Paranoia...

I’m thinking I smoked too much weed in high school because lately, I have this horrible sensation that I’m going to die. And yes, thank you, I know we’re all going to die some time just in case some smart arse would like to point that out (you know who you are!), but I mean die young. I can’t explain the feeling that well but it will be when I’m riding my bicycle and this image flashes over my eyes of a car coming out of a side street and hits me, and it’s so real that I actually squeeze on the brakes and go all wobbly! Or the other week I was driving home in heavy rain and I just kept imaging a car coming from the other side of the road and smashing in to me. Am I going insane?!

It may also have been fuelled by the fact that I was talking about palm reading with a student and she examined my hand and was all “Ohh, Corinne sensei, you have short line of life!!” and I was all “Ohhh, well, fuck then…”
If I died now I can’t say I’d have any regrets but you know, not quite ready to kick the bucket yet!

Palm readers, yoroshiku!




Or maybe this irrational fear is just the ghosts of my childhood coming back to haunt me. I was an incredibly nervous child. Like, I didn’t take any risks, at a really young age. I blame my parents and their constant fights that lasted all night while I lied in bed trying my hardest to block out the screaming, banging and name-calling that went on for hours. I would wake up tired and emotionally drained and I’m sure it well and truly fucked me up. I remember being in the first grade and staying up worrying about high school and what it would be like. In first grade! This little kid with big worry creases in her forehead, chewing on her teddy Bear's ear worrying that there’d be too much homework and I’d get lost in the halls. Damn, now I think about it there were all kinds of incidents indicating that I was a tad mental! I cried once for fear of being locked in a clothing store that was getting ready to shut because my mum was still getting stuff from the shelves when they pulled the shutters half-way down. I wet my pants in the 2nd grade in front of every fucker because I was having a stress attack about forgetting my assignment. You get the picture.

Along with the nervousness and fear was the fact that I never took any risks. Roller coasters- not a fucking chance (only the one time my sister bribed me with hot macadamia nuts, I’d do pretty much anything for that shit!), all theme park related fun was too risky for me, I was like a fucked up 50 year old stuck in a child’s body! I can honestly thank Japan for getting me over that though, or maybe it was getting out of my parent’s house…hmmmmm. “There's enough material there for an entire conference.” (Gold star to anyone who knows where that quote is from) Whichever it was, I managed to turn my nervous fears around the day I stepped on to the plane, and I was fucking terrified, I had the runs the whole way on the plane here, I was so insanely scared that I almost became numb and convinced myself that I could come back home if I wanted to. And technically I could have, but really I was forced to stay, at least for a bit. And after I got a taste of the fear, I was hungry for more. It was all bungee jumping and tattoos from then on, I was living on the edge, and I liked it! Not a dollar spent in therapy and all I had to do was grab the scary feeling by the balls and say “fuck it, I’m doing it!” the adrenalin (and some alcohol) does the rest.

So I think I need some thrill seeking, this is why I’ve been all paranoid about death lately, it’s been way too long since I’ve done something that would classify as 'on the edge'. I hadn’t even realized I’d been playing it so safe until the other night when I was teaching a Junior high school kid, who, don’t get me wrong, is a lovely boy. He studies hard and plays badminton and wrote me a beautiful New Year card that said he wanted to try hard to speak English this year, but he’s like every other robotic JHS kid here, boring. Boring people annoy me because it’s just so hard to make conversation with. I can forgive this in kids, the Japanese school system and little life experience make it almost impossible for them to go any other way and hopefully by giving them the freedom to express their opinion and actually think outside the “This is a pen” box when they talk to me, they’ll get better, but in adults, it really fucking pisses me off. Take for example the question: “What do you do for fun?” Valid question, if you answer it with “I like sleeping.” I will have images of smacking you in the head with a blunt object so you can be sleeping for a very long time. Of course this isn’t a realistic reaction, so I point out that I can’t go anywhere with that answer, plus sleeping is not a hobby, it’s a basic function, give me something, anything else! Anyway, the point I’m getting to, is this JHS kid has to ask me at least 3 questions at the start of every lesson and the other night he asked me “Where did you go last year?” And I thought about it…. And I realized I didn’t go anywhere. So I had to answer with “Ummm I went to Osaka…” In this little meek voice because I was actually thinking, ‘Fuck me dead I’ve become one of the boring cunts I fantasise about whacking in the head!’ OK, so I had valid excuses of an infant and new business, but it shouldn’t matter, I didn’t even go on a trip anywhere in Japan! So I have vowed that before the year is out, I will do something slightly risky, something that is pure fun and I will go on a trip overseas and a trip somewhere in Japan.

Because who knows, that mashed up life line could end tomorrow, and I’ll be fucked if I have to tell St. Peter that I was a boring cunt, he’ll never let me in to heaven!