Days Off

Had the day off today. I just kinda lounged, slept in till like 9, which is almost late now that I've been getting up around 7:45am most days. It's cause I get direct sunlight in my room now. I'm thankful for it.

Anyway, last night I went to Barbie's house for a little dinner party thingie. Rebekah made some 'authentic Trindad food' which consisted of pasta (just pasta, unseasoned pasta) green salad and some kind of beef, yam and carrot stir fry. Little did I know it but Trinidad food is the same as American college food, complete with tough meat and paper plates/plastic forks. And plenty of booze to make sure no one thinks too much about it. Just like college.

The occasion was Barbie's birthday, which is on Friday. I met up with Ty in Shin Matsudo after he got out of the gym and I got off work, and we headed out there together, but not before ducking into the public restroom outside the station so he could change. I point this out because the sign over the entrance says "Po'o".
Once on the train, we chatted about his recently re-soled shoes in mock interest, and enjoyed using the priority seats since he's fresh out of knee surgery. It's nice to be a cripple. Once at the party, we chatted with other party goers in mock interest, and enjoyed using the priority party futon/couch since we're the people they really wanted to see anyway. It's nice to be well liked.

So after Trini food, handmade cake, tactfully ignoring Hillary's Amanda-like but far less attractive sociopathy, random photos with Natascha and quirky facial expressions, repeatedly failed magic tricks, poor attempts by socially inept guys to get Barbie drunk, and several beers myself, Ty and I decided to make our exit, sometime around 12:30am. We decided this because Rebekah had then reached her horny and/or emo drinking threshold, and that's generally as good a time as any to skip town. This is where I picked up the first of many treasures, the random massive visor thingie.

Ty and I walked back from Kita-Kogane, which was fun, we told random drunk stories and laughed the whole time. I peed on things, and stole citrus fruit from trees along the way. Delicious. We had walking home beers, which was a point of debate for Ty since he's on antibiotics and just had surgery, but, there's only so much you can take, ya know?

Today, I lounged. Wrote some more songs. One day I'll have an album. Thanks, GarageBand.

AP(#y54ph3qi4DG

I hate rain. I really, really hate rain. Rain is essentially the epitome of all things I hate.

I used to like rain, when it was warm torrential downpours living in Texas, but this, this isn't ok. Winter rain, cold miserable rain. Now Amanda don't get me wrong, I like walks in the rain, but not my walk to work.

Just wanted to say that for the record. I'm gonna go see how my new look goes over at work. I call it, 'drowned rat.'

Natoko Nantoko

And so on and so forth. Life's been pretty ho-hum in the last couple days, nothing really all that exciting to say. Kerry, the Area Manager, came to my branch yesterday to talk to Emi about some problems that have been coming up with scheduling, and that was exciting in the kind of way only a boss's presence can be.
Today is normally my kids day from hell, with my Junior class that I enjoy so very much, but I had Emi talk to them beforehand and tell them that if they spoke in Japanese or ran or fought in class they would be severly disciplined, and that seemed to work. Apparently they think Emi is scary, and well, lol sometimes I can see why they would think that.

I was thinking about payday again today. I hate how much time I spend thinking about money. It's so consuming, and emotionally taxing, thinking about finances all the time. I mean, even when I'm excited because of the potential for financial stability, I still know that the fact I think about it at all makes it tainted. I hate it because I know that I'm excited only because I've been without for so long.

What got to me was that now that I've been living like this for so long, and being such a penny pincher wherever possible, I don't really want to let it go. All I can think about is how much I could save if I just continued to live how I have been. It's not like I'm eating scraps off other people's plates and fishing through the garbage, so really, what's the point in living extravagantly and having little to show for it but a beer gut? But at the same time I know I need to afford myself nice things once in a while just to give myself a reason to save, and reward myself. I dunno, it's frustrating in its own little way.

Basically, I'm faced with being financially responsible and paying off as much credit debt as possible as soon as possible, maintaining my current budget of meager living and steady repayment of debt, or spend the money I have left over on nice things and nights out on the town. My concern is that I'll get swept away in the excitement of having a paycheck that's actually more than enough and never get into the habit of saving anything. Time to button down I guess and stick to my guns for long enough to have some padding. Padding would be nice.

Basically, I'd rather have a fat wallet than a fat tummy. It would seem that saving money is costing me calories, and that's a price I'm willing to pay.

Marshal Mathers says...

"I've seen groupies on the road and women just throwing themselves at you just because you're famous, and I hate that," the rapper was quoted by Vanity Fair magazine, as saying.

"It takes your opinion of women and lowers it. How can these girls dress like this? (I'm) not saying I'm not attracted to it, but how can these girls portray themselves in this way and then get mad if we call them a `bitch' or a `ho,' or whatever the case being?" he added.

I think comedian David Chappelle explained it best in the following:

If there was a fireman in front of your house, and your home was on fire, you might run to the fireman and say "Mr. Fireman, Help! My house is on fire!". Then imagine that same fireman saying "excuse me!", "just because I am dressed this way does not make me a fireman!". The same situation can be applied to the majority of young women in America who dress like whores. I mean, just because she is dressed that way DOES NOT make her a whore. But, who can tell the diffrence when all the girls are wearing a whore's uniform?

Adventures in Japanese

Well, shit. That was fun. Lemme bring you up to speed here.

I woke up yesterday to find there was no hot water. Additionally, the stove didn't work. Ding ding ding, you guessed it, they shut off the gas. With a sinking feeling I sent a message to Ty and started rummaging through the junk mail pile and located the three bills that were mentioned on the piece of paper stuck in our door informing us officially of this outage.
Seeing as I like showering, and cooking, I took the three bills with me when I met Bryan yesterday in Shin Matsudo and paid them at 7-11 (all people pay their bills here, including rent, at convenience stores. Fantastic. Actually convenient.). The total was 24,199 yen. Yeehaw.
Well, I crossed my fingers that would remedy our problem, but as the hours passed I realized that Japan, much like America, didn't work on an automated, easy-going utility system.

So, now, this morning, I just got off the phone with the gas company, which was an adventure all its own. See, when you call someone in Japan, the first thing one usually says is, "誰か英語ができますか？” Unfortunately for me, the answer was “今、ちょっといない．．." "Does anyone speak English?" "Umm...not so much." So I got to put my Japanese to the real litmuss test and waded through an entire technical conversation. Apparently even though I paid the bill, they have to sent someone out to turn the gas on, which will come at the cost of 3000 yen. I told them I'd be at home between 1 and 3pm today, and all in all I think I understood the majority of the convo, without actually understanding most of the explanation in the middle.

Now that I've been in more than a few survival situations here in Japan, I'm starting to realize the value in those lessons I took. I also see the value in the lessons on similar subjects I teach at Nova. That would be a nearly impossible thing to do for an non-Japanese speaking person. Which also means that there's no way Dave would have done it on his own, with Ty in the hospital. So I was the only person who was going to pay or remedy this bill, basically. Well, at least I don't owe rent this month, after paying the entirety of it fixing the gas from the three months prior to my moving here. Yeehaw.

Thoughts of Vladivostok

So...I checked my email this morning to find that none other than Ms. Koryakova herself had commented on my pictures on my website. I tried to get in touch with her to little avail, emailing her to find that her account was no longer active. Zhenya, for those of you who don't know, was my girlfriend when I was living in Japan the first time for my study abroad. I hold those times close in my heart.

I emailed her and she wrote me back this afternoon with a bunch of pictures, letting me know what's new with her and welcoming my to Vladivostok anytime, despite skepticism of my seriousness. I am, in fact, very serious about going there, it's only 2.5 hours from here, and by the end of the summer I should be able to afford it. I don't wanna go when it's a complete frozen wasteland, so summer seems like an appropriate time.

It stirs up a lot of memories though, and a lot of feelings I had forgotten about. I mean, when you're in a country for two months and you have a relationship with someone, it has a certain feeling about it that's kinda different from a relationship that could have but didn't last longer than that. I came home happy with the whole thing, knowing I made the most of it I could. And, in all honesty, Zhenya is the only person I've actually had an actual, titled relationship with since Liesl. But I've never actually really considered what things would be like in a longer term type deal. Not that it's in the immediate future or anything, but talking to her now makes me think about it.

So. I'm going to go to Mother Russia and see this girl. Liesl wasn't the only person to tell me Zhenya looks like the kind of girl they always pictured me with. So. Ugh.

She's needy, and kinda bitchy, and somewhat high maintenance, as any well to do Russian woman ought to me, and frankly I like that in a girl. One girl in particular who's e-stalking me and reading this knows exactly what I mean ( I love you stinky).

I will give her this though; she swears in Russian, and that's fucking hot.

Inappropriate Laughter

So I went and wired money home in 柏 Kashiwa after discovering that the 新松戸 branch of SMBC can't do international remittance. I was gonna bring my bedding home on the way back to松戸 Matsudo to meet Rebekah, but I ran out of time, so I just went to 南柏 Minami-Kashiwa and ate lunch.

Rebekah and I hammed it up on the train ride out to wherever we went past 新宿 Shinjuku but the real fun started once we got inside. We got on the elevator, and had to go to the tenth floor, but thanks to someone in a wheelchair, a visitor and a nurse, we were seperated and stood on opposite ends of the elevator. But we kept shooting each other glances, sticking our tongues out, and soon, the giggling started. Now, it's bad enough when you giggle in an elevator when everyone speaks your language. But when you're in a hospital in another country, and you're chocking back laughter and failing, it's the best. We got off the elevator and just starting laughing outloud, I was crying, it was great.

Ty's doing well, we got to see his blood bag which drains his, well, blood, that leaks from his wounds after surgery, and we laughed it up talking about various oddities of Japan and their hospitals. Like, "Peep, peep" and "Goo, goo." I'll leave you to figure that out.

View Pics from that day

Once Again

I'm off to the bank today to send all my money back home. I also have to go to the Nagareyama City office and change my address, as well as call Vodafone and change my address with them as well. After that I'm off to the hospital near Shibuya with Rebekah to see Ty, my roommate, after his ACL surgery.

It's going to be a busy day so I got up early today after going to bed before midnight *gasp*. It kinda sucks that I actually kinda like getting up this early, because I can relax and do whatever I want fo ra few hours before really having to do anything. That way I'm not all tired and worn out when I have to leave. I think I'm getting old. Soon enough I'm gonna get up at like 5am like my dad and do nothing for hours on end. Maybe start working on the house, and fixing things that aren't broken. I hope not.

I'm budgeting myself pretty hard again this month. This is the last time though I'll need to do this, so I'm happy about that. 600 yen a day is what I can afford, but this time around that doesn't include travel money, which I already spent on passes. I wouldn't have bought them all, as in all honesty with the exception of the JR train pass it's cheaper to go day to day, but I had to so I would get travel money from Nova for it. And it does allow me to travel whenever I want, which is convenient.

I want spring to come like, right now. Now. Riiiiiight now. Ready go. I'm really fucking sick of cold.

Hangovers Suck

I went to The Roof last night after work with Gabe and Ethan, we drank it up and chatted away about the creepy girl who was staring at us the entire night. When we got there, we got in the elevator at the same time as a woman who was done up in a little too much line makeup, and after a small fiasco involving having the elevator doors closed on me, by her, we sat down and started drinking and watching the Skeleton heats for the 2006 Olympics, which Canada dominated. She sat at the other end of the bar by herself the whole night, clearly there to be picked up, and staring at us unerringly the entire time we were there. It was actually kinda funny.

So while were we were joking about that, we started betting on the Olympics. We were watching the heats and putting 10, 50, 100, sometimes 300 yen down on the tenth of a second time for each of the heats. It was getting pretty intense after a while, and I was down quite a bit, but then I won the big 300 yen bet and that put me back in the black. We kinda had to laugh at how much we were tainting the sanctity of the Olympics by betting on it, but, hell it was fun. That and I didn't lose, so it couldn't be THAT bad.

Having said that, I was stupid hungover today. Not really STUPID hungover, but, enough that my lessons were interesting to say the least for the first little portion of the day. I was supposed to have a demo lesson, but thankfully enough they didn't show up. Dave and Ty are both gone, so for the next two days it's just me, myself and the cat. Rock on.

I Love This Country

I just had my love for this country renewed. See, I work in a mall with lots of trendy shops and boutiques, so of course they play the laters (3 months old) American pop and hip hip. Well, the thin is, no one actually understands the words. It's like that commercial for English school where the family gets in the car, little kids and all, and the radio is playing the song "I Wanna Fuck You in the Ass," by the Outhere Brothers, but the tune is catchy so they start groovin out to it. Ever listened to a song in a nother language, even one you can speal? It's almost impossible most times to make out what they're saying.

So anyway, I'm on my way to have a cigaretee and I hear David Banner's "Play" coming from one of the stores nearby. Well, it's certainly not the radio edit. So here I am in a mall filled with kids and elderly folks, listening to a rather graphic depiction of what he wants these girls to do out on the dance floor. Cracks me up.

Moe, one of my kids, gave me candy today after class. It was banana flavored. I saked what flavor Gakushi's was, but he didn't understand, so I pointed to my mouth and said, "Banana. I hate banana."

On more kids related notes, I got my cover form today for Kids Coordinator training on the 2nd of March. Yes, that's right, it's official, I'm the K.C. for my branch now. Yay for more work and no greater pay.

In my group of little angels Kinder class Naomi, my favorite, and Ruka, my other favorite, started dancing together while we were doing the "I can dance" portion of the lesson. They were holding hands and jumping around in circles, and it was about the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Naomi wore a Powerpuff Girls visor to class today, that sealed her supercoolness forever. Naomi reminds me a lot of Paige F. actually, who I suppose only one person who doesn't read this would know. Anyway, I looked up while they were dancing, I had to tear myself away from dancing myself as I do love the dancing, and I saw that one of the moms (kids lessons are a spectator sport here) taking a picture of them dancing. So cute. Immortalized in what must have been a poorly taken, blurry photograph. With me halfway in the air looking retarded. But immortal.

Hiroko, my branch's only level 3, chose to describe energy tranferrence when asked to describe a process. I was going to suggest plant life cycles, but, sure why not? Nothing like a little physics to get you thinking. She studied math at Oxfor for 5 years, which is why not only is her English good enough to be level 3, but as well highlights the lack of need for grammatical accuracy which keeps her in level 3. It also hints at why she chose to describe how potential energy becomes kinetic and heat energy.

It Doesn't Have to Make Sense

I guess. See, the management seemeed to think that since Clare sent Bryan the materials to look over for the roaming kids coordinator position that he had somehow taken it, despite not having been trained, or ever actually taking the position. So apparently the last three weeks that he's been out at my branch on Fridays they've thought he was doing kids admin work. Which of course, he wasn't. This is all work that I've been doing, and have been for months.

Anyway, he had a prep period today to do work on such matters, and called Leigh to ask what he was supposed to do. This is when it was discovered that he in fact had no idea what he was supposed to be doing and asked to defer the responsibility to me, which I gladly took. Apparently they are going to make me kids coordinator in the future, but they haven't gotten around to it yet. No matter I guess, I still do all the work anyway.

So today was kind of a breeze, I guess. Except for my little hellions of a junior class, which I had just essentially lost interest in trying to keep under control. I complained to the staff, and I told them if it keeps up I'm just not going to teach them. I don't as it is, really. I just watch them run around the room and do their own thing. Oh well. I don't really have a problem making an example out of someone, I just need to know if it's within my bounds to just tell someone straight up to leave class.

Oh, and I need to send money home. And I'm going to be broke again this month, I can feel it. I turned Greg down for the concert we were supposed to go to tonight in favor of doing what's right and not spending every penny I have, and not pulling an all nighter when I have 5 kids classes the next day.

Kids are great, don't get me wrong, they're just not the kind of thing I want to have to do when I am dead tired, which I would have been. Actually, I have to qualify that. There are times when being not entirely with it makes kids classes a breeze, because then you're not really paying attention to how big of shits they're being and it doesn't weigh on you much. Anyway, the point is that my cat is a little shithead and so are my kinds. At least my kids don't stay the night in my room and mess my shit up.

Cats, Curses and Zombies

They're all related, you know. At least for me today they were. Ty's in the hospital for ACL surgery, so I have been bequeathed the cat in his absence. Ordinarily, this is no big deal, I'm good with cats, and so I generally look forward to time with them. But this time around it's different. This time around I have just settled in to a new place, I have things which I don't want chewed and a cat who is all too willing to test my boundaries.

See, this cat hasn't been trained. He hasn't learned the boundaries, and what's worse, given the spurradic bedtimes of those living here, he hasn't figured out what's day and what's night. It's exacerbated by the fact we're all gone all day. So essentially, Hershel is his natural feline, nocturnal self. Well this translates into a world of not sleep for me.

I wound up going to bed relatively late last night, i.e. 1:15am, yea shut it, and I woke up a few hours later to Hershel being the cat burglar he is. Oh man. The cat rage has never boiled up so quickly. I lost it in record time and threw the cat against the bed almost as hard as I could. Now, before you call PETA and have be neutered for animal abuse, know that my bed is all pillows and the cat's fine. After that, I held him firmly down, and thwapped him on the head so he knew his behavior was not ok, and he seemed to understand the message. Shortly afterward he curled up between my legs and we both went to sleep peacefully until morning.

That's not to say I wasn't a goddam zombie all day though. I felt like I had gotten no sleep at all, which I didn't really cause I was on guard/watch psychologically all night, and I went to bed angry, which I hate. It's really draining.

Anyway, today was a decent day at work, classes were fine. Halfway through the day my energy reached its all time low and I was forced to buy coffee. That helped, along with a 20 minute nappie thingie. After that I regained my energy, and after work I went out for a drink with Barbie. That was chill, we just had some beer and edamame, and I made my way home.

On a side note, I spent 18600 yen on train/bus passes today. That's ridiculous. But, by my calculations, I should still do ok this month. I just have to agree not to spend everything I own in the next two days, which admittedly I'm not doing so well with. Oh, and America currently holds 5 gold medals, the leader in gold medals for now. Canada is expected to sweep the curling competition, and I'm still crossing my fingers for the men's super G Alpine event.

Basically

Basically, I've decided that my life is great. I really couldn't ask for much more than what I've been given. I think of all the shit I have, and all the shit I don't, and really, it's the perfect balance.

I think of all the shit I've gone through in my life, of my own accord or otherwise, and where I am now because of it, and fuck. I'm a lucky guy. I'm lucky to be alive, much less here in Japan writing this. Basically, I've done alright so far.

I've been a pretty shitty person at times, but I want to officially say Fuck You to whoever thinks I haven't learned a great deal from that and become a far more amazing person than I even thought possible. That's not to be egotistical, but, you really don't know my life or what I've been through. If you did, you'd understand how much I have to be happy for.


Alright. Enough sappy shit. Your webpage sucks and you could stand to lose a few pounds.
I have no idea who that was directed at, but, I figure enough people will think it's for them that it'll have the impact I was looking for.

"I bet you think this song is about you, don't you, don't you, don't you?"

Dr. David

I think the APA needs to give me an honorary cerfitication for counseling psychology. Lord knows I spend most of my time in that position. It's not that I'm complaining, just reflecting on the sheer number of times in the course of a week or a month that I give advice to people about their relationships or their lives. This is made worse by the fact that today here, tomorrow in the states, it's VD. Valentine's Day. So happy VD, folks. Enjoy it while it lasts.

But what gets me is how often the things I talk to people about are always the same. Such and such boy doesn't like me, or such and such girl is being a bitch, or something something something why am I single (influenced by VD of course) and it's not like it's hard to pop their little mental blister it's just that someone else always has to do it, and it's gotta be done right.

People can talk themselves down, they just don't. We all know these things, everyone already knows what I tell them, if they thought about it it would come to them, but, no. I mean, Psychology, seriously, is the study of everything you already knew but didn't have a name for. I spent four (technically 5) years in college learning the names of things I already knew. Well shit that doesn't make me any more qualified. That just means I can SOUND qualified cause I don't have to circumlocute concepts. But no one ever gives me credit for my degree anyway, cause I'm David. I mean, duh. Asses.

But at the same time I'm not given credit for knowing what I'm talking about, fucking everyone wants me to tell whem what to do. And what do I hear?
"yea, you know, you're totally right"
"thanks so much, really...I feel a lot better"
"I love you."

I love the incongruencies in life.

But don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love the capacity in which I can help people. I make a difference to people when they need it, and I'm still free to be me and not a shrink. It's all in friendship. And that's a beautiful thing. I just want my license. So, APA, if you please.

Damn you Christy

Christy involuntarily reminded me today via internet stalking that she's the most phenomenal writer ever. This makes me mad, because phenomenal is my word, damnit, and because she writes the way I think, but never write. Curses. Damn you. Damn you straight to my room.

Have you ever met someone who does something you thought was uniquely your own, but better? Ever had to realize that it's completely not ok to be mad at that person for it? Me neither.

I realize that what I like about her writing is that, well, she's a smarmy priss. Yes, hun, you are. And I respect that. I'm starting to wonder if I'm just running out of smarmy asshole. Have I really outdone myself? Did I really leave it all on (e)paper somewhere along the line? Am I not the bitter, disillusioned self I once thought myself to be?

Since I started getting my inner cynic down on here and out of my head, well, I'm just much less...me...than normal. Maybe I ought to stop blogging for a while.

Maybe I need to get the fuck over it and start making fun of people/myself again. Or change the background of my blog to pink to give it that bitchy girl feel. Or not.

I Think I'm Done

But Lord knows I'm not. I got the rest of my crap packed up this morning after getting ready for work at the insanely early time I normally have to get up on the weekends and after work I got it and hauled the 50 lb. hiking backpack and my Adidas shoulder bag all the way back here and finally called it quits. I'm moved in now. Done. Done done done. That is, except for my betset if I'm interested. Maybe I'll get it after payday. Maybe I'll just be lazy. But admittedly it would be nice to have some extra bedding here in my room for when I have visitors.

Work's bene fine, yesterday Jame's topatsu'd, so they had to call in Simon Fang to help out, which was a mini adventure in awkward small talk, seeing as they guy has kinda got his head up his own ass. And today, since Jame's topatsu'd again, I got called in to work in Kashiwa for the last three lessons of the day, which is A-O-K with me since I got a travel period out of it.

Now, for my two days off, I have the daunting task of both making this room my own, and learning all the quirks and uses of the amenities here at my new place.

Apparently Amanda has laid claim to my relationship status, which is a pleasant thought by itself but, well, I have problems enough with relationships across town much less across the globe, so, sorry sweetie that's gonna have to wait until I get back from my stint here in the orient. Red shells. Red shells.

Anyway, the oil heater in my room has revealed its true nature to me, that of actually expending gas via flame rather than distributing radiated heat from an internal coil system. Curses. There's no way I'm going to know how to refill that sucker. Grr. Back to super shitty parabolic heaters, which, for the record, are the devil. The one in my room took a bite out of my Volvom zip-up, so I'm kinda pissed about that.

Two days till not-broke day, and I'm gonna make it. I thought there was no way I was going to make it a week on ~2500 yen but apparently it can be done with some left over. Greg and I are going to get together Tuesday but it's going to have to be low key.

OK, I'm just stalling now and I know it. Gotta unpack.

So many entries!!!!

Sorry about that. I updated my journal today with all the back entries, since I'm in my new paartment now. It's nice to have the internet at my fingertips and I will be on here a lot more now, so there's a chance you willa ctually read what I write instead of whatever is the most recent entry. That will be nice I imagine, since probably none of you read all of these, and I want you all to know what I've bene up to.

Alright, I am going to start unpacking now and making this place mine.

Peace.

02-05 – 9:30pm

02-05 – 9:30pm

Well, this is it. My last night at this address. This is kinda nice, especially because my failure to really customize my room or settle into it made it super easy to pack. When all you bring with you is clothing and the like, it makes for easy packing. That’s kinda what noticed when I moved out here too. Packing to move to another country was in many ways easier than moving across the state or even across town. Cause, well, I long since threw away the majority of the crap that always gets carried around and I just simply don’t need, and there’s no furniture or anything of the sort to carry around. Instead of a multiple trip event, carrying my computer and the entirety of its accessories is as easy as putting a briefcase around my shoulders.

I’m trying to figure out if I’ll miss this place, and I’m having a hard time saying yes. I’ve gotten a bit used to coming home here, but there isn’t a single time walking to or from the station that I didn’t think about how miserable the walk is.

It’s weird the way this whole move came together. I mean; I met Ty once maybe before he brought up the fact his roommate was moving. But it goes back further than that. Greg mentioned to me at the end of November, a month after I got here that he had an interview for a new job. Blah blah blah, anyway, the point is that I heard about Matt leaving but didn’t know he was Ty’s roommate when he mentioned there was a room opening up and there were some funny coincidences. That’s all. K.

02-04 – 8:41am

02-04 – 8:41am

I think Ty and I are going to get along just fine. I mean yea, he’s a bit of a sports fanatic, and yea, he’s a frat boy to the core, but sometimes that’s ok, and I kinda miss that sometimes.

02-03 – 11:15am

02-03 – 11:15am

So much for staying under budget. I went out last night after work and met up with Hillary for a drink, which turned out to be a pretty expensive night, like all other nights I’ve ever gone out for a drink. I’m at 98% of my budget. At least I’m not over. I can manage this, but, it will take some serious willpower. Now I must do my laundry. Ready go.

Today is laundry day. The weather is nice again thankfully, and sunny, providing for ideal dry-age. Tomorrow and Sunday evenings are packing and cleaning days, and Monday is move in day.

The yen has continued its plummet down to ￥118.5 today, a sign of a continuing trend towards my paycheck being worth essentially nothing come Feb. 15 when I will send money home. Thankfully, with the emergency money my parents were kind enough to float me last month, I should be able to cover all my expenses without too much trouble, but all the same the state of the economy concerns me. It’s amazing when you deal in international business how much the local current events can have an effect on your life. The LiveDoor scandal, though primarily concerning Japan, has put me, and I imagine many other foreign workers at a distinct disadvantage with the position it has put the Japanese economy in. I wouldn’t be concerned so much if I were sending money here, or a ForEx trader, but no. I’m on the losing end of this one.

The Nagareyama Line is apparently famous, I found out when I mentioned the name of my stop to Yuriko yesterday when we got to work. Everyone seems to know where I am going to live, when I mention Hiregasaki. Unfortunately, the Nagareyama Line is more infamous than famous, seeing as its claim to fame is that it has ridiculously inconvenient last train times. Most days last train is just before midnight, on holidays last train is 11:10pm. That’s some bullshit. I am going to have to come up with a better plan for staying out late. Maybe that will involve buying a bike.

02-02 – 10:35am

02-02 – 10:35am

I don’t know what Ash is washing, but I’m going to need him to cut it the hell out. I woke up yesterday to Ash starting laundry, and I woke up again to it today. Who has four loads of laundry they need to do? Damnit. I am going to tell him before I leave today that I need the machine tomorrow without interruption. Not to mention I essentially can’t take a shower while the thing is running. Ugh.

I wish I could somehow get a print of the painting Tracey made of us fighting. How do they make paintings into prints? Someone tell me. Ready…go.

I had a dream last night I was in middle school playing hookie. We were walking around in the forests that surrounded the houses in front of Hazelbrook. I don’t really know who the other kid was, but I knew him, and we were friends. We walked around for a bit, and eventually decided that we needed to go inside again, I think to see Mr. Green, who was teaching both literature and molecular biology. He didn’t really teach either, but, he did teach a lot of crap. But that was high school. Anyway, we went to go sign in, and I was smoking, so I had to put my cigarette out, so I tossed it in the ashtray in front of the door, of a middle school, and felt bad since I had apparently just lit it. When we went inside to sign in there were students running the sign in counter, namely Tiffany B. and all our names were horribly misspelled. You can always tell it’s a dream, because nothing is ever spelled correctly or stays that way. That marked the beginning of my waking up.

02-01 – 1:25pm

02-01 – 1:25pm

Well, here we are. Made it to February. I’ve been here over three months now. Is that weird to anyone else? Has it become normal to anyone else?
I have to start packing now. I’d have started doing my laundry today but Ash beat me to it, and now the hangers are taken. But basically I gotta get all packed up before Monday. It kinda seems like this last month went by in kind of a haze. It’s not that it went by quickly, but, all the days seem to have bled together. I can’t really tell when what happened. But here I am in February, and soon enough many aspects of my daily life will change. And mostly for the better. Having internet is going to drastically change my daily life here. And in a month and a half, I’ll have money: two things I keep coming to again and again. Can you tell I’m getting antsy?

My attempts to stay under budget have been seemingly successful, though yesterday despite my better efforts I was forcer to break my ￥10000 note, and in the process got sucked into buying delicious nutritious fruits and vegetables, which in combination with my cigs put my about 300 over budget. Right now I’m still under budget by about 27%, but the rest of the time until payday will be days I essentially have to spend money. My next day off I will be moving, and I am working overtime the other of my days off. But at least that means that March’s paycheck will be handsome.

But enough about all that. I’m only writing about money and moving because I’ve been deliberately depriving myself of other forms of stimulation.
I ran into Gabe on my way home from work Sunday night and joined him for a beer with Matt. That was nice, since he paid.

Yesterday I spent most of the day organizing my music still, I nearly got it complete, and this morning I finished it. Right now I’m taking my new Smart Playlist for a test drive, with a great deal of success. It’s not really so elaborate as it is painstakingly thought about. But I can switch back and forth between one that includes harder music, like screamo and metal and hard rock, and a slightly more universally palatable one without.

Now, you might ask yourself, what on Earth possessed me to organize, group, genre, and rate 2,372 songs on my computer? Well, I’m sick of not being able to get a, you know, really good playlist going. And there are so many songs about which I’ve forgotten, and through this process I’ve essentially listened to clips of every songs on my computer. I’ve become re-familiarized with almost all my music, which is fantastic. I, like most people I imagine, go through phases with music, and it’s not that the songs aren’t good anymore, I’ve just started listening to newer music. So now I can go back and start hearing all these songs I used to listen to but had forgotten about. Like Madd West’s Your Friend is Ugly, a hip hop comedic masterpiece.

Now, obviously I didn’t listen to ALL of it, I skipped over just about everything in the Rap, R&B, Hip Hop-type categories, as well as all things Techno. I don’t even know how I got all that rap on there, I imagine Kirk had something to do with that. And Greg helped with the techno, but, I don’t need to listen to most of that. I don’t know why I don’t just delete most of the rap, but, that would involve listening to a lot of it and seeing if I actually wanted to have it. I kept it in the first place cause people would come over when I was in the fraternity and want to listen to (c)rap, and would either download it or complain until it found its way onto my compie. So I just gave it all 1 star and left it at that. If I make a rap or techno playlist, the starts won’t factor into their selection.

Ok, enough of that. Today I go back to work and start the real super penny pinching to make sure I stay as far under budget as possible. Blah blah blah now I’m just typing to kill time.

11:25pm

Following the LiveDoor scandal here in Japan, the value of the yen has dropped about 3 to the dollar. The yen, days before the scandal surfaced, had risen to ~￥114.4 to $1, breaking the to $1, breaking the ￥115 barrier which had held for so long. Now, in light of the multi-billion yen value loss from LiveDoor and the consequential market adjustment, the yen has fallen to ￥117.65 to $1. Now, three cents to the dollar doesn’t seem like a huge, life changing amount, but consider when every month you send home ~$375. ￥42911 vs. ￥44118, a difference of ￥1207, ~$10. So, every time I send money home, I pay service fees, intermediary fees, recipient fees, and $10 more bucks now because the yen is worth less. These are things I have to consider.