5-for-5

I got into Virginia.

That is all.

i <3 shinbashi

Let me preface this by saying that I am drunk. Not like completely blind, but on the stronger side of buzzed. So whatever typos or sentences that don't make sense can be blamed on that.

Cat and I did gym today. It worked out pretty well. My heart rate was elevated for about 45 minutes, so I consider it a good day of exercise. Also, while I was on the treadmill, I had a clear view into the weight room through the giant windows, and one of the guys in there TOOK OFF HIS FUCKING PANTS and he had on this little speedo/bikini briefs and he just stood there looking at himself in the mirror. I had to call Cat over to look, but make it look like she wasn't looking. Then he put his pants back on, but immediately took his shirt off to look at his other half. WHAT.

After the gym, we came back and showered and got dressed, because Lauren wanted to go for a drink, as her day had been stressful. So we went to Shinbashi, which, aside from Yoro in Owase, is my favorite izakaya ever. Their chuuhais are soooooo good. Which is why I am in my current state. I had a blue hawaii (I don't know what flavor that is, but it's blue and delicious) and Lauren and I split a lychee. Thank god we split it, because it was STRONG. I wouldn't have managed the walk home if I'd had a whole one. Anyway, it was a good time. I love a good buzz. Sorry, liver!

Also, I've been fanatically checking the status pages of the schools I haven't heard back from, and Virginia's was updated today to say that a decision was made and it is being MAILED to me. BLURGH. Don't mail it to me, Virginia! Just use the awesome powers of the Internet to inform me of my fate. They have such a nice status page too, it's very nice, so I don't know why they don't just tell me there. So frustrating.

But oddly enough, I can get on the admitted students site, so either I got in and they're just bad about hiding it, or I didn't and they are cruelly getting my hopes up so they can be painfully dashed. I hope it's the former, as Virginia is one of my two top choice schools, along with Berkeley.

Now I'm trying to decide what to do before I go to bed. I don't think I should play SimCity, as I might drunkenly destroy my city, and I have a lot of money saved up, so that would piss me off muchly. I will probably hang out on the computer a big longer and possibly watch some TV on YouTube or something I've downloaded. Psych could be good.

b-i-n-g-o

It amazes me how much I love the kids at Ido Kindergarten, especially compared to my feelings toward the other group of kindergarteners. The Ido kids were so good today and it makes me sad to think that we will only see them one more time before the year ends.

Why is my boss still here? He's supposed to be gone! Blurgh. If he was just sitting at his desk, it would be fine, but he's never just sitting there. He's always on the phone, talking in his ridiculously loud voice, and he's right behind me and the sound weighs on me like a load of loud, obnoxious bricks. I hope he transfers in April. I hope so hard.

I thought I would explain the name of this blog, since I haven't before. It's a reference to Dinosaur Comics (these comics, actually), which is perhaps my favorite thing on the whole of the Internet. Seriously. I see a lot of myself in both T-Rex and Utahraptor, which is slightly disturbing, but also exhilarating, in that I am comparing myself to a dinosaur. Anyway, chocochops are, in the words of T-Rex, "moulded chocolate pork chops with a real pork chop bone." The combination of two of my favorite things, chocolate and pork, was too good to pass up as a blog title.

After work, as far as I know, we will be gymming, and after showers, going to karaoke somewhere. Karaoke is one of the best things Japan has ever produced (sushi and Rirakkuma being the other two), and it is much more fun to go in a small group, maybe 3-5 people. With big groups, you don't get to sing as much, and you usually have to listen to people try to sing Japanese songs, which totally takes the fun out of karaoke for me, as I have a very limited repetoire of J-songs, and nobody ever sings one I know. (Wow, look at that run-on sentence!)

I am super excited that today is Friday, because that means tomorrow is Saturday. Excellent.

The U.S.'s current economic downturn is doing wonders for my money transfers. Today the dollar was down to 105yen. It was 107 earlier this week.

I ordered flowers to be delivered today for Mom's birthday. I hope she gets them. I've never ordered flowers online before, but it was from a reputable company (or one that wasn't complained about on Consumerist). I got an email that they were shipping out, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I also felt bad that I'd ordered something for Mom, but Daddy wasn't getting anything, so I bought him season one of Boston Legal. He did do all of my financial aid stuff, so I figure that makes a nice thank-you gift.

that's a lot of money

Today was a fun-filled day of sitting at my desk at the office. I was going to surf the Internet all day as usual, but after I read an article about personal workspaces, I was inspired to clean my desk. I had lots of papers piled up and stuff I didn't need in all the drawers, so I took about two hours and cleared it out. I even wiped down the desktop. It looks much better.

In the second half of the day, I was much less productive, but I did read an interesting article about ship salvagers (High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas). Might be a little tl;dr, but it's a good read.

Catherine and I were going to go to the gym, but Lauren texted us at the end of the day about going to Mosburger, so we did that instead. I was starving. Perfect timing. We will gym tomorrow.

I got home and saw a letter from George Washington waiting for me. They will give me $20,000 my first year (and for the next two years if I maintain a 3.0) and give me free on-campus housing for my first year if I go there. Wow. The potential to save $60,000 on my education is very tempting. But I'm going to wait until I hear from the other schools before I make any decisions.

I really want to play with my DS now. My parents sent me SimCity and I've been playing that almost constantly. It's so much fun, just as much fun as I remembered. Oh video games.

little bastards

Today Catherine and I went to Kinomoto Kindergarten (aka the 9th circle of hell), and they weren't as awful as usual. The little bastards that always start fights were fighting at the beginning of class, and one of them was shrieking his head off, but after the principal took them out, things settled down. And the screamer actually played one of the games really well. It's a shame he's such a pain in the ass. I'm so glad we only go there one more time this year. Then it's a whole new batch of hellions.

After work, I went to the gym with Lauren. I hadn't been in a while and I definitely felt it. But I can feel my thighs getting fatter, so I need to go more often. Like tomorrow and the next day and the day after.

This morning I was doing my daily check of the law school status sites, and Georgia's had been updated. I got in! Yay! It was kind of funny because up until Tuesday, it just said my application had been received, and Tuesday it changed to say that my application was under review in a process that usually takes several weeks, and today, I got in.

I was too tired to make any real food for dinner, so I had some cheese and crackers with prosciutto. It was tasty, but it bothers me that prosciutto is nama ("raw") ham in Japanese. It's not raw! That's gross. Prosciutto is delicious.

trickery from g-town

I'll start with the best news of the day: I got into Georgetown! I'm very excited, as it's the highest-ranked school I've gotten into so far. Number 14 this year, according to U.S. News and World Report. The letter was sitting in the genkan when I got home from work. It was a small, almost greeting card-size envelope, so I had an immediate case of sad face, but when I opened it up, the first words was "Congratulations!", and my sad face went away.

Too bad tuition is $42,000+, not counting anything else. It kind of makes me ill to think about.

Other than that, I had a long, draining day at the office doing very little. I emailed back and forth with Ali in the morning and read her awesome craftlog (http://www.right-brain-release.blogspot.com/). So crafty she is! I'm so jealous it hurts.

I also looked for laptop bags. I really like the custom laptop messengers from Timbuk2, but they're about $140-163, which is unfortunate.

Later in the day, I got a headache, which I still have, even after a nice nap. I guess that means it's time to go to bed. :(

best use of the passive, ever

The 2nens at Iruka made my year, seriously. We were playing this passive sentence construction game, kind of like MadLibs, except they pick each part of a sentence from separate word banks without looking at what other students wrote for the other parts of the sentence. Anyway, one group asked to use names other than the ones on the sheet, and I knew that some sort of debauchery would ensue, but I told them they could, and this is the gem they produced:

"Keita was loved by Mitsunobu in bed three years ago."

I don't know what was funnier--when Saki said, "Sorry, it's my fault that it's gross." (since she wrote the "three years ago" bit), or when Morio got up and started moaning and thrusting IN FRONT OF THE VISITING BAACHAN! I would've died of embarrassment if it wasn't so damn funny.

Another surprise was that Masato, the boy who rarely comes to school and never comes to English class on the days he does come, actually came to English and kind of participated, and then talked to me after class and showed me a card trick! WHAT? Too bad he didn't do any of that for the previous year and a half.

I'm also reading the infamous One L by Scott Turow, and it is scaring the bejeezus out of me. My only consolation is that it was written about thirty years ago, so maybe the situation is a little different. I guess another consolation is that I almost certainly won't get accepted to Harvard (even though they emailed me about applying), but whatever. I knew about the Socratic method before, but seeing how it actually plays out is terrifying. What the hell am I doing?

procrastination

I know I should be working on my lesson plans for tomorrow, especially since it's Parents' Day or whatever, but I'd much rather not. So I'm reorganizing my bookmarks, testing out note-taking software, and eating.

My new 500gb hard drive is very exciting. Perhaps exciting isn't the right word. But that is how I feel about it.

I finally booked my hotel for the Yokohama conference, and I bought my ticket to Kagoshima, so I feel that I've been quite productive on my travel to-do list.

The wait for law school decision notices continues.