Has Ottawa Changed?

Since leaving to France 3 years ago, I’ve come back and visited Canada 5 times. Each previous trip left some good memories but overall a sense of disappointment. I can rationalize that the disappointment came from not having enough time, bad organization and other people’s busy schedules. But more than that, it was a sense that little had changed and life in Ottawa remained stagnant. This is always the feeling that one gets when they’re gone for a period of time from their home town and, yet, this was also my honest opinion of the state of affairs in Ottawa. It honestly felt the same. People were doing the same things and overall had the same ideas about what they wanted without knowing how to bring about this change. I too was searching for change but didn’t know what I wanted.

This year, my visit back to Canada was not only highly enjoyable, but I could really see the changes in the city, the people and mostly myself. I can look back at what I left behind 3 years ago and I was truly happy to see what I came back to in 2010. One could suggest that the reason I felt disappointed before was that I hadn’t changed enough myself to really feel a sense of difference. I think it’s more than that. I really feel that everyone I know has made leaps and bounds since I’ve been gone and it truly is wonderful to see. Babies and houses, school and jobs have all been shuffled around for the better.

The issues that I’ve been dealing with for the last few years have simply to do with not knowing what to do with myself. People say to me that they hope I will find what I am looking for but it’s not that simple. It’s about finding your passion and keeping yourself busy in ways that make you happy without feeling that sense of stagnation. I felt there was a sense of stagnation for a while even though I was travelling. I didn’t know where to apply myself. Now it seems that some form of maturity has embraced me and those I know to give us some idea of what to do with ourselves. But I can only hope that what everyone is doing right now is something that they enjoy and not simply settling because they gave up trying or got backed into a corner somehow. It’s hard to tell sometimes because people can rationalize most of their decisions and trick themselves into believing that they are happy. It’s important to take that step back and assess and not just live day to day.

There are other reasons why this trip was particularly great. I got some nice reverse-culture shock which is always fun. I didn’t have to take any summer school this year which I had done the last two summers I visited. I spent a week in the U.S. which was interesting. The weather was really great. But overall people made a serious effort to plan things out and have fun. Because everyone is busy it takes more of an effort to see people so planning has to be involved.

For the first time, I’m thinking that I actually miss living in Canada. The trauma of having to deal with cross-cultural communication for the last 3 years has been tiresome and sometime back in Ottawa would be relaxing but that won’t be happening for another two years at least and I already know it won’t be permanent.

I know many people want me to move back to Ottawa but the truth is no matter how many friends and family members I have there, I simply can’t see myself staying there for the rest of my life. Canada overall, I feel, has little to offer me in the long term. There are many reasons that I can get into but overall the real feeling is that, even though the trauma of living in other cultures is tiring, it does provide a constant simulation and an overall avoidance of stagnation.

It is my firm belief that one must live outside of their comfort zone in order to constantly learn more about themselves and keep their brain stimulated. Staying in your home town / country / job / relationship / hobby / routine is simply not stimulating enough for the human brain to keep interest alive. Not when the world is so big and complicated and it’s impossible to do everything.

The things that attract me back to Ottawa besides, obviously, friends and family is government work, and a chance to improve my French in an atmosphere that’s not overwhelming. Learning French in France was very exhausting. A few years back in would feel nice. But there are still lots of places that are worth seeing and living in.

For the next two years it’s all about going back to school. I regret that I will have little cash to do much more than that. But that’s the trade-off.

I'm still Canadian!! Part 2

Happy Canada Day!!

I'M IN!!

For Christmas I received three career books so I would figure out how to get my life on track. I'm not saying that it was off the track but I was starting to complain that I didn't know where the track was going. The books were meant to coach me to determine a decent strategy of what the next few years would look like.

To tell you the truth, I didn't get through 10% from those books. What happened is I decided to put all my chips onto one number on the roulette. Well maybe the metaphor is not exact but point is I decided I wanted to try to get into Grad School. This idea was never really in the forefront of my brain because simply, before this, I couldn't go. In Canada, in order to get into any kind of Master's program, I needed to have at least a B average which I didn't have. The trend I noticed throughout uni was that I would get decent marks in anything in the Arts and abysmal marks if I swayed too far from the Faculty. I'm simply not good at memorising things and then regurgitating them.

Before I continue my story, one important thing to keep in mind is what kind of situation the world is in right now. Because of the recession and unemployment being higher than before, more people have angled to go back to school. Plus, not only is demand rising for entry into school (hence the competitiveness), schools have lowered the amount of available entry positions because of government restrictions thus making it even more difficult. If you're in school right now, congratulations because it's really competitive out there.

The reason I started to think about going back to school was I somehow came up with the idea that maybe school in Japan would be different. As it turns out, I was partially right. For Japanese applicants to university it is very similar to the way it is in Canada. However, I would be applying as a foreign student and thus my application would be weighed differently. I couldn't find any stipulations that mentioned a minimum average to apply.

The strategy went as such: First, I made a list of all the schools in Japan that offered a program related to the words INTERNATIONAL, FOREIGN or DIPLOMACY. I figured with my international experience and my interest in the world this was right up my alley. Second, I scanned their website looking for any sign that the school had an English program or at least had an English version of their website. As you can probably guess from the list of 100ish in my database I contacted about 30. From the 30 about 10 replied. My e-mail to them was very clear: A) is your stuff in English? B) when does your stuff start? As far as I was concerned if they failed these then there was no point. Third, I narrowed the list down to about four universities and then eventually three. Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Waseda Univeristy in Tokyo and Sophia University in Tokyo.

After my trip to Tokyo last February (which I promise I will write about), I wasn't crazy about going to live there. However, if the school accepted me then, I guess I would relocate. Helene was very against moving to Tokyo and thus all her enthusiasm was placed on Ritsumeikan. What's funny is that, when this whole thing started, I heard about this school and considered it the lowest contender at first glance. Eventually, it became the top choice. All my work with the database was essentially useless.

As soon as I finished my old job and moved into the new place, the plan was to work on these applications and make myself sound so much more awesome then I could possibly be. It turns out, I spent the better part of that month trying to understand what they wanted me to write then actually writing it. Most schools wanted at least 3 essays explaining what you want and why. Plus, they wanted a research proposal. I ran around, read lots of websites (using a stolen signal) and constantly writing and rewriting the application. As you can guess, this was not fun and all kinds of self esteem issues started to come to the surface.

In the end I only applied to two universities, Waseda and Ritsumeikan. At the last moment I had second thoughts on Sophia.

Both May and June were filled with ongoing stress and anxiety. Constant "what if" questions, thinking of alternatives and pretty much being anxious. Mid-May, I got an answer from Waseda saying thanks but no thanks, thus everything came down to the university I originally didn't care about.

I thought the results were suppose to come out on Monday July 21st. My impatience was driving me nuts and on Thursday I cracked and went to the uni to see what the results were. After getting lost trying to get there, |I finally tracked down the right secretary who told me I had to wait till the following day for the results to be released. Angry, I came back first thing the following day ... where I found this piece of paper. I brought it to their attention that an English program should have its announcement paper in English (they laughed). When I saw this paper, I impatiently asked the first person who was walking by to tell me what it said. The girl I chose spoke no English and blah blahed something to me but overall her mood was positive as opposed to being apologetic. Optimistic, I went in to the office and asked them to explain the paper to me.

Turns out I was accepted! I will start uni in September in the International Relations Master's Program at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto.
I'm really happy that I can continue to live in my new awesome place. I love it here!! I'm currently trying to get my head in the right zone to do what I need to do. In two weeks I'm going back to Canada to get some books and make a game plan. Its going to be a crazy year.

Nano Block

When we first arrived in Kyoto, I found nano block. It's like Lego but smaller. The one of Himeji Castle is pretty cool. The sad thing is it's just as expensive as Lego. The add at the bottom, I found on display in a store called Loft in Tokyo. It is hands down the best promotion for an item I have ever seen. Ever see one of those commercials where you're not sure what they were selling? Well this is not one of them.

I'm still Canadian!!

The other day I had to subject Helene to this to prove how Canadian I am. I may go around the world but I still have it in me.

Workplace Bans Beards

I found this article the other day and I thought it was very funny. Because of the heat here I found that my beard grows twice as fast as it has anywhere else so if I don't shave everyday I really look like a bum. A beard doesn't look cool here.

Kyodo News By MIKI NAKANISHI

MAEBASHI, Gunma Pref. — The issue of men with facial hair in the workplace has recently prompted serious discussions as well as actual bans based on "decorum."

Hairy issue: A bearded shopkeeper is given a "no" sign by a customer in an illustration addressing the issue of banning facial hair in the workplace. TARO ARAI ILLUSTRATION / KYODO

In May, the city of Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture, banned all male municipal employees from sporting beards in the office on the grounds that public servants should look decent. The city took the action after some residents complained about its bearded workers. In response to the news, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said it had never heard of any municipality introducing such a rule.

Isesaki's move, however, is nothing new. A growing number of Japanese, including athletes, are being prohibited from turning up for work unshaven so they won't "offend" the public.

Seven-Eleven Japan Co. is particularly strict about the appearance of its employees and says it won't hire men with beards."We might fire workers growing beards regardless of whether they are regular staff or part-time workers," a public relations official said.

Oriental Land Co., owner of the Tokyo Disney Resort, also bans beards, like its U.S. counterpart."It's important that workers serving our guests maintain an immaculate image," an official said. "But the rule doesn't apply to the man playing the role of Captain Hook in our park."

The manufacturing arm of razor maker Kai Corp. tests the quality of its products almost every month on its male workers. They grow facial hair until the monthly test date arrives and get back to work cleanshaven after the tests.

Some men take issue with the bans. An employee of Japan Post Service Co. sued the firm to protest a pay cut imposed because of his beard. In March, the Kobe District Court ordered the company to pay him ¥370,000 on grounds that a person's appearance is a matter of personal freedom and a uniform ban on beards is unreasonable.

In sports, the Yomiuri Giants baseball club is well known for its ban on beards. When he left the Nippon Ham Fighters for the Giants in December 2006, infielder Michihiro Ogasawara made his fans gasp by shaving his trademark beard. The baseball star said abiding by his team's rules was a matter of manhood.

No regulations exist regarding facial hair in the world of sumo, the most tradition-bound of sports in Japan. According to the Japan Sumo Association, some non-Japanese wrestlers have taken flak in the past because they tend to be more hairy than most Japanese and some fans found their bushy facial hair unseemly. By and large, not wearing a beard is a tacit rule. The association, however, is rather flexible regarding the issue. "We work in the world where luck counts a great deal, so some wrestlers don't shave during a winning streak" because they fear it would change their luck, an association official said.

"It is said that growing a beard or not should be a matter of personal freedom and left to each individual to decide, but organizations fail to function well if they lack a certain measure of discipline," said Mitsuru Yaku, a cartoonist and commentator on various social issues who himself sports a beard.

"A beard is a symbol that is the polar opposite of a virtue associated with a serious-minded adult, and many people equate beards with decadence or moral laxity," he said.

Mario Violin