Category: General (Page 1 of 18)

It’s come to my attention that this site has been neglected for the last few years. I think I’m averaging 1~2 posts per year for the last few years. I’m not sure that’s going to change anytime soon, but at least I can take a moment to catch anyone who is still interested up.

Last year, I had my first encounter with death.
One of my friends from college passed away from leukemia. A lot has changed from that experience. First of all, I want to say that Brian (yeah, his name was the same as mine, but spelled wrong) was the best of our circle of friends. He was the person who kept everyone together. He is the one who planned all the outings and events, and he did everything he could to maintain all the relationships. His last birthday was February 8, 2022. We sent a few emails back and forth, and everything seemed great. The next thing I heard about him was from a mutual friend that he had passed.

That was a tough message to read. For a few days, everything in my life stopped. I really couldn’t think clearly. He was younger and a better person than I have ever been. He was the first person who visited me in Japan from the states. I was really looking forward to introducing him to my family, but now he’s gone, and we’ll never have the chance to enjoy his light again.

It’s only a year later that I’m even able to talk about it, and I honestly don’t know why I’m brining it up. That’s not what I set out to do when I sat down at my keyboard.

Good luck my friend in your final adventure.

Since then, a lot has changed in my life.
His death was a loss for the world, but I hope that I can do a little more to hope to add even a fraction of what has been lost.

I have reaffirmed that I will not waste time. I’ve continued to expand my responsibilities at work, and also my family.
In February, Ryu was born. He is the happiest and cutest little guy that you’ve ever seen. He’s certainly a handful. He gets that from me, but he’s also kind and sweet. That’s from his mom.
Here are some photos (his first 6 months): Baby Ryu’s First 6 Months

I think I’ll leave it with that.
More later (hopefully sooner, rather than too much later)

~B

As is usual for me at the end of the year, I’d like to write a bit on my reflections for this year.
Life is good! I’m beginning to understand what people mean when they say that you catch your stride in your 30’s and begin the most productive years in your 40’s. At 38, I think I’ve finally begun to catch my stride (after years of errors).

So I’ll break this down a bit, beginning with the most important: Family.

I met Kaori last year, and we got married this year. There wasn’t a ceremony. We just went to the City Hall and filled out the paperwork.
We moved into her family’s spare house at the end of last year. It’s been nice to not have to pay a massive amount of rent. We do have to deal with the yakitori (chicken on a stick) restaurant on the first floor (it’s not as awesome as I thought it would be).
She got pregnant in May, and things have been pretty chill since then. I’ve been drinking significantly less, and am probably in the best overall health I’ve been in years, although I haven’t been exercising recently.
My relationship with my father is still pretty great. We visited this year and had a blast. It’s good to spend time with him. I wish I could more often, but with all things being what they have (pandemic, war in Russia causing prices to go up, etc), I have to be happy with what I can get.
My relationship with my mother has even taken a positive turn. That’s all I’ll say about that for now.

Second, work.

Oh yes, work has been… interesting. It’s been crazy busy. By that, I pretty much mean that I’m always working. Officially, I work 8 hours per day, 6 days per week. But reality is rarely the same as the expectations. I pretty much always work. And don’t get me wrong about it. I’m not complaining. I’ve had some pretty amazing opportunities. First, my program is doing really well. In the first full year of operation, we’ve signed on over 70 schools. I’ve trained around 100 teachers, and we finally hired my first official subordinate.
On top of that, I was able to negotiate a contract with an amazing American program teaching coding for children that gives us exclusive distribution in Japan for 3 years, so I guess I can add international contract negotiation to my resume.
And last, we signed with a third coding program, so a lot of my time has been working to Frankenstein it all together into a singular program (still ongoing).

Finally, service.

Most of my service this year focuses on Toastmasters. Anyone in the states who has seen me speak will know that I am terrified of speaking in front of crowds. Even after all these years in Toastmasters, it never gets any easier. While the nervousness and fear never really go away, practice makes it easier to deal with. I am happy to say that I can speak in front of a crowd without breaking down.
This year, I was elected to the Public Relations chair, which is a glorified social media manager. Anyway, not by my doing, but I’m happy to say that we’ve already gotten 4 new members in the last 6 months. I plan to participate in the upcoming contest. We’ll see what it’s all about when I get there.

So there it is. It’s my run-down of 2022.

If I had to sum it all up in one word, it would be “Busy.”

I’m really beginning to understand the value of time. Cherish every moment, because when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Have a happy New Year and see you in 2023!

It’s amazing how much life changes. Sometimes the changes can be good and sometimes they can be bad. As I grow older, I learn more and more that life just doesn’t care. It will go on no matter what.

Life, uh, finds a way.

Ian malcolm

So a number of things are currently in process. First, I’m happy to say that my last meeting as a district officer in Toastmasters is coming to an end. Perhaps this is an unpopular opinion, but I had a terrible time in this role. I think it was partially due to language and culture, but it taught me a few lessons, but no, I didn’t get the kind of enjoyment out of the service that I do from the club that I help lead.

With work, I have greatly expanded my responsibilities. I’m currently leading 1 program, managing another, and in different levels of developing 3 others. The goal for all this is to be able to offer our customers a selection of classes that they can recruit students for and make some additional profits. Having said that, there’s one big lesson that I’ve learned from this. There’s no money in being a franchise distributor. At least, there isn’t at first. After looking at the numbers, I feel that I would prefer to either be the content creator (high risk) or a franchise owner (limited reward).

So from that, I’ve decided that I’m going to start developing new skills. I think that if I can find a few other areas that I really enjoy, then I can use them to supplement my income down the road. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy what I do. It’s challenging, interesting, and I’m never bored, but if I’m looking at it from a purely financial perspective, I’ll never be able to get what I want doing what I’m doing now.

And that brings me to my last point. I got married in January, and I couldn’t be happier. She is kind, thoughtful, and warm in all the right ways, and even has a small bit of sarcastic humor mixed in. Basically, she’s perfect for me. She makes me want to be a better man. You know, all that cliche stuff.

Anyway, more news about that later.
I’m going to try to start posting at least once a month on this site, maybe more as I explore writing as an opportunity.
But as I said above, more on that later.