Stephanie

Partly cloudy, 6C (0C)

Residence
I need to find an apartment. This is becoming stressful. Looks like I'll have to do the full-on Japanese style thing. God help me. I worry sometimes that not being able to settle in, yet, is going to start showing...

Work and Colleagues
Work is fine. Classes are fun. My confidence as a teacher is not misplaced. I'm getting a little burned out on meeting new ppl, though. I am technically an introvert, y'know. I have nothing in common with these other teachers at the company that I'm meeting (and I'm meeting so many! Plus all my new students... it's crazy and I'm not even as focused on my lessons as I am on keeping an even emotional keel to them). They've all (my colleagues) been in-country for 10+ years and are in marriages or serious relationships with nationals. Jack's sense of isolation makes itself present--ironically. Also, however, I kindof don't care anymore how well I do or don't gel with other foreigners. I have nothing to communicate to/with these ppl about : itsu ma-ma doori! Also, they brag about the craziest things. I try not to show it when I think they're being crazy, though, or challenge whatever they're bragging about--I figure in any culture (including a pidgin one but excepting Judaism) concealing one's horror at another's insanity is the least one can do, extra points for a pleasant expression in it's place.

Family
My father (the infamous non-father one) requested to friend me again on facebook. I turned it down (again) and sent him a message which said as politely and simply as possible that he should consider me dead as he is dead to me and to stop requesting to be added to my facebook (again). To which my "home-wrecking" (her word choice, not mine) step mother replied in a separate message with much drama about how she is saddened and how my father hasn't wished for anything by my happiness for all of the past 18 years, how for the past 20 years he's never done anything to hurt us daughters. and how he was always so heartbroken when we'd move without telling him where we were going. Yeah, I can imagine it. I have not replied [yet???]. If he's really so upset and really so sorry and really feels the way she claims, maybe he could start by speaking for himself. I don't want to hear his mistress's excuses for him two decades late. (Does that sound to you like I'm saying he should grovel? Because that isn't what I mean because I really don't want to hear it, though it's basically the only thing he could possibly have to say to me--of course he wouldn't though as he apparently doesn't remember trying to kill me, or at least doesn't think that's something he should be deeply remorseful about.) Actually, I'm kindof relieved he doesn't--I don't want to deal with his born-again Christian memories of the childhood he fucked ten ways from Sunday and no amount of remorse is going to change this ; that much I can gladly appreciate. These ppl are clearly more insane than I am and I have bigger fish to fry : see note on apartment-searching. God help me. P.S. seriously, why do I bother? But as long as they persist in their insanity, I can persist in imagining they do not exist in my world. So, in the end, we're all happy and I've been told that this is what matters.

Anime and amusements
This winter, I plan to continue watching Bakuman and Fairy Tail and to start Kimi ni Todoke S2, I'll try out Yumekui Merry but otherwise there's nothing good out. What is up with that? Plenty of violent and panty-shot anime, where's my sparkely reverse-harem crack!?!?!!

Life in the big city
Also, I went to a coin laundry tonight. It was ridiculously expensive. And by ridiculously, I mean 1,500 yen to clean and dry a week's worth of clothes (three pants, pijamas, a week's changes of underwear and socks, two towels, a scarf, a sweater and a blouse) split into a super and a regular load. I haven't used a dryer in a long time (um... over three years...)... I was nervous something might melt. This nervousness proved to be unfounded.

The company lets me plug in my computer to their Internet, but I'm trying not to be too much of a... mooch? Anyway, now that Tokyo police have run in their little brigade with sirens roaring declaring something unintelligible through the streets of Minato-ku, it's past my bedtime for a 5:45AM wake-up. In other words : that's all she wrote.

Xuu!

Mostly clear, 16C (17C)

I had a bad dream. It wasn't bad enough to be a nightmare, but it wasn't good enough to be indifferent so I'll say it was bad. I'll guess it's environmentally/stress induced. It was pretty incredible. I woke up, late, right in the middle of it, so it stayed with my groggy self for longer than dreams usually do. Maybe it would be a nightmare to some people, but it all seemed horrifically normal and predictable to me. This is mildly surprising. I'm glad it's over--at least the slumbering part.

As a kind of therapy I've entered a raffle. Last year I entered this same raffle and all kinds of issues were brought to the fore because of my involvement with it. I've thought about that and the underlying reasons a bit since then. Entering again is rather like a test. Now I shall put it out of my mind and see what happens. I hope only things that I can immediately recognize as good...

Some more details are emerging about what the future in my job might look like--but not really enough. For example ; I now know what the various ranks are paid and how they are defined, but I don't know what my rank in the company would be. Who the hell knows. I'm kindof tired and kindof fed up but also kindof out of ideas and a little too apathetic. Part of me insists it'll all be fine, the other part wonders how the hell that's going to happen.... you see the conflict, I suppose.

Speaking of work, I was magnificently unproductive today during my four-hour lull in teaching--I read wikipedia articles on figures of Sengoku-jidai. Fantastic stuff. I've been rather encouraged lately, as I'm getting more and more of the jokes and references in the anime I watch. This was one of the things I mentioned wanting to acquire in terms of cultural and linguistic literacy that I figured I wasn't going to get in Kawanoe. Freakishly enough, the source for this--anime and cetera were equally available to me in Kawanoe ; I just never accessed them there. But now that I'm in a city it seems wholly more appropriate and becoming to feed my curiosity in these matters. Either way, I'm happy in this one little sphere, at least.

I made reservations at the old samurai house this morning for Kanazawa in July. It was terribly exciting and I'm terribly excited about it all! Thank God for small miracles--like ppl painlessly prodding. Now I have something to look forward to, and I need that. For a healthy change in pace I'll be traveling with another human being (usu I'm solo) : Tsubasa.

I've been thinking a lot about martial arts and such... I think these thoughts are interesting and insightful syntheses. Experience, again, is the final arbiter of learning... I want to play a lot more go but I've been somewhat depressed and my sleep is all messed up... excuses, excuses, I know. I'll let them slide for just a bit longer. Probably the rest of this week.

Also, following a particularly incensing drunken conversation, which I'm sure I only half-understood, I've come to the conclusion that perhaps I have simply become one of those people who are alone for good and for ever. Somehow, this does not bother me so much. I'm reminded of a letter I once wrote in which I begged someone to find some light to dispel their darkness--now I wonder why ; my darkness, at least, is velvety-smooth : perhaps his was as well.