The Dirt Under You Nails

Yesterday morning I woke and readied myself early and went out to Kashiwa station to meet Serena, who had just arrived from Florence, Italy, and will be my guest until the 17th. I'm excited to see her again. Her accent, and her way of speaking is just so happy, and, I dunno, quintessentially Italian. We made our way back to my place to drop off her stuff, which consists of her purse and the very smallest of suitcases, the rationale behind which is that it's meant to bring things back as opposed to the other way around. But, she brought me the very most amazing of all gifts, one I've looked for and pined for for what feels like years now, Acqua Di Gio. A gift set including aftershave lotion and body wash. Mwahaha. I could smell it on me all day yesterday, since my nostrils are again unaccustomed to the scent.

So after we dropped her stuff off at home, we headed back out, since she wanted to go to Shinjuku and I had to go to work. We got to the station, I charged my old Suica card for her convenience, and we went our seperate ways. When I got to work and looked at my schedule, I knew it was going to be a good day.

I had a level up test, a free, a couple lessons, then two frees to end my day. Wow. Fantastic. Now, of course, that all gets rearranged promptly to fill spaces and Richard gets sent at the end of the day to Kashiwa, and those two frees go away, but I still have practically nothing to do for the first two lessons of my day so I'm happy. But, it's what I have to do during that free that gets me.

I got to vacuum, which I really have no problem with but the fact is that vacuum cleaner just doesn't suck, and as such, really sucks. Richard commented on this before I started, so, being the junior fixer-upper that I am, I decided to fix it, i.e. clean the filter. When I popped that sucker open I'm pretty sure souls came out. The dust in there was ancient, and plentiful. The basin of our little shop vac was completely full, and the filter must have weighed 4 lbs just from the silt alone. So I got to the task of cleaning it, which coated me and all those around me in what felt like tomb dust. The Dust of Ages. The kind of thing that, knowing it's the silt vacuumed from the kids rooms for however long this branch has been open, is most likely every single ccold, flu, and latent bacterial infection known to mankind all in one ultra conentrated dried out, just use water form. By water I mean the moisture in your nose, mouth, hands, throat, etc where infections tend to like to lodge themselves before launching their full frontal assault on your immune system, comfort, ability to think clearly, etc.

So now I have all this silt, and every time I think, my nails are dirty again. I can't wait to shower. I have no idea how many times I washed my hands yesterday, but I know there's no getting it off shy of burning off a layer of my skin. J, thank you for the hand sanitizer, it was a blessing (hehe) to have yesterday.

I was supposed to meet Serena at Shin Matsudo at 10-ish, but it took her 45 min. longer because she went too far on accident and had to wait for another train. Go figure that I finally decided to go into McDonald's and get a cup of coffee to thaw my frozen self just in time to sit down and see her walk out of the station. It always works that way.

Last night we were up until near 2am because Ty and Dave were up watching a football game. I feel bad for Serena because she was up for SO long, but at the same time I kinda have to respect that it's their apartment too, and I can't exactly ask them to completely abandon their everyday lives just cause I have a guest. So, whatever. It works out how it does.

Greg tells me Interac is looking for teachers, starting in the spring. I have to consider, once again, if I would switch jobs. Could I do it, with all my travel plans? Would it be rewarding like I want it to be? We'll see I guess.