I forgot to give this a title.

I've been so overtired lately and I am not sure why.
This morning I skipped breakfast because I woke up too late and had to hurry.

On Monday, there was a work related health exam. 3 vials of blood were taken from me for testing and apparently the needle was put in improperly- two days later and my arm is still bruised.

I'm kind of excited because I am going to eat Mexican food for dinner tonight- a bar that's Brazil themed, but owned by a man from England has Mexican food nights every Monday and Wednesday. I guess someone from Mexico who is studying in Kagoshima has been doing that, so I guess it's going to be pretty much as authentic as one can get in Japan.I'm going there with Aya, Eli, and Robin. Robin might not be feeling well, so maybe it will just be me and Aya (and Eli???). Either way, it should be great. :)

I've also been kind of slacking on keeping my apartment clean. I really don't know why- it must have to do with the overall fatigue I've been experiencing this month.

Anyway, I'm really hungry from skipping breakfast. Going to see if the vending machine down stairs has anything semi solid.

California and returning

My trip to California was all that I expected and even a little better than that.

I've been working on putting together the movie from what I filmed on my camera during my trip. It's fun to relive it a little. Not to mention it gives me something to do.

I had a lot of quality time with family members and a good chunk of fun times with friends (including running around the MPC in the earliest hours of the 31st with the RftW crew.)

I also got to witness an odd little drama unfold due to thrown silverware in a Denny's.

It's been a little hard to be back. Living here with California so fresh in my mind, I notice things that get under my skin more. Like differences in what is acceptable in Japan vs in the US (people are always talking about Americans accidentally being offensive to Japanese, but it works the other way, too), assumptions that I don't understand things, and overall the isolation that comes with those things. It's hard to adapt.

But I do overall enjoy my life here even if it's not perfect. I tell myself over and over that how my life is in California and how it is in Kagoshima are completely different and one can never be the same as the other.

It's comforting to think this way because it helps me accept Japanese life as a completely different thing- outside of the standards I set for US life. On the other hand, it makes me worry that I can never be completely content in either place. One will always be missing aspects of the other.

It's happened almost everyday that one minute I was perfectly happy, feeling as if I am inwardly light and free as a feather. Then someone would say or do something that would put me in a rotten mood. I can't remember if this was standard behavior here before my two weeks in California, but I think it was similar.

I guess I'm overall content in Japan, but I am also a lot more sensitive than I am back in the US (for good reason, I think.) So, I've been playing with the idea of renaming my blog "Real Life Confessions of Happy Bruise"- because I am a cheerful person that doesn't react well to getting "poked at."

I also think that title just might be way too long... :S

Airplane blog vol. 3

What's it time for?

It's time for Julia's third annual summer midair blog!

Wooooooooooooooooooooooo!

(There is no enthusiasm...)

I am writing this on the final leg of my journey- I already arrived in Japan hours ago, but now I am flying down to Kagoshima. I already tweeted that I am here and everything.

I didn't really want to type this up during the flight over the Pacific because I didn't want to bother getting the bag down just for a blog. :S

I don't mind sacrificing a little more leg room in the domestic flights, so I have the laptop bag with me.

I am so completely tired.

During my long wait for this flight, I calculated how long it has been since I woke up in California and it came out to 30+ hours. Yikes.

(Edit- actually, the total travel time was about 24 hours... I am not sure how I came up with that 30+ number)

I DID sleep on the plane though! Without any assistance from sleeping pills- it wasn't very restful, though. Neck pain and drool (yes, drool) kept waking me up.

Oh joy.

Aren't you glad I feel pressured to write these things for your entertainment?

YOU SHOULD BE GLAD YOU JERKS!!!!!!!!!

My ears are popping. The stewardess is giving out drinks out and I think one of the options is a soup. Yaaaay! I could really use some nice, soothing soup right now.

My throat is bugging me. I am guessing my voice is rather hoarse right now, but I haven't been using it, so I don't know. I figure it's a mixture of the altitude and my fatigue. I can't really even think right now about whether that makes sense.

In fact, I was really impressed that I could spell altitude just now. The spell check is on and everything. There have been a lot simpler words that I have screwed up royally in this blog so far, so the fact I can get "altitude" right is pretty dang awesome.

I should go soon. Gotta get soup. I guess I can keep this on my lap while I drink it and tell you all about it afterward.

But she's not here yet. She's still making her way down the aisle. BRING ME SOUP!

I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING!!

Ok, ok, I am guessing she went to the back of the plane to refill on stuff. Either that or she hates me.

I really want to be home sleeping now.

Anyway, I only have this short flight, a not-so-bad wait for a bus, an hour long-ish bus ride, the short walk home, and the shower that I am still determined to take.

Yay! She was just refilling her cart. Are you relieved? I'm not- I knew it would happen all along.

Don't look at me like that- I did.

DON'T JUDGE ME!

Nonsense comes easily when one is very very tired.

The cart is coming nearer. I'll put the lappy on my lap.

Beef consomme (????????) broth brings me back to LIIIIIIIFEEE!!!!

For now, anyway.

So the cart lady on my side of the plane was totally pwnd by the other cart lady. The cart lady on my side was just a few rows ahead, but the one on the other side asked me what I wanted first. It's kind of unusual for them to take orders from the other side, but maybe I just looked really close to passing out. I have no idea how I look.

This is a blog about drinking broth. It was pretty salty. I'm going to drink some water after I finish this blog.

You know what's crazy? My mom gave me $2 to buy bottled water after I got through security, but I ended up having to use my card because the cheapest I could find was $2.70!! I can't believe how much they abuse the fact that people can't bring water in from outside.

Japanese airports have vending machines just like everywhere else in Japan- I was able to buy a bottle of water for just 110 yen ($1.10 USD) past security. Airport shops in general are much less rip offs in Japan than in the US, I've noticed.

I do really like airports though. The big ones that are confusing are fun to figure out and the small ones are fun to stroll around. It's a hassle to carry so much though.

We got some turbulence and I am extremely tired and wanting water, so I'll end this here.

I'll probably blog about the CA trip. I can't think about that now.

Airport blog

This is not an airplane blog, but rather an airport blog.

Not written from the sky, but the ground.

Don't be sad, there just might be an airplane blog, too. Either now or on the way back (traditionally, my airplane blogs are on the flight from CA to Japan, so it'll probably be the way back.)

I am delighted right now because Kansai airport has free wireless internet. I didn't expect to be on a computer with internet again until California, so this was a pretty pleasant surprise. Before now, I've only heard of the cool airports that let you use internet for free and I've always wanted to end up at one.

I have over two more hours left to wait for my plane, so I am just hanging out here. I'm trying to figure out how much of my battery I should spare for the flight- but it doesn't really make sense to save lots of battery because, as I have stated in an airplane blog once, "there is no internet in the sky."Probably the only thing I would use this computer for would be to watch something I brought. I think I rememeber seeing some good stuff listed in the "in flight movies" list, so I think I should be ok with that.

Kansai airport is SO WEIRD to me. There are so many other foreigners and they're all speaking English and I don't know them!!!!! I started a conversation with another American woman who was behind me in line just because it was so weird for me to have to there and I wanted to talk to relieve the awkwardness.

....Is it going to be really REALLY strange to be back in the US?

I am hoping this visit to California gives me a bit of an idea of what reverse culture shock will be like next year when I move back.

I can already tell from this experience that it's going to be very sad for me to leave Kagoshima next year.

This is my first boredom induced blog in a while, come to think of it.

Airport blogs are very serious compared to airplane blogs. But equally scattered. Whoopee!

Parking spaces and dinosaurs

Yeah, it's a two blog night. I just thought of two different things I wanted to type about here.

In my very grumpy blog from the other day, I mentioned that I was told the parking space I thought was mine this entire time at my apartment building isn't actually the one I thought it was.

The next day, I got a letter from the building owners and I could tell that it was on the topic of the parking spaces, so I figured that they were just telling me what I already knew.

But, there seemed to be more to the letter, so I brought it into my Japanese lesson and let my teacher look at it.

It turns out that the space 55 has been erased, so the person who is assigned 55 has been parking in 54 (my actual space). The content of the letter was actually asking me if I had any complaints about my parking space being taken so much. But -I- had just barely learned about that spot the day before, so of course I had no issue with it.

My Japanese teacher called the company that owns my building and found out that the space I've been using (52) is unassigned to anyone. Of course, that's obvious because I've been parking there for almost a year with no complaints. Anyway, I told her to tell them that I would like to continue to park in 52 if that was acceptable and the person assigned to 55 could park in 54.

I don't know many details, actually, but I did get permission to park in 52 for now.

It was a pretty crazy mixup and I thought it was funny that I was asked if I had problems with the person parking in 54 just a day after I first parked there.

Now for the "dinosaurs" part of my post.

I realized recently that I've been making a pretty funny Japanese mistake for months now.

A way to say international exchange in Japanese is "kokusai (international) kouryuu (exchange/interaction).

Instead of "kouryuu", I've been saying "kyouryuu" which, I figured out recently, means "dinosaur".

"International dinosaur"

Giant Dipper

So, just now, I was just in the middle of my bi-weekly(-esque) nighttime power-walk which is, indeed, turning into a jog little by little.

(Yep, I'm still keeping up on the exercising... all on my own, too. Impressed?)

Anyway, I was walking along and I just happened to look up and immediately notice the Giant Dipper.

I was surprised because I never really casually looked up, noticed, and identified a constellation before. I've noticed them before, but never so quickly and easily. I looked a little more and quickly saw the Little Dipper and Orion's belt (kind of made out the rest of it that constellation, too).

Truthfully, I've never really been able to follow the idea of the imaginary lines connecting certain stars to make a picture. At that moment, I could practically see the lines in my mind.

Impressed and inspired by this, I suddenly had tons of energy and ran the rest of the way back to my apartment building.

(Then wrote one of my very rare blogs... *grins*)

As trivial as this is, I want to remember this as a very very cool moment of my life.

It's Friday night, I head back to California on Sunday for a two week visit.

Today

TMI (Too much information) warning issued. Read at your on risk.

Today sucked and here's why-

1) I woke up at around 2:30 in the middle of the night suddenly because I was incredibly overheated.

2) I woke this morning to find period blood on my sheets so I had to wash them this morning. Fortunately, this also happened yesterday morning, so I was able to do it quickly and easily.

3) I had 4 classes today with 2nd graders. It's been really hot lately and there is no AC in elementary school classrooms- so I had to be energetic while becoming increasingly covered in sweat, hot, and also cramping at times despite motrin that I took.

4) The last class finally ended and I was more than ready to return to the office. I wanted to use the office bathroom because the crouching floor toilets at the elementary school are absolute misery when it's hot, you're sweaty, and it's that time of the month. BUT- I had to wait quite a while to get my car out because it was boxed in. There was some kind of swim meet that no one told me about ahead of time, so parents' cars were blocking the way in every direction.

5) I got back to the office and learned that I was parking in the wrong space at my apartment building all this time. I guess the person from my office accidentally told me the wrong space number. My actual parking space sucks- if I went into more about why this parking space sucks, I would be rambling.

*SIGH*

It'll be nice when this day is over.