Grasses

I haven't been blogging too lately. Not so much because I don't have anything to blog about, but rather because I simply haven't been feeling up to it mood-wise. I've been feeling either grouchy, tired, or busy most of the time recently and I don't really end up blogging in either of those conditions.

So, this news is a little on the late side. If I waited until tomorrow to post about it, it would be exactly a week after.

I think I am making this sound way more exciting than it is.

I got new glasses!





I call them my "coming to terms with things" classes. They have much more character than my old glasses and are a lot more photogenic to come to terms with the fact that I probably will be continuing to wear glasses for A WHILE. They are brown to help me adapt to the idea that I probably won't be dyeing my hair red again until possibly summer.

So I feel pretty great about these glasses. It feels kind of like I am finally getting up from the old plan being out of the question and making a new one.

So... yay. :)

Time

It's still the 27th in the US, so this blog technically isn't late.

It has been one year now since I've started using blogger again. Yay! *throws confetti*

And, in a few days when it is February, that will mark 6 months since I moved here to Japan.

6 months.

Half a year.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I simply must have a poor concept of time.

Some people seem to remember their pasts so clearly. For me, it's kind of like watching a small, fuzzy television, I know what's going on and where it's going, but it's just too much of a hassle to do the effort of reflecting too much on it. I don't really see myself in those memories either. When I do have a clear memory pop into my head, I am usually so surprised by it.

Is everyone like that?

I also have trouble wrapping my mind around the idea of me and others around me getting older. I was looking at the wedding album on facebook of someone I've known since I was in elementary school and it was rather overwhelming. When I am in Kagoshima city for some sort of ALT event and I am wearing business casual clothes and checking into a hotel, I feel like some kid playing "business trip" rather than an adult who is actually really doing that for a job.

I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but I just think it's weird that my perception of time is kind of... off.

I haven't been blogging much lately. I know a few people who check here fairly frequently for updates, so my apologizes. :) I guess I just haven't quite been feeling like blogging lately. *shrug*

SNOW! Really snow!

So, I was watching the movie Dead Poets Society. It's really an amazing movie.

But anyway, I was watching some really great scenes being played out in snow and I could help but think about how snow is expected tonight. I thought that it would probably melt as it hit the ground like when it snowed here before.

After the movie, I went on facebook and saw the status of another ALT who lives in this town. She wrote that there was SNOW on her car.

So, I put on my heavy jacket and my boots and went outside.



Amazing.

2 reasons

There are two reasons why I am so glad today is a holiday here and I have no work today. One reason is not such a happy one, but the other is simply AWESOME!

1) I was suffering from TERRIBLE cramping up until 1 pm or so. I've always thought the intensity was only this bad if I had been really stressing, but 2 weeks of this past month I was on vacation, so who knows. *gigantic shrug*

and... reason two.... *drum roll*

2) It's been SNOWING here all day. It's not cold enough for it to not melt after it hits the ground, but I was standing outside in the snow while it was snowing earlier and it was simply amazing.

I filmed part of that excursion. You can hear me all excited about the snow-

Give me a sign

Today I noticed something.

Looking at the top of my water bottle, I realized that in a small font the lid showed which way to turn it in order to open the bottle. Counter clockwise, of course.

I thought this was really strange because I've been opening up plastic bottles without having to think about which way to open them for a really, really long time. So, I saw this and thought that it seemed so ridiculous. It would only really benefit someone who's lived in a cave all of their life, but managed to teach themselves Japanese and hiragana in the meantime.

It made me think about signs on doors saying whether to push or pull. What's kind of funny is that I am a lot more likely to notice a Japanese sign than I am an English sign. I try to pull at English "push" sign doors and I try to push and English "pull" sign doors all of the time. But, I hardly do that at all with the Japanese signs.

Knowing whether doors are push doors and pull doors isn't quite as simple as knowing which way to open a plastic bottle, but do the signs really help people get it right the first time? Don't you feel kind of like an idiot when you try to pull a door open and you notice that there's a giant "PUSH" sign on it?

There's a sign in the bathroom here at the office next to the toilet paper and those signs drive me crazy. There are two sentences on it and this is how it looks (pretend they're all different characters, rather than just the same one over than over)-

らららららららららららららららららら
らら。　　　　　ららららららららららら
らららららららららららららら。

I always look at the sign and I think that if they just made it a LITTLE wider, they could have fit the last two characters in the first sentence into the first line and then wouldn't have had to have the weird gigantic space between the two sentences in the second row.

らららららららららららららららららららら。　　　　　
らららららららららららららららららららら
ららららら。

See how much neater that looks?

Anyway, there's my blog about signs.

Guest blog 1 by Krystina

Happy New Year, everyone! I have a good feeling about this one and I hope you all do, too.
Anyway, here's my very first guest blog.
Take it away, Krystina!

--------------------------------

GUEST BLOG!!! Come one and all!


Krystina here, reporting from brrr, Montana. Julia is somewhat busy at work, standing up when important people come in and singing about how much time she has left at work. I'll quote:

" giuliafelix (11:33:55 PM): 57 minutes of work on the wall! 57 minutes of work!

giuliafelix (11:34:02 PM): you take one down and pass it around"

AND:

"giuliafelix (11:43:51 PM): he's wearing casual pants and a sweater

giuliafelix (11:43:59 PM): important people wear suits"

Meanwhile, I am here, multitasking by watching/ listening to Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, writing this, talking to B'thany and J'lia on AIM, AND looking at websites. Being sick made for a very long day for me. I kinda got a bit bored. Lol.



But really, Staying home all day alone and bored is not like it used to be as kids. Back in the day, staying home was kinda fun. Right? Now, it was sleep most the day, be bored, sleep, try eating, sleep, boredom, bathroom, sleep, and eat. Then internet off and on through the day. Totally LAME! Lol.



So yeah, sleeping a lot today was what I did. But it paid off in that I feel better! =)



…Sorry, got side tracked by the movie…. Vogon poetry, you know..


Apparently, some hair ties have been made with condoms, possibly used ones. Isn't that icky?

I give you my apology for being so random. =P ...lol... I have to admit to this- i've kinda been adicted to the cosmo website. teehee..

Julia did her song again. lol.