What else?  Oh I just peered over at our cat "shinobi" I say we as  I am in a we situation. So there is a kitten he is very cute when he wants to be and then a nuisance to my feet at like 5 in the morning.
Slowly but surely things are moving in the right direction.

Ariyo

Wake up!

After all the hesitation, the doubt, the fear. All the times I felt I shouldn't be here. All the times that I should turn back and seek more familiar shores, where my presence would not be the white elephant (or the black bear). I am one step away from my dream. One more step and then I can wake up and no longer have to dream.

Shakespeare never had an English GCSE

What is extremely funny to me, well not extremely funny but slightly peculiar is/was my GCSE grade for English literature. I was the boy who read a book a day, there were some times when I would read instead of playing football or read instead of playing kiss chase. My primary school teacher ENCOURAGED me to read Terry Pratchett when I was in year 6 but I preferred a good old Goosebumps. I borrowed tons of books from the library and my library had a lot of cool comics so I got stuck right in, reading was my hobby.

Something happened during secondary school though I am not sure what or why but English Literature provided me with my lowest GCSE grade.  I guess with a subjective subject it is a bit hit and miss. Maybe I didn't understand Shakespeare the way everyone else did Macbeth taught me to stay away from girls in fields and trust my mates, Hamlet was less of a tragedy and more a comedy to me and it is possible that I looked at Of Mice and Men from a different angle than most. Could this be what earned me my dirty little C-cret that I hide behind my  6 A's and 3 B's ? I know a C is an average and even an F gets you a low pass but it's always bothered me. I like to write and am sometimes dissuaded from doing so by this grade. Not anymore though, this post is a middle finger up to that grade and if I ever do write anything of significance ,besides my white paper on Cloud computing a few years ago (NOTE  it was not signifcant) , in my little bio I will put once got a C in English Literature.

Also reminds me of when I wanted to go study Maths at A-level and for some reason I really tanked my mock exams and got a D. I was told that I shouldn't bother applying to study it further and be more realistic with my subject choices.  I was like "OK" studied my ass off got my A, and Maths went on to be my most successful subject at A -Level.