Wayback Machine
It's amazing how long you can go without listening to a certain album or piece of music. And then you hear it, and it takes you all the way back in time. Take for example OUtkast's double album Speakerboxx/the Love Below. I bought the CD when it came out in Japan in September 2003 soon after I arrived in Japan at Tower Records Shibuya. I remember buying it as an excuse to test out if my credit card would work in Japan and also because the double CD helped to justify the high price (something like 23 dollars, most CDs in Japan are ridiculously expensive). I also remember I let one person get a copy of the CD, then the next thing you know it seemed like half the exchange students at Obirin had a copy of it. Funny how that worked out.

I'd go back to my homestay at night and listen to the CDs before I went to sleep. And I just popped in the CD to listen to it today, almost 2 years later, and it takes me back to those first couple of months that I was in Japan. That was kind of a seminal time in my life where I really grew up a lot. Here I was in this new place in a new way of life, having a great time but really learning a lot and dealing with many uncertainties as well. A lot of new and exciting things were going on but many uncertainties as well. And every night I'd go home and listen to a CD, whether it was Outkast, Led Zeppelin, or Mr. Lif's Emergency rations. Soon, my sister came to Japan to visit and I let her borrow the Outkast. Wouldn't you know it, she had it for like a year before she returned it. I finally gave it another listen today, and all I can say is it definitely takes me back to my early days in Japan.