Resolution

It's 6:40 pm on New Years eve here right now.

I have a New Years resolution this year.

I don't usually believe in New Years resolutions. I usually think that if someone puts off a change that they want to make for a certain day, they probably aren't really that serious about it.

But, I decided on this change around the right time coincidentally. So yeah, it's a New Years resolution. By coincidence.

It's to be braver. By that, I mean in regards to speaking to other people.

Like I will hopefully become less hesitant to ask for things (THIS is going to be difficult for me!).

I'm really going to try but I am not sure how it will work out.

Anyway, this is probably my last blog of this year- at least in this time zone.

So, happy new year! <3

Good tidings we bring, wherever you are

Merry Christmas, everyone!

It's 11:22 am on Christmas day here and it's pretty uneventful. I am staying with my former host family in Tokyo. Because Christmas is not a national holiday here, the older of the two kids still had to go to school.

It's kind of neat to spend Christmas with kids who are still young enough to believe in Santa. The older son doesn't really believe in Santa anymore, but the younger one certainly seems to. This morning, I asked him if Santa came and he told me in all seriousness that Santa did, indeed, come and he got a present from him.

It's different from the US, each kid just got one present and there was no stockings or anything. I guess it pays off to leave a carrot for Rudolph along with the cookie for Santa.

Unrelated to Christmas, but my computer is falling apart presently. I can still use it, but it's hard to open and close and the left side of the keyboard isn't registering all of my keystrokes. I think it was rather considerate of my computer to break in a way that I can still use it, I haven't lost access to any files, and I get to see the a little bit of the inside of my computer.

Anyway, thinking I'll buy a new one when I get back to Kagoshima. I am thinking that I will get a mac because a windows machine might be a pain because of regional software differences. I heard that macs don't have that problem. But- if you know anything on the topic, please drop me a line.

Anyway, my focus is bad, so I'll end this blog here.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Tokyo

I am in Tokyo now.

I am a happy camper.

Although I am not camping.

:D

Dragging all of my luggage across Tokyo was sucky, but I am really enjoying being at my former host family's house right now.

It's kind of overwhelming how much I am being taken care of after almost 5 months of being completely entirely taking care of myself and living alone. Talk about extremes, right? Anyway, I just thought I'd drop a line. I'm totally drained at the moment.

Chronicles of Boredom

11:30 am

Today is a bit of a throwback to the days of bored-out-of-my-mind insanity back in August. I have NO classes today. It's the last day before I get 2 weeks off from vacation, so of course I am completely and utterly restless.

Actually, I am feeling pretty good at the moment. Probably because I have going to buy lunch to look forward to in a half an hour. Lunch is amazing. :)

Danny had the great idea of writing a blog and updating it every hour.

"We can all watch your gradual decline into boredom-induced insanity."


Couldn't have said it better myself.

Although I wonder if Danny will ever read the blog he suggested. (haha)

I've been saving things to do today at the office pretty much all week. So, let's see how I hold out.

Wow, I am really hungry.

12:30 pm

I just finished eating lunch. It was very very awesomely delicious. I wish I had more control of what I eat for lunch more often.

With lunch aside, that's one less thing I can do to prevent boredom.

So, since it's still lunchtime, they have the TV on here in the office. There is an enka program on. I am playing an exciting game of "male or female?" in my head with the person currently singing as the subject. I think the verdict is going to be male.

There were onions in the salad that came with my lunch. I tried to eat that first so that I could get rid of the taste with the other food, but I am finding now that it didn't work.

It sounds strange, but I think onions have been sticking to my taste buds more these days.

1:30 pm
1:50 pm

I missed updating 20 minutes ago. I have been keeping myself preoccupied with trying to find a way to get the date back on my entries in this template. So, basically, this fight with blogger templates is driving me insane, just a different brand of insane than what I was expecting sitting in this office all day.

Why would anyone make a blogger template without dates on the entries? That's just ridiculous!

So yeah, I realized that 1:30 had passed when my computer froze and I lost everything I had been working on. Anyway, going to get right back to it.

2:30 pm

Aaah, I am so glad I know close to nothing about how to REALLY change blogger templates, or else I would be lacking some fun time wasting in my life. :) Seriously, though, I should try to do something like this every workday where they have nothing for me to do.

Buuut-- I did get the date! Now I am working on moving it. I tried the "align=" tag thing, but blogger didn't care for it much. *shrug*

Two more hours to go......

The onion taste is gone. My shoulders and neck feel like... umm... well, they feel like I've spent the whole day at this computer. Oooh, that's right. I have been spending the whole day at the computer. :D

Arrgggg...

Sorry, I seriously thought I was going to be more insane by now.


3:30 pm

I fixed the date, but I lost the time on the blog. I don't really consider that to be a big loss, so I won't bother with it today.
My shoulders and neck hurts from sitting here at this computer all day. But- there's only an hour left. Unless I end up having to stay because the year end office party is later.
I am not going insane, but I am definitely tired. I really want to get out of here.
Not sure I feel up to going to the party, actually, but I think that being with the people in this office in a more relaxed environment would be good for me because I haven't exactly felt good about all of them all of the time.
So yeah, I'm going.
I have tomorrow to do my packing for Tokyo and then the next day I am there.

There should (hopefully) be one more hourly update.
This is probably the worst blog ever.

4:30 am

The work day is finally over. I have to ask soon whether I have to stick around to go to the year end party with the office people. I still have mixed feeling about that, because I am really drained and I have a lot of things I have to do tomorrow to be ready for Tokyo on Sunday.

So, this is the last update of today's hourly updated blog.

If the blog sucked, blame Danny. ;D

Sorry I didn't go crazy enough.

I'll try harder next time.

Ugh, tired.

It's weird to do a blog over this much time. I can't even really remember what I wrote at the beginning.

Down

I've been feeling bummed lately. Time has been going too slow.

I am afraid I am in my usual December BLAH mood only maybe a little bit worse this year.

My feeling down/depressed/blah isn't too big of a deal (even to me) because I always know that in a little while, I'll be back to normal again.

But-- if you want to drop me a line or something to try to cheer me up, I would be most grateful.

Thanks. :)

I'm heading up to Tokyo on Sunday for Christmas and New Years. I am pretty sure a change of scenery will do me a world of good.

Haha- I almost typed "a world of food".

Wow, now I can't concentrate on this blog anymore because I keep trying to imagine something doing me "a world of food".

*dies laughing*
*no wait, she doesn't, she's at work. sigh.*

Two weeks off of work is going to be amazing.

One step, two steps, three steps, four

I'm thinking more and more that my future after JET is not going to be teaching.

I love teaching. I really TRULY do. I like my students a lot and I especially love coming across students who really seem to like learning what I have to teach (English, if you haven't caught on).

However-

There are so many things I want to do with my life. I don't have any real precise image or plan, but I have an idea what it is.

I love studying Japanese, too, but that's not necessarily entirely where I feel myself going either.

I have a grad school program in mind that I want to get into after JET. What I want to do with it afterward is still unknown, but I've learned very important things from applying and getting into JET.

I wanted to apply and get into JET for a while before I even became a Japanese major. At the time, though, I really didn't have a real image of what my job or life would be like. The image in my mind was extremely fuzzy, vague, and somewhat unreal to me. Still, I knew that it was something I really wanted to do. I began trying my best to be someone who would definitely be qualified for the ALT position.

And, as you know, I got into the program and it has, so far, exceeded my expectations.

So yeah, following what you want to do and working hard at it seems like a good life strategy.

So, after JET, I am going to get into a good grad school program that strikes me as something I want to do. I won't worry about the outcome because if I am following my own heart and dedicating myself to it, things will fall together and the next step will become crystal clear.

Whether I'll ever know exactly where I am headed, I don't know. But I can choose paths that appear to lead to places that I would like to end up.

After all, life is about the journey. The destination means nothing if the journey is pointless.

I'm sleepy.

Randomest blog ever

SO, first of all, about the song lyric- "I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain." Does anyone else think this lyric is stupid? The desert hardly needs the rain. It doesn't miss it. Sure, it would suck for the rain never to come, but the whole ecosystem is based on the fact it hardly ever rains there. The desert does not pine for the rain. Maybe the cactii do, but I wouldn't know.

For some reason, I've always thought the lyric "I did it for the drugs" was kind of funny. For a while I thought that it was because it's kind of funny for me to be saying it because the only thing I've ever done "for the drugs" was to get prescriptions from doctors for some health related issue. The other day, I suddenly remembered why I started to think it was amusing. You know those "Kid's Choice Awards" shows that Nickelodeon has every year? A few years ago I found myself watching and they had that band playing that song. BUT- instead of "I did for the drugs", they sang, "I did it for the daaaa-duuumm". The "daaaa-dum", by the way, was a guitar sound from what I remember. Anyway, while I could understand why they were taking out the word "drugs", I thought it was funny.

What did they do? What did they do it for? Aaaahhh!

Looking back, though, I think it's strange that The Kid's Choice Awards had that performance in the first place.

Okay, so I actually decided to check who the band was and what the song title is.

Funny that I didn't bother looking up the first song I mentioned here. Be my guest.

Recently, at one of my elementary schools, I raked leaves for the first time in my life. The leaves were a really neat bright yellow color and there were SO MANY of them. My mood the entire time was, pretty much, "yay!" I buried some kids in the leaves a few times. :) I was worried that the teacher that was raking with them would be annoyed with the kids (and I) playing, but he was really cool and joined in, too. I always thought raking leaves seemed pretty fun on the chore scale, but I am sure people who have had to rake a lot in their lives possibly hate it. Anyway, I suppose it just goes to show that one's favorite chores are always the ones that they never had to do.

Ending this random blog on a very random note, here's something you probably had never thought of before.

I did this blog in two sittings, saving it as a draft the first time. I was going to work on it more, but then I started writing a real blog in my head. Go figure. ;)

A dolt

Here's another blog in which I have something to say, but I don't really know how to say it.

I realized recently that I just can't picture myself going somewhere and goofing off the way I did maybe even just a year ago.

You know how when you're a certain age, anywhere can really be a fun place to go and hang around? Like when things around you make great props, good material for jokes, and there is a lot of space? I can't really see myself going to a store and goofing around there with friends as I have done before.

It's different being a person with a job rather than a college student. It's a very different feeling- at least for me. Many other ALTs still do seem like college students, so I guess don't know exactly how that works.

Maybe it's because now I am in a town where I am constantly being recognized as the English ALT and I feel like I have to seem... credible (sane?) to people seeing me places.

The realization that the days of doing things like that might be over shocked me a little.

But at the same time I think that it could just be that I haven't been around the right people to be doing things like that.

I still do goofy things and I don't really believe that's going to end anytime soon.

I guess usually as I move forward I am thinking about beginnings and middles and I fail to remember that sometimes things end, too.

This is probably the most pointless blog ever.
Hah! As if things like that ever stopped me!

Oh yeah, I finished the new Ender book, Ender in Exile, the other day. It was really good. I felt really good about how it wrapped up loose ends that both Ender's Game and the whole Shadow series left hanging.
I started rereading Ender's Game again last night.

No one cares about that, Julia

I think I realized why I thought to write that last post.

I worry too much that I might be the only person who cares about something that I'm making a deal of.

Maybe everyone feels that way. I honestly don't know.

Ew, this blog off to a bad start. This was worded much better in my head, but then I started writing something else in my head and I lost exactly how I was going to go about this topic.

Have you ever had it happen that you were trying to convince someone of something in a group in all of the sudden you realize that you're the only one that really cares either way? You feel really stupid about it, right?

I felt that way for a while when I was younger and I still think about it a lot now.

Like when the other graduating WLC Japanese majors and I were signing a card for the Japanese teachers and one of them pointed out that it was weird that I thought we should all sign in the same color pen. Luckily, because it hadn't dawned on me that this was unusual, I was able to find the situation funny.

But yeah, there are times when I don't necessarily agree that what I am talking about is pointless or just flat out ridiculous.

Last weekend was a Thanksgiving dinner at another ALTs house and I bought chicken from KFC. Because it was expensive, I bought only enough that each person in the headcount I was given could have one piece. It turned out that there were a few more guests than what was expected.

So, when we were lining up to get the food, I spoke up to make sure everyone knew that there wasn't too much chicken to go around.

And then later, there still seemed to be some left and someone commented that I was "flipping out" about the chicken earlier.

.....sorry? I wasn't flipping out. I was trying to make sure that everyone who really wanted a piece of chicken could have one.

I'm figuring this person uses the phrase "flipping out" loosely and was just innocently unaware of how sensitive I can be to hearing that.

I really don't want to feel like the crazy person who freaks out about stupid things.

....

Am I flipping out over worrying about flipping out?

Arg.

I'm going to end this blog with a quote that is only relevant because this IS a blog.

"Blogging is not about perfection. Blogging is about intimacy, immediacy, transparency, and sharing your thoughts the way you share it with a friend." –Arianna Huffington, The Daily Show, December 3rd, 2008

When I saw that Jon Stewart had a guest who was going to talk about blogs, I thought that she was going to talk about blogs written by famous people or people living in places where history is happening. Instead, she talked about regular blogs. Anyway, that made me happy- for all that's worth. ;)

Memory

It was pouring rain outside. I remember I was looking out the window of the classroom along with other classmates.

"Did you know this is El Nino?" I asked everyone around me excitedly. I had heard so much about it but I hadn't known that it was the reason why we were getting so much rain until not too long before. It was a big surprise for me to learn that something so big was happening where I was.

So I thought I'd share it with my classmates.

"Duh!" replied one of the other kids.

There was a reason why I wanted to post this, but I forgot.

Edit: Ew, so I FINALLY noticed that my new template got rid of my links and such on the lefthand side. I put them back up pretty much how I could remember them. :)