thelifeofash

I just recorded my first bass cover ever! You can find the cover on YouTube.

My challenge for May was to cut meat and animal products out of my diet and go vegan for the entire month. In this post, I will go over my dietary habits in the past and list some of the reasons someone might go vegan and explain my personal reason as to why I think it is important to cut down on meat and animal product consumption. Then, I will go over how my month being vegan went and finally I will explain how I try to move forward with my diet after May.

My challenge for April was to read everyday. What may sound like a relatively easy task to some people, was always something that I had a problem with doing consistently… or doing at all. I’ll go into more detail about where my aversion to reading came from and why I decided to start reading anyway. At the end, I will also talk a little about the books I’ve read and what they were about.

This blog post is gonna be about how I found meditation and my March 2021 challenge, where I set myself the goal of doing one meditation session each day.

Another month, another challenge. February is over and so is the second challenge of the year: building a consistent sport routine. Additionally, I want to say a few more things on decluttering and how I continued to use it as a tool for a more intentional life. And lastly I will introduce the new challenge of March.

Please sit down, ring the bell
I’ve got a story to tell
Another round, hear me out
Can’t wrap my head around it
Left my home, moved away
I was only fourteen
All my friends, back at home
There was no one texting

[Verse - Lil’ cA$h]
Rockin’ shiny leather in the hood, rule
Golden blinging rings, gucci crocs, jewels
Annihilating chicks every clock, cool
Goin’ for a drink, for a girl, whiskey rocks
At the bar over there sittin’, chick
Six shots, lip gloss, down, quick
I’m slick af, plan in head, what, schtik
Take my glass, down it now, let’s fuckin’ go

Woke up, felt shit
Stared at the ceiling
Stood up, lived life
I was in misery
Day gone, that’s life
It’s gonna be alright
Next day, same shit
Crying in my bed
In the middle of the fucking night
Yeah
—
—

Every path you take
Feels like another wasted day
Running ‘round in circles
You don’t seem to know your way
It’s like getting lost in a maze
Crazy thoughts running amok
In your own head, space
Where you wanna go, fuck
All these thoughts in your head
Shit, there ought to be another way
Anyway, you barely dread dropping dead

… Fuck
Off is what I should have said, drop
Dead what I should have felt, slit your
Throat you fucking piece of shit
Never ever did I feel like that
And my heart said I should forget
Forgive all the shit you did
“You love him, like your own blood”
Brothers what we were, fuck
You for taking all I had
Screaming all out, feeling bad
My fucking lungs, they collapse
Chest heaving, I take my last breath
I can’t take it anymore
Blood is dripping on the floor

[Chorus: Ash]
Ohh, can you
Ohh, can you
Oh can you still remember those times?
[Chorus: Lyla]
Ohh, I can
Ohh, I can
Oh I can still remember those times!

Stepping out
Breathing in
Fresh air
In my lungs again

Sitting there in the cold dark night
Sipping razz and smoking outside
We’re two, so everything’s alright
Sincere, she looks right in my eye
‘Why you always stay, ‘till the middle of the night?’

I’m sitting, down on the bench before
I’m sipping, my cold-ass beer oh no
I’m tripping, you spiked my beer, shit yo
I’m kidding, there is my homie Moe

Roses are red
Violets are blue
This poem sucks ass
And so do you

I’m huffing and puffing
I’m running, I’m late
I’m wheezing and panting
I’m stopping, too late

There is nothing that I’d rather do
Than eat honey and say: ‘Moo’
Why I’m mooing you might ask
Cause fucking cows is my task

~ Billy the Bee

It’s a sunny Friday afternoon. The only class present during the 6th period on this day is the class 3A attending their music lesson. The only person more annoyed than the students about this absurd time slot for a subject this unimportant is the teacher. Mrs. Belone, who is technically not a trained music teacher, had to teach the music lesson for the class 3A this year, because there was a shortage of music teachers in the elementary school. Her being forced to teach a subject she neither knows about nor values as important, in addition to the late school period, makes her overly strict and obnoxious towards the students.

I am back home. What a fun and exciting week this was. I arrived in Germany on Wednesday and was promptly greeted by a non-functioning escalator and a water tap that did not work at the Munich Airport. I just felt at home seeing that nothing changed here. First thing I did after getting my luggage was grabbing the car keys from my brother and declaring that I am gonna drive us home. Of course, my brother and my two friends, who also surprise visited me at the airport, were stoked to get driven by me and definitely didn’t pray to god to save them from this death trap of an experience.

This was is, my last week living in Japan. At least for now. I bought souvenirs and other stuff I want to take home from Japan, finished all bureaucracy concerning me moving out of Japan and canceled my data plan and my bank account. I also met with some friends here for the, at least in the near future, last time and said my goodbyes to all the friends I made here. I also did a spontaneous trip to Nagano prefecture with some dorm mates over the weekend, which will be the main talking point of this weeks blog post. Here we go…

This week I mostly re-visited a lot of places I’ve already been to in the beginning of my time in Japan, like Shibuya and Shinjuku. Additionally, I wrote some applications for when I go back in 2 weeks, so I can start to work as soon as possible. How else am I gonna be able to pay for all that booze. Anyway, besides the usual stuff I also set off to another hike this week. More specifically a triple mountain hike: Mount Nokogiri, Mount Odake and Mount Mitake. The three mountains are north of Mount Takao, where I’ve already been.

This week I had my last two work days here in Japan, where I prepared and then held a presentation about my work and the results I achieved. All in all I am very satisfied with the work I could get done in the short amount of time I worked at the company here. Also my boss seemed to be happy with the worked I achieved in that time. He also said that despite his initial concerns about the usefulness of working students before he approved my working student contract, he now fully understood the value that students can bring into the company. I am glad that I could deliver on the expectations of everyone here and I am proud of my accomplishments so far.

This week I had to finish up a bunch of essays and papers for university. And when I say finish up, I of course mean start writing them. All of them. In one week. Sometimes I don’t really know why past-me does this stuff to me. I just hope he at least had fun procrastinating. There was also the Chinese New Year this week and I went to Yokohama’s China Town, which is the largest one in the whole of Japan.

On January 17th 2020 I laid in my death bed, talking to a stranger about my life. Ten minutes later I died and a monk held my funeral…

This week was the traditional ‘panic week’ two weeks before all my essays are due and I have exams and stuff. Naturally, I didn’t do anything and still procrastinated and, as to not have a bad conscience, I also didn’t go out and did anything fun. Consequently, I don’t have any fun adventures to share today, so I’m going to do a little more personal story. But there is going to be more adventures next week, I promise.

Wohoo, Happy New Year everyone!!

Except for New Years Eve, this week was pretty uneventful. I was free from university and work and basically just focused on writing all the essays for my courses and studying for the exams. Well, I tried. As is tradition every year around this time, I wanted to do so much for university and did basically nothing. Gotta love them traditions.

This week was I will report on my field trip helping homeless people and also talk about my experience here during Christmas.

After all that motivational nonsense the last two weeks, I’ll be continuing with some more Japan this week. This weeks post is going to be about my Mt. Takao trip from two weeks ago and also my visit to the Tsukiji Fish Market.

After uploading last weeks post I actually went for a run. I was fucking freezing and my legs pretty much died that day, but I felt good afterwards. I felt energized to actually do what I set out to do. I went to sleep and woke up the next day motivated to do something for once. So I started to write down all the things I always wanted to do, all the things I wanted to achieve. And here it is, my list of life goals, challenges and whatnot. Just stuff I want to do and achieve. Also, last week I said there’s gonna be the recap of the Takao trip this time around. Well, that’s not gonna happen today either. Maybe next week. Maybe never. We’ll see. I just felt like this is the more important thing to write down right now. Without further ado, here it is:

This weeks blog post is gonna be a little different. I had a day trip this week to Mt Takao hiking up the mountain and having a gorgeous view of the whole city of Tokyo. However, I’m gonna do the recap for that trip with all the pictures I’ve took next week. This week I’d rather talk about something else. It’s gonna be more of a personal story about motivation, discipline and dreams.

This week was a bit slower and there is not that much to write about here. So after last weeks super post, this weeks blog post is going to be a bit shorter.

When tourists come to Japan, they usually take the Golden Route to see the major tourist spots of Japan. This includes Tokyo, Kyoto and everything noteworthy in between. So naturally, during our week off from university, some of the other exchange students went to the Kansai region and visited the big major tourist cities there: Osaka, Kyoto and Nara. I also wanted to travel around during my week off and I didn’t go to the Kansai region either until now. So of course I did the only logical thing and booked a hotel and a nightbus and  off I went… towards the exact opposite direction: Sendai.

This week’s post is going to be about my day trip to Nikko. In all its glorious coldness, sadness and fucking epicness.

Let’s Roll!

This week I had my first work day in Japan, I went on a field trip to Kamakura and also invested a good portion of my time in developing an app.

After the lazy debacle last week I couldn’t do another week of doing nothing and being lazy. So this time I actually went out of my room and into the big and wonderful world.

They called him ‘Hagibis’, commonly referred to as ‘No.19’ in Japan. As there are many typhoons every season and giving them all names and actually remembering them is kinda hard, Japanese just refer to them by their number. In my just over one month here in Japan this is my second typhoon hitting Tokyo. There was one more in this time period, however, it hit the north side of Japan and only resulted in normal rain in Tokyo itself.

It’s been one month here in Japan for me. The longer I’ve been here, the faster the weeks fly by. I guess that’s because I am not doing as much as in the first few weeks. Then it was a new part of town or temple to visit, a famous park or a museum to see, beaches to be conquered, shopping trips to be made or other typical touristy stuff to be done. Don’t get me wrong, I still got a lot to see and experience here in Japan. However, now that university started and the assignments and the homework roll in on a daily basis, I just don’t have as much time left to travel around. The one positive side to this is that I am even more excited for the few trips I have planned for the weekends. That is, if I ever start planning stuff beforehand, like a normal, organized person.

The lectures in university officially started on Monday the 23rd September. It was a pretty chaotic and busy week, but nevertheless I enjoy being back in university and going to lectures I am actually interested in (looking at you, mandatory statistics courses, no one fucking likes you). This week I am going over all the courses I am going to take in my exchange semester.

My third week here in Japan is over now. This is also the last week with no university and just chilling and sightseeing. There is not much I’ve done this week, or rather I was too lazy to take pictures or write something. Hmm. You know the usual stuff. Still, I’d consider this week an absolute banger of a week. And do you know why? Well let me tell you why:

My first week ever in Japan is over now and I gotta say I’m pretty impressed. The food is absolutely delicious. The people are really friendly. The sheer amount of people in places like Shinjuku and Shibuya (especially the Shibuya crossing) is mind-blowing. The fact that the public transportation always works and is on time is incredible. Especially, because in my hometown there is a problem with the subways every fucking day of the week. Tokyo is an incredible city and there is so much I have to visit and try.