U I vethed na I onnad.

So I hear there's been another mass exodus from LJ? Or something? I suppose this would be where I post the obligatory 'I will go down with this ship' .gif, but I don't have one. Really I just can't be buggered to learn the ins and outs of DW or whatever other platform people are using now. I'm too old. IN MY DAY WE USED TYPEWRITERS, AND YOU HAD TO KNOW HOW TO SPELL YOUR OWN WORDS and all that.

I've finally quit Mood. Not because I have anything better lined up, but because I was seriously going to commit homicide if I stayed another month. My last day is next Tuesday. I will probably sing on my way out. In the interim I'm going to be stocking up my fabric stash while my discount is still active. It's not like I have no prospects. I've sent out some applications to theaters that will be starting their summer programming. And at my exit interview today Fabian basically told me that I'm on call as a freelancer for her, with my enthusiastic permission. So there'll be something in the works.

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and my father's birthday would be Friday. Oh. And I'm 26 now. If I keep telling myself that I should remember it just in time to turn 27.

Well, shit.

I called my old bank in Japan to see about getting my money finally transferred over to the States. Since we got paid on the 25th of every month for the month before, and my flight was for the 8th, I figured I had one more pay check due in. In checking the last five transactions, however, that check is nowhere to be seen. There was no payment made for March in April. And to make matters worse, I can't find my March pay slip for February.

I really don't know what to do right now.

I feel like I very seriously do not know where time has gone. In fact, the last date I can feel certain of passing is September 14th - and for no particular reason except that H. at my intern said 'IS IT SERIOUSLY SEPTEMBER 14TH?!' at one point. And I kind of remember September 30th because we had a Mood staff meeting that made me get up an hour early. After that, it's all a long, long blur of what I shall assume was routine life. I assume this as nothing really sticks out.

There was talk of a date but it didn't happen and I don't actually remember when it was supposed to be.

Nothing of real significance has passed at Mood. As of last week I'm part time there and my pay check is a little more suck than it used to be. I'm also still nowhere near reaching this quota thing that is supposed to give me a whole extra $100 - if that - yet I am told just about every day I walk in that I help the most people out of ANYONE IN THE STORE. Maybe this is just me, but I think it should tell them that maybe my quota needs to be a fuck-ton lower if I am helping the most people in the store and still at only 12% instead of 20% or whatever it is.

This weekend is the point from which I will be basing my next point of reference. An old college friend came up late on Thursday night and stayed until Saturday evening. Friday I worked, but following work we went to Swing 46. Swing 46 is a delightful jazz and supper club and I'm sad I didn't know about it earlier. They have live bands, good food, and little free mini-lessons before the live music starts. G. and I danced until 12:00. We also talked with the one of the mini-lesson instructors and I got myself a 10% discount card for dance lessons at a studio not so far from Mood.

We also got a private lesson on Saturday. The lesson was from 1:00 to 2:00 and was mostly in '30s style Charleston. After that G. and I went up on the High Line. The High Line is a second of old above-ground railroad that has long been abandoned. It's all the way over on the west side and currently runs from 30th street to Washington street. They're trying to buy the rail all the way to where it ends on 34th, but it remains to be seen if they will be able to. Basically they've done a VERY careful job of creating a series of gardens to make it appear that nature has taken over the abandoned tracks. There are also tiny lawns for people to sit on and a flat area of flowing water that can be walked it. It's pretty amazing.

And tonight I was invited to the dress rehearsal of Chinglish, a new comedy which is going into previews on Tuesday. It's AWESOME. The premise is that a western businessman tries to get himself into business in China and has no idea what he's doing. He also can't speak Chinese and so has to rely on interpreters - who don't always know English. The play is, in fact, half in Chinese with super-titles are projected onto various parts of the set. The set employs furniture on moving tracks and two carousels spinning around the stage-left and right pieces to create four entirely different places. I loved it.

I also finished making a couple of birthday presents today. Here's hoping they fit the intended birthday boys. I will post pictures of them after the party this coming Saturday.

Oh! And other thing of non-importance. In what is probably far-too-early anticipatory preparation for maybe possibly moving out sometime in the next half-year, I have a new dresser. It's sitting out in our apartment entrance and is awesome. However, we still don't know if the renovations of the apartment we're looking at have started - or if they even have the permit yet.

Barely at my job three weeks and already I'm beginning to pile up the Customers Suck stories. Because for real, customers suck.

It's kind of crazy, too, how one day you can sell over $1600 and the very next day you barely break $300. (I'm pretty sure today I didn't break $300 at all, but I'll find out tomorrow. And given that tomorrow is LABOR-FUCKING-DAY-FUCKING-WEEKEND SATURDAY who wants to bet that tomorrow nobody comes in at all? At least we close at 4:00 instead of 7:00.)

Wednesday I start my props internship at Propstar, effectively putting me to work 6 days a week. I'm probably crazy, yes, but I'm REALLY excited about working for this company. They've got actual Broadway - and a lot of it - under their belt. They've also got what sounds like a pretty good reputation, so here's hoping.

I'm going to be in the Times again this Sunday thanks to my Jazz Age Lawn Party beach pyjamas. Found the link today. Second time! Now I'll have to start planning more outfits to try and impress. XD

One of these days I will have the brain power to finish the 30 days of baseball. One of these days.

As it is, today is the last day of school. We had the Ending Ceremony in 20 minutes, during which I had to give a speech (shortest. speech. ever). After said speech the children were parted like the red sea. I was left to walk down the aisle while they clapped. Well what's a girl supposed to do but wave like the Queen? So I did. That's a parting I don't think those kids will ever forget. XD

Following the ceremony the kids had one more period where last minute business was wrapped up. After that, the kids left for home and I saw them for the last time. Miori-chan came to give me her address and then six of my second year boys came to the teacher's room specifically to see me one last time and thank me for teaching them English. I also got such greetings as: "Ms. Lisa is the most interesting person. In the world!" I am also apparently very kind. (To second year boys, perhaps, because they're hilarious and not little hellions.)

Milling around outside produced several gaggles of my first year girls also coming to say goodbye. As one said it: "Forever! ... Forever... um... forever... goodbye!" They're adorable. I'm going to miss them, seriously.

Then we came back to the teacher's room for lunch and cake. Flowers are given to all the departing teachers, who then are expected to say parting words to the staff who are staying. Now, I sort of knew this happened, because I remember it happening last year. But I forgot about it, and nobody reminded me. I didn't have anything prepared, but that's apparently okay. When the foreign girl says "Atashi kiitenai kara, nani iebaiin warakanai", they burst out laughing. AND I got a present from 'everybody', AND AND I got a present from Tasaki-sensei with the nicest letter ever.

It's really, really weird to think that I'm leaving here in less than three weeks. It's like I lost an entire week of my life following the earthquake - I feel like there should be more time, more school, more classes to deal with. My house is not taken apart at all. We got our moving boxes, but we haven't put them together and we haven't started packing because of the detailed inventory the company requires. We haven't started getting rid of anything, either. I'm not sure we can put things up on Gaijinpot at this point because of the last minute nature of this all. Don't suppose anybody knows someone in Japan who needs household appliances? l-lol orz We'll see how it goes.

(PS: Still not dead, and still not glowing. 8Db)

LOL!

My schedule next week is so sad. In part because of graduation and in part because of tests, I have one class the entire week. Not sure what the two weeks following will look like. Probably not much different - once the third years are graduated there won't be any English for them.

Oh! And! I get to wear hakama to graduation with Tasaki-sensei! With my hair done and everything. It happened really randomly on Monday and the rental will be fairly expensive, but it's going to be a lot nicer than a suit.

My last term of work has been kind of really crazy.

I have sent out, er, 10ish resumes. I have been rejected without interview from 2 positions and rejected from 1 after interview. I haven't heard at all from 5+ companies and I'm still working on 2 others. (By which I mean I have an interview in Osaka TOMORROW and another interview in Chiba next Thursday.) I've basically given up on 4 of the 5+ companies I haven't heard from. (I honestly can't remember all the places I've sent out applications to off the top of my head.) One of the companies employs my mom's friend's son, so I've got him checking on my application there, but I don't know what will come of it.

Though I know technically I still have another month, I'm flailing a lot like this is down-to-the-wire, last-minute interviewing and having a hard time not getting anxious.

As much as I would love to be home with my mom and my friends, I really can't sit around without a job. I could go to graduate school, I guess, but I refuse to put my mother in debt over tuition for a degree in something I'm not certain I actually want to do. I could come back and job hunt in New York, but I'd probably end up behind the counter of another bakery or something, and then my mother would fret about my future and things would just be unbearable with her at home.

Not to mention if I do wind up having to come home it really will be last-minute and I don't even want to think about the price of moving + plane ticket.

Conundrums, conundrums.



Entirely unrelated, I think I've lost weight again. My belts need like 2 new holes each and my pants are being annoying by not fitting.

The kanji kentei steps book provided my first level 6 四字熟語 (4-character idiomatic compound) this morning. It is this: 温故知新 (on-ko-chi-shin), or when translated character for word, 'stupid deceased, wisdom new'. It's the equivalent of 'learn from the past', which I find kind of funny considering my long angsting - and possibly self-pitying - thing of not too long ago. I should ask the Japanese teacher if I can borrow a brush and write it to hang over my bed. Maybe I'd keep the lesson in mind.

(Why yes, I am studying kanji at work. I feel so smrt when I do it, which is a nice change from my usual. Anyway, there's not much else to do - the kids are all in tests so I don't have class.)

This raining needs to stop now kthxbai. orz

I still have no driver's license. Amanda is taking her third test today - three tries is the fastest either she or I have ever heard of anyone getting theirs. I still shake my fist at Japan's love-affair translation agreement with Canada and Australia. I understand it, mostly, but I shake my fist at it. In light of not being able to drive, I wake up at 6:30 to get the 7:07 bus to make the 7:35 train to get to Ogane at 7:45 so I can walk up the mountain to school and be on time at 8:00. This is not so bad. If it never rained, I would be perfectly happy to do it every day. But it does rain. A lot. And it's cold. That makes it very Not Fun.

I have discovered a girl in one of my second year classes who lived in Oxford for three years (she still speaks with her accent and it's adorable), and a boy in one of my third year classes who lived in Ohio for four. I am looking forward to speaking to them more. But oh, man. I've been so spoiled. Between starting late and having all these days off this past two weeks, and Golden Week beginning on Saturday (wherein I am set to go to Osaka and do everything Kanjani8 told me to do, and see everything Kanjani8 ever referenced), I don't know how I'm going to get through the rest of the year. L-lol

The apartment is almost totally put together now. We finished putting away our kitchen and my room is basically in order, and we just got a kotatsu. We need to get an extension cord so we can plug it in, but that will take care of our living room furniture. Now we have only to get all the packaging trash taken out and then I can take pictures of our lovely space. It's exciting.

It's not the Snowpocalypse or whatever the snazzy titles the news stations in the States came up with, but we got snow last night. Serious snow. Such serious snow that the kids are coming in two whole hours late today, and I appeared right on time this morning to the general HOLY-CRAP-HOW-DID-YOU-DRIVE-THAT? of everyone.

Snow, of course, is not so much a big deal back in the States, but that's because we have plowers who are out first thing in the morning. Here, they haven't got that. If there isn't snow on the streets (at least the big ones) it's because there have been other cars driving over it. If there isn't snow on the little back streets it's because God created a miracle. (No, really.)

It's actually very pretty out there, but terrifying to drive. I barely went above 20km the whole trip. (This, uh, may be in part because I don't have snow tires. I know, I'm a terrible person. No, really.) I took some shots from around the school on my phone; I will try to get some from around my house later. I wish I had snow boots - my sneakers are soaked. XD;

Of course, because the kids are coming in two hours late my first two classes are canceled, leaving me only fourth period. And Nakamura-sensei isn't here either, so who knows if she will come at all, since she has to commute from Takasaki. If she doesn't, that would bring me down to zero classes. Nakamura-sensei has entered the building. One fourth period for me.

YAY BOREDOM. I knew I should have brought my embroidery. 8Db

OH. And I forgot to mention. Rush Limbaugh threatens to leave the US for Costa Rica should the health care bill pass Congress. This is HILARIOUS because, funny enough, Costa Rica already offers universal health care to the people. It's also a relief. Good riddance, Limbaugh. (Is he really going? Doubtful. Do I wish he really would? You bet.)