日曜大工 (Sunday Carpenter)

The Japanese have a concept of the "Sunday carpenter," or in English, something who is good at Doing-it-yourself, with the idea being using a non-workday to pursue one's other hobbies, like building a deck (literal interpretation, but it could be other kinds of hobbies too), adding an air conditioning unit, doing repairs around the house, etc. 

I am terrified of doing stuff myself. My dad is relatively handy at some such as changing a tire on a bike, fixing the car, drilling a hole in the wall to hang pictures around the house, etc. So Sunday carpenter does run in the family, but for some reason I just didn't get the gene. I was always worried (and my parents much more than me) that my lack of handyman abilities would prevent me from finding a partner in life, but apparently i was able to trick MJ with my charm, or at least I hid my flaws very well. I always figured I'd try to make enough money using my other talents (my awesome intellect, for example, which I realized a ton of people had superior abilities) or quick mental math ability (still got it!) or something to get by, with specialization and all that, but I apparently have been able to survive in the world so far without having to be a Sunday carpenter. 

Home ownership would change that......The reason I've avoided any handyman abilities is mainly due to living in apartments all my life (check out the new USC Village living facilities btw, they built a housing courtyard fashioned after Hogwarts and I would have LOVED living there as an undergrad!) and just having other people fix things and relying on my parents, and I've owned my own car but other than periodically vacuuming, washing, and filling the car up with gas I let the auto repair shop deal with everything. I'm not a "hands-on" guy- I'm a "type-on" guy or "email-on" guy who uses the internet to figure out how to do things. I don't get joy from creating physical things such as a table or a house (apparently MJ's dad can build a house with "2 or 3 other guys he hires" from scratch which is amazing to me) but get immense joy from creating ideas or concepts like this blog, music, podcasts (considering creating a podcast about dodgeball, a as-of-now relatively untapped market), my own youtube channel, even artwork that my dad ends up drilling holes in the wall to hang up for (it's a visual thing created from intellect, in my opinion), and acquiring a language. Different strokes for different folks I guess. 

How one spends Sunday I think is very indicative of one's personality: M-F as a whole are important to know what a person does for work, and Saturday is the pure fun and relaxation day, but Sunday.......the poisoned day before the weekend is over, where many people go to church, the lazy Sunday nap day, the NFL football day, the Sunday morning brunch day, the Sunday Carpenter day......... while Saturday is full of possibilities that allows for the most freedom and choices, Sunday is where time is running low on the weekend and one has to prioritize and shows what they really prefer: whether it be sports, religion, dining, outdoors, music, movies, books, or building new things, Sunday is the best indicator before Monday rolls around. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan