The last post of the year.
With soba soup in my belly and a Doraemon Special wafting out behind me, I prepare to, in a few scant hours, bid farewell to 2008.
What a bizarre year.
January: Amanda quits her brain numbing job. She spends two weeks confirming for sure that half the department is incredibly cool and ridiculously overqualified, and half the department is just as shallow as their conversations would suggest. She proceeds to spend the rest of the month packing and visiting various friends and family.
February: Amanda goes to Japan! Or, well, tries to go to Japan. She has to push her way through flight delays, rescheduled flight plans, security checks, overnight layovers, and horribly processed but oh so delicious turkey melts. Also, she drops her computer and needs to get the hard drive replaced. In Japan. On her first day in a new city. Nevertheless, she meets the new ECC recruits, hits it off, and begins training in high spirits. By the end of the month, she doesn't have a job. Amanda doesn't have fond memories of February.
March: A new job, a new room with a new roommate. It seems like things might not be so bad. And that keeps up for a few months, in fact, until...
June: Amanda is getting a bit fed up with her employer's inability to give positive feedback, and underhanded suggestions that they plan to replace her because her temperament is too week to work full time. Fortunately, her paranoid, sour roommate distracts her from these grievances by announcing that she can't stand Amanda and plans to move out. Oh, um, in that case. Amanda cries for the first time in a year and a half, then gets a grip, starts seeing a therapist, and begins searching for a new roommate.
July: Amanda makes plans to move in with a 45-year-old Japanese businessman. What's the worst that could happen? Huh? No, please, it's too late, don't answer.
August: Amanda's family comes to visit her! Amanda remembers why she moved out! (For the record: She's forgotten again. Sniffle.)
September: It's official: Amanda will be starting a new job at her employer's friend's school, and working an extremely reduced schedule until then. She settles into a routine of cycling, weight lifting, and answering her roommate's increasingly tedious questions and listening to his increasingly tedious stories while joining in his increasingly tedious routines. Without hindsight, she still thinks he isn't that bad. It helps that she's on a magical new medication. Yes, it's magical again.
October: Amanda starts her new job. And catches a cold. And gets fed up with her roommate's bad habits. By the end of the month, he has decided to move out, convinced that it won't inconvenience her; he is rather shocked when she informs him otherwise.
November: Drama comes to Freebell Apartment Complex, and Amanda benefits! By the 3rd, she finds herself with a new roommate, on a new floor, with awesome new neighbors. Meanwhile, she's enjoying her job, particularly what she thinks at the time to be a fairly hands-off (albeit grating) boss. As it turns out, he's just an idiot who looks for reasons to get involved without actually, you know, needing to KNOW the person that he's lecturing. Can you tell that Amanda has had it with men at this point?
December: Amanda's boss decides to waste half an hour of her time lecturing her about a single problem class that the previous teacher had also had problems with. He also pleasantly reminds her that she isn't that great a teacher yet, certainly not as good as his OTHER teachers. This upsets Amanda far more than seems logical, and when she catches yet another miserable cold, she finds herself unable to stomach the thought of eight more months of berating comments from a self-satisfied fool. She quits. Her cold lingers until her last day, when it mysteriously vanishes. That just doesn't feel like a coincidence.
Which brings us to today. I'm still job-hunting, and have some VERY good prospects. I'm still living in Nagoya, and very comfortable, for the first time in nearly a year. And, if all goes well, perhaps I'll get a chance to sleep in an actual bed before next August.
I would not object to few stretches of boredom in 2009.
See you next year! (And read my blog!)
What a bizarre year.
January: Amanda quits her brain numbing job. She spends two weeks confirming for sure that half the department is incredibly cool and ridiculously overqualified, and half the department is just as shallow as their conversations would suggest. She proceeds to spend the rest of the month packing and visiting various friends and family.
February: Amanda goes to Japan! Or, well, tries to go to Japan. She has to push her way through flight delays, rescheduled flight plans, security checks, overnight layovers, and horribly processed but oh so delicious turkey melts. Also, she drops her computer and needs to get the hard drive replaced. In Japan. On her first day in a new city. Nevertheless, she meets the new ECC recruits, hits it off, and begins training in high spirits. By the end of the month, she doesn't have a job. Amanda doesn't have fond memories of February.
March: A new job, a new room with a new roommate. It seems like things might not be so bad. And that keeps up for a few months, in fact, until...
June: Amanda is getting a bit fed up with her employer's inability to give positive feedback, and underhanded suggestions that they plan to replace her because her temperament is too week to work full time. Fortunately, her paranoid, sour roommate distracts her from these grievances by announcing that she can't stand Amanda and plans to move out. Oh, um, in that case. Amanda cries for the first time in a year and a half, then gets a grip, starts seeing a therapist, and begins searching for a new roommate.
July: Amanda makes plans to move in with a 45-year-old Japanese businessman. What's the worst that could happen? Huh? No, please, it's too late, don't answer.
August: Amanda's family comes to visit her! Amanda remembers why she moved out! (For the record: She's forgotten again. Sniffle.)
September: It's official: Amanda will be starting a new job at her employer's friend's school, and working an extremely reduced schedule until then. She settles into a routine of cycling, weight lifting, and answering her roommate's increasingly tedious questions and listening to his increasingly tedious stories while joining in his increasingly tedious routines. Without hindsight, she still thinks he isn't that bad. It helps that she's on a magical new medication. Yes, it's magical again.
October: Amanda starts her new job. And catches a cold. And gets fed up with her roommate's bad habits. By the end of the month, he has decided to move out, convinced that it won't inconvenience her; he is rather shocked when she informs him otherwise.
November: Drama comes to Freebell Apartment Complex, and Amanda benefits! By the 3rd, she finds herself with a new roommate, on a new floor, with awesome new neighbors. Meanwhile, she's enjoying her job, particularly what she thinks at the time to be a fairly hands-off (albeit grating) boss. As it turns out, he's just an idiot who looks for reasons to get involved without actually, you know, needing to KNOW the person that he's lecturing. Can you tell that Amanda has had it with men at this point?
December: Amanda's boss decides to waste half an hour of her time lecturing her about a single problem class that the previous teacher had also had problems with. He also pleasantly reminds her that she isn't that great a teacher yet, certainly not as good as his OTHER teachers. This upsets Amanda far more than seems logical, and when she catches yet another miserable cold, she finds herself unable to stomach the thought of eight more months of berating comments from a self-satisfied fool. She quits. Her cold lingers until her last day, when it mysteriously vanishes. That just doesn't feel like a coincidence.
Which brings us to today. I'm still job-hunting, and have some VERY good prospects. I'm still living in Nagoya, and very comfortable, for the first time in nearly a year. And, if all goes well, perhaps I'll get a chance to sleep in an actual bed before next August.
I would not object to few stretches of boredom in 2009.
See you next year! (And read my blog!)