Take A Deep Breath

Eep! It's been way too long since I've put anything down here. See, I try to update this on Tuesday nights, when I have a free evening, but lately, I've been meeting up with Saki and going out on Tuesdays, so I've basically had no time.

Anyway, here's what's up.

Ummm works going well, and I had three weeks off at the end of March/beginning of April. Now, given those weeks weren't paid, which sucks, but, I got some good time to relax after busting my ass as a sub for the previous three months. At the beginning of the month, I started working here in the Matsudo area, at Matsudo #1 JHS. I wasn't expecting to be at junior high schools, as I'm kinda more experienced doing elementary, but, it seems to be going alright. The first two weeks I was there I literally did nothing, absolutely nothing, but sit at my desk and study kanji. There weren't any classes, but for some odd reason I was contractually obligated to be there. Now, in retrospect, I could have used that time to start some activities around school to encourage kids to use English and communicate with me, but, that never crossed my mind, honestly. Grr. Doing something like that was mentioned at the BOE meeting I went to yesterday, and it made me feel like a complete ass for only having walked around the halls talking to students instead of organizing something. Anyway.....

JHS is pretty easy, I just basically do what the teachers tell me to, and it's my job to do whatever that is as best I can. Very, very different from ES where I have to make everything up as I go and have fun with the kids. Here it's like I go in and work with the teachers in the classroom, but the fun is what I do in the halls and at lunch, talking to the students in the interim, which is more of a real environment for communication.

Next month I will be at Kogane Kita JHS, which just so happens to be a 10 minute walk from my apartment. I go jogging by it when I do so. So, that will be really easy, and I'm looking forward to it. Apparently every month I will alternate between these two JHS's and then have a smattering of ES's that I will visit once a month. Not a bad deal really, but, I would like to get into the ES's a little more. It's more tiring, but it's really fun. JHS is rewarding though as well, don't get me wrong. It's just different, and I haven't come to appreciate it yet as I'm sure I will.

I met the rest of the teachers in the Matsudo area yesterday at our monthly Board of Education meeting, and they seem like pretty decent people. I look forward, somewhat, to building relationships with them. As always though, there are those who, should I never have to see again, I would never miss. But that's been the case no matter what I do in this country. There are always those I wouldn't pick to do what I'm doing. But I'm picky like that.

In other news, Saki and I have been spending a lot of our free time looking at apartments together. At first, they were for the both of us, but Saki kinda had this realization after her mom demonstrated an increasing amount of crazy that it would kinda be shooting ourselves in the foot to ask them for permission to live together, as her mom would definitely say no.

See, she's kinda having the empty nest syndrome thing, and kinda going schizo with age, and completely flips out over things now, so we kinda have to work around her. She's strictly enforcing Saki's weekday curfew of midnight, which is just ridiculous as she's 23, and told her she couldn't stay at my place the other weekend because she had been doing so so many weekends in a row. 23, people. We got a call from her at 2am one night when Saki got an unexpected day off and stayed over after calling her dad to tell him, from her, and it was just nuts. Not to mention the fact that she's basically completely out of control of her emotion/anger. I've had some close calls before in my childhood, but Saki's mom like seriously gets violent. I should post the pics of her eye when her mom slapped her so hard it broke every capillary in her left eye. I was livid. Shaking, I was so angry.

It gets worse too, her mom BIT her once in a fight. She was getting ready to come see me, and her mom again flipped out cause she didn't want her to leave, and shoved her, and they wound up on the floor, and as she kicked her to get her away, her mom bit her leg through her jeans, and she had this massive bump on her shin from it, where she almost broke skin. What the hell is wrong with this woman? Way to have absolutely no control over yourself. Are you a dog? What are you? Who BITES? I mean, seriously.

The worst part is, I know her mom, I used to teach her when I was working for Nova. She and I got along really well. This woman is so scared of being alone that she's willing to assault someone. See how convoluted this is? It's scary that there are generations of people out there who were forced to bottle up and never deal with their emotions for so long that it boils over in this kind of animalistic rage, which completely contradicts the very desires that motivate their actions. All she wants is for Saki to be there with her and love her, to not leave her alone in the world, and all she accomplishes is pushing everyone in her life away, because she's completely lost control of her ability to make rational decisions.

Anyway, so we decided to look for apartments just for her, that are big enough for me to be over there all the time. We both agree the chances of her getting an apartment by herself are far, far greater, so we're doing that instead. Then, after a while, when it's obvious that we're not going to break up, we're going to move in together and that'll be that. Sucks that it has to be that way, but, such is life I guess. From here it's just a matter of quietly tending to Saki to help make sure that her anger over her mother's actions doesn't slowly and insidiously warp her into the exact same thing. Funny how that works, too. But I see her pain over it, and I see all too clearly just how easily that could silently corrupt her mind into something much less happy and easy going, and more bitter and seething. It tears me up inside to think of that.

Saki's been working a ton lately, and had a lot of weekend obligations recently, so it's been quite a while, almost a month, since she's stayed over here. I miss waking up next to her a lot. She does too, and we're really hoping to take a trip together sometime soon. We're both trying to get her settled into a new place as soon as possible, so we can resume our relationship, but more important is getting her away from her mother. It's do so that we're making the decisions we are now. Her getting out of that house is way more important than selfishly wanting to live with her, so that comes first. I have to admit I kinda like the waiting, as it breaks up what otherwise could have been a monotony. There's anticipation now, waiting, and I think in all things, the greatest rewards come from being denied at some point. Having said that though, I sure would like to be done waiting already. Getting kinda old now.

Other than that, life's good. Had a going away party for two friends, Seska and Jenn, last weekend, so it's goodbye to more and more people I've known for a long time. More people I outlasted, but, I could have seen that coming. I've got something worth sticking around for, they didn't. The weather's getting warmer, got some friends out here from the States, and ya, it's shaping up to be a good year.

In dork news, our guild has progressed a ton lately. We started off raiding at the end of February, doing Kara, a 10 man dungeon. The kills were epic, and it was crazy to think of clearing the place. But, after a week or so, we did. After another week or two, we were doing it with two groups, and pretty easily. Then, my group cleared the whole thing in one night. It used to take all week. Then 2 days. Then 1 night. Sweet. Then we started in on 25 man raids, and had some problems getting that many people online consistently. But we got it. On High King Maulgar, I got my first experience mage-tanking, and we downed him the first night. Gruul came a few days later. Two weeks later, we got both down in the same night, quickly, and moved on to Magtheridon. It took a few tries, but we downed him that same night. I was a cube-clicker, and the whole raid was depending on me in both instances, and I did it. I was so happy.

A week or so later, we did what we thought impossible. We walked in, cleared Gruul's, and Maggy, all in one night. So we turned our eyes toward Serpentshrine Cavern. SSC is srs bsns. We just smeared ourselves all over the place trying to kill The Lurker Below, but the next night we went back and BAM, down on the second try. HUH? The progression is just insane. We're downing bosses that most guilds never even see, and in one, or two nights of attempts.

So then last week, we really outdid ourselves. We walked in, did Gruul's, Maggy, and Lurker all in one night. 4 25-man bosses in one night. LOL. That's just ridiculous. So this week we tried Morogrim Tidewalker, which turned out to be a challenge. As in, it took us till the third night to down him. That was Sunday. After we downed him, we gave Fathom-Lord Karathress a shot, and just sucked it up. Hardcore. So yesterday we had an entire night dedicated to him. We just wiped and wiped and wiped, but the whole time my group was just laughing about it, we knew it was going to happen. We couldn't stop laughing every time the offtanks screwed up, or failed to pick up an add, or lost aggro, or died early. Finally, at almost 1am, we went to repair and give it one last, final attempt, when the new guy in the guild got completely lost in the game's biggest capital city looking for a place to repair, and we just lost it. There was so much tension in the air, so much frustration, and then this guy asks, "where do you repair in this place?" and it all just boiled over.

In the best way. I couldn't take it anymore at this point, after laughing with my group for so long, and slowly ceasing to after just too many damn wipes. I laughed so hard, and my mic was on so the whole raid hear it, and then BAM, everyone, everyone was laughing as hard as I've ever heard any group of people laugh over anything ever. We all needed it, and I'm glad it came. Poor kid though, musta been so embarrassed. But it broke the tension, it got us over the previous 3 hours of wiping on the same boss. And you know what happened on that last, final attempt? We downed him. We downed him in one of the most epic near-disasters of all time. I got a sweet trinket, and the guild got their first Tier-5 gear. We officially have a T5 guild now.

Our guild went from nothing to T5 in about 2 months. That's insane. I'm proud of it. You all might think that's insanely nerdy, but it's a club sport to me. You play tennis? I raid. You have a club? I have a club. We just get together and try to kill monsters in a video game, but we do it as a team, it takes coordination and leadership, and the end result is just as satisfying. And, I can do it in the comfort of my own bedroom. Heh. So, if you come across someone who does what I do, and you catch yourself thinking how video games are addictive and destroy people's lives, check yourself. Think about it. This guy is in a club. I'm in a club. It would be ok if they were out playing soccer 4 nights a week, this isn't any different. But, then again, maybe that's just me validating my behavior, eh?

That's all for now.