by Ryan Britton
While the temperature outside climbs with each passing day, I find myself to be in the winter of my japan experience. As each new journey in life poses an opportunity to learn, I have now begun to reflect and determine what I will take with me from my time here in this amazing country. Now, there is no doubt that I could rattle off a list of a hundred things that I have learned and will forever cherish, but for the puposes of this writing I will chose to focus solely on the life altering.
There is no question as to what aspect of my life here in Japan will bear the most fruit upon my return back to the states, and that is my training as a Yogi. This revelation has probably prompted my friends to perk up and say, "But Ryan, I don't recall you taking Yoga classes in Japan." And they would be completely correct, but what they would be forgetting is the hours of independent training that I put in on a daily basis. For example, evey time I went to a traditional Japanese restaurant and had to bend my legs in ways that I previously thought were not humanly possible, just to fit them under the table that was a mere 6 inches off the ground. How about, each morning as I made a bowl of cereal and would have to basically touch my toes to reach the milk at the bottom of my Mini Me size refrigerator. Please don't forget about the times that I had to awaken the contortionist in me so that I may fold myself into the backseat of someone's car. And what about all the times I needed to put my shoes on, and would stand, with the balance and form of a flamingo, with my one foot raised in the air. This intense training has often times caused me to rethink my career choices back in the States, and to give serious consideration to joining the U.S. Olympic Gymnastic Team (focusing on the floor exercises..particularly the ones with the ball and ribbon..oh..and balance beam), taking the box guy's job in Cirque Du Soleil, or moving to South Beach and becoming a Yoga instructor at some posh gym (eventually pursuing a relationship with a rick, hot milf in one of my classes).
This leaves only one other life-altering theme to my time here in Japan. That theme, of course, is me becoming a wordmatician. What's that? You say you haven't heard of a wordmatician? Well then, allow me to break it down for you. The dictionary defines mathematician as, "A person learned or skilled in the field of mathematics." I am simply a matician of words, for I am learned and skilled in the words that I have dedicated myself to over the past year is that of the Least Common Denominator Word. I have what can only be descreived as a G-d given gift. This gift allows me to take an incredibly difficult and complex sentence or word, one that could easily fly over the heads of unsuspecting students, and dumb-it-down to levels that would make an illiterate kid proud.
If you tell me about someone who is loquacious and verbose, I can tell you about someone who talks a lot. If you would describe your feelings as bereaved, doleful, or forlorn, I would be more than happy to call you sad. And if you wanted to tell me about the inequities that exist for minority individuals as they struggle for validation in the capitalist societies of the western hemisphere, I could easily tell you how hard life is for dark people in America. I know some people go to school for years to acquire these skills, earning PhDs and becoming credentialed. What a waste! One year in Japan was all I needed to realize my gift....I can see my business card now, Ryan Britton - Wordmatician and Yogi. On the bottom a small caption would read,
"Available for dumb, limber kids' birthdays and Bar Mitzvahs." How could you not love a culture which has given you all of this?