Beginnings and Ends

Wow, things are changing pretty fast.

I finished a lot of things, and a lot of things have begun.

For example, I finished my training with Interac on Friday of last week, and discovered that I will be working mainly in Higashi Jyujyo, which is in Kita-ku, which is kinda near Ikebukuro. Additionally I will be subbing at schools in the Shinagawa school district, so those days I'll be getting up earlier. But, oddly enough, for these first three months, almost if not more than half of my days scheduled I don't have a school, which means I'm on a kind of standby, where I'd have to go in to Iidabashi by 7am (YUCK) in case someone calls in sick, in which case I'd head out to their school for the day. There's extra pay involved in that, regardless of whether I end up going to a school that day or not. Greg seems to think it's because they don't want me getting too attached to a school for April, when he thinks they're going to move me somewhere else, like where he is. Which would be fantastic. We'll see how it goes. I'm very excited for it, and I think it'll be a good step for me.

Thursday of this week was my last day at Nova. I'm officially no longer a Nova, or GComm, or whatever Eikaiwa instructor. My days of booths and level checks and Voice lessons are finally over. My last day was pretty anticlimactic, to be honest, there was nothing really special about it, except at the end of the day, I bowed, said "Otsukaresama deshita" and went home as usual. It's weird thinking that 95% of my friends here are no longer my coworkers, and just friends, and I hope I'll stay in contact with them all. I know from experience how quickly people fall out of social circles once they change jobs, and while I'm not really afraid of it, it would kinda suck not to see the people who have shaped my experience here so much anymore. Then again, it will certainly be nice not to have to deal with the douchebags I've come to know and hate working with, and be associated with via a company of notoriously ill repute.

I drank myself silly with Ty and Dave that night. It was good fun.

I went to a Christmas party at Greg's house on, gasp, Christmas, which was also fun. He got me Megatron, the Transformer, the original 1983 series toy that's 1 year younger than me. I was so stoked when I opened that package. I mention the party for documentation purposes, and to mention that I didn't have enough money to get home when I got to his place. I asked Greg if I could borrow some money, he asked how much? 3? 4? 5? I said 5, thinkin, 5,000 yen would be enough to get my by until my advance from Interac comes through. He hands my 50,000, and I felt a little like weeping. Thank you, Greg.

I had originally planned to use the money I had saved up in my room to get back. See, I've had this massive pile of 1 yen coins since forever, an entire drawer of them in the little jewelry stand I have on top of my bookcase, and I finally took them with me to work to deposit now that I had reached a point of destitution great enough to warrant sorting out change. Empowered by my recently opened postal savings account and the memory from a long while back of an old woman depositing a massive amount of change at my local Post Office one day, I walked in Christmas morning to give myself a little present. And what a little present it turned out to be. 1,516 yen. Which isn't bad considering I had that many 1 yen coins saved up, but not really enough to withdraw and use to get by for a while. So I just let it be.

But I went by the ATM today after I dropped Saki off at the station and checked my account to see if my Interac money had shown up, and lo and behold it had. Double heck ya. So, now I'm basically set financially because this will get me by easily till the 15th when i should get my GComm paycheck, and that combined with everything else, including my massive coinage deposit, should get me by until my first Interac paycheck at the end of February. So, this is the end of the panic regarding my finances and the beginning of, though far from the meat, of financial security, something which might be of sudden and massive importance.

Saki and I kind of had an oops at a really bad time, in a monthly sense, and we're playing the waiting game now to see how that plays out. But, we've talked and we both know that we're not really ready for what that might turn out to be. However, I've considered what would happen if she were pregnant and decided she wanted to keep it, and that's basically me marrying her and raising kids. Worse things could happen to a guy, really. She's fantastic, and I've already told her, again today cause she wanted to hear it face to face, that I do want to marry her someday in the future, and that having kids with her is something I look forward to when the time is right. Just, that time's not now as far as I'm concerned, and she knows that too. I hope, should it come down to it, that she feels the same way, as she's said as well, but women are women, and are designed to have second thoughts about that sort of thing. Thus the potential need for financial stability.

So, lots in the pipeline at the moment. Most of my life is still in semi turmoil, but the worst of it is over I think and things are starting to settle down. Myself included, as it would seem.