What it takes to succeed!

Yello, humans!
This post is kinda about my procrastination again and doesn't really have anything to do with Japan but, w.e. My boring blog, my boring posts.

I've always been looking for ways to help me learn the things I wanna learn in the most effortless way possible. I thought that if I had a piano teacher I would get better at playing the piano a lot faster (because that is what happened in Sweden when I took guitarlessons). But when that didn't really happen with my first piano teacher, I thought that that teacher might not be for me. That she wasn't really teaching me the things I wanted to learn.

So when I got this new piano teacher who is really good (my old one was good too ofc) I thought: Yea, now I will finally learn what I wanted to learn for so long! (which is to read sheet music btw)
But so far, I am still at the same stage I was when I first started the lessons. I can't play the piano, I can't read sheet music. I can't do anything. And then I log onto facebook and see a guy I know has put up yet another piano video, like he does like every other day. And he is teaching himself!

I'm pretty sure he started around the same time I did, but has gone so much further than me. Why?

How come I am not improving at all even though I got this new teacher and have been taking lessons for atleast a year now? Weeeeeeeellllll, my friend (talking to you myself!) you are lacking the DORYOKU!

I have just realized that to succeed at anything you need to make an effort, and I am not really making an effort, am I? I go to my lessons 2 times a month and as of right now I probably only practice playing at home like 3 times between every lesson. And when I do practice it is only for a short period of time, and then I forget all about it.

It's like this with everything I do right now, I don't ever go out of my way to do more than the bare minimum of what I have to. I only need to practice these three parts for my next lesson? I don't even need to know them by heart? Well then I guess I only need to practice for 20 minutes today!

It doesn't matter what you use to learn something, if it is with a teacher or by yourself, by watching youtube videos about it or reading about it. It doesn't make any difference in your learning! All that matters is how much effort you are actually putting into what you want to learn.
Just doing the bare minimum will get you nowhere.

It's the same with manga, and that's why I wont become a mangaka. At school we were told that you don't become a mangaka by creating one manga a year, you become one by creating atleast four times more than that, on a consistent basis. That's how you show the publishers you mean business, you wont give in under pressure and you got what it takes. Effort is how you show that you want something, and that is how you get something in return.

So far I've gotten nothing, nowhere. And I'm the only one to blame for that.

pic from google

Random quitters in my class

Our school started again after the holiday on the 1st of September and already 2 more people in my class have quit. The weird thing this time though is that both these people were not slackers, they came to class on time and did not skip a lot.

But after the summer holiday one of them just didn't show up at all for all this time, and when I asked another classmate about it they just said it had something to do with youtube and collabs and that they didn't know or couldn't tell me anything else. Now this person has quit school, and they left our class group chat on Line without saying a word.

The other person who quit had been coming to school as usual and just sent a message on Line yesterday that they would quit school because of something concerning their faimly situation, and then they just left the chat.

This all just seems very weird to me, especially since they have been paying for this education for 1.5 years and now only have 6 months left until graduation and their diploma (or w.e it is you get). Now all that money will basically have been wasted. Then again, I don't know if a certificate of having graduated with manga as your main subject would give a lot of jobs, but still.

Procrastination strikes, and it strikes hard!

I have been drawing manga while watching "Supergirl" since I got home from school today, so now I really have to do something else and that is why I am here! Writing yet another post!

I am a person who likes to be very organized and I always make lists of things to try and keep track on what I need to do every day. I also make lists that I then totally ignore, until I make a new very similar list and ignore that too.
These are the lists that contain things I wanna do/learn during my freetime that I do not have to do, no one is forcing me to do them and there is no set goal or deadline.
In fact, this blog is yet another list, for me to look back on in the future! Ok, here goes:

Things I wanna learn/other things I wanna do:

1. Learn how to program in Java - not sure what I wanna learn but I'd like to make some games.

2. Learn more about webdesign such as HTML and CSS to finally be good enough to make beautiful, interactive websites by myself.

2,5. Learn other languages related to web programming like Javascript, MySQL, XML, etc etc

3. Start writing books again and finish writing a full book that might eventually be good enough to get published.

4. Learn how to play the piano

5. Finish all the drawings/paintings I started.

6. "Working out" (just to counteract future backproblems caused by drawing/sitting infront of the computer so much)

7. Read more books

ETC ETC

The list goes on but right now it's number 1, 3 and 4 that I would like to do on pretty much a daily basis. But what do I do instead? YOUTUBE! I watch youtube videos!! When I am not doing schoolwork I am watching videos on youtube as well as movies on other sites and it's taking away all my time.

When I actually do some of the things on my list I give minimum effort, and most likely wont stick to it for even an hour a day and I'm honestly fed up with what I am doing with my life! Why can't I just make an effort?? Why can't I be as diligent with this as I am with my schoolwork when there is a deadline to keep?
Is it really so hard for me to focus on something that I need something like a teacher or employer to give me a serious deadline, or else I wont do anything?

I am sick of this, I am sick of myself and I wish writing this post would make something in me change, and get me on the path of productiveness, but I know it wont. I have already tried things like Leech Block and RescueTime etc, but there is always a way to get what you want (for example I can't block youtube on my tablet as far as I know cuz it's not in the browser!) and I cannot stay productive even with these countermeasures.

There is not really a point with this post, I just simply wanted to get this off my chest and say that I am really disappointed in myself right now..

Japanese people hate chinese people?

Sooo I got back to Japan on the 31st of August and have since then had to deal with being unable to sleep and also being constantly hungry, all thanks to jetlag! But that seems to have passed now and I am starting to get back into normal daily life, that's why I decided to write here!

When I came back to Japan I took the airport bus from Kansai Airport to Umeda and from there I had to take the subway to where I live. As I carried my huge bag in one hand and my smaller bag in the other down the stairs to the subway, a girl stopped and asked if I needed help and she helped me with my smaller bag.

A man must've seen her cause he offered to take my bigger bag, and thus the two helped me get down to the subway a lot faster. While standing in line I thanked the 2 and we started talking. Turns out the girl was from china and did not speak Japanese (but her English was great!).
The guy didn't really speak any English but when he understood that she was from China he said that China was no good.

He then went on to talk about (in Japanese and VERY bad English) how in Japan people always think about others, they always care about others, but in China people only care about themselves.
He pointed to someone working at the station that helped a person in a wheelchair get on the train, and said: "This is the standard in Japan. In Japan we think about everyone." And he went on to talk about how Chinese people don't think about anyone other than themselves and so on and so forth bashing Chinese people saying they would never help like this. EVEN THOUGH THIS GIRL HAD JUST HELPED ME?

I don't know this girl and we only talked for a little bit but she seemed like the nicest person ever, also she was the first person to even offer to help me with my bags ever in Japan. I have been going up and down long flights of stairs maaaany times with those bags and no Japanese people have stopped to help me. In fact, I doubt that he would've stopped to help if he hadn't seen that girl help me first.

I didn't want to translate all the stuff the guy said to the Chinese girl, but I tried to show her I didn't agree at all with what he was saying.

This is not the first time a Japanese person has told me about their disliking of the Chinese, and how they think Japanese people are so much better than Chinese in every way. But to do this in front of a Chinese person who just showed that they are in fact an awesome human being is just too much! Where are your manners?

Anyway, I realized afterwards that the guy was probably drunk, which does not excuse what he said, but might explain why he was so pushy about it.

Not all Japanese people have this "superiority complex" but there are certainly some who do, and they are most likely to tell you when they are drunk about how Japanese people are better than others. And sure, some things they say might be true some times and make sense but you can't drag an entire people through the same comb, right?

Like the girl said to me: "No matter what country you go to there will always be people around who wanna help, and people around who don't care. It just depends on your personality" (That's extreme paraphrasing btw :))

So lets see eachothers personalities, not each others countries, ok?

Picture of friendly Japan and China :)