Round and round you're turning me...
Last night was the most fun I think I've ever had out with my co-workers and in a karaoke bar. 'Do the Locomotion' actually brought a complete stranger to his feet at the bar to do a very geisha-esque paper umbrella dance. There was twirling, bobbing, and a very graceful finale when he bowed on his knees before the stage. We even got all of my non-singing and extremely shy BOE co-workers to get up and do a YMCA conga line. My boss sang 'Material Girl' with me (even though she only knew the chorus). It was fabulous.
Today, winter in Yamato Town finally decided to become winter. There's a blizzard a-blowin' outside that threatens to render my car useless for the next day or so, but that's fine. I am happily preoccupied with good, interesting thoughts at work.
Humanity's greatest trait is perhaps our capacity, or rather our seemingly inate proclivity, for change. And although a year ago my life in Japan began its slow and increasingly complicated descent into chaos, of course this chaos, by its very nature of being chaos, could not be maintained.
Thank goodness.
My 6th grade teacher from last year is finally returning to school, after a year away due to a lengthy bout of depression/anxiety/lack of family time. She seems much better, and best of all (!) this means that we can finally say GOODBYE to her completely incompetent replacement. She seems much more balanced and even gained some weight back (I can only assume that the lack of stress earned her some 'happy' kilos).
She wrote me a short apology/catching up/welcome back letter. She says, 'please pray for my safety.' I haven't properly prayed for anything or at least not for anyone besides myself in a long time. I suppose it's something to consider.
Living with Ben is going really well. He has enough part-time work to keep him busy and he likes our little rural town and our friends. It's wonderful to come home to a loving, caring, and supportive companion. We watch movies and go to dinners. It's great.
I think I'm actually finished with my graduate school applications and their corresponding amazing-but-unlikely financial aid/scholarship applications. I'll hear back by the time Ben and I get back from the Philippines. Regardless of how many times I checked and double-checked all of my papers, my resume, the application guidelines, the addresses of sent material, the status of recommendation letters, the end-date of when to use my current address, the scores and percentages and sent status of my GRE scores, the taxable income and affiliated obfuscatory financial information, the answers to countless unique yet redundant personal history academic moral ethical political rhetorical literal questions, the endless and infinite due dates, the credit card charges, emails to potentially helpful professors, emails to administrators and tehcnical assistance personel, url addresses cached for later use, pin numbers and passwords, ethnic group bubbles, the confidentiality statements, my spelling, the stars earmarking important emails (these do not include family and friends), and last but not least of all, my sanity, it was inevitable that I would make a few mistakes.
I will try not to dwell on them. Instead of counting down the 20 weeks I have left of this job, I will instead focus on the 8 weeks I have left before deciding some of the relevant components of my near future.
I've been so tired lately. Something about the snow falling with such determination, slowly covering the whole world in cold bright gray bliss, makes me feel alive.
Today, winter in Yamato Town finally decided to become winter. There's a blizzard a-blowin' outside that threatens to render my car useless for the next day or so, but that's fine. I am happily preoccupied with good, interesting thoughts at work.
Humanity's greatest trait is perhaps our capacity, or rather our seemingly inate proclivity, for change. And although a year ago my life in Japan began its slow and increasingly complicated descent into chaos, of course this chaos, by its very nature of being chaos, could not be maintained.
Thank goodness.
My 6th grade teacher from last year is finally returning to school, after a year away due to a lengthy bout of depression/anxiety/lack of family time. She seems much better, and best of all (!) this means that we can finally say GOODBYE to her completely incompetent replacement. She seems much more balanced and even gained some weight back (I can only assume that the lack of stress earned her some 'happy' kilos).
She wrote me a short apology/catching up/welcome back letter. She says, 'please pray for my safety.' I haven't properly prayed for anything or at least not for anyone besides myself in a long time. I suppose it's something to consider.
Living with Ben is going really well. He has enough part-time work to keep him busy and he likes our little rural town and our friends. It's wonderful to come home to a loving, caring, and supportive companion. We watch movies and go to dinners. It's great.
I think I'm actually finished with my graduate school applications and their corresponding amazing-but-unlikely financial aid/scholarship applications. I'll hear back by the time Ben and I get back from the Philippines. Regardless of how many times I checked and double-checked all of my papers, my resume, the application guidelines, the addresses of sent material, the status of recommendation letters, the end-date of when to use my current address, the scores and percentages and sent status of my GRE scores, the taxable income and affiliated obfuscatory financial information, the answers to countless unique yet redundant personal history academic moral ethical political rhetorical literal questions, the endless and infinite due dates, the credit card charges, emails to potentially helpful professors, emails to administrators and tehcnical assistance personel, url addresses cached for later use, pin numbers and passwords, ethnic group bubbles, the confidentiality statements, my spelling, the stars earmarking important emails (these do not include family and friends), and last but not least of all, my sanity, it was inevitable that I would make a few mistakes.
I will try not to dwell on them. Instead of counting down the 20 weeks I have left of this job, I will instead focus on the 8 weeks I have left before deciding some of the relevant components of my near future.
I've been so tired lately. Something about the snow falling with such determination, slowly covering the whole world in cold bright gray bliss, makes me feel alive.