Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

29 Aug 2004, 5:06 a.m.

Life Lessons

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2004 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

"Kawaii" is "cute." "Kowaii" is "scary." Take care!

If you are afraid of heights, don't go on the world's largest Ferris wheel. Just in general, "oh no, this action had this totally foreseeable consequence" feels very stupid.

You can try as hard as you like to not resemble the main characters in Lost In Translation, but a non-Japanese speaker will always have a hard time in Tokyo and feel angsty and alone.