Why I'm a terrible photographer

So, as I just wrote to someone on Facebook, I have issues with taking pictures. Being an artistic person, I actually do like to take pictures-- but the catch is that there can't be any people around. So most of my pictures are of random objects in isolated places, or of myself with random objects in isolated places. It does get kind of old, especially since I think the most interesting pictures involve people. But whenever I decide to take a picture of anything anywhere where there are lots of people milling around, my inner monologue goes something like this:

"Okay, I'm going to slip my camera out of its case, and turn it on inside my bag so I can whip it out at a moment's notice. Okay, there's no one in the way so maybe I can take it now... Oh, wait! That guy is looking at me. I'm not a weird tourist taking pictures of this perfectly normal sign, mister, really I'm not. See, I'm just standing here spacing out like a perfectly normal person... Okay good, he looked away. Better get this done quickly. A quick look around again to make sure no one's watching, spot the target, and, bam! Okay, it's done. I hope no one saw that..."

Then of course when I go home to look at the picture more closely, it's all blurry or off-center because I didn't take the time to focus it. They say that with a digital camera, you're supposed to just snap a ton of pictures in succession so you have a better chance of getting some good ones... But I only take one (or maybe two if I'm really brave), and they usually turn out sucky.

Thus, most of my pictures from Thailand are... Well, sucky. And that's only because I forced myself to take a few. I have practically no pictures (that I took myself, anyway) from all this time I've been here in Japan. For some reason I just hate the idea of looking like a tourist or a "weird foreigner" (even though I really am a weird foreigner, even though being a weird foreigner is actually not a crime, and even though it really doesn't matter what random people think, anyway).

I think I need to fix this problem. Because it sucks not having pictures to share with people, and to look back at and remember things later.

Unfortunately, my camera (which I'd hardly used at all anyway) broke halfway through my trip in Thailand, and I'm not about to go out and buy a new one unless I'm sure I'm going to use it. I do have my cell phone though, which takes not-such-good-quality little pictures like this:


(This one is from Thailand, at some ancient temple ruins. It was windy. And there were no people within eye-shot when I took this.)

The great thing about a cell phone (for me anyway) is that it's not as obvious as a camera-- people can't always tell you're taking a picture with it. So maybe if I try taking lots of pictures with my cell phone, it'll help me get used to the idea?

I think I'm going to try it. We'll see how well I'll follow through with this, though.

Passions

I have many passions, but I don't seem to be capable of juggling many of them at once because they come and go in very intense spurts. These "spurts" can be as short as a few days or as long as several years.

For example, as you can see from my last post, a couple of weeks ago I suddenly felt inspired to start drawing. This particular spurt was very sudden and extremely intense. For about a week or so, I could think of nothing else but drawing. Every minute of free time I could find was dedicated to it. I got so into it that I forgot to eat and sleep properly. I couldn't bring myself to do anything else, not even study languages (even though I felt guilty about it). It was so intense that I was actually kind of afraid I'd never feel motivated to study languages or do anything else again. I mean, it was fun, but I found myself feeling relieved when it finally calmed down, all the same.

And calm down it did. Right now, there's an unfinished drawing hiding in a minimized window on my computer screen. It hasn't been touched for several days now, and I have no idea when (or if?) I'll finish it. I don't have the space in my brain to concern myself with it-- because right now, I'm obsessed with learning Chinese.

Yup, the language thing came back. It's funny how this happened, though. I now feel absolutely no desire whatsoever to study Thai, even though I was crazy about it for over a year. As for Chinese, I first started learning it in January of 2005, during my second year of college. I was learning Japanese at the time, and wanted to better understand Chinese characters (because they're used in Japanese too). I was also just itching to try learning another language, and Chinese seemed as good as any. (And ooh, there's a study abroad program in China, and ooh, it's so nice and pretty and shiny! *__*) My roommate at the time was doing the same major as me and taking both Japanese and Chinese classes. I was taking Japanese and French. (Yeah, you'd think that'd be enough, right?) Then in January, I started secretly studying Chinese on my own. Yes, secretly, because for some reason I didn't want my roommate to know I was studying it. I think it's because I was weirdly competitive about it, and felt like I had to know Chinese better than she did before I let her know I was learning it. Pathetic, I know. I was also just overly self-conscious in general and didn't feel comfortable doing pretty much anything in front of pretty much anyone. I don't know how I ever survived in a college dorm room.

Anyway, I studied Chinese on my own until the following autumn, when I spent a semester abroad in Beijing. I learned a lot of Chinese during that time, but as that semester came to an end and it was time to return to the states, I realized I still didn't know Japanese as well as I wanted to and needed to focus on it some more. (OMG, I don't know this word; Oh no, I can't read this book!!!) So I dropped Chinese and went back to cramming Japanese into my brain until just after I graduated later that spring. Then I felt guilty for not "finishing" Chinese and decided to go live in Taiwan for a year to improve it. While in Taiwan, I decided that life sucked and I didn't care about Chinese anymore, so I sat around my apartment watching mostly Japanese TV and reading Japanese books. Then I was just like, "screw this", and moved to Japan.

My personal feelings toward the Chinese language at this point were that I just wasn't fond of it and probably wouldn't ever go back to it, and whoever had anything to say about it could go eat stinky tofu (Real food in Taiwan, by the way. Taiwanese food is amazing in general, but that stuff is horrendous). So I forgot about it completely. I was happy living in Japanese land for a couple of years, and then in the dream world of Thai in my head for a year or so more. Then I went to Thailand and was disappointed, and I was like "Screw this. I should learn Chinese instead."

Then suddenly Chinese was beautiful to me, and I was determined to own it. And now here I am. I've broken out the Chinese translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone I bought in Taiwan (Yes, I have that book in Thai too, and in French, and Japanese, and I must have the English one somewhere. And I don't really give a darn if you think I'm crazy), completely untouched for three years. I started trying to work through it three years ago and stopped at the first page. When I picked it up about a week ago, the first page was covered with highlights and penciled-in notes, while the rest of the book was completely untouched. Now the entire first chapter is covered in highlights and I've filled about half a notebook with notes. I can almost read it all now. And this is only part of all the studying I've been doing.

I'm making it sound like most of my "different passions" consist of different languages, but that's not entirely true. It is true that languages in general are one of my greatest and most consuming passions. But there are others, too. The above-mentioned passion for drawing consumed much of my childhood and teenage years. It left suddenly, completely, as soon as I got to college. I'm not sure if it just decided to come back for a week recently, or if it's going to show up every now and then. I kind of hope it's the latter (especially since, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit, I kind of went and spent a lot of money on a certain tool for drawing on the computer...). My other greatest passion is singing and songwriting. In my last two years of high school I thought I was going to become a musician, and I even majored in music in college (only to change to Asian Studies later, of course). I was in choir and sang at church and wrote a ton of songs, though unfortunately I was never able to get most of them out of my head and into a form that could be shared with people because my skills on the piano weren't that great. A few months ago, though, I suddenly felt I needed to play the piano, so I went and bought one of those cheap little electric keyboards with only like, 20 keys. I couldn't do much with it obviously, but I was lost in music for a month or so, trying to play every song that came to me. It was nice. I still play with that keyboard every once in a while.

There are other random things too. For a few months recently I had it in my head that I might want to become a diplomat, so I went and bought a load of books about history and economics and politics and read like crazy. I read the news every day, too-- something I'd never done before. In the end I decided I don't really want to be a diplomat after all, but I did learn quite a bit. Once I went through a phase where I tried to learn how to meditate. I've had a cooking phase, and an exercise phase, and probably some other phases I'm forgetting at the moment.

You see, people?! This is what it's like to be me. I never know what's coming. And I can't stop it. I really can't.

Some people might say I'll never accomplish anything if I keep switching between different interests. Honestly, I used to think so too, but recently I've been seeing things differently. You couldn't say that I've accomplished nothing. I'm pretty good at drawing, and it really comes in useful sometimes. I'm a good singer, and even though I'm not an amazing pianist, I can use music as an outlet and a way to enjoy myself. I can speak Japanese almost to a near-native level, and I know a couple other languages at least well enough to get by. That's not nothing. I don't want to sound boastful, but I kind of need to lift myself up a bit because honestly, I've put myself down way too much in the past. Well screw that.

I'm going to go learn Chinese now.