the office, the british and work

Before, when I was still living with my old roommate, I used to associate The Office with being boring, lazy and not knowing how to clean things properly because she and her boyfriend would rent it and watch it together. However, after finding out that my brother and Jenny love it, my dad started watching the show and I was downstairs listening to them while I did other things. Then the one thing that pulls me into anything more than any other appeared and I began to watch it. Mostly, I watch it wondering how the office romances will turn out, and the little hints that are dropped here and there are fun to look for. When something major happens it's almost shocking just because you're used to such small hints, and when it's not what you wanted, you feel disappointed. It's like real life, but you see the relationship from all angles, or are given tiny hints as to what might be happening. The fun is in keeping you guessing.

The show is also very funny. Not everything in it is funny to me, but I think if you got a LOT of people watching it at once, there would be constant laughing. I like the pranks on Dwight the most but all of the characters have their funny side.

The UK version obviously has a different sort of humor to it, and unfortunately I don't know what in British comedy is supposed to be so funny. Maybe I need to watch more than the first episode of the British version to see, but the first episode was not that funny...

But British people are awesome, in particular the friend from work that my brother and Jenny took me to hang out with yesterday night who just moved back to the UK. Not all of their friends are so easy to talk with, but he was for some reason. And I like hearing him talk with his accent and all ^^ He came back to the house and we all hung out for a while. Oscar couldn't understand the guy when he gave commands in his normal accent but when he modified it to sound as American as he could (which was hilarious XD) Oscar understood. it was cute.

I also worked on Friday, Black Friday. The mall was packed, but the candy store was not that busy, and I was working with three other ladies most of the time, so we weren't overwhelmed when it did get a little busy. I also learned to gift wrap boxes properly, which I was worried about, but wrapping boxes (as opposed to other shapes) is not hard and having the paper pre-cut is nice. Mostly I was tearing plain white paper off already-packed boxes and rewrapping with red and gold Christmas paper to make it look festive, but I did wrap some customers' boxes that day. I feel a lot more comfortable doing the job than I did the previous time I worked, although I can still be awkward talking with customers. The other ladies working there are really nice about helping me when I don't know what to do or can't find something and that helps a lot ^^

I'm going to study for the JLPT again. I'm still pretty worried about vocabulary and kanji. I can read characters and words correctly most of the time, but hell if I know what they mean. If they ask about readings of words, awesome, but if they ask what word means the same as another one I'm sort of screwed. I'm starting to feel better about grammar since getting my awesome book to study from (which I KNOW I will use even after I'm done with the test. it suspiciously looks like my grammar lessons at Nanzan sometimes) and after reading through the chapters carefully, I usually ace the practice exercises. It's the kind of thing where if I get exposed to it and spend a little time with it, I can usually guess correctly at its usage if I see it again, even though I don't know exactly what it means. With any luck, this will all balance out to above 70% average and I will get my certification...