ok, ok. you got me

So I have a confession to make. As some of you may have suspected, it was not I who wrote those super happy 13 year old girly blogs. Now Im going to go out on a limb and be honest with you; I was going through a hard time, blogging just wasn’t the same any more. I had no desire to “write down” my thoughts or “share” my emotions. No. so what did I do? I got a YWAM-er named Amy (the same Amy referenced by as “fat Amy” in previous posts) to relieve me of my blog-bound duty to write an entry. I figured that an odd entry by an unknown person was better then no entry at all. But now you have brent, in the flesh fully at his fingertips typing a rare but delightful entry. Good on you.

The occasion for such a post? The end of my time at Northstar is at hand. But in 5 short hours I will be embarking on a 12 hour train ride to Sendai, a place in the north of Japan where I will join a family reunion on the beach. Just like old times. This place in Sendai is literally the only thing in my life that hasn’t changed since I was a kid so its nice to go there and feel at home…or feel something. However, owing to the convenient lack of internet at this place up north I will not be able to post until…September some time, most likely. So until then my friends I bid you love, peace, and hippies rain down upon you like salmon falling lightly in the heavens, like frogs croaking in a pond by moonlight, like a joyous ocean wave rebounding against the beach-the mortal enemy.

And Northstar? Great. I should tell you about it sometime. www.ridenorthstar.com

I play the GUITAR

...and i play well. (so says the fat girl amy)
its a fact.
my name is brent-o san and i am from japan, and i rock so hard speaking my two languages. i love the fat girl amy, even though all she does is eat, i still love her. im bringing her back to america and then canada, its gonna be a blast!
i had braces and i still wear the retainer every once in a while, its good stuff. i really dont want my teeth to get out of whack like they used to be, that would just be horrific. well its kind of sad, well actually i dont if im sad or happy, the summer is coming to an end and i will be leaving this north star place in less than a week and then going to see some of my old friends in sendai, its going to rock, but fat amy isnt coming. BOO. this has been a good summer full of thinking, laughing and bathing. i actually enjoy bathing even though some may think otherwise. we had a power outage the other day, a huge storm. oh something else about bathing, today i went to the onsen and i was like yeah im tan, what, what... and then to my thoughts demise i found out my tan was just dirt. unfortunate. i like britney spears. you know? fat amy made me like her, and i dont mind, mainly because fat amys so cool that its hard not to be swayed into her own thoughts/opinions/beliefs. anyway. back to this summer, i have realized many things about life and family and friends and cleaning and hiking and playing and responsibiliting and learning and translating and friending and climbing and manualing and cooperating and appreciating and discovering and eating and LIVING a rock and roll lifestyle... and as Joey Tribianni would say "sharing and giving and receiving." i actually love the rock and roll lifestyle its rocking and i just rock out every moment i can. i3po forever, look them up on myspace, they are one of the best bands in the freaking world!
SERIOUSLY this is real last week we had a camp that came of about 25 kids from the ages of like 6 to 13 and we took them up into the mountains with backpacks and all... eep! and seriously, it was so amazing from the time we left to the time we got back(which was only about 2 days when it was supposed to be 3 or 4 or something due to some tyfoon that was trying to rain on our parade and did but only by warning, not by any real damage to skin or life) it was night and day difference there had been such a change in the kids lives, it was really cool to be apart of and see. truly cool.
word.
hey sorry since i have been taking medication for my uh my blogs get seriously wild and i am very sorry for it. read on with joy and laughter, yipperreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FIRE IN THE HOLE!
i just love this life that i live its nice. im alive breathing feeling and LOVING it. yeah.

a philosophy of babies

I am surrounded by babies. Probably by more babies then I've ever seen in my life. All in the space of one month. There's probably as much crying around here as there are gawking girls drooling over their very dippers hoping that perhaps they too will one day have the privilege of holding a dear smelly one of their own. And bless their hearts. But despite the incessant noise protruding from their wide open cake-holes, babies make me think. Why do they cry? Sure its because they fell, or they want more jello even though there's none left--but why is crying the first sound they make when they're born? There's a 3 week old baby that I watch cry when someone flashes a camera in his face, or when he's grumpy, or...whenever he starts crying for no particular reason (as babies so often do). It makes wonder if they don't want to be here on earth. And why would any one? Surely we who have been alive longer then a few days know that life is pain and pain is crying. When babies cry perhaps they are lamenting life itself. It seems from their first moment on earth they protest loudly and continue to do so until they are eventually assimilated into this hostile environment so that the daily pain of life is bearable.
Cant blame then for crying really
...except when they're being snotty pricks

i wish i was a baller

no i don't wish i was baller but thats not a big deal i just thought it sounded cho genki.
its me brent livin in the north alps of japan, and I'm lovin' IT! woop woop...me and my co-guide gabriel-san got back from our adventurous hike of five nights and six days, by the way where i spent my twenty-first birthday....yes, i love my birthday but mine actually blowed because of the onsen problems (no big deal i:ll explain it if you really want to know) but the exciting thing about my birthday after i had come home from our hike my beautiful north star friends gave me a big bash, well actually they just sang me happy birthday and made me some yummy ice cream tower that looked like a poop mountain but was so tasty but since i am so thin i couldn't finish it so my fat friend amy did! i love her fatness!!! ok back to my hike...it was so amazing, um, we saw a bear that looked like a brownie because it was so far away, i wanted to eat it but knowing about my thinness i knew i wouldn't be able to... i wished amy was there. gabriel is also anorexic like me. no he's not I'm not either but its just so you get the idea of how fit me and my friend gabriel-san are. yeah about my hike: I just want to let you know/ remind you that i am really bad at telling about my life experiences so im sorry if this doesnt seem in depth enough or whatever... i will try to do my best.....oh radical-ness i went to a coldplay concert yesterday in Nagoya which was the shiznet! they were beautiful like they were so simple yet so gorgeous, like the music isnt like so complex where you are like going wow did you hear or wasnt that amazing on the guitar but its just like yeah you know? i think you do. beauty in its most expensive form. like it was reminiscent of sitting in nature and just being surrounded by beauty but it costed like 100 dollars. yep. oh lately honestly i fell in love with the computer and im on it like every three seconds so its like absolutely insane...seriously people are calling me their internet lover (amy, the fat one) im on the computer because i am doing like a mountaineering guides manual: intense.
btw also known as by the way, does anybody know about how to post pictures on this bad boy? if so let me know. coolness.
i feel like there is more that i want to say but its hard to put my finger on it...hmmmm.
oh right i totally forgot: i won a dance competition! i rock so hard, my moves are like kick ass, i move like michael jackson! you would have cried if you saw it it was honestly perfection. i won stickers. yeah thats right STICKERS! I ROCK!
its so neat that i can speak japanese, its such a blessing to be able to utilize my language gifting of the tongue for the good of humanity and adventure camp sport telephone fire....that made no sense, and i am sorry for that, but really it is good to be back in the motherland speaking my tribal language. YES...i really believe thats all this is aboot. ok peace from your sensei, live long and prosper.... dun dun dun dun du dun dun du dun dun dun dun ok i cant finish that but htat was the imperial march, vaders theme...weve got some serious star warriors here, losers. i never watch it im too cool for that i like to sleep.

yarigatake

My co-guide Gabe and I are leaving for a 7 day 6 night hike in the Northern Japan Alps. We are intending to climb Yarigatake, one of Japans highest and most famous peaks. Should have lots of hot springs and lots of 10,000ft mountains. Our mission is to scout trails for future possibilities of leading campers up them, mark evacuation routs, make contingency planns etc. A 7 day hike is by far the longest I've ever done and should be an excellent way to spend my birthday...as long as we don't run out of food.

babies?

Today I held a one day old baby. For many, their first time holding such a young little thing is a life changing experience.—it makes one think about priorities in life, beauty, and the meaning of life itself. I would just like to preface my following statements by saying that I am not a horrible person, I do not hate small humans, and some people have even been known to call me “nice”. As privileged as I am to receive these flattering comments I am not mentioning them without purpose; I will trust you keep these things in mind for the remainder of this post. For you see, unlike the average dreamy male who loves the little things to death, I look down to the smelly bundle in my hands and recognize him as a representation of all the crying babies I have ever encountered on air, land, and oceanic transportation devices…and a bundle that somewhat brings to mind prunes or lizards for some reason. Naturally, I wonder if I will always feel this way towards miniature humans and something tells me I wont but we’ll travel intrepidly so as not to wake the sleeping babies. I look forward to the day that I come to respect mini-humans as cute little "snookie-wookums" as grannies always say.

In more of an update, a YWAM team of 9 just joined the lofty ranks of the Northstar staff. They’re fresh from America but surprisingly willing to be assimilated to Japanese culture—a rare and admirable combination…for being Americans. Good people though, very good. I’ve also been doing a fair bit of translating from Japanese to English; a new and somewhat nerve racking hobby to be forced to undertake, but my skills in Japanese are slowly returning. Every word I remember is treated like the prodigal son-with celebrations and feasts and rainbow coats and the killing of fatty animals. The best part about the arrival of the YWAM team is that now we have regular meals because before YWAM came the staff numbers were so few that there were no meals. Of course you must understand there are no campers yet either so having regular meals for four staff members seamed understandably superfluous. It was thus commissioned from a higher rank that we not be fed, but instead reap our own fields in spring, if you know what I mean. So that meant coffee for breakfast, a role for lunch, and plain rice for dinner. I also weighed myself for the fist time in 2 years and found that I had lost 12lbs since high school. This came as a surprise to Brent who, not having much to loose in the first place, was likely invisible from the side view much as paper is invisible when looked at from the right angle.

state plainly

The state of Japan is at best depressing. Here are people who have everything if not more than our white neighbors have. There are no scenes of poverty in this country that will bring churches to pass around offering plates, there are no naked, barefoot, starving children wasting away on the streets, there is no civil war, ethnic cleansing, oppressive government, not even rampant crime—it’s the safest country in the world! There is nothing I can see that will tell me how sad this place is. The problem is so indefinable and undiscoverable that most who visit here never see or understand that there could possibly be a problem—a problem that can’t be fixed by throwing money at the situation, preaching, becoming a Christian, or sending them away. And I haven’t the foggiest idea what it could be. But there is desperation for something I don’t know, for life.

Put your offering plates back on the shelf, for one thing I believe strongly; money will not reverse the damage that money has caused.