Is it better to use your knowledge and experience to solve problems than ask other people for advice?

Is it better to use your knowledge and experience to solve problems than ask other people for advice?

Well duh.

But that doesn't answer the question; I still have 567 words to go.

Let's begin with the jargon then, shall we?
The reason why you do not constantly ask others for things that you can figure out by yourself is because:  1. Other people become extremely annoyed when you constantly ask questions that common sense can figure out.  2. You won't ever advance if you do not solve things by yourself.  And finally, 3. It really slows down the process of anything if you cannot act on your own.

1.  It's not very smart to be incessant.
Suppose you work in a cubicle (or a line of desks, if you live in Japan).  You're new, so everyone knows you have questions and are willing to answer them.  First, you don't know where to stamp the papers, so instead of stamping the place that says "STAMP HERE" by using 'knowledge and experience', you say to the guy next to you "Hey, where do I stamp the paper".  That is really, really stupid, but he answers it anyway.  Next minute, you ask again.  Fine, he answers it again.  Third time, he says "damn it, it says huge in bold letters to stamp there".  If you keep asking, you will develop a reputation as someone who sucks at figuring things out.

Okay, that example was clearly exaggerated, but for now I will move on.

2.  You will never advance if you do not use your brain.


 Constantly asking for answers is like copying someone else's homework.  You could solve it by yourself, but instead you keep asking questions.  Just do it.  If you try, you'll figure it out, and I promise that is so much more rewarding.  There is a huge difference between finding out the answer by asking, and by figuring it out.  If you figure it out, you will know most, if not all, aspects on how to do the certain process; whereas if you ask, you can find out immediately, yet some things will still be ambiguous.  Also, if you figure it out on your own, you will learn how to figure things out easier in the future.


3.  Asking slows down efficiency.

Why were Asian armies during World War II so much less efficient than the European ones?  Simple, Japanese, Chinese, and others required low-ranking officers to constantly report to the higher officers for permission for anything.  If there was a group of Japanese soldiers returning to camp, an American lieutenant would follow them to find out where their camp was.  On the other hand, if there was a group of American soldiers returning to camp, a Japanese lieutenant would not follow them.  Instead, they would return to base, request permission to follow them, and return.  By the time they returned, of course, the Americans would already be gone......Exactly; asking questions can lose battles, which can lose wars.  That's how important it is.




Done, thanks.

Favorite Metaphor for "Love"

This is about my favorite metaphor for love...which I hardly know any so I'll have to look some up.

Okay, I looked them up.  In my opinion, I think AVG and Yahoo are the worst search engines on the internet.  Thank you.

I really like "Love is a dead dog".  It really appeals to me because dead dogs, especially roadkill, look like some really, really cute dog is taking a nap on the side of the road, and you get closer to have a look.  Then suddenly BAM it's freaking DEAD.  You then check around, making sure if it's dead or not, thinking "It's probably just because of the angle that with which I looked at it", but you know it's dead.  It's dead, okay?  It's dead.  It's dead, darn it, dead.  But you just keep denying to yourself that it's dead.

"Oh no, it can't be dead, it looked so cute"
"It's still alive; I think I saw it move."
"No no no, it was just sleeping."

"Haha, no.  It's DEAD.  Just admit it to yourself.", everyone says, but you don't believe them.  You keep coming back to look at it, check it, even maybe give it food.  Of course it doesn't eat the food that you give it, so you simply leave it there, hoping that it eats it.  You leave.  Then you come back, and the food is gone.
"HA!  If the dog is dead, why did it eat the food?  Why, huh?  Why?"
"Well duh, the other dogs ate it.  You're sick man, stop this, it's really stupid."

But you keep coming back.  You just keep coming back.

Then one day, one of your neighbors finally comes and throws it into the dumpster.  You then set out to fight with your neighbor.  He killed the dog that poor dog!

Of course to your neighbor you sound like a total moron.  He didn't kill the dog, the dog was already dead; he just threw it in the dumpster because it was really starting to smell.  But you don't care about that, you still think he killed it.  He keeps trying to tell you that he threw it away because it was dead.

Finally, after the garbage truck comes and takes it away, you realize you were wrong; it was dead...You feel sad about how you chased after a dead dog for so long.  Your friends attempt to console you, and your neighbors ridicule you for your idiocy.  After a few weeks, everyone forgets about it, but you do not.  You keep looking at the place that you first met that dog.  You keep thinking "maybe, just maybe"; then even you forget about it.

"As the snow descended, landed on your hand and melted away, it was as if nothing was ever there."
     - Tohoshinki

Just a few weeks after you forgot about that whole thing with the dead dog, you hear a screech and a huge 'bam!'.  You go outside, and you see a really really cute dog sleeping.  The whole thing restarts.

To a person in love, it is like a dead dog (the left, yes I know that's poorly done), will look like a really cute sleeping dog (the right).  Of course, to a cynical bastard like me, everything looks like a dead dog (the left).  Okay, maybe it doesn't, but I thought this was pretty good.

Of course, we can write about love from several points of view.  The point of view that I decided to write from was from the part of me that hates the fact that I have faced rejection so many times in my life.  Does that mean I am angry about it?  No.  It's not that I'm angry at myself, it simply is just embarrassing.  And no, I did not find this metaphor online.  I looked online, but everything was so optimistic or extremely pessimistic.  I hate that.

The end.  I know I used one "bad word" in this, but I hope Mr. Lee doesn't see it.  (He probably doesn't read everything that everyone wrote anyway.)  Ah, whatever, I took like 15 minutes writing this anyway.

A Description of Myself

A little about myself, first starting with my background:

I was born in the Osaka province of Japan.  I then moved to a rural area in the Kyoto province.  My hometown is somewhere that not even people from the Kansai region know about.  They only seem to know Kameoka, then blank, then Fukuchiyama.  In between is an insignificant, barely populated conglomeration of towns known as Nantan.

Nantan is very different from when I lived there 7 years ago.  The construction at the bridge which had been going on since I can remember is finished.  People are older and unrecognizable.  Some houses look newer and some older.  People are different, I am different, everything is different.  I always rant about how much better the days were when I lived there, but now that I’ve lived here, there is no turning back.  I would never survive in Nantan if I went back today.

Nonetheless, Nantan has always symbolized to me something greater than a town, or a house, or a community.  Nantan symbolizes my past; the richness, the abundance of culture, the people…I lost them all when I moved here.  Now, I live in Saipan: not very populated, a lack of resources, a conglomeration of mutually exclusive cultures, lack of transportation...That is my present.  

If I was still living in Nantan, I often wonder what my life would be like.  By now, I would be going to a city high school, living a rather ordinary life.  Economically, my family was actually quite rich in Japan, so I would probably be living with quite a few commodities.  Instead, I was dragged here into an island with a corrupt government, dubious electric and water services, a bunch of cultures who hate each other, and a family that is desperately trying to pay its bills…desperate enough that I had to get a job.  My childhood was so utterly destroyed by coming here. 

Nantan, though an insignificant rural town in the middle of nowhere, symbolizes my lost hometown.  My lost friends.  My lost future.  I will never forgive or forget this atrocity.  I will never forgive my father for dragging me here and still believing that it is a good thing.  Never.

That is the background that I come from.  Now here is some things about who I am:

My name is Ueno Joey.  I am half Japanese and half American, though I always have thought of my home nation as Japan.  It is a shame that I was born extremely white.  If only I was not so white…I do not look Japanese at all.  If I was given one wish in the world, it is to look more Asian.  At least Asian enough for people to stop freaking out when I speak Japanese.

I would like to go to Taiwan or Shanghai for college so I can learn to speak Chinese.  It is not that I adore Chinese culture or anything like that; it is simply because just as English was the language of the 20^th century, Chinese is the language of the 21^st century, and it is a good thing to be able to understand.

I go to the Saipan International School.  The people there are very…I would say decent.  Yes, decent.  Decent is something that I have been looking for a long time, and I am glad to be here.  A few policies are dubious, and some people don’t seem to have common sense, but overall, I think that it is the greatest school on Saipan.  I love my class, I love my teachers, and I love my school. 

I used to be very interested in politics and thought that I would change the world, or at least maybe take it over.  I’m over that now.  I used to be very religious.  I’m over that too.  In the two short years that I have been in SIS, I have become more and more normal.  SIS is perhaps one of the things that I do not regret about coming to Saipan.

I like a band called Tohoshinki, or usually known as TVXQ or DBSK.  They are actually a Korean band, but many of their songs are in Japanese.

That’s pretty much all there is to know about me.  Thank you.

(Mr. Lee, I’m hoping that this was at least 600 words)

Pictures of my lost hometown.

I will never return, yet it still symbolizes to me a life that I once had.

...Utterly taken away by my father.

New (School) Year's Resolution

I will start this off with this -- This July, I visited Taiwan for a few days, which was interesting, but a bit awkward at some points.  I got on the "Maokong", or "Cat-Sky" rope-way that went deep into the mountains.  The way there was boring; just sitting there with a few Koreans that didn't say anything.

But on the way down, however, I entered the car with a very old Chinese woman, who first asked me where I was from, and other things that you usually would say when you first meet someone.  When I told her that I was from Japan, she suddenly changed her attitude and said something about "Qiudao".  First, I had no idea, so she asked for a "Bi".  I wondered for a good ten seconds what a "Bi" was until I realized it was a pen.  So I pulled out the sketch app on my iPad.  She then wrote this word -- "求道" (Qiudao) -- which must have been the "Qiudao" that she was talking about.  I then understood a little better.  The first character means "Searching" and the second means "Road", so I'm guessing it has something to do with "seeking the true path" or something equally as East-Asian.  I began to realize that this person was a Taoist.

She began to say things about how many people die in this world, how people die all the time, and we have no idea where they will go, and how the places that we will go may be completely different; but it will all be wonderful.  She then talked about how unpredictable the future and afterlife is...And then something about "生死" (Shengsi), which I'm guessing is "Life and Death", and how quickly it passes -- of course, she is able to say that because she was about 90 years old.  I have no idea about the next part (there was quite a language barrier), but she said something about how the only thing that we will take with us is our personality.

Ever since then I've been thinking about that experience, which was only maybe 20 minutes, but meant several times more than the days and days of going to churches.  It opened my mind beyond words -- I began to realize that I have no idea about the future, or where anyone goes, or anything.  I used to think that if there was no evidence for something, it does not exist; but now I believe that there just may be something I don't know about.  I realized that we may not understand what that future is, but it is our duty as human beings to strive for that future.  But that does not mean that we should try to understand that future.  It will come, or maybe not; it is utterly idiotic to try and understand it.

I want to make the lives of people around me better; both now and later.  I do not fear the flames or eternal torture (really any of the Christian crap), but I do think that if the only thing that we take with us is our personality, then I would like to refine that personality as much as possible.  I believe that this is what a good religion is about:  not about rules, regulations, we need to do this and that -- just become a better person. That is my resolution.

I don't think that I will ever meet that old woman again.  She said that she was going to die soon, but even if she was not, I have no idea where she is.  But she has already left such an impression with me that I don't need to.

Thank you, and rest in peace, grandmother.
多謝，平安休息祖母。