Dear Japan.

We’ve been in this love affair for so long now, I can’t even remember.
I was 7, when I first discovered the intense feeling of Japanese comic books, reading under my bed side lamp the not-really-suitable-at-that-age Akira. At age 10, I discovered there were more and started gulping frantically on everything I could, from Ghibli productions to low-quality anime. At age 12, I played pokemon in Japanese, and learned every single name I could. At age 13, I started to learn every word I met, and had a notebook full of them. At age 15, I officially started to learn Japanese at school. At age 20, I had my first sushis. At age 21, I worked on my graphic design diploma, only focused on japanese design. I’ve listened to your music, watched your tv show, read sociolgy books and art essays about you, learned about zen and shintô.
You’ve rocked my world for so long, I always considered you as a part of my life.

That was maybe a little stupid, a little too much, a little useless. So, at age 25, I decided to come over and visit. To finally accept that you were going to be a lot different from what I excpected. To learn and embrace what you really are. On April the 6th, I was going to meet you for the first time. For many reasons, it was one of the most important day of my life. So many things had to be done. Be sure I never felt that happy before.

On March the 11th, you blew up. Earthquakes, Tsunami… I said I wasn’t going to give up. Then Fukushima. I had to admit my defeat. I fear for you Japan, but not for your people. Because they are straight and strong, and are going to survive all this in a breeze. And yet I fear. I shiver.
I don’t want you to give up. This is so much bigger than I could ever envision. This is probably one of the most important part of your history.
Be strong, Japan. I know you will. I’ll held my breathe, with the thousands of people who met you like I did.

Lets meet next year.
Gambare!

With all my love, admiration, dedication, and from the bottom of my heart.
Zélia

PS: Please help. Give to your national red cross. even tho it doesn’t go to Japan, it’ll go to people in need.
PS2: Thanks for the following hotels for their kind words and great responses: Momiji-so in Miyajima, New Kamakura in Kamakura, and Ichinoyu in Hakone. I’ll be there in a year.

Or why it serves my job better than anything else.

Have you ever considered the question you’re asked when you go through a recruiting meeting? What are your top qualities? What do you think makes you a better applicant? Most of the time, people go straight to the motivated, hard-working part. (Most of the time they also lie, just like when I ask them about what they do on the internet. Suddenly, everybody sticks to Google and never ever use Facebook. Ahah.)

Well. My top quality is that I’m very, very lazy. I’ve always been. And I’ve always found ways to stay that way. Add to that another invaluable quality: I love my free-time. So you won’t see me haunting the office late at night. If you combine those two traits, you get one result: my job needs to get done in my regular work day. Being lazy, I don’t want tasks to fill a whole day without having a few breaks. In order to accomplish this, you need one thing, again . METHOD.
My tasks are rationalized. I’ve got a very strong process that helps me get through every bumps of a project without too much pain. By the end of the day, I always know exactly how much work is left to do and how much time I’ll need to fulfill it.

Benefits for the company? Work is done on time. I’m fresh and creative on the next morning. Free time give me plenty of time to do other things. I make solutions to be more effective next time I have to accomplish this task.I do my best to achieve a goal at once, and not in numerous and laborious attempts. Being lazy makes me being efficient. Quality over quantity.

Maybe some people fin it offensive to put it this way.
But really, being dedicated to your job isn’t really the same as spending all your time in the office.  If all you do is staying late at work, and miss the outside world, you’ve lost the game as a designer. Being a workaholic is not something to be proud of. Having a fulfilling and balanced life, on the other hand, definitely is.

Here we go. The tickets are finally bought. I’ll be in Japan from April the 6th to April the 26th. This life-long held dream will become a reality. I’ve always been a Japan-devoted, for so many reasons… Fascination is an accurate word to describe this strange relationship, that I’ve cultivated since I was 7 years old. Happiness!

Every time we hit the mark of January the 1st, my panurgic abilities rise to the point where it hurts. Yes, I want to take good resolutions and write them down like I’d draw little monsters, read to bite my ass every time I’ll read them out loud after a few days.

Let’s be honest. No one keeps their resolutions seriously for more than a week unless they’ve been given some super-spiritural self-control abilities. And if you do, please stay in the shadows so  I can comfort myself with the idea. So, well, I won’t make a list this year. Let’s say I just want to find peace. Wherever it is.

Anyway. I wanted to wish you all a very happy new year.
I’m not fond of this peculiar tradition but well… there’s quite a lot of you by now (by my standards) and my lack of consistency in posting make me say that you’re all pretty nice to come over so regularly.

So thank you for the read. Thank you for the Stumble upon. Thank you for the 25.000 visits in a day last April that I truly hope to be able to reach again. Have a great year people from the internet, you deserve it.

Lots of love,

Zélia