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. :)

New template

I am not particularly crazy about it, but it was the only one I found so far that worked that I kind of liked.

Meh.

;)

I'll turn this into a real blog tomorrow... possibly.

Edit a few days later: Okay, so no, I didn't.

Ick

I feel sicky today. Pretty much my whole body hurts randomly (especially my arms and legs) and my brain is in a fog. :S

Work is almost over for the day and I am trying to figure out what I am going to do for dinner when all I really want is to curl up and go to sleep.

...of course, what I would probably actually do is curl up with my laptop watching TV shows.

I've been watching the Daily Show and the Colbert Report everyday that there are new episodes up, I've been watching The Office weekly, and I've also been watching a lot of Futurama, Rocko's Modern Life, and Invader Zim. :)

My actual television is neglected. I used to watch the news mostly to get weather reports, but now I check the tv station's website for that. I -should- continue watching the news, but I just haven't felt like it lately.

I finished the Haruki Murakami book and I am now a little over 100 pages into the new Ender book. Just like the other books in the series, it really drew me in right away. Reading it kind of makes me want to reread the other books in the series... again. ;)

Back to complaining about icky-ness.

This morning was awful because I woke up cold with my throat and stomach hurting. I had a really rough night's sleep, too. It made me get to work later than usual, but technically I was still early.

But yeah, it's not the end of the world. I bet I'll feel excellent(???) again come tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, I've been wanting to change the template on this blog. But, as always, I am picky. I've found a number of templates that look nice already, but none of them I really think works for my blog.

I'm just kind of tired of the dragonflies.

Hmm... right now, I am just tired in general.

Random question- What does it take to make a water heater explode terribly? I watched a MythBusters video on youtube the other day and they made a water heater explode and it was almost like a rocket. I was showering yesterday and I realized that the water heater (which I think has been making weird noises lately) is right next door to me. And then, of course, I had to start scaring the living daylights out of myself. Logically, I would think that the MythBusters probably did something extreme to make the heater explode like that and it wouldn't happen just because the heater simply broke or something. It would be good to know the worse case scenario would be cold water (although that would be TERRIBLE.) Buuuut, I don't know. So yeah. If the sound persists, I am going to try to get word of it to the owners of my building. It's just a pain because Japanese isn't exactly my first language. X(

The winter season, the great everybody-knows-Julia school crossover story, and a book I haven't read yet

I've been liking long titles these days. ;)

(Edit: I decided against two of the topics I was going to write about, so the topic became shorter. Then I decide to add something else.)

Winter started today.

There is really nothing to debate about on that one. Yesterday, the weather was pretty decent and when today it got terribly, TERRIBLY cold. Yes, winter, ALL OF THE SUDDEN, is here.

All of my complaints about cold from before- BAH! They're nothing!

I spent a good portion of today freezing in the gym of one of my elementary schools. Today was a meeting about teaching English in the elementary schools and I attended it with a Japanese Teacher of English from one of my junior high schools. Naturally, there was at least one person from each of my four elementary schools, two middle schools, the whole teaching staff of the school it was hosted at, a few teachers I had met through other ALTs, and people from the Board of Education office where I spend a good portion of day when I am not at schools. It was actually really funny that I knew so many people at this meeting. I was telling the teacher that I went to this meeting with who was from where. I was the only ALT attending, although I heard that last year a few ALTs went.

I have my kotatsu set up, but I don't have it up and running. I am guessing there is some missing cord or something. I emailed my predecessor to ask her about it. So now I am sitting here with a fleece blanket over me next to a space heater that I bought. Maybe I -did- do okay preparing for winter after all. Ugh- it's going to be a pain getting myself to get up in the morning because it is going to be FREEZING. It does seem like my usual wish to be able to hibernate over winter is going to show as normally does.

I got a book delivered to me today. Not just ANY book, though, it's the new Ender book! I am very excited to read it, but I am going to make myself finish the Haruki Murakami book I've been reading first. Anyway, I ordered the book off of Japanese Amazon and, because I don't have a card that I can/want to use to pay over the internet, I selected a pay on delivery option. It was kind of fun to do that because that sort of thing is past dead in the US. It required a special delivery service, although it wasn't someone who directly worked for Amazon (for some reason I thought it would be cool if it was...)

I got the book, flipped through a few pages, and then found myself letting out a very happy squeal. Then I realized I probably shouldn't have done that because I could have startled the neighbors. I -think- the walls are pretty thick because I don't hear them very much, but it just might be that they're quiet. In that case, I really hope that I am (usually) quiet, too.

/blog

800in5

This is my 800th blog.
And it's been 5 years since I've started blogging.

Hurray!

Errr... I really feel like I should put something relevant to this having being 5 years since I started blogging.

I had a kind of odd weekend. Saturday was good in that I did some much needed shopping, but it was also a stressful day because driving the city and then getting lost on the way back was already bad, but also it was raining pretty hard that day. Today was a complete polar opposite in that it was a pretty great day. I guess a mixture of the usual foggy form my brain takes during weekends, the stress of Saturday, and all of the sunlight I ended up getting today, my mind feels like goo. I'm having a hard time making this blog, well, a blog.

Okay, here's something, and I can KIND of tie it into being relevant.

This is a very known, touching song that many people in Japan know these days. The song is basically a 15-year-old writing a letter to her adult self and then the adult self replying back.

It kind of makes sense for this entry because I started blogging at 17 and now I am an adult blogging. So... I suppose that's KIND of like the song...?

But mostly I just kind of wanted to share this anyway because it is a sweet song that I think would touch anyone with a past and a future. ;)

(....I still plan to make a blog in the Julia in Japan blog this, too, I'm going in a different direction that one.)

Anyway, it song is called "Tegami," or "Letter" in English. It's by Angela Aki, a half Japanese, half American singer.



And here is an English translation.

I would've provided the actual music video, but I actually really don't like it so much. I think this video where she's just singing to students gives the song a lot more justice.

I think it's a wonderful song.

Happy 800in5!

Cold? Yes, cold.

Today is the second day in a row that I woke up with a headache.

I really need to figure out why that happened because it is a very unpleasant way to start the day.

That, along with running late (for being early) to work every morning because it takes longer to dress myself because of the colder temperatures. Clothes take forever to hang dry and I haven`t quite worked out having sweaters and such to go with my work clothes.

This weekend, I am planning on visiting the coin laundry. I am looking forward to pulling nice, warm clothes out of a dryer for the first time since I left the US. I am also thinking that I will go work clothes shopping so that I can hold out a little longer on having to go to the coin laundry and have a few more outfits more suited to the colder weather.

It`s amazing how much you have to plan for cold when you live somewhere central heating is not common. I mean, it`s　probably not going to be -TOO- much colder than Monterey (although I`ll admit I have very little idea what to expect), but there I simply put on a big jacket and maybe a hat and then warmed up when I got inside. Here, I need to be able to dress warm indoors more frequently than I used to.

I was going to break my rule about not being too political on my blog, but I am too sleepy so I blogged about the cold instead.

I read through some of my entries I posted here yesterday. They`re pretty okay.
I forgot the squirrel blog was during my list writing phase.

My moles hate me and a random reminder

You know what`s really weird?

Since moving to Japan, I had another mole which was acting funny like the one I had removed. I went to the doctor about it, and, like my doctor in the US, didn`t think it was anything to worry about.

And now a third mole is doing the same thing.

I don`t even know if "mole" is the correct word for it.

But whatever they are, they don`t like me and they want to escape from my arms.

The first one was on my right arm, the second on my left, and the third is on my right arm. So I assume the next one will be on my left again. Who wants to take bets?

Speaking of bets (although it isn`t really one), Danny is certain that my successor to my current job and apartment after I go back to the US will be a male. I doubt it because all of my known (to me, anyway) predecessors are female. So I am writing this entirely for the sake of remembering so I can tell Danny he was wrong.

Yes, it is going to be a few years before this is actually known.

I had a few topics that were better than discussing rebellious moles, but I can`t remember them. Probably because they aren`t placed on my arm where they catch my eye and they are not so hard to resist poking at.

Oh, and if you didn`t read the comments for my last blog (GASP!), I am going to go for the 800 blogs in 5 years thing after all.

100th blog blog

I am sure everyone has been paying attention to the blog archive on the left side of this page and have already noticed that I was getting rather close to posting the 100th blog since switching back to blogger.

No? No one noticed? Well- I did!

One of my favorite thing about this blog is that I choose to blog here on my own. On top of that, I have people who willingly read it without me having to nag them to. I remember really trying to get friends to read my old blogspot before finally getting a livejournal.

"I actually got a live journal! Yes, I am still a blogger-person, but I decided to come here so people will feel obliged to read all my blabbing!" -first livejournal post

Kind of a miserable attitude.

And, of course, I followed the herd to MySpace. Sure, I liked LiveJournal and MySpace during their times. However, for some time on MySpace I kind of felt like my blogging was just going to end up moving to the next place everyone else moved. I didn't really like that idea. Plus, I was starting to really dislike myspace in general.

So, I came here. And this time readers followed. Yay! It's sooo nice to have people read my blog without me having to insist. So, THANK YOU!

I looked at past entries and I realized that they show I went through a pretty crazy time. A good number of blogs I posted have to do with the issues applying for JET, graduating/capstone project, and the problem I've been having with my eyes. Then eventually preparing for moving to Japan and then getting here. Lots of changes and stress.

Although, I suppose you could probably take a little over 9 months of -anyone's- life, look at what they did, and think "wow, that's a lot of things going on with that person."

Some of my favorite blogs here include the one where I talked about watching a squirrel get run over because I remember trying SO hard not to make the post funny (although I was slightly traumatized) and the one where I described getting a mole removed (because I compared my numbed arm to a plum being nibbled on by a bird and I made up the phrase "ex-mole").

Finally, because I like to keep track of ridiculous things-

-The end of January will mark one year on this blogspot page.
-On November 16th, it will have been 5 years since I started blogging.
-On all of my public blogs combined (old blogspot, livejournal, myspace, and here), I will have 782 entries posted after I post this one.
Current Blogspot - 100
MySpace - 402
Livejournal - 125
Old Blogspot - 155

I -could- aim for having my 800th blog land on my 5 years blogging date, but I probably wouldn't make it. :D

I just realized this means that I don't blog an average of 56.16% of the days of the year.

/100th blog

Throwing together an impromptu authentic Halloween experience in Japan

Something simply amazing happened and it made me REALLY happy and more energetic.
So, I got home from work just now and I was about to go into my apartment when I noticed off the balcony a bunch of kids in costumes TRICK OR TREATING with their mothers. I didn't expect to see that in this country at all! I was sooo excited about this, that I literally yelled down to them to come up to my apartment and that I would get some candy together for them.
So while they were making their way up to the 3rd floor where I live, I grabbed the bags of taffy and candy corn that my mom sent me for my birthday and began putting some in plastic ziplock bags.
Then I gave the kids candy (after getting them to try to say "trick or treat" in English) and then gushed in a crazy happy version of my broken Japanese to the mothers about how happy I was to see them.
It was simply the greatest thing that's ever happened to me.

22

I am 22 years old now.

And I am really REALLY tired. I got a cold yesterday, but it didn`t stop me from going to my own shared birthday party.

I had matcha cake for my birthday. Yay!

Sooooooo tired.

Happy Halloween!

Oh, and why hasn`t anyone answered my question about why I end blogs with things like "/blog"? I haven`t even gotten a no yet. :S

Oh, and when is Daylight Savings time? Japan doesn`t practice that (yay!), but it will be good to know when California is 17 hours behind rather than 16.

(I am posting this and maybe I`ll edit it later.)

Busy times

I am looking at some busy times ahead.

This weekend (25th and 26th) is the big festival here in Ijuin. It`s going to be hard for me to miss because, well, the tents are set up right across the street from my apartment building.

Also I have my adult conversation class on the 25th as well.

The 27th and the 28th should be ordinary days.

But then the chaos really begins on the 29th---

From the 29th to the 30th, I have a mid-year seminar to go to in Kagoshima city. The night of the 29th there will be a reception to the seminar as well.

And then on the night of the 30th, I have my birthday party that I am sharing with Ken`s son. :D

On the 31st, I will -probably- be going to a Halloween party in Kagoshima city.

November 1st is (hopefully) going to be a much needed break day. That`s also a Saturday- so yay! No work either on that day!

The 2nd is a birthday party for another ALT, then the 3rd is the biggest festival in Kagoshima and I will be dancing (or attempting to, anyway) in the parade with other ALTs.

Of course, the 3rd is a Monday (a holiday), so the following day I proceed on with my regular school week.

Should be fun. But I am dreading the exhaustion that is bound to come with it.

Allergies

I guess my allergies are acting up these days.

I just looked out the window and almost thought I saw yellow flowers. But then I realized it was just the way the light was hitting some trees.

Then I looked again at a bush a little less faraway. Yes, there are indeed yellow flowers on there. Could it be the dreaded acacia blooming early in this part of the world? A quick google search didn`t include the possibility, but it didn`t prove it either. If there are some blooming acacia trees around here, it would certainly explain some things.

My eyes still aren`t completely better from having worn my contacts on Sunday. Probably, if I had known that allergies were going to attack, I would`ve not tried to wear the contacts at all.

Oh well, it was a good contacts day while it lasted.

I bought eye drops here in Japan for the first time a few days ago. They sting a little, but I kind of like them anyway because my eyes usually feel really great after the stinging wears off.

Anyway, I`d better head off to school. I am co-teaching a conversation class at one of my middle schools- whatever that means. ;)

Naturally

I wore my contacts yesterday to the festival where I sang 世界に一つだけの花 (The Only Flower in the World) with other people in JET.

My eyes stayed in pretty good shape all day and I had a really great time.

Definitely an improvement from last time I tried to wear contacts.

I was also psyched that I finally was able to go to the beach yesterday, too.

But, of course, my eyes still are very red and dry today. *sigh*

There are some funny noises going on right now. I am not sure what they are, but I`ve heard them here before. They kind of remind me of old Godzilla movie sound effects. (haha)

I want to remember

One year ago now, I was starting my JET application.

Wow. What a year.

This dawned on me because a former roommate of Danny`s has been messaging me on facebook asking questions about applying for JET. It got me thinking about the initial application deadline and I realized all of the sudden that it WAS around this time last year.

Time has been kind of funny to me ever since I moved here, actually.

I just finished reading a reply on that thread when suddenly the day that I found out that I had gotten into JET popped into my head.

I looked at my blog to see what I wrote about it and it wasn`t an awful lot.

At the time, I was a little thrown off by the wording "short list" and the anxiety that I might lose somehow from the past months hadn`t yet worn off. I wasn`t up for a victory blog right then.

So, because I want this to be here for me to read sometime, I`ll write about it here.

It was April. In a very JET-like fashion, I was told that I would hear from JET in "early April." The very day it became April, I spent most of my free time in front of my computer refreshing my email. Of course, I was completely aware that Gmail refreshes itself, but I wanted to know the outcome as soon as physically possible. So, the 4th of April rolled in and I was in the kitchen at WLC watching my email like a hawk, when, all of the sudden, it came!

I almost didn`t believe my eyes. But there it was. I opened the email feeling certain that the internet at the school would crash randomly right then, but instead it went smoothly. I read the first lines of the email a few times before registering that "short list" meant "yes, you`re in" provided that I turn in all of the appropriate paperwork.

I immediately called Ann knowing that she would want to know the outcome of her application, left her a voicemail, then a text message.

Then I called just about everyone I could think of!

I paced around the kitchen, my mind in a complete daze as I talked to everyone. Then I wandered around restlessly until I went to class (early).

Meg was there, but unlike most days, Ann wasn`t with her. The minute Ann walked in, I said "Check your email!" I remember she was visibly shaking as she logged in and I could relate to the feeling completely. She got in, too!

It feels kind of silly to replay this now since that was a little over 6 months ago (it feels like longer...), but I know that I`ll enjoy reading this again 2 years from now or so.

/pointless blog

(btw, does anyone actually -know- why I often end blogs with "/blog" or am I the only nerd who comes across the blog... ever?)

I don`t get it

One of my elementary schools only has me coming in for one class and lunch today. I`ve only been to that school once before and that was also only for one class and lunch.

Before my one class was with 5th graders and this time the class is with 1st graders. And, strangely enough, from the looks of the schedule the content of the 1st graders` lesson is the exact same as the content from the 5th graders class.

This school is my absolute farthest. Why can`t they give me two or three or four classes in a day instead of several occasions of one class a day? *gigantic shrug*

Isn`t it weird how you can tell whether I am blogging from work or from my apartment by how weird my apostrophes look? See? ` ` ` Work apostrophes! (haha)

My stomach is doing funny things these days.

I glanced at the horoscope

"You may be less willing today to seek common ground with a friend or partner, even if that would ultimately make your life simpler. Paradoxically, you might believe that the other person is being difficult when in reality you are the one who is more stubborn. Keep reminding yourself that the outcome of any disagreement is less important than you currently think. The health of the relationship ultimately matters more."

These things aren`t supposed to be so right on with what I should be hearing.

Yes, I am extremely stubborn.

Ick.

Sorry.

Bethany saved the day, but mostly just my inability to keep a topic

So, it`s October 10 and I have yet to post here on this blog.

I`ve been distracted by work and other things on the internet lately.

Schools have been requiring me to stay longer and I`ve been enjoying that because, well, it`s a lot more fun to be at the schools than bored out of my mind in the office.

On the home front, well, it all started when Bethany helped me figure out slidereel.com.

Basically, I`ve been watching an average of 4 The Office (US) episodes a day. Now I am a little over halfway through season 3.

I`m actually blogging from the Board of Education office right now. Geeze, now this Japanese keyboard is starting to feel difficult because I`ve been using my American keyboard on my laptop just as much if not even more.

Anyway, Bethany also found Across the Universe on that sidereel as well, so I finally got to see that movie. (yaaaay!)

I had more to blog about, but I can`t remember at the moment.

I guess that just means I have to blog again soon. ;)

You lie!!!!

Airplane blog 2 was waaaaayyyy better than Airplane blog 1.

That is all.

Rain again

It`s been raining a lot here again. There`s another typhoon coming, but who knows whether this one will hit here or not yet. Strangely, I`m not really worried this time, probably because everyone`s not talking about it all of the time the way they were the typhoon before. All I can really tell is that it`s moving a lot faster (what that means strength-wise is beyond me).

Anyway, the sneakers I`ve been wearing to work (I`m slowly, but surely switching up what I wear to work and gradually making it a little more casual), squeak on the ground when they`re wet. It embarrasses me a lot, but I noticed for the first time today that a lot of other people have squeaky shoes in the rain too. Yay!

/pointless blog

Edit- I asked. No one is very worried about the typhoon because I guess this one isn`t very strong. An "ordinary" typhoon they said. It looks like some schools are going to be closed tomorrow, though.

STOP BUYING PILAF

Lately, in the grocery store, I've been spending a lot of time in the frozen foods section. This isn't just because I'm lazy and I haven't cooked many times, but also because food (vegetables especially) go bad very quickly here.

The first time saw a bags of pilaf there, I was tempted to buy one.

A few days later I was back in the frozen food section. I was pretty sure that I brought frozen vegetables that time, so I decided to buy a pilaf bag eat along with the vegetables. So, I bought one. I carried my groceries home, opened the freezer, and found that...

I already had pilaf there.

I didn't buy vegetables before at all, I bought PILAF that time, too.

The two bags of pilaf were actually the exact same kind, too.

So now when I see pilaf in a frozen food section, I have to laugh.

Today, I started working my way through the first bag.

I really need to stop buying pilaf.

I almost forgot to give this a title.

Hello dear readers,

thank you for your patience these past few months as I struggled to blog in an uninspired office environment.

I actually haven't been really reading my blogs after posting them, but I assume they weren't very good.

Hopefully my blogs will be returning now to their former... ummm... glory (which was apparently enough to get you to start reading this page to begin with... ;) )

This is a very special blog.

As it is...

THE FIRST BLOG WRITTEN AND POSTED FROM MY APARTMENT HERE IN JAPAN!

Which means I have no excuse not to think out my blogs just a taaad more. (There's a first time for everything).

This is where it gets a little complicated for me because now I have to figure out just what should go on my Japan Life blog and what should go here. My whole life is Japan life right now, isn't it. But at the same time it's ME who's in Japan. The same me who also blogged for many, many years in the US.

Now I remember my original way of thinking.

I don't mean this is in a bad way because I find it to be completely understandable, but I realize that there are people out there who would find my life to be a lot more interesting now that I am in Japan. Although they might have respected or even liked me back in the US, they wouldn't be particularly interested in reading my blogs that are about random things and thoughts.

Are you following? The Japan Life blog is supposed to be for those people so they don't have to comb their way through everything else.

What that means for those of you who do care to read this blog?

It means you have two blog pages to keep track of.

I knew you wouldn't mind. *smile*

Today I was able to talk to my mother via webcam and then later I had a brief conversation with Sam as well. It was really nice to see faces (when they weren't blurred by technical difficulties) and hear voices (when they weren't choppy.) I really enjoyed that.

I wondered though, whether the technical difficulties were due to my internet speed. It certainly seems fast enough to me. Of course, for almost two months now, I've been using slow city computers, so maybe my standards have fallen -a little-.

That just reminded me of something that I thought was funny...

So when my internet came, a guy from a nearby computer lab came over to help me set it up. So, we got it working (it ended up being ME who found the solution to a big problem we had because the expert couldn't figure out the English computer) and he went to this Japanese site where they analyze your broadband connection and say how quick it is.

But do they say just a number? Noooo....

They give the speed and then compare it was something else.

Like:

Your internet connection is running at (insert number). As quickly as a plane.

Isn't that weird?

My internet was inconsistent for some reason and it kept changing. I got other results such as bunny and car. It seems to be same to me, though.

So the computer lab guy left after criticizing how I haven't cleaned my kitchen sink lately and didn't take my excuse of having been sick. (This really did happen...)

My sink IS clean now.

....annnd I just realized I hadn't mentioned being sick here before.

On Tuesday, I guess it was the 16th, my ear started hurting but I was kind of ignoring it in favor of everyday life. As the week progressed, it started hurting more and more and I went to see a doctor about it on Saturday. He put me on medication. I went to see a Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor, found out that it wasn't an ear infection like I thought but instead a viral infection in my nose and throat that affected my ear. I got more medication, but this time more on the herbal side.

During this week, my ear stopped hurting, then felt like it was underwater, then felt itchy and just plain weird, and then finally it stopped bothering me altogether.

Anyway, it's all better now and I feel great. I was actually enjoying my first day with my ear feeling normal again when my internet finally arrived here. It was a really great combination of things and it put me in a really great mood.

Switching back to the topic of blogging, (suddenly)

One problem with blogging in the office is that I very frequently felt like I was losing my train of thought. Plus, I usually feel very lethargic in that office because although I am technically working, there's not a terrible lot I can do but pass the time. Having a job like that sounds nice, but I get so restless.

On the other hand, the rest of the job- going to schools, interacting with the students and everything is really great. I am quite convinced that I may have the best job in the world.

Anyway, I feel good writing this blog. Not saying it's good, but it felt like blogging used to be almost two months ago.

Yay! The internet dark ages are OVER!

Hi!

Hello neglected blog!

Hopefully people who read this blog do not feel equally neglected.

I hope they feel MORE neglected! Bwahahahahaha!

....

.......

That`s not true.

I can`t write anymore. I just updated my Japan life blog every time I look at something I just wrote, I find a careless typo. I know that I`ve always had those because I can be careless, but now they`re happening a tad too much.

...naturally, I didn`t think of proofread, though.

*sigh* Julia Julia Julia.... *tsk*

If I had home internet, I probably would`ve been at least double the number of posts this month. I am still always thinking of blog posts and, yes, I have thought of some excellent titles of the blog, but I step into the office and they are GONE.

Anyway, as I told just about everybody I`ve talked to since finding out, I might have internet as soon as this weekend.

(three paragraphs of irrelevant blabbing cut)

What the crap am I talking about? (referring to cut paragraphs)

I guess I`m feeling self conscious because I found out about more people reading this blog. I always feel kind of ridiculous asking readers to comment. It`s not that I mind not knowing who reads my blog, but I pause a little when something reminds me of that. Does that make sense?

No, it probably doesn`t.

Anyway, I should be heading off to one of my schools soon. It`s middle school today so who knows what kind of students I am doing to be teaching today. Sometimes, they can be fun, but other times they are sooo painfully shy.

I felt so well rested when I woke up about 3 hours ago. What happened?

Edit- It seems coherent thought isn`t my friend today. A guy in my office was just talking and for a second I thought his voice resembled that of Macy Gray (I don`t even know how to spell her name.)

:D

I really like my new template for my Japan life blog. The first one was nice but I tend to look more simplistic looking templates. In addition, there`s the fact that it broke. The day that I finally put up the new template and posted the real first blog (Saturday), I was spending pretty much the whole day in a computer lab type place where a nice man and his son work. I can hang out there as much as I want as long as I politely drink their iced coffee (which I don`t particularly care for) and hold my tongue when they start to try to treat me like a computer dunce (those who know me well probably know just how much restraint that takes for me.) But it`s a good arrangement because they`re nice and it doesn`t cost anything.
Anyway, I was there from around 1 or 2 pm until a little before 8 (although I did leave for a while to grab something for dinner). It was tiring, but nice to take care of things on my own computer. My antivirus program was threatening to expire because I wasn`t updating it or running any checks (I -couldn`t because my laptop has been wtihout internet.) So, I managed to save my antivirus and take care of a few "housekeeping" things on my computer that had been neglected.

I started my second week of teaching today by going to an Elementary school that I hadn`t been to yet. Tomorrow and the next day, I`ll be back at the Middle school I was at last week and then on Friday I return one of my first elementary schools. This one is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, so I hope I can find it easily this time.

According to what the guy at the computer place told me last week, I could possibly be getting my internet in my apartment this week. That, of course, would be awesome. If it happens anyway.

....I wish there was really something different about my two blogs other than the fact that I update one weekly and one randomly. Seriously, that was -not- how I intended it to be. I wanted this blog to be the scattered, random thought one and the other to be more structured. Again, maybe once things get more settled and I can blog on my own terms from my own laptop I`ll be able to do these things how I want to.

I jumped around topics at least 5 (million) times. Oh well. ;)

Sigh

Blogging has been very inconvenient these days. I think of things to write about, but when I finally get to internet at work, I just really don`t feel like writing a blog.

It`ll be better when internet is in my apartment.

MUCH better.

So teaching started this week. So far so good. I like actually DOING something for my job and, given that it IS a job, it`s rather fun.

Some classes contain students who don`t seem to want to do anything but stare blankly at me, while most of them have really fun students who interact (although sometimes a tad much.) I don`t have to pay for lunches because I get them for free from the school. Pretty awesome, right?

Not that I am short on money these days at all.

Believe me, my mind is boggled trying to wrap my brain around what I can afford.I`m not saying I`m rich or anything, but it certainly feels like it having a nice phone and a good car and calculating and recalculating over and over to find that- yes, I -can- afford this.

My job is ridiculously great.

I have been driving to all of my schools so far, which makes me worry about gas costs, but I couldn`t possibly be driving as much as I did in the California, so it can`t be that bad.

Still, though, I definitely plan to try to get myself to be able to ride a bicycle again. Somehow I just don`t trust my ability to balance. I`m sure I have one because I`m 5`6 and I wear size 6 1/2 shoes and I haven`t randomly toppled over yet (...for that reason, anyway.)

Today (tomorrow for you folks back home) is my brother`s birthday, so I made my first international call with my cell phone and got a group of Japanese middle school students to sing happy birthday to his answering machine with me. It was great fun.

Today is also Danny`s birthday, but international calls are expensive. So... if you read this Danny- nothing (too) personal!

Although he probably won`t read this anyway.

I guess I`ll call this a blog. :D

Getting there

I paid the down payment for a car yesterday. Pictures should be coming soon.

I also got my foreigner registration card and signed up for internet.

It seems as if things are finally starting to come together.

I`m definitely nervous about driving because it`s not just the roads that are reversed, but also the steering wheel and everything else. Basically, everything is a mirror image. If you draw a US intersection and then look at it in the mirror, you have a Japanese intersection. As for the actual inside of the car, yesterday when I was driving around the parking log, I kept accidentally turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal because the sides they are on are also opposite. This should take some getting used to.

I am going to try to get my cell phone today, so I`ll have a cell phone email address to share with many of you soon. :)

1739

1 - ichi
7 - nana
3 - san
9 - kyuu

ichinana sankyuu
iinaa sankyuu
iinaa thank you
that`s great, thank you

Japanese is amazing.

The closest thing we have in English to that, I think, is gr8t instead of great- which isn`t even a fraction as amazing as 1739 in Japanese.

I think that when I get my Japanese cell phone, I`m going to have 1739 as part of the email address.

It`s been a while since I last posted at this blog. I was out of town all of last week at orientation and at the cultural center in Kanoya (KAPIC). It`s good to be back. Classes start again next week and I might be buying a car pretty soon. I believe I also have a cell phone in my near future sometime as soon as I get my foreigner registration card. Internet at the apartment could follow about 2 weeks after that. My Japan life is really starting to come together.

...Although I just realized that I forgot to take out the trash today.

*sigh*

...hmmm... what to do with that trash for one week......

I have some spoiled pork I could really appreciate getting rid of.

Plus I already defeated the first round of fruit flies.

I`ll work it out. Some way or another, that bag will be out of my apartment come tomorrow.

...I hope.

I heard at the prefecture orientation something about sneaking your trash into a can at a convenience store. But that would mean I would have to be seen walking around with my trash first.

And no, there`s no can or dumpster outside of my apartment building to put trash during the week. There is really no place to put trash other than on the day that we`re supposed to put out the certain kind. Tuesday is `burnable trash' day. Burnable trash contains food, which can smell after a while. I am NOT happy about missing burnable trash day.

Boy, did this blog completely change directions when I remembered that.

I can`t even remember what more I was going to say.

39 very much for reading. You are all g8.

Weird dream

So I had the WEIRDEST dream the other night.

The main characters of my dream could`ve been cats, but that kept changing.

Oh, and it was a musical.

...Because I was listening to RENT music for the first in a long while.

So the female main character and a male character were at some kind of shopping center, and the female looked up and realized that the building looked like it was going to fall.

So everyone in the building was panicking and running around. The female ran outside and realized that it might be safer to find a safe place back inside, so she ran in and huddled with a group.

The building fell, but everyone in that group were okay.

(This part of the dream, of course, was terrifying)

A person stepped forward from the group and started talking about how the building was attacked and probably some people (....or cats...???) had died in the crash.

But then she started singing about how we should all rejoice because with the death of the animals, brand new fur coats could be made.

This person actually was Cruella DeVille (sp).

The female main character didn`t really want to be around this, so she took off. She found her male cat friend and they began walking back to their... uhhh... tree swing. Where they sang a love song together.

Then I woke up.

Most of the aspects of this dream came from commercials on Japanese TV. Like the Cruella DeVille part came from a commercial with a lot of dalmatians in it. Jenny (fellow ALT with internet!) and I were talking about Aristocats a few days before, too.

Oh, and although it was out of sequence, sometimes the female main character cat would try to sell some kind of mysterious tofu loaf.

The next morning, without feeling any pain or much of any warning, I ended up throwing up my breakfast. For exacly half a day, my stomach was completely off. Of course, I felt fine later and was sitting with other JETs in a British Pub in Kagoshima city drinking cider that following evening.

Life has been a little weird at times, but good.

So I went back and read that airplane blog.

I skimmed it a little bit over at Aya`s house a few days ago, but I read it entirely just now.

By the way, could anyone do me a favor and check out my Japan life blog and let me know if it looks okay. The layout doesn`t properly load on my work computer. I put a clock on there that SHOULD have Japan time on it, but I haven`t the faintest idea what that looks like (for all I know, it could not be a clock at all...) Anyway, that would be much appreciated.

Today I asked my supervisor to help me buy a car. I learned so far that there`s really no way around me neither having to buy or rent a car (it was very STRONGLY suggested, which is saying a lot around these parts). I`ve also heard a number of times that it`s smarter to rent a car if you plan to only stay for a year, but if you plan to stay longer, it`s better to buy one. I was tempted by the idea of renting because then I`d be freed from the hassle of owning a car in Japan, but I decided that maybe I should consider buying after all.

I went home from work yesterday early due to severe cramping (which, TMI I know, had me in the bathroom losing my breakfast) and after relaxing for a while and going over numbers, I realized that people weren`t fooling around when they said I`d be able to afford a car. I guess I kind of had to see the numbers to believe them. Anyway, the idea of driving on the other side of the road still terrifies me.

It just dawned on me that I am sleeping about 7 hours a night. I used to think that I could only really function on at least 8. Isn`t 7 like the minimum for a good, restful sleep? Someone with either the knowledge or the initiative to look into this can feel free to step forward.

Internet, cellphone, and everything else that I am waiting on my Foreigner Registration card are going to have to wait for some time. Especially internet, I heard that it takes about two weeks to get that set up. Jenny, a high school teaching ALT who lives not too far from me, told me yesterday that one can sign up for the internet service and get a bank account with just the pink slip for proof that the card is coming. I really, truly wish that I knew that.

Since I am going to be out of town from Monday to Friday this next week, I still have to wait until the week after next to get anything like that going. It would`ve been nice to get the internet process started last week. *sigh*

I got my name stamp the other day. It`s pretty much my legal signature. Not the most secure thing because it can be lost or stolen, but it`s still really cool to have.

Life life life

(Entry edited to fix COMPLETELY inaccurate information)

So since I last posted here, the Tokyo orientation finished and I`ve been here at my placement in Kagoshima prefecture for about a week.

Basically, I can`t really do anything without a `Foreigner Registration Card` which should be getting here sometime between soon and not so soon.

Then and only THEN can I get internet in my apartment, get a cell phone, and soooo many other things that will help make my life easier and overall better.

Until then, I`m doing good.

I heard from some other JETs that they don`t have internet at their offices, so during this period of waiting for their cards, they`re completely without internet.

Can you imagine waiting this whole time for another blog from me???

.....

Don`t answer that.

At first, I couldn`t figure out how to get my television to work, but a few days ago I finally figured it out. I guess it wasn`t really complicated or anything.

But since then, I`ve had the television on all of the time when I`m at home. I even sometimes take notes of things I see in commercials that might be useful for me so that I can maybe find them more easily in the store.

Yesterday, I watched a television show where people who are announcers by occupation were contestants in a guys vs. girls contest. It was really a fun thing to watch even though I didn`t know who any of the people were.

Then I watched a pretty corny detective drama. The main character is this young-ish guy who seems to be the run of the mill good guy with a strong sense of justice.

I was doing laundry and other things during this show, so my understanding of the plot line was kind of choppy.

Anyway, during one part, a woman and some bad guy are having some kind of standoff with guns. The woman is about to pull the trigger when some other guy decides to, although he does NOT have a gun but seems to carry some kind of pole instead (no, not a kendo stick, a POLE), intervene and ends up getting shot.

Then next time I was watching again, the young main character was there with the woman and was talking to the bad guy.

Bad guy: *looks pretty evil* You really believe?
Young main character: *confidentally* Yes, I believe.
BG: *breaks into hysterical laughter*

The following part does not fit into my idea of detective show...

The bad guy takes out a sword... long knife... thing, the young main character is unarmed. They move forward to attack each other and some kind of... imaginary sword appears in the main character guy`s hand. Anyway, he`s unharmed by the real sword, but the bad guy is hurt. He recovers, looks at the good guys with a really pouty expression, then takes off.

............

Yay!

Yeah, it was kind of a funny show.

Anyway, I`ve been logging on daily onto AIM via meebo at work and hanging out on facebook chat quite a lot, so you can probably catch me on there if you want to chat. I get off of work at around 4:15 pm my time, that`s 12:15 am in California, so I`m usually around most of the evening. At least until school starts in September.

Oh, I`m going to be out of town next week, too.

Air Plane Blog Vol. 2 and more

Greetings from Tokyo! I'm in the hotel now and I have a little bit of time. It's late and I'm exhausted from a full day of orientation, then hanging out with Tokyo friends, but I thought I'd drop a line. Orientation, despite being busy and a little boring sometimes, has been a great experience.

I'm heading down to my placement city on Wednesday.

Anyway, as Bethany requested, here's another blog I wrote on the plane. (I did one a little over two years ago on my MySpace blog)

I'm just pasting it and I don't really remember what it says. But I'm tired so I'll come back and read it some other time after you guys are already done. :)

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

So, as requested, I’m typing another mid-air blog that I will actually post later.

Bethany pretty much sold the idea of writing another plane blog when she said-

“You should do another blog on the plane. I love those!”

I was amused that her request made it sound like I’ve posted more than one already.

So, realizing that it’s been a little over a year now since my last blog in mid-air, I got on a plane today. I thought Japan would be a nice long flight that would allow me to piece together my thoughts into the greatest blog ever written in an airplane.

Seriously, though, I hope that this blog will live up to the “legacy” of last years.

Unlike last time I wrote a blog from a plane, I’m in the back row of my section, meaning I can lean back. So I can type without the burdern of what I remember calling “T-Rex arms.”

We haven’t even reached the International dateline yet! It seems like we’ve been flying forever now due to the fact that JET had us fly to Los Angeles first, THEN get on the actual flight to Japan. Oh well. American Airlines has impressed me more this time than others because of the selection of movies, television shows, and games they have to choose from.

So far, I’ve watched The Chronicles of Narnia- Prince Caspian and a few episodes of The Office. There are actually three episodes available to me on here, but one of them I already watched with my brother. The episodes I hadn’t seen before (because this will interest Jesse), were the one where the branch was going to close and the one where Michael teams up the staff to go out and make sales.

Narnia, by the way, was great- I hope I don’t forget it as I often do with inflight movies.

Right now, I am 10972 meters off the ground, going 535 mph, and I still have 5 hours and 40 minutes before I arrive in Japan.

This somehow doesn’t feel random enough. I’m certainly tired enough to write something like last time.

Aaaaahhhhh…

My legs hurt.

During the rest of the flight, I think I might end up watching Iron Man, Shrek the Third, and Sand Chronicles (Japanese movie).

Compared to my flight last year where all of the inflight movies involved CAR ACCIDENTS, this is very pleasant.

Sleeepy. I still can’t sleep on the plane. Sad.

For some reason, I thought that “sad.” was going to turn into a hyperlink. To where is a mystery.

This probably isn’t as fun as the other plane blog. Again, I didn’t think that first one was that fun when I was actually writing it.

Probably everybody should write a plane blog at least once in their life.

Everyday.

Yes.

Wooo! We’re approching the international dateline.

Earlier, another person on the plane couldn’t find his passport and there was an announcement over the intercom about it, I thought everyone was going to applaud when they found it. They didn’t.

Sad.

A lot of people are up and walking around now. We’re not landed yet, everybody! It’s still 4607 km to go!

It would be great if they are all getting up to celebrate crossing the international dateline. I always want people to do that when I’m flying to Japan and back because it’s like the half way point. Instead I just celebrate by myself by changing my clock to Japan time.

It’s 6:24 pm US time, I’ve been on this plane for about 6 hours now.

Okay, I suppose this went on long enough. Hope Plane Blog Vol. 2 is as enjoyable (?) as Vol. 1!

Eep

This is probably my last post here before I'm off to Japan. Tomorrow, I'm going to San Francisco for my pre-departure orientation and the next day I'm off.

By the way- as I've been talking about to various people, I started a Japan life blog. Which I will:

1) Update weekly on whatever day I figure out is best.
2) I plan to, lack of fatigue provided, actually provide STRUCTURE to my posts and actually completely more or less plan them before posting.

I still plan this blog to be the home of... well... whatever you'd call what's here already. I don't think anyone who isn't interested in reading this blog written from the US should have any more interest in reading the blogs written from Japan.

On the other hand, because this blog is updated randomly and my blogs sometimes (...often) have very substance, the Japan life blog might work well with it.

Anyway, we'll see how this all works out.

Oh! Something kind of funny happened today. My mom and I were talking about these pills that we got for my eyes and I was talking about how the main ingredients were fish and soy. After talking about the abundance of soy in Japanese food, I suddenly said:

"I'm going to be eating fishy"

.......

I meant to say-

"I'm also going to be eating a lot more fish once I get to Japan."

But somehow I reverted to being 5.

Anyway, I broke into uncontrollable laughter after that.

I might be checking back in here from Tokyo, but if not, I guess I'll update again sometime after August 6th.

Unpack to pack

MOST everything I had at the house sitting house was moved to the new place. Just now I finished putting all of the clothes in the closets, dresser, and giving myself a sense of order that I've been missing for about a month.

It seems silly that I am settling in this room this much when I am leaving again so soon, but after a month of trying to pack while all of my suitcases are already full of the very same things I was trying to organize, I'm VERY eager to use this new space to become organized and make the remainder of my packing a lot less painful.

While some packing has been done, at the same time those bags were my dresser and I had very little space to hang them, so really all that's been done is some brainstorming and working my way through so everything will fit.

I feel like I repeated myself at least 10 times this blog. Probably because I keep distracting myself.

Mom and David are progressing well with settling in here. Jesse and Arpee are still going to be around and it's great to hang out with them as much as I've been. Sam is coming today for one night to hang out.

It's Monday and I fly out with Saturday. I usually feel ill before getting on the plane to Japan and this time it's going to be a move- so here's hoping I won't have a monster of an anxiety stomach ache.

House No. 2

Today we're back in the old location, but in a brand new house. It's great to feel clean in this place (unlike the other place that did -NOT- feel clean), but it will be even better to have an actual bed after tomorrow.

Tomorrow's another big moving day. Jesse and Arpee are here to help out. Danny is coming over, too.

I might be kind of limited because I still have stitches from the procedure I mentioned last blog.

Anyway, I'm tired and I have to get up waaaaay early tomorrow.

G'night!

Uninspired title

I've been pausing in thought before typing in my titles a lot lately. Can you tell?

This morning, I woke up earlier than I wanted to because I had an appointment for a very minor medical procedure. One of the moles on my arm got bigger one day and started looking weird, so... well, as I told the doctor (jokingly)-

"I have this bump on my arm, but then it starting acting weird, so I'm done with it."

......umm... keep in mind I was still really really tired when I said that.

Anyway, so as I faced the other way and focused on the fishes painted on the wall and tiredly wondered if the numb sensation in my arm felt anything like how a plum feels when birds munch on it.

.....ummm... this was because a plum was all I had to eat before going to the appointment.

Refocusing on more coherent thoughts (...yeah, those again), I have stitches on my arm and they're a pain. My ex-mole (wow, this blog is -weird-) is going to be sent somewhere to be tested to make sure it doesn't have anything bad. Don't worry, though, chances are the mole was completely harmless and the whole reason why we did this was just a precaution because I am moving overseas.

On the topic of the last blog, I called my bank yesterday and sorted all of that overdraft business.

My yen was delivered to my bank today and now I have mostly yen to my name instead of US dollars.

I felt kind of ill today. My stomach was bothering me and I felt pretty dizzy. It probably is stress with everything that's going on.

At least my eyes aren't red today, although they are pretty itchy. I tried wearing contacts again for a few hours a couple of days ago and my eyes STILL turned bright red. *sigh*

My mind is still very groggy and I managed to type at least 4 comprehensible, full sentences, so I think I'll call this a completed entry.

....

10 days since my last blog.

Around 14 days until I'm off to Japan.

I guess I'm more than due to write another blog then.

My bank is doing funny things again- it put money in my account because for some reason it think I overdrew my account. I didn't- so I have to call the bank on Monday and set everything straight.

My big deposit that made the difference was deposited three days before and in cash- so why that didn't show up for them goes well beyond my scope of comprehension.

Anyway, so I've been just hanging around these days.

My dad and April came by today to get my boxes out of the storage so that they can keep them while I'm in Japan.

Other than Japan prep, I'm afraid there's not a lot to talk about these days.

Waking up today

So I haven't mentioned this before on the blog, but the cat at the house we're housesitting for has a HORRIBLE sounding meow. She's a spoiled thing that makes horrible sounds that -normal- cats only use when they're in pain when something so small is bothering her (like a closed door or something). Needless to say, I am NOT a big fan of that cat and her MEEEOORRWWWWWW.

And, as many people know- I don't care slightest bit for the sound of Cher's voice (I mean the man-like voice that plagued our radios late 90s-ish.)

Anyway, that brings me to how I woke up this morning.

For some reason, at the very end of my dream as I was waking up, there was some kind of random Cher song playing. And as I woke up, it gradually turned into that stupid cat's meow.

Haha, isn't that priceless?

That's probably the funniest connection my mind has ever made!

Goodbye, Old Friend

Josef the Lion from Wild Things passed away yesterday.

The model for Adult Simba/Mufasa in Lion King, the lion in the Cadbury cream egg commercial, one of the lions used for the MGM logo, amongst other things.

http://www.wildthingsinc.com/html/_big__cats.html

But most importantly for me, he was my 'neighbor' that I could sometimes hear roaring in the morning from my house.

Although I only saw him twice when I was in the first few grades of elementary school, I consider him to have been an awesome part of my childhood.

He was my absolute favorite big cat in the world and one of my biggest dreams was to meet him again and get a chance to pet him.

Rest in peace, Josef.

4th

According to the clock on my computer, there is three minutes left in the 4th of July.
Could be wrong, though.

Hope everyone had a great one!

I went to Spreckles to check out the festivities over there and hang out with Bethany a little. It was fun.

Soledad continues to be the best place in Monterey Bay to see fireworks. You get to be sooo close to them (although they were further back this year than normally.) Then, afterward, on the way home you can watch the firework shows of cities as you pass through. It's great fun!

I'm going to miss 4th of July in Soledad.

One more minute left.

1,000,010

Phrases like "a million and ten" are my silly, somewhat dramatized way of saying "a lot." People who are more inclined towards numbers might be confused by that or annoyed finding it to be an exaggeration, but I am personally not so inclined so it works for me.

A million and ten works for me because, as I am not very good with numbers, it's more than I can picture. Like if someone mentioned a stadium full of a million people and then another person mentioned a stadium full of a billion people, I can't really picture the difference in number of people in my head. I understand that there are a lot of people, so many that I can't possibly keep track of every one of them. There could really be any number and there's really no way of counting.

I decided today there there are a million and ten things that I would kill to be okay with. But instead, there is something inside of me putting it's foot down, refusing to cooperate, and making my efforts futile. Not just me, though, I think most everyone probably has their a million and ten things. Things that you might be able to shrug off in front of people, but inwardly it's the last thing you really want to be dealing with.

I guess I'll go into an example of one of mine.

From what I've been hearing people say lately, I don't think they understand how hard it is for me to be moving to another country. It hasn't been easy for me at all to think about leaving my family, friends, and this area I've grown up in, even if it's just a for a few years and most definitely not forever. Some people seem to be kind of focused on the situation on their end of me leaving. Do they realize that I not only share their feeling about leaving not just them, but so many others?

I would love to be completely okay with the concept of leaving this country and the people in it, but it's completely impossible. I can't feel okay about it. If I gave anyone the impression that I expect it to be easy or I'm having an easy time with it, I should seriously go back to theater.

I'm definitely not saying that I'm going to give up JET for the world (well, maybe I would for the world...) I'm definitely going. I just wish that people could recognize how hard it is. I've never been good with good byes and it makes me really sad just to think about having so many so soon.

Japan is going to be amazing. But I'm going there because I want to be there, not necessarily because I don't want to be here (well, I'd move out of my mom's house either way. :) )

Anyway, that's something that's been weighing on me. Not consistently because I've been trying not to think about it.

If anyone who reads this wants to do their own 1,000,010 things they want to be okay with blog, I'd like to see it. :)

Key free

So on Wednesday, I sold my car.

And after adding up what was in my bank account after depositing this money with the money in my paypal account from selling things on eBay, then converting it to yet, I figured out that I am only about $12 short of what JET suggests I should bring to Japan.

So as long as no crazy expenses come up, I'm set money-wise. :)

It IS really strange to be without car keys.

There's more to this--

Because the old house is now gone and the new house has yet to be put in, I do not have house keys.

Technically, I -do- still have my old house key, but it has no purpose now.

Which leaves three of those mini cards on my keychain--

Autozone- I don't have a car anymore
Curves- Membership just expired
Borders- I still have the full sized card in my wallet, which is what I've been using anyway because I have a giftcard as well.

So basically there is NO reason for me to be carrying around a keys, keychains, or anything of the like.

Nonetheless, I still have the keyring with the old housekey, the three mini cards, and my keychains in my purse.

Denial? Or is it that going around without keys is just too foreign of a concept for me.

I know there are some shades of denial in all of this. I'm going through so many changes these days that sometimes I've been feeling like screaming/crying. For the most part, though, I've been able to keep cheerful, distract myself, and keep myself preoccupied with excitement about living in Japan.

The nomadic life

These past few days have been REALLY hectic.

Today was the last day to move things out. I was out of town Saturday-Sunday, so I missed much of the final cleaning out of the house. Mom and David ended up putting a lot of things that were left over outside with a tarp over it because they found they didn't have time to properly take care of everything. It should be okay because nothing really valuable is in that bunch, anyway.


I went to San Francisco on Saturday for a JET orientation on Sunday. Saturday was a crazy day in itself-

The morning was much like the previous mornings- HOT due to the heatwave we were having. Then, around noontime, all of the sudden clouds came in and we had a storm complete with rain, thunder, and lighting. It was the longest thunder and lightning storm I've seen in this area for a long time. Anyway, so I took off for San Francisco in the midst of that storm and it followed me a good portion of the way.

Then, when I got out of the stormy weather, I was pretty much in the Bay Area so I had to narrowly dodge two car accidents with careless lane changers. It was pretty scary. However, I got to my aunt's house in San Fran successfully without missing a single exit. (yaaaaaay!)

I hung out at my aunt's house for a little while before taking off for the BART station to meet Bethany and Billy at 24th and Market. My aunt suggested that stop as some place we can look around for a good place to eat dinner, but she told me later that she forgot to tell me exactly where the good places are. We wandered around the streets a little and decided to do a "taco tour" due to the number of Mexican places around. Our "taco tour" consisted of just two places in the end. I'll have to admit that I personally lost some enthusiasm for the tour after finding that the first place was going to be a tough act to follow. Sure enough, the second place was nowhere as good. Anyway, we had fun walking around the area. Woo! Go Taco Tour! (haha)

My aunt picked me up from there and she drove me a little ways to where the restaurants she had in mind were, they were actually more trendier places. It was kind of funny how off we were in our "taco tour", but I think it suited us better anyway.

The next day was the JET orientation, which was REALLY informative, interesting, and pretty fun. I suppose it has to be a good orientation if it's supposed keep people around from 10-4. Of course I wore my black suit jacket, white button up shirt, and black skirt because, as it seems to always work with JET, there was a business casual dress code. (I think it's kind of funny how much I've had to wear that black suit jacket and black skirt since the JET interview.)

My aunt took me out to dinner after the orientation and we went to an East Indian restaurant where I had really great chicken curry and really big and fluffy naan bread. It was so great that I think the part of my heart that broke after learning Indian Clay Oven closed mended a little. :)

I was REALLY tired driving on the way back, so I was relieved and happy to arrive back at "home" again safely.

On the topic of "home," the housesitting house has yet to really feel like some place I really belong. We're working on making this place suit us better for the time being, but really it's still kind of odd. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but a few days before we moved in, we opened the hide-a-bed(?) couch where I was supposed to sleep and found that a mouse had made it's home there. We cleaned it, put the mattress outside (replaced it with a futon mattress), so everything is sanitary, but still when I close the doors I still smell that the house was settled there. We keep intending to cleaning more to get the smell away, but we haven't gotten around to that yet. It's hard to feel like I have my own space when I don't even feel like I can keep the doors shut for more than little while. Hopefully, though, it'll be taken care of soon.

My car, it seems, will be sold and out of my hands on Thursday.

The lack of my own closed off space and how my car will be sold soon is the combination for why I'm feeling kind of awkward and uncomfortable here. I don't feel like I should be taking off in my car because it doesn't entirely feel like I should and I don't feel like I have my comfortable space to get away in the house yet. (Plus David's less than cheery disposition in response to the stress as of lately.) I keep feeling antsy and like I really want to go somewhere and get away from the house. *sigh* Hopefully this feeling will improve when I can shut my doors. And if it doesn't, I guess it will make me more eager to leave for Japan and easier for leave despite things (people) I'm leaving behind. (Aaaaah, sad thoughts.)

On the topic of trying not to think about leaving people behind to go to Japan, I have been feeling a lot more sensitive lately because of that. I am, of course, psyched to be moving to Japan, but I know I'm not going to like the good byes. I've been avoiding sad things lately, like I used to watch Japanese drama and read books that are sad, but now I am avoiding them for more cheerful, humorous things.

Anyway, here's a long blog. I'm a lot more awake now and I used an outline, so hopefully this is a lot more structured that the other blogs I've been posting lately. I can't promise there are no typos, though, because for some reason, as I've mentioned before, spell (& typo) checking isn't something I usually end up doing or worrying about on my blog. Sorry if something makes absolutely no sense at all. :D

Heatwave

It's been hot lately.

Not exactly ideal for moving.

Yesterday was the big day in which we got a bunch of people together to move the bigger furniture to storage. Much thanks to Bethany and Billy for coming to help out then.

It was a lot of fun to hang out with those two as well. It was kind of funny to be around Billy because I kind of felt like I knew him already, so I kept forgetting to act like we had just met in person that day. Anyway, it was good times.

Tomorrow, I am heading up to San Fran for an all day JET program orientation on Sunday. I'm going to be staying at my aunt's house and hopefully be able to meet Bethany and Billy again for dinner that night.

So basically this means we get a chance to ride the BART. Yaaaay.

How come I always notice just how tired I am when I'm blogging?

House No. 1

It's the first night in house number 1 of 3 of this summer.

So last night was our final night staying at our house. We officially moved to the house that we are sitting for while the family that owns this house is on vacation. Today was really hectic not only packing all of the essentials to live at this house for about a month, but also preparing for tomorrow. We're renting a truck tomorrow and we're having a number of people over to help us move the bigger furniture to storage.

I don't feel like I'm writing very well at the moment. Let me just explain that I am really REALLY tired at the moment.

This room is kind of stuffy and I'm not sure why, but I have a window open. I didn't want bugs to come in through the hole in the screen, so I blocked it with tissue. (That was my mom's idea, btw.)

Wow, I was going to write more, but I seriously can't function.

G'night.

Buy, sell, and Japan info.

I have quite a bit to update on. So much that I wonder how good of a job I'll be able to do.

First of all, I got a letter from my JET predecessor. She told me all about the job I am going to be starting and the apartment that I am going to be moving into (which are both hers at the moment). Everything sounds REALLY awesome. She also sent pictures, which I won't post here because it's not my apartment to post pictures on the internet of at the moment. But yeah, let me know if you want me to send you the address of the apartment or forward the pictures via email (I've already done that a number of times.)

The temp agency still hasn't called me about any really short terms jobs. I could really use the money for Japan. The JET program recommends us to bring about $3,000 to tide us over until our first payment. I think I should be able to get $2,000 for my car, I currently have around $500 to my name- so if I try to refrain from spending money, I have about $500 more to figure out. I think I might actually be okay $500 short because I already know that my apartment requires no rent (which is something that not every JET gets to find out before they leave the US- unfortunately.)

I've been selling things on eBay and raking in some dough that way. Not a lot, of course. Although I was surprised to find I had a collector's item (baffled, even.)

Meanwhile I finished packing all of my stuff to keep at my dad's house while I'm in Japan, so now I just have the stuff I want to have in Japan with me. My room is pretty empty. Some people came by last week and bought my futon couch. Tomorrow or the day after, I am going to be moving for the first time this summer (of a total of three.)

Mom and David are upgrading to a manufactured home, so we're going to be moving out of this house (we've been putting things in storage) and into a house that we will be sitting for while the family who owns the house is on vacation. Then, after the house is set, we'll move into the new manufactured home (move #2), and about a week after that, I'm off to Japan (move #3)- pretty crazy, right? I've already planned to use the move from here to the housesitting place as a sort of practice run for packing for Japan. We'll see how that works out.

...I just remembered I had images to add to this blog....

Moving back to the topic of hearing from my predecessor, it occurred, I think, the day after all that mess with my graduation application. I was so bummed out by that mess when it was occurring, that I saved the file onto my desktop as "worstnewsever." When it got all cleared up so quickly, I moved the file to my recycling bin. Then, when I got the letter from my predecessor, that I saved it onto my desktop and named it...


On the letter was my address, which I, of course, looked up on google maps. I found a place that MIGHT be the location of the office I will be working at. I was curious because the letter said that it takes 10 minutes to get there from the apartment walking and 5 minutes by bicycle. So I compared it to the distance I walked to Chuo University from my host family's house last summer-


I used the map on the right (although it's been rotated) on a blog last summer to illustrate the distance I walked from my host family's house to the building that has the International Office at Chuo University. (The blue lines are a little hard to see because I made the image a lot smaller). On the left is the best route from what I could tell from the apartment building I will be living in Hioki city to what I think is the office building. I was surprised to see that (because the zoom is the same on both maps), that the Chuo distance is actually quite a bit longer.

Anyway, that's all I can think to write at the moment.

Madness

So yesterday I got an email from CSUMB the admin and records office.

Saying, basically, that I didn't complete the graduation requirments.

The problems were that I didn't take the required course Japanese 302 (which, funny enough, was never offered. I took Japanese 380 in it's place) and that they didn't have any proof that I attended the Chuo Summer Program last summer.

I, of course, was really devastated to hear that news, but I immediately replied to the email and got in touch with my Japanese professors.

I called Ann last night to tell her about the issue and give her a warning that she might have the same problem, it slipped my mind that because she's in Pennsylvania now, she was a few hours ahead so I ended up calling pretty late on her end.

But she got back at me (unintentionally) this morning calling me and waking me up early to tell me that she checked her email and didn't have problem.

After the phonecall, I was anxious about this whole thing (I need to get proof of graduation to the JET office by July 3rd or no moving to Japan in August...), so I got up and checked my email. I wrote a few more, realized I was REALLY tired, and went back to bed.

I woke up again and got back to emailing back and forth. One of my Japanese professors, Sekine-sensei, emailed and confirmed that I took Japanese 380 instead of 302 and the change was made.

I also emailed a digital copy of my proof of attendance. So now all that's left is for the head of Japanese for WLC, Saito-sensei, to email confirming that I really did go to Chuo.

Then after that my proof of graduation should take no time at all.

*PHEW*

Why are things always a hassle at CSUMB? I almost didn't get in because when counting my transfer units, they forgot to count a class I did at that school already when I was still technically a MPC student. I went to campus personally and fixed that mistake. I was prepared to do that again this time (go to campus personally), but luckily, this time I didn't have to.

It looks like it's going to work out okay.

Thanks, Krystina, for listening to my hysterics last night. :)

In other news-

(also relating to "madness")

I've been packing up things for moving and I found my old Mad Libs books.

......I don't need to explain what mad libs are, do I? If so, this might be a good time for you to utilize wikipedia and then contemplate your empty childhood.

I meant that in the nicest way possible. (haha)

Anyway, I thought I'd share at least one old mad lib here. The blanks are filled with my handwriting and I can tell Jesse was involved because... well... you'll see:

(just a warning, apparently we had a little trouble with "verbs" vs. "adjectives" back then....)

What not to eat for lunch

Everyone knows that kids who eat junk food turn out hastily. Make sure your lunch dead person's head is filled with nutritious green food. Do not go to the blue food stand across the street from your school. The hamburgers they serve are fried in Julia and are made of Jessesaurus meat. The hot dogs contain chemicals such as hydrogenated Jessethol and sodium Mama. And they are made from ground up fish. If you spend time pushing around these places you will get fat and humongous and people will call you a Julia's face. So take a sandwich made of chicken or bologna and lettuce of spaghetti and all my brain cells. And drink healthy Murphy milk instead of chemical cola drinks. If you eat good food, you might grow up to become president of Turkey.

-------------
Best parts:
A container : dead person's head
Something icky : Julia
An animal: Jessesaurus
A chemical: Jessethol
A silly word: Mama
Silly word: Julia's face
An animal: Murphy

----------

Yaaay! Fun stuff.
I think maybe when I'm doing JET, I'll bring mad libs to the English classes I'm co-teaching and make a class activity from them. :D