TRAVELING KAT'S HOMEPAGE & BLOG

Wednesday morning, February 5, 2002

Rockford, Illinois

Okay, recent change in plans calls for a trip home. After discussing my situation with my employers, asking for their help in finding a direct ticket to Chicago departing as soon as possible, and obtaining my re-entry permit for Japan, I headed off.

I am sitting in the livingroom of my parents' house right now, glad to be home, wishing the circumstances surrounding my journey were more positive. Grandma is sick. If you want to know a brief explanation, this is it... As a child my grandmother had an illness, Rheumatic Fever, which damaged her heart, but it wasn't until she was pregnant with her fourth child when she found out she had anything wrong with her. She believed her whole life she was lazy because she was always tired, so she pushed herself to do more. The doctors said she never should have had children with her condition, now she was having her fourth. Sometime after her fourth child, 1963 to be precise, she had her first heart surgery (closed-heart). Then, in 1965, she had open-heart surgery in Rochester, Minnesota where she had what was called a mitro-valve replacement. This was an operation giving her a what I call her "ticker", the doctors put what I envision as a ballbearing- but I am quite sure is altogether different- into her heart because one of the valves was damaged and blood leaked back through her heart. The ballbearing closed the valves preventing blood from flowing the wrong direction. I call her heart her "ticker" because when her heart beats, I can hear a faint "tick tick" like a clock or a bomb. For this reason, it isn't difficult telling when grandma's "ticker" is working overtime. So, anyway, getting on with the story, during these years, Grams had a couple strokes, flatlined on the table due to some sort of allergy to a dye they injected into her, AND she had a couple of blood transfusions. They left metal in her (accidentally) for a while which gave her what I called her 2nd bellybutton upon removal, the doctors never checked her extremities after her stroke, and as a result her left hand became almost entirely unusable. Grandma was put on a lifetime regiment of daily drugs, one of which we fondly refer to as her rat killer. And I can't forget that cool scar on her chest from the open-heart surgery. Battling through all this, and STILL smoking, even after her father died of emphysima-related complications, Gram was fairly healthy until maybe 3 years ago. Pretty healthy means she had the routime times she went into the hopital and gave us a huge scare, such as in 1997/8 when she suffered from congestive heart failure and finally quit smoking for good. This story really has a point... Okay, so Grams went on this medical study for being tired, actually it wasn't because she was tired, it was because the doctors couldn't figure out why her blood count was so low, and it seemed as if her body was fighting something off, but they couldn't come up with an answer. They put her on this experimental treatment that they hoped would help stimulate her blood production/maturation, and my grandma was one of VERY VERY FEW people on which this drug worked.

Waking up in the middle of the night this winter, my mom took Gram to the emergency room because she was bleeding and they didn't know why or from where, just somewhere internally. After more than a couple weeks, and some evaluation of her current condition, it was REALIZED my grandmother has HEPATITIS C, along with millions of other people who may never know they have it. She is in the advanced stages meaning the virus has taken a toll on her liver and she has cirosis. The stress of her liver not working has strange effects one would never imagine but make logical sense. These effects are her inability to swallow properly, bleeding of vessels in her throat, low blood count, pain in her abdominal area, and I have no idea how many other symptoms. After all these years, Grandma's heart is functioning well, but her liver is not, which is now effecting her kidney function because her kidneys are not receiving enough blood to function properly, her blood is low and they have given her so much blood already that I have been told her body has produced antibodies now meaning soon she will no longer be able to receive blood. IT REALLY SUCKS to see someone you love go though this. She is lucid, and wants to tell people things, but she can't because she has a breathing tube down her throat along with a feeding tube. I know she really detests being in this state and having others see her like this, but she is so strong. And she fine mentally, which makes it all the harder.

So, Gram got hepatitis C from a blood transfusion some time ago, and this is a regular way of transmission, or rather, it was regular 20 to 30 years ago. BUT, you can also get hepatitis through drug and tattoo needles, tattoo ink, anything coming in contact with blood that enters your body, and of course, sex. When my co-workers in Japan found out Grandma had hepatitis C, they knew all too well about it. It seems many people were infected 20 or so odd years ago during school innoculations when the needles were reused. Perhaps their familiarity with this illness lent somewhat to their kindness toward my desire to return home.

So, for those of you concerned about my journey home, this is why I have come. Many of you have taken the time to write a small note of encouragement, and I thank you very much. And perhaps, somewhere out there may be some people who think I should spare personal details, but if I withold this information, and every other person decides not to talk about what they feel and the reality of a situation, there is no point in having this website, you could just as easily read some insignificant bullshit somewhere else.

That is all for tonight.- Katrina

Through our regular email correspondence, my mother requested I omit some of my more descriptive words from this website, primarily the word fuck. Upon initial thought, I agreed and changed the letters to symbols. My mom stated her reasoning was based on a client. This client has a fourth grade class that may read the website, and my mom didn't think it would be a good idea for them to read the word fuck, and she is probably right. But, the more I thought about her request to censor my own writing, I decided I wanted to write on this topic. So, if you are bored at this point, you will more than likely be bored with everything I have to say, so please spare yourself, and quit reading now. However, if you are interested in reading a one-sided discussion on censorship, the following words will explain my sentiments.

I believe completely in freedom of artistic expression. In holding this belief, I realize certain audiences will be better candidates for enjoying different styles of art. Small children usually like colorful, creative, and sometimes violent cartoons (Tom and Jerry, almost all Loony Toons, and Poppeye name only a few of the many). Pre-teens through adults enjoy music videos, some of which contain scantily clad women in the pictures (Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera for two very easy examples). Teenagers through adults (myself included) love music that happens to contain explicit lyrics (Aerosmith, Nine Inch Nails, and Eminem are just three in my varied collection). Women find pleasure reading easy-read smut-books with highly sexual text (Danielle Steele- is that how you spell her name ladies?). The list goes on, and on. I realize I completely generalized just now, but those generalizations are based on my experiences in this lifetime, and that is proof enough for me. If you don't understand why I am writing this, once again, you shouldn't be reading what I have to say. But more importantly, for everyone still reading, we have a whole industry called MARKETING that caters to the stereotypes I described, as well as many millionaires who have found their niche creating art in any one of those categories.

Myself, I did not create this website to cater to anyone, but I do not mean to disrespect anyone in the process of my writing either. Some people will inevitably be offended, no matter what I do, and I would rather have people be offended with the accurate things I say than with partial descriptions. If I told some drunk Japanese man on a bicycle to, "Fuck off!", and to, "Go fucking home! And you better believe I had -what I believed- a damn good reason. I feel like explaining my logic behind my choice of words, and it is really simple. After my extremely long travel -Rockford, Illinois to Yorii, Saitama, Japan- being pestered by an old grunting man was the last thing I needed. At that point in time, my tired brain rationalized the Japanese people in the surrounding houses would be more likely to look outside at a woman swearing in very plain and simple English. Loud, expressive language tends to attract attention, especially if the would be audience is semi-familiar with the words. How about swear words from American movies! That was my honest thought.

I believe strongly in what I write, and would love to have people interested enough to continue following the story of my life in Japan. In this website, I already feel I censor a large amount of material. Bearing this in mind, to be asked to censor more of myself is a request I am denying. All people censor themselves in some way or other, deciding what to say, when to say it, and then struggling to present what they say in just the right way. The same goes with all forms of art, proper interpretation is always a key element in communicating through artistic expression. Frieda Kahlo (sp?) wanted you to feel her pain. Gaugan (sp? I am not so good at artist names) tried hard to portray the beauty and simplicity of the natives. As for this webpage, my writing is as accurate as my memory and perspective allows. I have not said anything worse than I have heard and seen on daytime television, on the radio during the day, or in a magazine at the grocery store. All of these media sources are as easily or more easily accessible to any children who will find themselves here reading what I have to say.

If there is a teacher out there, or a mother or father, or anyone who is disappointed in anything I have to say, I did not write anything here with means of disappointing anyone. As I have said to my father on several occasions, "I am not doing this to spite you, I am doing it despite you (and your opinions)�E When are we all allowed to live our own lives and say what we really believe? Or, shall we live our whole lives trying better to be the person we think others want us to be?

I try to encourage expression and creativity in people of all ages. I hope I am secure enough in myself to want to support and possibly inspire others to aspire to branch out and fulfill their own dreams. A life worth living is a life well lived..I believe someone famous said that. I try to live my life that way. This is how I came to my beliefs of censorship. I took �and continue to take- time to think about my beliefs, to assess them, and to change my opinions too. I am strong-willed, sometimes this determination works to my demise, and many times it works to my success. I keep working on realizing truths earlier, but I have a long way to go. In all this struggle to be the best person I can be- because what is the point of living a half-assed existence???- I have learned it is a constant struggle for all of us to say what we actually mean. I therefor, am battling to censor less of what I say rather than more.

For those of you that were able to finish my tangent, thank-you for listening, and from here in Japan, Good Night.

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I have now been living in Yorii, Saitama, Japan since September 15, 2002, and I began working shortly after. I work as what they call here, an Assistant Language Teacher, and I teach children ages 6 to 12 at a public grade school. Not only am I the only American, I am also the only Westerner. Sometimes I feel my hands are so tied because I am a foreigner, while other times, I feel as if I am the luckiest person around for being a foreigner.

I have certainly learned JAPAN IS THE LAND OF CONTRADICTIONS. And if you are looking for an example, just one, Japan prides itself on having excellent produce and not using many chemicals, all the while, there are nuclear facilities all over Japan, a couple of which seem to have had little nuclear seepage problems the government (or maybe just the company) declined to tell the public about. Ah, really, it doesn't seem too far off from the regular occurrances of home, sweet home, in the United States.

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I took a trip home to Illinois October 30 to November 7. For gifts, my sister got a tea set, I love it, Mom got massage tools- she is a Nationally Certified Massage Therapist, and my dad and brother received the funniest gifts- Japanese-style English shirts and other goodies such as "Wet and Hard (hair) Gel", and "Care Your Lips Men's Lipstick". Oh yes, one more for good measure, a product that forgets to say what it is, but instead says, "I feel more refreshed that anyone". There were certainly other gifts, but those are most memorable.

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New updates are growing constantly and are listed on the next page.

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Welcome and thank you for visiting Traveling Kat's Homepage!

On August 13, 2002, I left Illinois for a nice long trip to Japan. YES, it is expensive, good thing I was warned. HOWEVER, it is perhaps only slightly more expensive than the United States in my opinion, we are just used to living with our own luxuries. I think the major difference in cost of living here for me are food prices and transportation. Clothes are ridiculously expensive here, but most of them are too small for me anyway- this makes shopping a breeze.

I LOVE traveling and want to see every country possible and continue to meet all the wonderful people in this world we live in. I cannot imagine not wanting to travel and discover all that remains to be seen in this exciting world. No one else including myself can explain what the senses best understand by experiencing. You just have to go!

As it is too difficult to send individual email during my travels, I have created this website to share my stories. Please check in as often as you wish, view my current updates and location, and let others know my address too.

Trying briefly to secure a position teaching English in Japan prior to departing the US, I am grateful for the lack of luck. If I would have had a position (and therefor a work visa) upon arrival to Japan, I would not have been able to use the rail pass I purchased. It is more important for me to travel through Japan and get a sense of the land, culture, and people than it is to find a job. It is very necessary to secure a job too, but I don't want to leave Japan wondering what the rest of the country outside of Tokyo looked like.

Stay tuned to my upcoming adventures, and let me know your thoughts by emailing me- I will try to install a section for direct comments soon.

Thank you sincerely for taking an interest in my epic adventure called LIFE. I look forward to seeing and hearing from all of you as the story unfolds.

Katrina Corcoran

VISIT MY OTHER PAGES:

BLOG started Dec 26, 2006
Japan... Aug - Sept 2002
Japan... Sept - Dec 2002
Japan... Dec 2002 - Jan 2003)