effing textbooks

An update, finally.

Since the last post, I have moved from Japan to Georgia and then from Georgia to Virginia, without much pause or even slowing down in between. I'm pretty tired now.

The journey up to Charlottesville and my first few hours here were not that much fun, but since then, I've been having a pretty good time. The C'ville area is really pretty and the weather is so much nicer than Georgia and an amazing improvement over Japan.

My apartment is almost together. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, but I like it a lot. The hardwood floor downstairs is very pretty and I have nice big windows. I also have a washing machine and dryer and a dishwasher! I'm so happy about that!

I have yet to finish putting all my clothes away, so my bedroom is still a mess, but I'm pretty much finished with the living room/kitchen area, and it looks really nice. I'd post pics, but I can't find the cable that connects my camera to my computer. It's probably somewhere upstairs in a box or a suitcase. My living room looks a lot like one of the little showcase rooms at Ikea, except not quite as nice. But it's close. Once my clothes are put away, my bedroom will look nice too.

I got my new computer last week, and it's really nice. Unfortunately, I don't yet have wireless access at home (thanks a lot, Comcast), so I can only use the internet on my old computer, but whatever. I can use it at school, which is the important part.

My parents left on Sunday, but Ali was here from Saturday to Tuesday, so I haven't been too lonely. Seeing Ali was great, as I hadn't seen her in about a year and a half, and it was just like old times. Except that she reads the Twilight books now. (Thanks for the e-card, btw.) I just wish she lived closer! But I'm going to try to make it out to Albuquerque before they move.

Since Ali left, I've been chilling by myself, running some errands and watching a lot of TV. Mainly the Olympics and movies on AMC. I bought my books for this semester today, and they totalled almost $700. I wanted to cry when the guy told me how much it would be. At least he was nice. I also met a girl in my section. Julia. She was there with her parens. Seemed nice, but it's hard to tell.

I rented some movies from Blockbuster (Hellboy, American Dreamz, and A Prairie Home Companion), so I have something else to watch other than Red October and The China Syndrome on AMC.

I can't believe I'm starting class in less than a week. I finally figured out that my class schedule was posted on the school student information system, so I at least know that much. I have the standard 1L fall semester: Civil Procedure, Contracts, Criminal Law, Legal Writing, and Torts. I have 3 classes a day Monday through Thursday, but only one on Friday, and it's not until the afternoon.

I was going to buy my train ticket for Thanksgiving, but after spending most of the rest of my money today on books, I'm going to wait until my loan money comes in to do that. Alas. In the meantime, I will try to avoid spending money.

omg it's hot

It is miserably hot today. I feel so gross. I walked here this morning, and then 10 minutes after I got in, I had to go back to my apartment with one of the office guys so we could remove the couch and table that I no longer want. Of course, I had to rush around and clean up before he could come in, and then we had to lift the stuff, so by the time I got back to the office (and walk up the stairs again), I was in a right state. At least the AC is on. But it's not working fast enough.

I also need to get rid of my piano. A new JET is looking at buying one, but he can only pay about half of what I'd like to get for it. So I'm going to call up my old supervisor who helped me get the piano and see if I can't sell it back to the guy I bought it from for more.

It seems like I have so much left to do here before I leave. I really need to pack my shit up, as I'd like to have my big bags packed by Saturday, so Kuroneko can take them to the airport. So I will be doing that tonight. Yes. I don't care how tired I will be.

Last night we went out to Sakai for my last yakiniku dinner. It was delicious. Then we went to karaoke for longer than I anticipated, and of course, I found some new songs that I'm good at singing, but I'm leaving the land of karaoke, so they are no longer of use to me. I know they have karaoke in America, but it's different.

Mama got my Comcast installation set up, so I definitely have to be at the apartment by August 6. I'm getting their Triple Play option, with cable, internet, and digital phone service all in one. I hope it works out.

I think I might go on a Facebook crawl today, see if anybody is doing anything interesting.

Would anybody be willing to see Batman with me while I'm home? This is a pressing issue. I feel like I should go ahead and buy my tickets.

swing city

I was mildly productive today. I did two loads of laundry and packed up two more boxes of cold-weather clothes to send home. I've also gotten quite a lot accomplished in my little city in Sim City, so that's good too.

My future landlord emailed me the lease agreement for my new apartment. It seems fairly straightforward and reasonable. I read through it today, but I'm going to read through it again tomorrow before I sign it and send it back to her.

I think there are some angry cats in the neighborhood, because I heard the most awful sound a few hours ago, and it could only be some kind of angry animal. I assume cats, but I guess it could be tanukis. Or monkeys. I hope not monkeys.

I finished watching season two of Bones, so now I have to watch the third season and I'll be all caught up. Yay! Man, do I love David Boreanaz. Damn.

Last night, the Kumano girls went out to Shingu for curry and some light shopping. I finally had their sag cheese, and it was so good. I think it's my favorite. It looked different from the sag panir I've had before, but it tasted great, so I don't care. I will miss that place so much, but I did some research, and there are a few Indian places in Charlottesville. As long as they have nan (and allow for my low spicy tolerance), then I'm cool.

We also went to Uniqlo, and I didn't mean to buy anything, but I did. I got two pretty awesome t-shirts. One has this weird picture that kind of freaks me out, but I like it. Maybe I'll take a picture of it later and post it. The other is from some Rumiko Takahashi manga, which itself isn't that awesome, but the picture is of a tiger wearing a cape and wrestling shorts fighting a girl, featuring the caption "Tiger Fight". It was too much for me to resist.

I don't know what tomorrow has in store. I don't see myself getting up in time to go to the post office and send my boxes off. Maybe I'll clean. My apartment could certainly use it.

show me the way to go home

Oh man, I'm sleepy. So sleepy. And I really tried to go to bed early. I did. And I let myself sleep in a little bit, all to no avail. Maybe if the stupid rain hadn't woken me up several times last night, I wouldn't be so tired. Stupid rain. Stupid off-shore typhoons.

I haven't posted in a while, clearly. Apologies all around. Here's a brief-ish description of my time away.

April 26-29

I decided to take an extended Golden Week trip, since the real GW sucked this year (the holidays didn't align properly, alas). Michelle and I spent the first days of our trip in Fukuoka, as we usually do. It was super fun, possibly more fun than other times. We sold some of our manga and I got three pairs of new glasses at Zoff, including the sunglasses that I've been wanting for almost a year. They are badass. We also finally ate at the Indian restaurant next to Ichiran, and it was delicious. Sag panir with cheese nan is the way to go, most def.

April 30-May5

Our trip took a turn for the worse when we went to Korea. Maybe it was because we'd had so much fun in Fukuoka in the days before, maybe it was because we stayed in Seoul instead of going to other cities, I don't know. But the general consensus was that Korea sucks ass.

The countryside is less-than-impressive, for one thing. Here, I'm surrounded by beautiful, lush green mountains, but there, the mountains and everything else just looked gray. Bleak. Not a great first impression. This is probably the result of pollution, a lot of which I'm sure comes from China, but whatever.

Seoul was also dirty and grimy. Not how I like my cities, or at least the shopping areas, to look.

The food looked gross. There, I said it. We looked at it, and it looked nasty, so we didn't eat it. And I don't even feel bad about it.

Lastly, the residents of Seoul were some of the most infuriating people I've ever had the displeasure of coming into contact with.

My biggest complaint is that they are line-cutters, which might not sound like a big deal, but it's one of my pet peeves, and fucking everybody was doing it, which to me indicates a system-wide lack of respect for others. Needless to say, lots of elbows were thrown on this trip.

Aside from the gratuitous line-cutting, I found them rude and pushy and they somehow managed to disrupt our paths everywhere we went.

Also, lots of public transport smelled like salami, which I fear has forever ruined that deli meat for Michelle.

Oh the plus side, we did get to see Ironman (twice!), which I don't think has been released in Japan yet. And the tickets were only 8000 won (about $8 US), whereas they are usually 1800 yen here ($18 US). And the people laughed at appropriate times during the movie, which Japanese people never do, because they are either humorless or retarded.

In general, people were normal-sized, which was refreshing, and they didn't walk around like the living dead, as the J-folks are also prone to doing.

And they had Krispy Kreme!!

I'm sure there are other good things about the country, but honestly, we didn't really see it. And I'm never going back, so oh well.

May 5-6

We went back to Fukuoka for a day and a half after getting back from Korea, and thank god we did. We definitely needed that time to "fix" our trip. I have never been so glad to get back to Japan.

Unfortunately, this was the last trip I'll be taking anywhere and the last time I'll see Michelle for a while. But I have to save money for shipping stuff home and for future expenses. Argh.

One of those expenses is my new apartment. My parents are going to pay my rent, which came as a big surprise to me, but I want to help if I can. Mom and Dad went to Charlottesville while we were in Korea and found an apartment for me. It just happens to be in my favorite building. Yay! More about that later.

So that explains a lot of the time. After getting back to Japan, I went back to work, and that's what I've been doing for the last week. Super fun, I know. I'm trying to keep my head in the game, as it were, for the next few months, but it's hard. Now that I have something else lined up, I'm ready to go home and do that. But not yet. Alas.

practice

For the last 15 minutes or so, there have been fireworks going off at the beach. At first, I thought the town was being bombed, but then I realized that was a stupid thought, because Kumano is too insignificant to be a target for anything. I looked out of my bedroom doors, but didn't see anything, and it's hard to tell where sounds originate here, since everything echoes off the mountains.

Then I went out my front door, I saw that the noise was coming from random fireworks. We stood out and watched them for a while, and then the lady next to Catherine came out, and when I asked if there was a festival or something, she said it was just practice. Practice for what? I guess the big summer spectacular, but that's not until August. Weird.

We finally had our scheduling meeting for this semester. I'm only partially busy, but it looks like a decent school-to-office ratio this time around. And I only have one elementary school visit and it's to Ido, the only big school without horrible, horrible children (now that the 6th graders have graduated).

It was stupid, however, that I start class on Monday, but the meeting was at 4pm today. Thanks for giving us planning time, Sato-sensei. At least my first class is at Isato, where I plan all the lessons, so I planned them out before lunch. Still. A pain.

Also a pain was the fact that we only work until 4:30, but the meeting didn't end until 4:50. I expect to be able to get off work 20 minutes early sometime soon. I know that's kind of dickish, but after being around the office a-holes for three-and-a-half weeks, I don't care. If they were nice, I'd let it slide.

Anyway, seeing my schedule for the next 3 months all laid out in front of me made me very happy, because that's all I have left. After those classes are out of the way, I am going home, and I am thrilled.

My parents are thrilled too. I think Mama mentions in every email how many months it is until I go home. It's pretty sweet. Also pretty sweet is that my parents have been planning on paying my rent while I'm in school. I wasn't expecting that. Thanks, Mama and Daddy!

After spending several days looking at apartments, I have moved on to looking for furniture. So yesterday, I spent most of my time at the office on the Ikea website. I'm so happy that I'll finally be able to buy something from there. The one item I want the most is the Malm bed; I've been wanting that for years, and soon, it will be mine.

I can already tell that I'm going to have a hard time picking out color schemes. I'm liking green a lot lately, and also dark purple. Blue is a longtime favorite. And dark brown is very nice too, especially combined with blue or pink. Argh.

In addition to checking out furnishings, I also did some cell phone and plan research. I want to stick with T-Mobile, because they haven't done me wrong yet. They have these "myFaves" plans that give you unlimited minutes to call up to 5 numbers. I already know what 3 of those would be: parents, Ali, and Michelle. The other two are up for grabs. And text and internet plans are a lot cheaper than I'd anticipated ($4.99/month and $5.99/month, respectively). I also looked at Blackberry plans, since I'm considering getting one of those. Whichever way I decide, I'll be spending between $50 and $60 a month, which is exactly what I pay now. Not bad.

Did I mention there were hot guys at Mosburger the other day? Because there were. HOT. And tall. And they were in suits. God I hope they live/work here, if only so I can see them around town. Too bad one of them was wearing these god-awful blindingly orange Crocs. Crocs make me want to amputate the feet of the people wearing them, that's how much I hate them. What hideous shoes.

112 days and counting

I looked at my calendar today and I have 112 days until the end of my contract. I hope I can leave about a week earlier than that, but if that's not possible, it's 112. I can't wait to leave.

The main reason that I want to get out of Japan is that I hate being in the office. I have nothing to do and it sucks. And that crazy bitch Miyahara yelled at us again yesterday for talking. Is she unable to do her job unless there is complete silence? If so, I don't consider that my problem; get some fucking ear plugs, they have them at the 100yen store. If it's just English she doesn't like to hear, still not my problem. I don't negotiate with racists.

I've spent the last few days looking at apartments in Charlottesville. I found a few that are very close to the law school (like a 5-minute walk), but upon closer inspection, they look slightly ghetto and have bad reviews online. There are some that are very nice, though. One of my favorites (and of course, the most expensive), is in a converted 1924 warehouse, with hardwood floors, floor-to-ceiling windows, and 9' ceilings. So pretty!

My parents are going to actually go up to VA to check these places out for me, since it's not really convenient for me to go myself. I made them a Google map (I had no idea this was possible until a few days ago, but it's awesome.), with the locations of the apartments plotted out in relation to the school. I've tagged them in different colors based on my preferences: purple for the ones I really like, pink for the ones I like okay, and yellow for the ones I'd settle for.

Yesterday after work, Lauren, Catherine, and I went for a little hike on the Matsumoto trail. Cat had never done that one, and it's pretty easy and doesn't take long, so we did that instead of going to the gym. The weather was nice, not too hot or cold, and the crazy wind we had yesterday had died down by then, so it was a pleasant little hike. And then Lauren and I went out for cheap yakiniku. It was so good. I love meat.

Oh yes, and there was an earthquake this morning. It woke me up about 4:40. At first I thought I was imagining it, since I was still half-asleep, but when I kept being shaken, I realized it wasn't just a figment of my imagination. I thought about getting out of bed and getting in the doorway, just in case that was just a fore-shock, and then I thought about how I don't have a little earthquake pack, and then I went back to sleep. So much for that.