Moving to Germany

In the past week:

1. Sat: returned to Taiwan from a trip to Japan with my wife
2. Sat/Sun: met an old Japanese friend from my childhood. We knew each other as idealistic yet not serious people. We met for dinner and then brunch and air-gun shooting the following day.
3. Mon: wife got back in the evening. Ate too late and was not able to wake up early.
   
4. Tue: packed the two bicycles, met my friend Andrey for archery, then had dinner with him and my wife
   
5. Wed: packed up all my belongings with my wife and and cat. Somehow managed to get all the paperwork together for importing the cat to the EU.
6. Flown to Frankfurt
   
7. Thu: stayed one night in Frankfurt to help with jetlag
8. Fri: rented a car and drove to Karlsruhe. returned the car keys under cryptic circumstances to a normal parking spot by the station and the key to the deutsche bahn ticket center

 

- posted by Hasson @ 3:41 PM

 
We are all beings with greater aspirations, functioning within the limitations of our own mortality. We are gods confined to a physical temple, striving for release. But we cannot leave this body except by transcending it through death. So it is our purpose while we are alive to push against the walls of the temple, to seek to enlarge it by expanding our consciousness, to use the implements of the world in our service. Confined to our vehicle of physicality, we can only lift up this physical world in the service of our spiritual bodies!
- posted by Hasson @ 2:42 PM

 
My boss and I agreed that I would work til the end of May.
It took a lot of courage for me to work up to having the conversations necessary to bring this about.

Now, I can relax and enjoy what time at work I have left. I can relax because instead of thinking "When am I going to choose my last day at work?" I can turn to concentrating at the work at hand. There are a lot of things I will miss about work - and this is the way it should be. If there were nothing that I would miss, what am I to make of the past six years that I have been working in this job?

My company launched a product publicly last week, and just today, a customer emailed me asking me for some samples. Just me. Nobody in the CC. And I realize that it is because he trusts me. He knows I can get the samples for him. I was the name that came to mind, though he has met other people at my company.

After speaking with my boss, after getting started on the paperwork that will bring about the end. This one simple email from a customer symbolizes so much.

I know years from now I will look back on this time, and be happy for what relationships I have built.

And what I build from now, I know it will be even better. :)
- posted by Hasson @ 12:14 AM

 
In the Philippines again. As Uncle William is driving the two of us back from a golf course, there would be the occasional tricycle taxi that would cut in front, or a jeepney that would stop at an awkward angle, or a person cutting across the road, or a couple walking hand-in-hand in front too slowly.

At each of these istances, Uncle William would honk his horn.

I told him "I notice you honk your horn a lot. You honk more than anyone I know, even professionals like taxicab drivers."

"Yes," he said "I know. You know, I've broken the horn on this car, and had to get it replaced three times already?"
- posted by Hasson @ 3:17 PM

 
Manila Airport. On a business trip:

I exited from the airport, and was directed toward the coupon taxis that charge fixed rates for rides into the city. The reception counter was a box on the sidewalk, where the taxis were lined up, and fares to various hotels posted on a sign behind it. I was going to the Renaissance Hotel. I quickly scanned the board. No Renaissance Hotel. Not a good start.

"Where are you going, sir?" A stout man asked as I approached.
"Renaissance Hotel, Makati." I said.
"Four hundred porty pesos. See him." he said, pointing to the man behind the counter.
"Renaissance Hotel, Makati." I said, to the man behind the counter.
"Renaissance Hotel?" He looked at the board behind him. Nothing. He opened a black binder, running his finger across the page. Nothing. I had not made reservations, did not have a phone number for the hotel, and had chosen not to buy a sim card with which I could easily have called my host.
He looked at the man behind the counter, and asked "Nasaan ang Renaissance Hotel?"
The man nodded knowlingly, and explained in Tagalog. I couldn't follow.
"Tree hundred tirty pesos." the man behind the counter replied. He wrote out a coupon, and said "Gib dis to da driver. You pay the driver, plus tip."
I climbed in the cab. "Renaissance Hotel, Makati." I told him. There was an awkward silence, and then he replied. "Okay," and started pulling away. I thought to myself, "He doesn't know where the Renaissance Hotel is. Why didn't he ask before pulling out?"
Another awkward silence. "Is that by the green belt?" He asked.
"Maybe." I said. "This is my first time there."
We were exiting the taxi turnaround. Too late to stop and ask for directions now.

Lesson learned: make sure that the people you're directing don't start until you both agree you know where you're going.
- posted by Hasson @ 6:20 PM

 
Walking Sunday morning, I saw a homeless man standing at a busy street corner. People were passing him by. It was a cloudy out, and the coldest day yet this autumn. He wore a dirtied white long-sleeved t-shirt, white khakis, and hiking boots. He stood, upright, stably shifting his weight from one foot to the other at a tempo of a stroll, but without swaying his upper body, lending a sense of mental surety, and he had drawn his arms inside his shirt. He was rubbing to keep warm. I pulled out 1000yen.

"For any little help this could give you." I said. He looked at me, then at the bill, and I stuck it in his pocket before he decided to pull his hands out of his shirt to accept it.

"Thank you." he said.

I bowed lightly, and walked home.

Labels: religion

- posted by Hasson @ 10:50 PM

 
On my way to work today, as I was walking to the station, a woman overtook me, and some energy she gave off was soothing. I felt the muscles in my face relax, and my spirits lift a little. I saw the quick and energetic way she walked, the brightness of her skin, the sheen of her hair, and the way she clothed herself comfortably with tan thai pants and a green tank top.

She passed me on the pedestrian bridge, and as she turned to descend from the bridge, I saw her in profile, and saw that she had a smile on her face.

I realized then that her entire body was smiling.
- posted by Hasson @ 8:59 AM

 
Spring sun strikes and warms the Tokyo in the early morning and daytime to release the latent exhiliration of slumbering natural floral arrangements that drink the light and smile with color at each other, and they are imitated by passers-by who are in tune with the changing season and have shed their wintry woolen wraps for bright beaming blouses and who echo the latent exhiliration and sometimes let it blossom upon their faces in a beaming smile.

And a winter spent with clouded mind under cloudy skies and days cut short by the cold yields to days made longer by the warmth and my state of mind clears like the weather has been today, and I am content.

And I want to steep in this spring to bask in memories that will sustain me through cloudy days and chilly nights that will come again.

But now! Spring's first winds prophecize the renaissance of half forgotten inner percolations of plants and animals and japanese stores selling summer clothing for ladies, gentlemen, and canines. We are part of the cycle of years that stretch continuously back to the beginning of earth. (though each year is a new variation on the theme) and how wonderous it is to be incarnated as YOU are, as a human, to focus the sunny rays of reality upon your un-nervous nervous system and PERCEIVE that things can be wonderful or sad or sweet or bitter... anything but like the marble David in florence, who though inheritor of the energy of michelangelo, observes the changing of the seasons with the same stone facedness.
- posted by Hasson @ 9:11 PM