The Year of the Ox

jillin @ 2009-01-10T20:37:00

2009-01-10T11:39:21Z

Still alive. Though kind of wishing not at the moment, since my dinner consisted mostly of chocolate and I feel rather ill. Anyhow, back at home in Japan, back working, writing, et cetera. Posting at the moment over on wordpress more than here, so feel free to check it out:

http://thenonakas.wordpress.com/

Ugh. Be back when I don't feel like yurking and have something more interesting to say.

I'm back!

2008-12-13T03:51:39Z

After a week off in Shiga, I'm back! Yeah! One more week until I go home for six days! Wa-heeey!

The problem with life in a different time zone

2008-12-06T06:45:53Z

is that when you feel suicidally enraged and impotent and just want to talk to someone who will understand, they're all asleep. Especially problematic when you're terminally considerate enough to not want to wake anyone up because you know they'll have a hellish tomorrow if you keep them up all night bitch. So instead you take it out on your blog.

Okay. My name is J.S. and I have a problem. The problem is that I want to tear down every institution related to the medical field in this country. This is a problem, since many people - myself included - need treatment from said medical institutions. But god, I hate them so much.

This is especially ironic if you take a look at my family:

Brother: doctor and medical-malpractice lawyer (for the defendents, of course)

Sister: nurse in training

Mother: registered nurse

Father: retired medical administrator

Maternal Grandmother: retired (and, well, dead) nurse

Maternal Grandfather: retired (dead) doctor

Paternal Grandmother: retired (dead) ministry of defense worker - breaking the mould, grandma! That's right.

Paternal Grandfather: retired (dead) hospital administrator

You may be able to detect a pattern and notice that my family is slightly involved in the medical field. I have a sympathy for this people. I know how hard their jobs are. I know what miserably, thankless work it can be. I know how hard it is to watch patients suffer and die and kill themselves by not following orders.

BUT THEY STILL MAKE ME SO ANGRY I WANT TO SCREAM. Let me describe my day, if you don't mind. I left at 10 am for my 11 am appointment. Arrived at 1030, a half hour early, as is protocal. Waited. Waited some more. After about two hours of waiting and four bottles of water, I reminded one of the nurses that I was there for an echo and thus was all prepared and had filled my bladder as instructed and I was about to burst. She waved me away. Another a thirty minutes and I was having sharp pains radiating through my abdomen and stabbing pains in my back. I reminded them again that I wasn't going to be able to hold this in much longer. They waved me away with placating vagueness. By this point I was crying in public, something that I hate to do. Three hours after arriving, I finally was shown into the examining room, where they had me lie on my back to wait for the doctor, an excruciating exercise in itself. Then I waited some more. My back felt like it was cramping and I was having visions of dialysis. I couldn't think straight through the pain and finally had to give in and go to the bathroom before the sonogram.

That didn't relieve the pain, by the way, and even now - an hour later - my abdomen is still cramping and seething. Eventually got the sonogram, which the doctor wasn't satisfied with because she couldn't see my left goddamned ovary or some damn thing. So she instructed me to come in again for the whole fun process. Then routine blood tests, then the humiliation of attempting and failing to complete a urine sample, since I had just pissed two gallons of water and tea five minutes before. But then! It just keeps on getting better.

I am released and sent downstairs to collect my pills and settle accounts. At which point I am told that I owe them something over US$120. Trying not to hyperventilate, I repeat the figure disbelievingly and they show me how much each test cost and how the national insurance that I pay 10% of my salary to every month DOESN'T COVER THEM. And, don't forget, I need to do it again in the next month. As tears uncontrollably well up in my eyes again, I shakily open my wallet and ask if they take credit cards.

OF COURSE NOT, YOU DUMB FOREIGN BITCH! WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS, A FIRST WORLD COUNTRY OR SOMETHING?! HAHAHAHAHAH!

I happened to have enough cash on me because I have a business trip to Kansai next week and the money was supposed to pay for my tickets. Now I'll have to put the tickets on my credit card and pray to god that I find a way to pay it off with my next salary.

I DON'T NEED THIS SHIT. I work two fucking jobs, do the work for my second master's degree, study Japanese and Swedish, write a bloody novel and fanfic at the same time,try to make fucking Christmas cookies for my students, and I am on my last fucking nerve. I'm about to just say, "Fuck it, wait till symptoms go terminal and then the insurance will start to dish out for tests."

Instead I'm going to clean my house, because it looks like a disaster area, and then I'll do laundry and buy groceries. That's what grown-ups do. They don't get to call their mummies in different time zones. They fucking deal.

November 30th - 4

2008-11-30T12:14:29Z

HAHAHAHA. 50,0001 (or 50,152 by the NaNoBots count - we'll ignore that discrepency) and stick a fork in me because I am DONE, BABY. Perfect timing!

The Yukster just got home and I just finished an entire novel, complete with epilogue/teaser for the next book - and all of it between one full time job, one part time job, one part time masters course, and debate practices and competitions nearly every weekend. I p0wned life.

P0WNAGE.

Arrr, I'm a pirate, me matey!

November 30th - 3

2008-11-30T11:37:34Z

49,059!

Less than a thousand left! I've written over 13,000 words in the past two days! INSANE!

And over three hours left in the day. Man, I'm such a rock star. I know, I know - I'm cocky, but dude. Insane.

I'll even get to go to bed at a regular time. Which is good, because I still have to write the exam questions for my third year essay writing class's final that is first period tomorrow.

HAHA. Last 1,000 here I come, baby!

(Yeah, getting a little hysterical at this point.)

November 30th - 2

2008-11-30T09:33:27Z

Five and a half hours to go. Need 3,531 words.

46,469 right now and it's taken a turn I never planned. That's the best part of writing.

jillin @ 2008-11-30T16:18:00

2008-11-30T07:20:11Z

Little less than eight hours left in November.

And, umm, (50000-43588)... uh.. [So not a math teacher here, folks; I'm an English teacher]... 6,412 more words to go.

Go, go, go!

DEBATE ARRRGGGHHH!

2008-11-28T10:45:26Z

Just got home from debate, which I have to go to again tomorrow morning at 6 am. We'll be off to Dokkyo University for a tourney from 6 am to at least 10 pm.

NaNo is getting screwed like a pretty boy in prison. I'm about 14,000 words behind, what with all the translations and jobs and real life.

No, I still haven't giving up hope. It's almost ridiculous that I haven't, isn't it? I guess that's what years of being a students does to you: immunizes you against the impossibility of impending deadlines. So. My goal is 14,000 words in two days. Pshaw. No biggie. If I weren't at a debate competition all day tomorrow. Which makes it 14,000 words in the one remaining Sunday of Nano.

Hmmm.

I likes me a last minute deadline. :D

...I'm gonna be a little disappointed in myself if I don't finish on time. I've so tackled worse deadlines before.

Damn you, real life! (But thank you for the money.)

2008-11-14T05:02:53Z

Real life has been intruding on NaNoWriMo. I had a variety of homework and assignments for ye ol' Japanese study and also a massive translation deadline and they ate up all of my NaNoWriMo time, which leaves me at only, erm, currently 15,688. The translation from hell came in at just over 12,000 words and the transcription I'm completing today is about 4,000 words. If only I could add them to my count.

But this is so not throwing in the towel. Ha, who do you think you're talking to? Or, uh, reading? No, I'm still going, even if it's only a hundred or two hundred words a night. Now that the translation from hell is finished, my goal is to catch up to 25,000 words by the end of the weekend. That would get me almost back on track. Only 10,000 words - in between wedding consultations, a Japanese proficiency test, and a night in Tokyo because I promised an old friend. Hmm. So, I need to average about, eh, 1,000 words an hour. No problem, right?

HAHAHA. Yeah. I am so my mother. Times about a billion. Never satisfied unless I have a million and a half things to do.

Oooh, and I got a nice check from the IRS. How do you like your nice check from the IRS? I love that they sent it to me in Japan. Like, no fucking way I'm using it to boost your economy, guys, but thanks for paying for the international postal rates. :D

Anosmia

2008-11-08T08:26:34Z

Soooo... I seem to have temporarily lost my sense of smell. I'm REALLY hoping it's temporary. I've just this cold/allergy/congestion something going on and maybe I've had this symptom before and just never noticed, but today I noticed that I CAN'T SMELL ANYTHING. Strong corollary effect being that I CAN BARELY TASTE ANYTHING.

I noticed this after I bought yummy treats to make myself feel better and they tasted like nothing but plastic in my mouth. I was like, huh, strange - did they change the recipe? Then I tried sniffing the pot of pumpkin-pie essential oil across the room and could smell nothing. I don't have to be the one to tell you, I think, that essential oils generally smell pretty strongly. I then checked the ridiculously strong vanilla-scented moisturizer I had and, boom, nothing. I finally got a bit of reaction by stick my nose in a jar of pickled garlic cloves (don't ask, silly Japanese). So really really strong smells can just seem to squeeze through, but otherwise, I'm basically without smell or taste.

This may seem like a good thing for weight loss but a depressing development over all. Keeping my fingers crossed that it goes away in the next couple of days.

P.S., translation going really slow, which prevents me from doing NaNoWriMo, since the one is paid and on a deadline and the other is, well, not.

Erm, BLEEEEEP

2008-11-07T09:37:20Z

I just noticed that my last several posts have all started with profanity, so maybe I should calm down for a bit.

NaNoWriMo is going interestingly - I dare not say "well," but interestingly nonetheless. I don't know if I'll be able to finish on time (especially since I just got a massive translation that needs to be done on the quick) but I remain hopeful. I'm writing in the first-person for first time in, like, EVAH. Well, maybe not ever, but certainly the first time in a decade or so. Actually, no, I take that back: probably really is the first time ever. So I keep slipping out of it and typing "they" when I should be writing "we," for example. Hmm, doing new things is fun.

Here's an excerpt. Hardly my best stuff, but you know. Working on a deadline here.

I tend to imagine that about the same time that I was coming to, my mum was probably coming from work. She was a baker at the local supermarket and she always smelt like sugar to me. She worked long shifts, not getting home until after the store closed and all the tills had been counted down.

She would have arrived at home, I imagined, surprised to find all of the lights off. I always left at least the kitchen light on for her. She would have been a little alarmed at first, but she probably would have just assumed that something bad had happened at school and that I was sulking in the dark. Then she would have come down the hall to my room in our little apartment and opened the door quietly, not wanting to set off my temper. But then she would have finally noticed that I wasn’t in my bed or anywhere else to be seen and I can guess a spark of fear would have gone through her then.

Maybe she would have called the school first, or the police. Like I’ve said, I didn’t really have any friends that I hung out with outside of school, so there was none of those to call. I’m sure she would have tried to tell herself not to jump to any conclusions, but to wait and see what had really happened; she and I are rather alike in that way.

But I’m sure she would have been worried despite herself. I’m sure she would have stayed awake all night. As I slowly came back to myself, I prayed – and I don’t pray – that I would find myself back in my own bed.

Haha, gotta love cheesy overdramatic writing. So my chica is supposed to be, like, fourteen or fifteen and I have no idea how to write a fourteen or fifteen year old, so I'm just ignoring that massive bit of incontinuity for now.

In other news, I've been back at the hospital for my quarterly infection. I can't seem to avoid getting them at least every three months. Last time was at the end of August, this time I made barely into November. And still every time I go to a Japanese doctor it makes me want to jump on the first goddamned plane out of Narita. But I stay nonetheless. Because I have a job to do. A job to save the world.

Well, er, no. But at least to try to hammer into my students before graduation the differences between "most" and "almost."

Translation continues, work continues, taking the J-Test next weekend for the first time, going to some big scary shrines to do wedding consultations, and all that jazz. Who really cares? Let's get back to finishing the number of pages I told myself I had to translate before I can do any fun writing. Toodles~

BARRACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

2008-11-05T09:46:57Z

Mother fucking Obama!

Thank you, America. Thank you for finally living up to the great promise you once had as a young country.

Oh. I'm so proud.

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

I'll update later with hospital visits, NaNoWriMo and all the rest of real life, but for now...

I <3 OBAMA.

I even <3 AMERICA.

Suck on that, Republicans.

jillin @ 2008-10-31T22:38:00

2008-10-31T13:44:57Z

Less than two hours till my birthday.

Less than two hours till NaNoWriMo.

Happy fuckin' Hallowe'en, folks! XD

NaNoWriMo version!

2008-10-26T06:32:12Z

Holy shit, Jill has signed up for NaNoWriMo! XD

I must be suicidal, mustn't I?

(Oh, and in recognition, changed my layout to something more writer-y)

So, life at Hogwarts

2008-10-25T14:28:27Z

The other day at school, the mother of all education mothers (I'll explain later) told me: "Oh, Jill, thank you so much. You're just like a real teacher."

I thought that deserved a post, because I need to reflect on this period of my life in the hope that I'll look back, read this post in several years, and be able to laugh.

So life at Hogwarts is BUSY. We have six houses, and there is at least one foreign teacher in each one. Four full time Americans, one full time Frenchie, one full time German, one part time American, one part time Frenchie and a part time Chinese gal who we've never met because she can go all INCOGNITO among the Japarinos. I get along with my coworkers in the general sense. Sometimes we kind of socialize with outside of work, though one is a definite jaded alcoholic and the other is just a mild-alcoholic who gets rather "up close and personal" with people when she drinks and most of them have volatile histories and can't be trusted around each other for long periods of time without someone escalating to screaming. But anyway, it's generally fun to have some fellow foreigners around.

But.

We do have some rather glaring differences of opinion on what a job is and what it requires. My dear coworkers seem to think that our job should be nothing more than a joke and that we should be treated specially, compared to the regular Japanese staff. I happen to think a job is a job and you do what is asked of you. Okay, concrete example: my coworkers are all miffed because we have debate practice tomorrow (Sunday) and so we have to meet up early (before 8 am) and on our day off. Okay, working on the weekend sucks. But we do get replacement time off for it. So that means we can take extra paid time off later - which I sure don't mind, since our twenty days a year (generous though it is for new employees) doesn't go far in Japan, when you have to take holiday leave for doctor's appointments and visiting government offices and every little thing. Which I happen to have a lot of. So anyway, yes, we have to work extra, but we get time off in return. Oh my god, those bastards.

(Okay, it is true that we have to do other things, like work through our lunch breaks, which we don't get time off for in return, but...)

Anyway, this has left me in an awkward position between the Japanese staff and the native-English staff (I obviously don't have quite as much to do with the French, German and Chinese staff). The Japanese staff bitch to me and I can generally see their point of view. The foreign staff bitch to me and I can generally think they are spoiled young kids who don't have any idea what a hard day's work is. But I like them and I want to get on well with them, so I try not to tell them that too bluntly. We'll see if I manage to update in another couple months, telling of either our total breakdown of relations or our new BFF status. I'm perfectly glad to have the Japanese staff respect me (to whatever degree is possible) but I wish my fellow foreigners didn't seem to resent me for going with the flow and doing what is asked of me.

I'm just too damned Asian. XD Damn you, mock filipino upbringing. Which reminds me, I'm so making adobo this week.

In other news. The Yukster is applying for grad schools next fall, mainly in Scandinavia and possibly in England. So we'll be getting married in the spring, for all the visa runaround. We're trying to find a place last minute, but it's quite the drama. Luckily his family hasn't made any crazy demands, and my family has only made some (crazy or not) demands. The main demander is me, since I kind of refuse to do a "Chapel" wedding, as is the overwhelming trend here. It would be waaaaaay to hypocritical of me, considering my general paranoia of all things with crosses involved. And I grew up among devout Catholics, who I would feel like I was mocking by getting married in a fake church. So that immediately takes about 95% of the wedding places around here off the list. We're stuck with the few that either have indoor/outdoor areas sans crosses or with the indigenous shrines. Still trying to figure that out.

Lots going on that I should be happy with, and I think in general I am happy, but just feeling, hmm, stretched a bit thin.

I continue to do my Japanese MA (though my work on that is dropping lower and lower - these days I just do the homework assignments the day before they're due and never study otherwise).

I've started doing freelance translating, which is slightly boggling to me. I've always seen people on Honyaku or other groups complaining about how hard it is to get started, but I just did a test for one company and they started sending me jobs within a week or so. I translate for one of those major Japanese car companies (despite the fact that I know jack-all about cars). I'm sure I must mess up technical terminology and whatnot, but so far they keep sending me stuff, so I guess it's good enough for the beans I get paid. But the extra money each month will help us get the hell out of here and hopefully back to the EU somewhere.

Which means... I'm studying Swedish. Sweden is kind of the number one destination for us and if we do end up there, I need to help my employability. Luckily, Swedish is a Germanic language and so waaaay easier to learn that, oh, say, Japanese. For an English speaker, that is. Most English-speaking people say they get up to conversational fluency within a year or so, so I'm hoping that by starting now, I might be able to squeak by if we arrive in fall of 2009. If we don't get in anywhere in Sweden, then, hey, I'll just put another random fact on my CV and chock it up to diversification.

I'm also finishing up my second ever fic. :D I'm such a dork. But yes, I completed one story that came in at something around 500 pages and this one is only about 300 and while they are loose and illogical and not well planned or developed or anything, they have made me think that maybe I'll give original writing a shot. If we go back to Europe and I only have ONE JOB (for the first time in, er, ever) then I should have enough free time to write, I expect. I've had an idea ever since university for a YA series, which would be silly and totally niche market and, hey, I'm never going to be J.K. Rowling, but I'd like to tell a story. I don't know if I could get anyone to publish it, but even just writing it for myself (and possibly from anonymous web denizens) would entertain me, I think.

Okay, this sounds crazy or cocky or something, but I enjoy reading my own writing. I actually laugh out loud sometimes at things that I write and think, "Holy shit, did I write that? I don't even remember writing that." Unfortunately, the idea I have doesn't include much humour, but knowing me - it'll come out. Even when I'm writing the most do-or-die fucking situations, I make jokes. Oh dear.

So I'm kind of excited about that. I'm kind of excited about this translation thing. Okay, I translate car manuals and things, which is hardly creative writing, but I just like to write. Doesn't matter what. I'm thinking I might want to go more into translating than teaching, at least for a while. Or at least do both. I do like making money. X3

So yeah, I feel like some things are going right in my life. I lost weight (Hahaha, I know, I'm a loser, but it makes me happy - I'm now back to the same weight I was in high school, which is nice. Now if only I could develop abs I would be TEH hotness.). I'm moving on this translating thing. I'm actually planning for the first time in my life to pursue the vague dream that I - and every other English speaker I know - have of wriing. God knows, the instant I sit down to start I'll get a terrible block but I DON'T CARE. My job makes me want to scream from stress and I can hardly keep afloat on top of the massive piles of marking I have (at least 90 essays a week), but the kids are generally great. I'm excited about Hallowe'en. I DIG on new House episodes. I'm a bit perturbed by my 23rd birthday, but then I try to remind myself that most people are just a year out of uni when they are 23 and I've already way more than that.

(I secretly wonder if I'm destined to die young because I always seem to be in such a rush in life. Does my subconscious know something that I do not?)

Okay, so my house is an absolute MESS and I have done my exercises in nearly two months (thus the total lack of abs) and I'm constantly behind in kanji study and reading Japanese and everything. And I'm still not perfect; I get bitchy with Yuki with little to no provocation and I burst into random tears at the drop of a hat (thanks, birth control pills - no matter how many years I take 'em, the hormones never seem to lessen in their effect). I get lazy and I get busy and some nights I just make instant food for dinner and our lunches are always made out of frozen food. I still procrastinate way too much (spent several hours this afternoon, instead of translating, watching House fanvids on YouTube, then looking for pretty wallpapers for my desktop, then watching tutorials on Sony Vegas, then laughing my ass off at the crazy drawings by this chick.) Man, I'll never stop being a HP dork, even if stop writing fanfic. And making fanvids. And listening to Wizarding Rock. :D

Okay, seriously check these out. :D

Anyhow, yes. Life is never perfect. And it's kind of tough right now. But I feel like we're moving forward, and that's the most important thing. Yuki will go back to school and do what he wants, and I will just tag along and write and translate and whatever, and things are going to be good.

See you in another couple months when I next remember to update! ;)

*P.S., I forgot - the education mother thing: here in Japan, one famous stereotype is the education mother (kyouiku mama) who puts insane pressure on her kids to succeed. My fellow English teacher, who runs all the debate things and piles lots of it onto me, has three kids, all of whom went to Todai. The number one school in the country. So yeah, that tells you a bit about her priorities. And how hardcore she is about education.

jillin @ 2008-08-03T12:03:00

2008-08-03T03:05:10Z

So I've been transferred to Hogwarts. For some reason I'm in Ravenclaw. But hey, at least it's better than Hufflepuff or Gryffindork. :D

jillin @ 2008-04-15T14:01:00

2008-04-15T06:00:12Z

When I left Seattle, I remember walking down the Burke Gilman trail, turning off into my apartment complex, and walking across the parking lot. I remember I walked along the corridor to my apartment, looking over at the mass of ivy on the other side of the balcony, lit by the spring sunlight. I could see the university vehicles in their designated parking lot. I remember walking out of my apartment for the last time, taking that last breath of its scent, that last look of the way the light came in the windows, and leaving - thinking how terribly I would miss it. I can still remember all this if I try, but the thing of it is: I didn't miss it. There have been very few moments in the last two years when I have genuinely missed my life in Seattle. I may wish to see my family, but that's not life in Seattle. I may miss bubble tea, or The Mix, or my bookshop, or a dozen little things, but I usually don't. In fact, I don't usually even remember them.

The reason for this is where I went next. Moving to Oxford was exciting and painful and overwhelming. And - as suicidal as it may have made me feel sometimes - I will always remember it as a wonderful, fantastical, surreal part of my life. For me, it was truly like no where else. And to this day, I remember walking to the bus on my last day, to go to the airport, and looking at the dear old buildings hungrily for every last second until the bus came. But once I got on the bus, I couldn't look out the windows because I couldn't bear to watch it all pass from my sight.

Everything in Oxford had been new and special and captivating, so much so that (except while in the deepest hells of writing papers) I almost never thought of my life in university, my life in Seattle. So the problem now is that nothing in Japan is new or special or captivating for me. I do envy those newly-come to Japan so much sometimes that I want to hate them. My life in Japan doesn't have fun, witty coworkers at a bookshop, or afternoons in bubble tea cafes with friends, or even quiet hours of study and solitude in the Allen libraries, as it did in Seattle. It doesn't have the wonderful support of living with four great girlfriends who started as complete strangers, or trips to afternoon tea or sunday roast or nights at the pub, and it doesn't have that current of curiousity and intellectualism that underran everything in Oxford. My life is just that: life. All it has is going to work, commuting on the trains, cooking, cleaning, and collapsing, exhausted, into whatever half-hearted form of escape I can manage that day.

I know that life would be just as, at times, death-defyingly monotonous anywhere. But I still miss Oxford so much it makes me cry even writing this.

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In other news, let me act normal and genki, like I have to every day at work, because - hey, I'm at work right now! I'm making a horried handout about "School Life" and thought I'd take the moment to update LJ. I'm working now at my new schools. They are all right, just pretty low-stress summer jobs. Certainly less work than my previous "good" school. Certainly more work than my previous "bad" school. So a nice happy medium, for now. Everyone keeps making dire statements of how busy I'll be at the school I'm moving to in August, so that makes me a little wary. I've just started this new Japanese MA so I don't want to be insanely busy or staying after every night. If I wanted that job, I would've taken that private school's offer! No, just kidding. I think it'll be worth it; I just still have no idea what to expect.

Like usual, I have too much on my plate. My list of things-to-do for the month (oh, yes, I make them by the day, the week and the month. You have no idea how anal I can be.) is beginning to outgrow the page. I've got:
- two different Japanese courses (the MA and the god-awful JET course),
- private study (reading "Lyla's Adventure" AKA "The Golden Compass" AKA "Northern Lights" in Japanese, giving Heisig another chance, working through both Kanji in Context and Intermediate Kanji, Book 2),
- excercise kicks (pilates type shit, cycling, and jogging),
- translation projects (yes, again - I want that goddamn prize money!),
- fangirlling (writing fics and making vids, though neither of much lately),
- redoing the curriculum for my two new schools (not as tough as it sounds, the ALT only does 12 to 20 lessons at each school over the course of the whole year)
- and much more than I'd care to write.

Still, life moves on. I've got to meet the "in-laws" next next weekend, which fills me with anticipation and dread. Anticipation because I really want to get along with them and have a bit more support around here and dread because they may turn out to hate me and make my life here all the more miserable and difficult. Anyhow, back to making handouts for now.

Told you so.

2008-03-19T00:43:14Z

See? I'm in a much better mood now. I wouldn't say that I'm ecstatic or anything, but I think that I no longer alarm oncoming train conductors by looking longingly at the tracks in front of them.

Er, what's happening now?

So the transfer has become official and after weeks of strange whispers and secretive meetings, it appears to have gone public at both of my current schools. I will be moving to two (rather low-level) high schools off Chiba-side when the new school year begins in April. I will stay there just for the summer term (four months), at which point I move to a more permanent position in Ina. This is apparently because the girl who worked at the temp schools ran off mid contract, so they are using me to fill holes. The temp thing annoys me a bit, and I know (disappointingly) that I won't be giving the kids my all because I'll be counting down each day remaining till I move on to the 'real' job, but I am looking forward to Ina. A foreign lady I know's daughter got into Ina and it sounds like a really nice school - way more 'western' style than ninety-nine percent of Japanese schools. The kids can even choose electives! Shock! You don't all have to be complete cookie-cutter drones taking the exact same classes as every other student your age in the nation!

So that's work. On other fronts, the Yuks and I are starting down the scary path of investing (great time to start, eh? bloody geniuses we are). We have our money split between currencies and countries, try to at least defeat inflation as we save for him to go back to school. He's now got it in his head to do an MBA, hoping he could get a more professional job. We'll see how long this new little kick lasts. For a while there, he seemed quite dedicated - looking up programmes, planning trips to the British Council, researching GMAT study guides. But in the last week or two, that's all petered out. Maybe it's just been a busy week, but we'll see.

I finally got a working copy of Vegas, so I've been entertaining myself with making naughty videos. No, not that sort of naughty - just naughty because I should be doing other things instead. I also have the best idea for the perfect song, but I need scenes from the upcoming films to make it! Grr! Can't you just release them all already? And yes, I'm already counting on what scenes they'll include. I can't believe they'd cut out Tom Felton's massive role in HBP. I'll be so broken hearted if they do. I'm still pained that they cut my beloved "Five points from you because I just don't like you" scene. Okay, /fangirling.

Vista sucks balls, on the other hand - well, actually, to be fair, thta's not true. It's just that my little old laptop hardly has the power to run it - and so I'm going to downgrade to XP Ultimate, methinks. That should help things out a bit.

On and off with helping the 'rents plan their first foray into the Land of the Rising Sun. They are coming in August, when it will be the Land of the Broiling, Wish-You-Were-Dead Sun, but never mind that. Speaking of parents, Yuki's parents keep threatening to come visit. I was uneasy enough about this anyway, but then his sister let it slip that their mum, upon learning that we were living together, said: 納得できない。 This is a fun little Japanese phrase that, if translated in the most-positive light, would mean, "I don't get it," or "I don't understand it." In the less-positive light, it means, "I can't accept it."

O_O

Like usual, Yuki just laughs it off, while I'm sweating bullets that his parents are going to hate me and I'm going to get shackled with them for the rest of my life, since he is the oldest and only son and so of course they'll move in with us so that I can take care of them until I'm seventy and they're ninety, all the while listening to them criticize the way I make rice, the way I prepare tea, the way I....

Oh, god. I need to just shut off my imagination sometimes. It's far too frighteningly realistic.

Er, what else? Studying the Japarino language a lot recently. Reading 'Golden Compass' (or 'Northern Lights') in Japanese, though - unlike old Artie Fowl - I haven't ever read it in any language, so this is a cold reading. And it's going all right. I run into unknown words, of course, but I can understand what's going on. This morning, I understood the horrible excuse for news that they have over here. I think I may just be making progress. Which is good, considering that I'll be starting a new Japanese course in about two weeks.

So ongoing projects... new Japanese course, Japanese translation competition, reading Japanese novels, completing ridiculous JET Japanese materials, making naughty videos, writing fic, planning articles for scholarly journals, managing investments, starting walking and jogging (again), planning folks' itinerary, cramming kanji, starting new job... and of course the usual business of getting up at six am every morning, makes lunch for me and the bum, going the hour and a half to work, going the hour and a half back, making dinner, going grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry...

Life is busy. I wish I could just skip the summer. Skip the temporary job and at least a couple months of insane heat. Go straight to August, with a shiny new job, and my parent's visit, and a tutorial in Hiroshima, and... and...!

Oh, and I did get my license. Huzzah. Keeps shocking all the Japarinos who see it. "What?! You have a Japanese license? But - but - but you're a foreigner." Yes, that's right.

Gotta stop visiting BD. Gotta stop typing 'Japarinos' or I may just start saying it in real life.

Okay, off to type up translations.

Neither here nor there

2008-03-07T05:27:54Z

It's been a bad week.

The week started with not one, but two, visits to the hospital - in grand total, three hours of transportation time, seven hours in waiting rooms, and five complete minutes with actual medical professionals. I hate the medical system in this country with a sincere passion, as of this week. I'd never had to experience it before and this experience has convinced me that I will be flying to Guam next time I want medical treatment. If the meds they gave me don't start working soon and I have to go back again, I'm afraid I really will go postal.

Also been a painful week of missing home and friends and family. I think it's just exacerbated by the horrible treatment at the hospitals, which make everything at home seem better and having a support system actually worth it (actually, I'm pretty sure at least that last one is right). This week has made me feel more alone than I have in ages. Nothing like spending seven hours alone at a hospital to be reminded that you have no family, friends or ever coworkers who can/want to/are willing to come see you and, possibly, just maybe, help you out when you're feeling down.

Been spending a lot of money - a heap at the various hospitals and pharmacies and even more to be 'social' for the BF's friends. I paid to send packages to his hometown, I paid to go out (even as far as other prefectures) with his friends even though I have NO desire to, and now I have to pay for a ridiculous brithday cake for one of the punters tonight. I happen to like this punter, but I'm still annoyed. If I demand that he pay me back, I feel like a mean-spirited cunt who counts every yen. But if I don't get paid back, I'm the one who's short and struggling to pay school fees, while he still has gobs of extra money, according to our budget. Last night he gave me crap about making him feel bad at home because I'm so testy recently. I manage about half a minute of righteous, "Well, excuse me for being sick and miserable in your fucking country!" before just collapsing into pathetic tears again. I've cried more times than I can count in the last week, including for an entire fifteen minute walk home alone from a hospital, in my school's staffroom in front of all the teachers who kept asking me why I came to work even though I had been in the hospital (because you didn't give me a choice about coming! you said to come, asshole!), on trains, in hospitals, on the phone to the prefectural help line, and of course - over and over again - at home.

I have nothing to do at work; I've had no classes for nearly a month now and I feel like my being here is doubly redundant, since I know that I won't be here for the new term, so what exactly am I supposed to be doing? Preparing for the classes that I won't have? The mental exhaustion and stress of being unutilized, bored and alientated is beginning to take a serious toll. I've got circles under my eyes every day and if anyone is expected me to play the happy-go-lucky gaijin-san at this birthday shindig tonight, they are going to be sorely fucking disappointed. At this point, I have no compulsion to plaster a fake smile on my face and laugh when everyone else does even though I have no idea what they're talking about. I'm tired, I'm sick of listening to your inane prattle in your exhausting language, and I'm not the one who invited you squattors into my home. I will quietly sit in the corner and try to forget that I'm here.

Let me repeat again that it has been a bad week. Try me next week and hopefully I'll sound less suicidal.

Sometimes I think I may miss you guys

2008-02-26T22:11:01Z

(Written two days ago, while at school and blocked from LJ. I know, I'm so damned slow.)

One of my students just came into the staffroom and hissed at me, "Sensei." I looked up from my book and he asked if I had an "anzen pin." I wasn't sure if I did, since I wasn't sure what it was, and asked him what that was when it was at home. He then lifted his uniform jacket to show me his gapping crotch zipper, only partially held shut by one safety pin. He wanted another.

My student just flashed me his crotch. Okay, of course I couldn't see anything but he just flashed me his open fly, demonstrating how it was broken by tugging on the open sides.

I went off and asked another teacher for a safety pin and we sent him on his merry way. He also asked me if I'd written the term test already and if it was hard, so perhaps that was his ulterior motive, but I don't know.

The point to this fun little anecdote is that it may be one of my last here at Hatoko. I taught my last classes of the term today, after a long month of last classes and false goodbyes, and there are whispers on the wind (update; the whispers of the wind have developed into an official letter from the BOE) that I may be transferred sooner than later. I don't know if I'll be moving up or down in the world, but it will definitely mean moving away from here. I can't pretend that I love all my time here, but I do get tickled by these boys: my class clowns, who come up with cheeky answers, who mock my crap Japanese, who just want someone to notice them.

I've already moved in a sense. This past weekend I finally finished what has to be the longest move in history. Over the last several months, I have been slowly moving more and more things down to Omiya, to live in SIN. That's right; I'm shacking up with the Yukster. I now go an hour and a half to school each day. We'll see how long before I go nuts and start abusing noisy students on the train who sprawl on the floor right in front of the doors.

Other news? Not much, I don't think. Going to start this Japanese course, to hopefully motivate myself into studying. Up to 'The Opal Deception' in my Japanese Artemis Fowl marathon. Working on some volunteer translating, because it's practice and I feel like it's been a while since I've done something to help complete strangers. Keeping busy with my second round of the Shiz translation competition as well, and the regulary writing. Don't have much free time in life, but way too much free time at work. If only there were more things I could get away with doing at work...

Okay, off again to send of a translation draft.

What the?

2008-02-06T12:27:51Z

The world seems to like me today.

Walking home in the snow, a man stopped his car and offered me an umbrella. I waved him on with a smile, but was thankful.

I walked by the Indian restaurant on the highway and the owner was standing inside, at the window, waiting for the dinner crowd. He grinned
and waved enthusiastically at me, even though I've never been in there or met him. I think he was just tickled to see a fellow foreigner. I smiled back.

I got a new suit at Uniqlo - I know, I know, cheap-o-fashion is me - but I fit into a size small jacket IN JAPAN!!OMG!!WTF!! (sorry for the BigDaikon style, been visiting too much lately) and was very tickled by that.

I got my results from the JLPT. Okay, I was a wimpy bitch and only took 2kyuu, but I got 88% and feeling pretty good - despite the every day examples that prove that I have miles to go before I sleep, where it comes to the J-lingo.

Will my good luck last through friday, when I sit my driving exam for the second time?

PS. Day two of giving up sweets for Lent. So far, so good.

jillin @ 2008-01-30T19:30:00

2008-01-30T11:13:33Z

So it's been a while. Sorry about that. Let me just jot down some thoughts I've had recently.

Japan's Drinking Problem

Okay, so Japan's drinking problem is kind of unique. HAHA. Just like all things in Japan are unique. Anyway. As I was walking to work the other day and dodging puddles of puke, it occured to me: that I was not at all surprised to be dodging puddles of puke. Okay, there have been other points in my life where this has been true, but that has always been when I have lived in university districts and been surrounded by stupid young students. But there are no universities near me now. The people who get tremendously drunk and puke on the streets every night are probably your boss or that new father in the neighborhood. They are going out to drink and get utterly trashed with their workmates and end up puking on the way home, and this is not just normal; it is encouraged. As I stepped around another suspicious puddle, I was feeling unhappy about this.

It's a Man's World

Okay, I think it is no news to anyone that Japan is no stranger to chauvanism. But just another one of those little moments to bring it home to you: freezing in the staff room the other day, the teachers in the next row were having a chat about the yabusame that had gone down in Tokigawa village the other weekend. One of the older male teachers - who is actually quite nice but the scary-as-fuck head of discipline at the same time - was not just hovering in front of the one heater in our half of the staff room. Plenty of people do that. He was SAT on top of the heater. Legs crossed, pants stretched unattractively across all his bits, and effectively prevented anyone who didn't want a crotch-shot from standing near the heater. No woman would have get away with something like sitting on the heater. Everyone would think her disgusting and unsightly. But when the guys do it? Ah, it's just cute.

Under the Weather

I'm sick. There's nothing more interesting to it than that - I just want to bitch about it because it keeps me up at night, coughing.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

There has been a lot going on. That may be why the lack of posting. I have started moving down to Omiya, which has involved many trips with heavy bags, renting a car, selling things at Hard Off, arranging garbage collections and other practical stuff on top of the actual mental distress of making decisions about finances, transportation, jobs, et cetera. For a long time it seemed like I'd never get the job that I wanted, then I was suddenly inundated with job offers, and now I seem to be mostly back at square one. Still, trying to work with Board of Education about transfers, but no idea if that'll work out even at all. But I'm not interested in signing up for an illegal, unbeneficial contract - even if it means continuing to commute for three or hour fours a day. O_O!!

Misery Loves Company

Still sick. Just thought I'd mention it again.

Driving Ms Daisy

Started to process for getting a Japanese license. Managed to assemble all of the appropriate paperwork before my first visit to the driving center. I then passed the written test and the vision check. Then I had my first attempt at the practical test. This whole process only took about six hours. So, the workers certainly weren't quick as bunny - but they weren't the soulless embodiments of evil people seem to describe. Sure, not one of the eight foreigners passed, but they really did about everything they could - barring just letting us all automatically pass - to help. They went through the whole course ahead of time (in Japanese, of course) and told us what to be careful of and exactly what to do around each obstacle. I still failed, but because of a legitimately dumb mistake: ran through an obstructed view without even pausing or looking. Have another appointment next week. Let's hope I pass this time.

In the end...

Yeah, that's about it. Life goes on. Somethings are getting better, but it's hard to see when I am sitting in my dirty, mostly-empty apartment, surrounded by bags of garbage to be taken out (not raw garbage, thank you very much - just the usual paper and plastic varieties) and coughing so hard that I see little spots of light in my vision.

Okay, I'm going to go now. I'll read some more Artemis Fowl in Japanese. Or maybe update BS. Been a while.

jillin @ 2008-01-05T21:00:00

2008-01-06T04:02:46Z

And here I go, taking a page from Marysiak's book yet again.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Graduated from Oxford. Got a paying teaching job in Japan - had teaching jobs in Japan before, but never that paid. =/ Those are the large things, but there are a million tiny precious things that I'll probably forget soon enough: eating kangaroo meat, going to the shrine on New Years, buying a yukata, renting a car to drive at least a bit across Japan, driving on the left side of the road, eating raw beef - even if only a little bit, seeing the Christmas illuminations in Tokyo with an old friend, getting on with (at least some) of my dear, frustrating little students... I couldn't possibly list them all.

2. Did you keep your New Year's Resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Let me check last year's post... my half-hearted ideas were: lose weight, exercise more, be nicer to people, get things right for once. Well, I have lost weight, though I succeeded in nearly gaining all of it back by going to my parents' house for Christmas. Still the net total is slightly down. I exercise, after a fashion, more. But that's just because I have to walk absolutely everywhere. I had to walk everywhere in Oxford, but that was normally limited to the fifteen minute walk to Sainsbury's local, or if I was feeling particularly lazy, the five minute walk to either the news agent's or the Tuck Shop. And occasionally to class. Now I have to walk to and from my schools every day - no more shutting myself up in my hobbit hole for weeks doing papers, and the grocer is often a thirty minute walk away. I don't know if I'm being any nicer to people, but I interact with less people, so that has cut down on the opportunities to be mean. I suppose I still need to work on that one. And getting things right? Well, I hope I'm going in the right direction, at least.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not this year, not that I know of. Or can think of. If I've left someone out, I'm such a heel, aren't I?

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My mum's mum and my dad's mum. That's it for the grandparents. I think my parent's are feeling a bit old now that they are the oldest generation left alive in our family.

5. What countries did you visit?
The UK (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland), the Republic of Ireland, America and Japan. Well, about half of those I lived in, rather than visited, but still.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Hmm, the nice official paper certifying my Masters degree would be nice. As would be my deposit refund from Oxford, since I left more than six months ago. A new job has been hoped for, but doesn't seem to be on the horizon, unless I have been misreading some strong signals. (I don't think I have.) A shared apartment, which includes the benefits of shared rent, shared bills, shared housework and occasional companionship. ;)

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Hm. I'm not good with dates. The day that I sent in my dissertation. The day that I left Oxford. Oddly, not the day that I arrived in Japan. That's happened so many times now that it's nothing terribly special.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Finishing my masters degree. No distinction, but who the hell cares?! I didn't fail and thus I didn't entirely waste tens of thousands of dollars. I'm satisfied.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Hmm, my dissertation? Haha, no. It was all right, but I certainly just gave up towards the end and had a real "Fuck it, just get it finished and submit it" sort of an attitude. Not my best work, but I passed, so I'm putting it behind me and praying that they don't put it in the library. What else? Hmm, occasional descents into complete slobbery have made me sad. Since I spend my life split between two apartments, but 'work apartment' sometimes get ridiculously messy, cluttered and even sometimes dirty, because I just don't care enough to clean it after work most days and I leave town immediately after work on Friday to go to my 'real-life apartment.' Sad, eh?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing more than the usual small colds, sniffles, and infections. That I can think of anyway. It has seemed to be a bad year for allergies. And my hair may be falling out. But other than that, I'm alive and kicking.

11. What was the best thing someone bought you?
Ho, hmm, heh.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
My couple beloved students who actual seem excited to be in my classes. You guys make my days worth it. Class 1-8, I will love you forever.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
I'd rather not go down that path.

14. Where did most of your money go?
A lot was spent on various moves and preparations to move. And Christmas hurt quite a bit. But other than that, being salaried is quite nice. I manage to save about half my salary most the time. It's nice to have savings again. I haven't in at least a year and probably two.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Ho.. Coming back to Japan, and thus ending (mostly) three years of long distance? Starting to read children's novels in Japanese. Having the free time to play video games again (then losing it. Dammit.). Being able to read for pleasure for the first time in years. I guess these things were 'really, really, really' worthy, but they are things that have tickled me.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Hmm. Not at all from 2007, but perhaps 'Chasing Cars.' Because I made my miserable students do it in class, because I made a silly MV to it, just because I like it. I want to waste time chasing cars.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
Calmer. More balanced, mostly. I suppose that means happier?
b) fatter or skinnier?
Well, a bit skinnier. But not enough to be really noticeable.
c) richer or poorer?
Definitely richer. Still nothing that I would call rich - but the fact that I can now actually put money in the bank and have some of it stay there is definitely an improvement.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Hmm, nothing really. I don't think I could have done anything differently. I still miss England quite often, but I couldn't have stayed longer. I always wish I could see my family more, but short of us inventing teleportation, that's not going to happen anytime soon. I have managed to have at least a little time to read, to write, to play, to travel, to study, to teach, to spend with loved ones, to eat good food, to explore, and I can't ask for much more than that.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Sleep! If only I didn't need to sleep, I would be able to get so much more done! Haha...

20. How do you plan to spend Christmas?
At the big house, like always. Full of drama, but still - that's Christmas with family, isn't it?

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?
Over and over again. ;)

22. How many one night stands?
Does it count if it's with the same person?

23. What was your favorite TV program?
Still House. Yeah, new episodes, please start in January! Also enjoyed another season of QI. Mostly avoid Japanese TV like the plague, as I can feel the holes in brain growing with every minute.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Hmm. Well... mmm, not really. I don't like to use the word hate, but I am continually disgusted and baffled by politians both here in Japan and abroad in America.

25. What was the best book you read?
Oh, never easy. I'll just go with recents - Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson; Artemis Fowl (in Japanese), by Eoin Colfer; and a whole slew of Discworld.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Hmm, the String Quartet's tribute CDs.

27. What did you want and get?
A job in Japan, my completion of my masters, more time with my boy, free money, a real life instead of just a student one - not that I didn't love the student one, too.

28. What did you want and not get?
A new job, ridiculous amounts of money, more clothes, more books, more space. A car. A direct train line between my workplace and Omiya, where I live most the time. A lot of pipe dreams.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
Oh, this will be sad, but I might just say Die Hard. Not because it is a great film or anything - simply for the nostalgia. Suddenly I was ten years old again, watching John McClane cry out "Yippee-kye-ai, Muthafuckahh!" and watching things blow up with my dad. Never mind the fact that Bruce Willis is getting ridiculously old for this shit. Hey, if they can make new Rocky films, that they can make new Die Hard films.

30. What did you do on your birthday?
I don't really remember. That's bad, isn't it? Oh, I looked at a calendar and now I remember. I had a horrible mandatory conference for JETs, completely useless as all such conferences are, and then went home to Omiya for a relatively quiet night.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Having a dream job set up for next year. It would be right in Omiya, within walking distance, the students would all be motivated and have a solid base of English from their three years in Junior High, and all my coworkers would be witty, generous and open-minded. Oh well.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Japanese retro hippie. Haha.

33. What kept you sane?
Internal angry monologues at the small-mindedness of people? But mostly, it hasn't been a struggle.

34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
Just as you have always suspected, your loved ones' confidence and belief in you has no reflection on reality and your ability to get a job, win a competition, or generally succeed in life. Damn.

35. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
If I lay here - if I just lay here - would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Ah, bugger it. Let's just do the review of the year.

January
     ...Back in Oxford.
February
     Certainly not the first time I've seen something like this, but it never stops being disappointing.
March
     Swans floating down the Cherwell, under Magdelene Bridge.
April
     Seems I got a job offer for next year in Japan. Let's see how it pans out.
May
     The day after.
June
    So I got my results back for my papers from last term.
July
     So I don't know which is worse.
August
     So let's try to catch up on the last several days - or weeks.
September
     If I still recall my time differences correctly, it should now by noon of Friday, 28 September 2007 in Oxford.
October
     Finally September had rolled around and classes were set to begin.
November
     I don't know why, but I have been a strange trip down memory lane recently.
December
     When was the last time I posted on here?

er, wait... what?

2007-12-13T06:01:22Z

When was the last time I posted on here? I'm having a hard time remembering. Life is getting insanely out of hand, but it also has the potential to become so much easier.

Let's see what's been going on... Apparently the last time I posted was at the end of November. Oh dear. Since then, I have been:

-finishing up two minor publications (nothing like research, just a wimpy book review and a conference report) that I can tack on to my resume.

-writing up nengajo (new year's cards). If you would like one and I don't have your address, then gimme a place to send it, dammit! This goes out to anyone - RL friends, semi-acquaintances, fandom wanks, whatever. I have cards to spare and stamps to lick! Er, wait, that sounds a little...

-attending more interviews than I care to think about. Most recently I interviewed with a private school that would only be about forty minutes (by train, plus fifteen minutes or so walking) from the soon-to-be place in Omiya, which reminds me that I have also been...

-practically living in Omiya already. I am only home in my actual apartment, which I pay rent for, on average of two or three nights a week. But this should all becoming so much easier come spring, when I actually move to Omiya and don't commute an hour and a half to the damned center of Saitama everyday.

-setting up a part-time-job-ish thing. A nice fellow is setting up a new English school and I am his adviser/poster-girl/bitch, apparently. He has a business background, I have the academic background, what a pair we could make. Too bad it's way the crap on the other side of the prefecture, too, so I might be able to help when I'm around Omiya, but that's about it.

-buying mad christmas presents and spending mad money. I'm ridiculously short on funds (except of course all of my savings, which would clean up this budgetary crisis in a minute, if I didn't have a policy of not touching them once they've gone into the bank), but luckily have finally found out why Oxford never gave me back my fucking $400 deposit and so that should get sorted out and I should finally get that back, which help pay a number of slowly increasing credit card bills.

-growing paler by the day, apparently, because my hands look GROSS as I'm watching them type. Like dead fish. Agh. Why do some people have that lovely porcelain paleness while others of use are just pasty?

-sorting through the application for a distance MA in Advanced Japanese Studies, or some damn thing. Should be interesting. But it'll be two and a half years, and who knows where I may be by then.

-taking the JLPT for the first time. After proctoring the exam for years, I finally got to be on the receiving end and sit for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. I took the second highest level, and I'm pretty confident that I should have passed without trouble, but we'll see come February or so the test voucher tells me.

-wanting to do something with my hair, but too cheap, lazy and indecisive to move on it. Still can't decide if I would want to straighten it or perm it. Right now it's just a wavy mass of frizz, which is annoying to the extreme, especially in inclement weather, but at least I have the choice to go curly or straight whenever I want to. If I permed it, in the aim of having nicer curls, I would still be able to straighten it when I wished to, but I'm not sure that it would really be less frizzy than it is now, so I could be paying for a big steaming pile of nothing. Anyway...

Um, yeah, I don't know what else. Just thought I should write something after my recent separation from computers. I hate that everything in the known world is blocked on the BOE's network (they always cite why a site is blocked - today I visited a site that was blocked because it fell into the category of 'art/culture/heritage.' Another of my favorites is the category of 'educational.' Wouldn't want anyone visiting those sites at a school, now would we?). And by the time i get home from work, I'm too damned lazy to bother with checking anything online anyway. But I am still alive in the real world at least, and that's got to count for something.

I guess I'll be back to pretending to be productive for a while. Hope all is well with you.

P.S. GOING HOME IN A WEEK!

I really am a pretentious bastard, aren't I? (was: AHHHHHH!)

2007-11-27T03:19:06Z

I'm feeling ridiculously pumped for the middle of a boring day in the middle of my regular blah week, but Christmas is in the air! So let me give you an early (and unwanted) Christmas present by filling you in a bit about the happenings since my failed attempt at getting a job.

This past weekend I went to the National JALT conference, a conference for language teachers and others invovled in language acquisition studies. I got a travel grant to go to the conference from the Teacher Education special interest group (SIG) and so I am writing up a report of the conference for them in return. The conference actually turned out much better than I expected. I have to continually keep readjusting myself to 'normal' post-Oxford life. After studying at a place like Oxford for any length of time, it's easy to look down on other 'pale imitations' of academia. Okay, true, we all know that Japan is not the seething hot bed of new research or academic brilliance when it comes to TESOL or language acquisition - but not everyone is a dithering idiot either. There were of course the people who showed up to the conference in (I shit you not) sweatpants and track suits, but there were also plenty of people ready for thoughtful, intelligent discussion and genuine improvement of their teaching practices. It was a relief to meet some real adults, as well. Of course I love my friends, and the people that I choose to hang out with are exceptions - but the general rule for young English speakers you meet in Japan is that they are either just looking for some ass, for some anime or for an escape from responsible life. Always heartening to see that some people have a normal, successful, professional life here, as well.

Just before the conference - the night before, in fact - we had our little Thanksgiving shindig at Laura's house. It was a bundle of little disasters (couldn't find the herbs I wanted, the turkey wasn't delivered in time, we don't have enough kitchen power to cook things simultaneously, etc), but still a nice night - even if it wasn't particularly different from any other get-together. Unfortunately, since it's not a holiday here, we really missed out on the whole "spending all day cooking and hanging out and playing games" feel of Thanksgiving and so it was just a rather more complex than usual chicken dinner after a regular day of work.

And I now have a frozen turkey occupying my entire tiny freezer, because they finally delivered it, two days too late.

Prior to Thanksgiving, I finally heard back from Oxford to hear that I have officially passed and am now almost a shiny new Master. I won't really be until I have my degree conferred, which can't happen until the degree days, but I have to sign up for one in absentia - which is not any trouble - but I'm a bit afraid that once I do officially 'leave' the university, they'll be even less helpful about returning the $400 or so that they still owe me. Fuckers. Almost time for my monthly email reminding them that it's been - count 'em now - six months since they say they sent my deposit back to me.

And of course through this all, we've been playing a ridiculous song and dance at Matsujo. They are having this pathetic excuse for a speech contest, in which they are requiring every student in the second year to write a page-long speech - of which they will choose a top performer from each of the eight classes and the eight girls will read their speeches at the Opening School Ceremony next April. What this means for us, though, is that we have over 320 speeches to 'correct' (read: rewrite, because they are complete gibberish) over about two weeks. We have already passed that artificial deadline and the teachers are now hounding us constantly about why we haven't managed to fix them all yet (and rest assured that they are not even looking at the speeches before they hand them over to us, let alone helping us with the corrections). We only have our regular classes to teach, other papers to grade, lessons to plan and prepare for, English club to deal with, and - you know - the occasional lunchbreak or so. What could possibly be holding us up?

Anyway, before this turns into another bitch-fest like the last post....

THREE WEEKS! Almost exactly three weeks of classes (from tomorrow) until I am DONE for 2007 and get to go home for a bit and have a real holiday, and then even when I get back to Japan, Yuki and I will have four entire glorious days of doing NOTHING. And that's a real exciting prospect these days. What life has become.

Still. Three weeks. Let's count.