It's been a long time since I posted. Sorry about that. We had a great Christmas break. It was really relaxed. That was one of the nicest things. Usually during the winter holidays, Lindsey and I are the ones who drive around the country to see everyone else. This year we got to stay right where we were and not have to worry about the hustle, bustle, driving, gas, and cost. Don't get me wrong, we missed our family and it would have been great to see everyone, but since that wasn't the case, we got to relax.

For a couple days we ended up going to Sendai, the capital of our region (Tohoku), which is the same city that is about an hour away by bus for us. We walked around, shopped, and ate Mexican food on Christmas. We had missed Mexican food quite a lot. We told the people who worked at the restaurant that in the US we eat Mexican food around 2 times a week and they were astonished. It's expensive here, plus most Japanese people hate anything spicy- even things with just too much flavor. One of the criticisms they will often make about a food they dislike is simply 'it has too much flavor.'

The rest of the time we basically spent in our apartment watching old B-movies on the computer, playing games, talking, and also spent a lot of time working on a sequel to my video game, the Shotgun Princess. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a link to the first one- I made it:

http://www.addictinggames.com/shotgunprincess.html

I have been teaching Lindsey to animate, and already having a great sense of design, she is very quick to pick up on the very different way of working and and adapting her designs for Flash (the program used to make the video games). She has helped a lot with the sequel to the video game, and as much fun as she's had doing it, I think she will continue to play a greater role in the successive games.

Today is my second day back to work for this year. Time has been moving quite fast. My Japanese is, I daresay, pretty good. Lindsey got me some comic books of the series 'Nausicaa' which is also a movie. I read those great. And yes, I really do speak only Japanese with my co-workers. There are only 2 people that I work with or interact with in this town that speak English.

I have a Mid-Year conference for the JET Programme this next week. This makes me realize that I have already been here half of a year. It's been a great time, and I know the next half of a year will be even better. Which brings me to the subject heading of my post. Many of you already know this, but for those who don't, my re-contracting period is only 2-3 weeks away. We have decided that I will not contract for another year.

When we decided to come out to Japan, we had planned for only one year, and possibly two if we found good reason, but we said no more than that. There is too much that we want to see and too much that we want to do. As it turns out, we have already accomplished most, if not all, of the goals that we had set for ourselves before we came here. Anything that we haven't done simply wouldn't be able to be accomplished during my tenure with the JET Program. Of course, this is not our last trip to Japan, far from it. I expect we will return many times.

Also, it should be known, that part of the idea of this trip was symbolic, as well. This trip marked a start of a journey that neither of us expects to be finished upon our departure from Japan. There are many more places we want to see and live in. There are many more things we want to do. There are more languages I want to speak (and Lindsey, too, I suspect), and more people I want to speak to within those languages.

While we had many reasons and goals for coming to Japan, there was one goal that for me stood above the others. In combination with the idea of adventure, I had been looking for an experience, a place, and a time from which to draw inspiration for a project in theatre or film that would be much larger and worthy of pursuit after having accomplished my smaller theatre and film projects for University and my video game projects.

I am happy to say that there have been many culminations of this inspiration, and so much in fact, that I have more project than I can handle at once, which is fine with me. I have filed away the less important ones for another time. I must admit, I was a bit afraid before I came to Japan that I would travel all the way to live in such a foreign culture and feel just as uninspired as before I left, but I'm happy to say that this is not the case. It has been wonderful in that aspect.

To continue, many of you have been wondering what our plans are for when we return to the states, and we have been hard at work developing many plans that we are very excited about. As for the plans that mostly direct me, and of course indirectly, but still drastically effect Lindsey are two very exciting plans that I am happy to announce (in chronological order from their conception).

I have applied to graduate school for film. I hope to be accepted to an Ivy League school, and one of the top five film schools in the world, Columbia University in New York. They have less than a 10% acceptance rate, but so did the JET Program, and I am a much better filmmaker than I am an English Teacher. I am very excited about their program and the center of focus that they place on story throughout the curriculum.

The other large plan involves my intentions to create a new feature film. While in the past, my projects have been to facilitate a learning process, this will be different. I have not only been developing what I believe to be a really great script, but also business plan to carry the film from financing through distribution and into profit. So, for those who think this another no-budget, think again. This will be a financed film with (hopefully) most of the distribution plan (and profit plan) known before a camera ever starts rolling.

For those of you who are concerned about the ramifications this might have on our own checkbooks (wow, that's a word I haven't used in a while- there is no such thing as a check/checkbook in Japan) when we return to the US, don't be, we're putting together plans for that as well.

When we step off of the plane upon our return from Japan, our first steps will be at a sprinting pace. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and Lindsey has many exciting ideas of her own that we will be looking to implement. We have experienced inspiration and revitalization during our time here, and we will be ready to start our next adventure when we get back. Like I said, the journey won't be over.

By the way, Happy New Year! Hope everyone else's year is looking as great and exciting as ours is right now!