I guess now is the time of year when most people start looking back to all of the things they did in the past twelve months, but then again I am not most people. Being a revoltingly nostalgic individual, I like to thing about all of my past New Years and measure how far I've come since then.
January 2005:
I was still 18 for one more month, a freshmen in college visiting a little town on the Sea of Japan called Maizuru, where my high school study abroad family lived. All clad in kimono, tabi and tall geta we made our way through the snow filled streets to their local shrine where dozens of others similarly dressed paid their respects. It was the most beautiful snow I've ever seen to this day, perhaps the first real winter snow I'd ever experienced. I took mad amounts of pictures that today are a distant memory.
January 2006:
19 years old, "almost twenty" I told people. I recall my dad lighting a fire so big in the fireplace of the skeleton that used to be his house that it melted and bent the metal wood holder that had sat in the bottom for as long as I can remember. In my hands I grasped a three-foot maul which I swung at a molded wall stripped of its sheetrock. I had no college, no house, no job, no money, and no bed of my own to speak of. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do if LSU didn't accept me three days before the semester started. I couldn't complain either, because we were the lucky ones to have lost only money and possessions in Katrina.
January 2007:
Twenty years old I came home to visit for the holidays. I stayed in my parents' FEMA trailer. I had a new job as student worker for the Red Imported Fire Ant Research Lab at LSU and I couldn't be happier. My parents were safe, I had a dorm, and even a place to train both in LSU and in New Orleans. What's more so I had my sights set on doing study abroad the following year, and wanted to ask Sensei what the address of the nearest JKA honbu was.
January 2008:
At Age 21 I returned from my third study abroad to Japan having met so many amazing people and having trained in a grand total of 11 different karate dojo across 2 counties in 8 years. I realized that through all of the trying times, there were two things I never stopped doing: training karate and making comics... so I figured why not combine the two? Could there be anything in my life I would more like to write about?
Thus, with the help of two truly amazing coder friends, work on Shizantai began.
January 2009:
I sit here today with a job, an apartment and a college degree, having attended 4 universities in 4.5 years, and with the possibility of grad school on the horison. I can easily say that had you asked me three years ago where I would be today, I would not have answered out of fear... but things change.
So on this merry occasion, the beginning of a new year, I would like to thank you all. Thanks to all those who have known me and whom I have known whether we had kind relations or no. I say this because it was under extremely fortunate circumstances that I was able to make it to where I am today, and I thank every moment and person that made it possible.
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