People have often asked me about my experience socializing in Japan. More specifically, about whether I have a lot of friends and feel comfortable here. On the comfort part, the answer is a definitive yes. I truly enjoy a lot of the conveniences and such that come with living here. On the friendship part,...
Recently I have been thinking about passing privilege. A lot of people assume that I can pass for white, which I have never been able to do, nor have I wanted to. I have had people tell me that I am “not really black” or not know what I mixed with or assume I...
We’ve had a few lawyers now in Japan for a few different things, and they’re not like the TV shows. That’s probably not surprising, but the degree to which TV is wrong is immense. We talk about our experiences with lawyers in Japan, plus our usual digressions. Transcript K: So, lately I’ve been thinking...
Recently I have been communicating more with people I have met on social media. Some of them I even talk with on the phone, and they all live outside of Japan. The thing they comment on the most is how “Japanese” my thinking seems to them. This seems so weird to me because I...
What does it mean to live your best life? It’s different for each person, and it’s not all, or even mostly, about the money. It’s a matter of perspective. Sometimes life isn’t great, other times it’s pretty wonderful. Transcript K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about living your best life. I’m like, what does...
It’s easy to say “this is a writing job” when the title is “writer,” but many more jobs are primarily about writing. These days, many “journalists” are writers who rely on published accounts to rewrite stories (and hello, fellow bloggers!), and “social media manager” probably involves a lot of writing as well. It’s hard...
So, I’ve been living on my own for roughly five years now. When my mother first introduced the concept of living alone to me at the age of sixteen, I was staunchly against it. I didn’t see why I would ever want to move out. She wasn’t even suggesting that I move out back...
Since July, I have been talking a lot about having hereditary coproporphyria (HCP), which has made some of y’all a bit curious about what it is exactly that I have. HCP, as the name suggests, is a genetic disorder that impacts how my body produces heme. Heme is the part of the blood that...