I Was a Loser in High School, It's True
Now Playing: Perpetual Distortion (I made that band name up, is it real?)
This Japan story begins when I was in high school…

Whenever I get close to someone, I explain how I’m “not normally like this around most people.” I’m really a shy person, but if you manage to gain my trust—it’s not hard, then I jump out of my shell. Some people I trust in mere seconds--like the blogwriters I've linked too--Buckwalter, Aphelion Swing (did I spell that right?) and that Flock Report chick something. Some of my relatives have tried for years but for some reason, I just can’t do it-I don't feel a connection. I feel bad about that, but I can only be me (myself).

I tell people I was very unpopular, shy and disliked in high school, but no one ever believes that, knowing me now. The truth is, it took me a very long time to get used to expressing myself verbally, and I’m still working on that. I’ve always been confused about people, mainly why people are mean. I still don’t get it, but I’ve at least learned to fight back now, even though I don’t like doing it. Trust me, you don’t want to get me angry—thanks to learning from my lawyer sister and bull-headed father, I can get pretty intense. It’s a side of me I hide until I turn on the offense like a switch—and only when I know I can win. I’m kind of a fascist in that sense, but I know my boundaries, which are very forgiving and reasonable, but some things I don’t jive with, “you know,” to quote my sister. She says “you know,” after every sentence. And sometimes introduces sentences with “but don’t you think that.” I change it up and say, “You probably don’t think that…but I do.”

So, given that I was a shy, pushover in high school, I take on the complete opposite roll when I stroll into school now. I wouldn’t call it acting—I’m just being what I always wished I could be, but never had the confidence to pull it off. I had all these intense feelings when I was younger—I wanted to express myself humorously or righteously, but never knew how. My older sister taught me how to be funny, and my younger sister taught me how to be sensible. My parents, well, they bought me food.

I always wanted to be in a band in high school, but I knew I wasn't cool enough, and no in my small circle of my friends liked my music. I liked a lot of pop punk and rock--Weezer, Smashing Pumpkins, Gold Finer. They liked Paul Simon, U2 and Pink Floyd--and they're good too, but my youth was better captured by the former.

By fluke, as I was just leaving school to get my running shorts so that I could run with the track team, I stopped to talk with a student. In the course of our short conversation, I found out she was in the school’s pop music club. I’d been trying to find out whom the hell I talk to about this, so I asked her to come and get me in the English department after school. She smiled and said she would.

So I came to the music club and I was surprised to see that it was mostly student run, and despite some of the non-conformist attitude that the students have, they cooperated very well together. The way it works, I guess, is that they’re about four different bands, and they all split up rehearsal time, but they also hang out together some days, and just play.

I was very nervous about how I would be received into the goup, but I was touched that all the students welcomed me smiling. I expected everyone to ignore me and try to shy away. Not so, my friend, not so. One group did mostly Japanese pop covers, another did their own songs, and I fell in with a group that covered punk bands. They wrote down rehearsal times for me and tired to translate what they decided in their meeting. So I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to do, but I said I would learn the songs they’re going to practice—two Good Charlotte songs, two Lost Prophets songs, and two Avril Lavigne songs (sung by their one female singer). The kids are so great—in America, people who get into bands do it in garages, not at school, and try to exclude whomever they can. Here, it’s more like a party. I then taught some of the guys how to say, "rock out!" in a high falsetto.

I can’t express in words how excited I am to do this. I was floored when they said they liked some of my favorite American bands, and I’m glad it’s something I can share with them. Every now and then I find ways I can cross the language barrier, but in this way, with music, I can skip it altogether.