発生 -the miracle of life-

Somehow I am far more fascinated with how plants begin their lives than with human/animal life. Personally, I think busting out of a seed all by myself in a dark place and trying to figure out which end is up is a lot more badass. Even though I understand how the process works, throwing water and amazing. Bringing in a pot of dirt from outside, forgetting about it for a week and coming back to find sprouts in it is pretty crazy, too.

I've been thinking about this because I planted some anemone bulbs yesterday. I really want to grow them inside because we're probably going to move in May or June, and I want to take them with me. I heard they don't do so well indoors without a lot of pre-treating, though, so I planted a few outside too. I'm waiting to plant them all to see which ones grow better. If the outside ones grow better, I'll just leave them because I know the people who will be living in this place after we leave :)

I have been working for a week now, and I feel like I'm finally getting the general idea of what I'm supposed to do. The hardest part is when it's really busy and knowing what to do when. I worked a really busy Saturday night, and since the place was really full, there was a lot of food to be taken out to customers, but since we were all busy taking orders and delivering food to tables, there was no one to clean up the mess that was left behind, and most people aren't willing/happy to sit at a dirty table. I went to clean some tables off and was met with some annoyance when I came back because there was so much food waiting to be taken out. Whatever. 95% of the time everyone is really awesome, so I think it's just when people get stressed out, and their way of dealing with it is not destructive. I wouldn't say it's constructive either, but at least the rest of us don't suffer when one of them is having a bad day. So far I like it. :)

I woke up with the incredible will to create something, or do something significant today, so we'll see where that gets me. I washed a bunch of dishes and had my first successful attempt at chaahan (Japanese Chinese-style fried rice) in the longest time. I think the trick was cooking it in a big enough pan for it to fry evenly (I thought I didn't have nearly enough rice but it turned out to be the perfect amount), and having really dry rice (it wasn't Japanese rice - it was left over from Chinese takeout that we got 4 days ago). I have also discovered the awesomeness of sautéing cherry tomatoes. It sounded really weird to me at first, but they taste so good. ^^

I wanted to go to Memorial Library today, mostly for inspiration (the best ideas come to me when I'm wandering around in the stacks, in the silence...you can hear yourself think), but I think I have enough to do here. Besides, it's raining, and brought neither umbrella nor raincoat with me when I moved, and it doesn't help that all of my shoes leak.

Let's see what I come up with today :)

happy december, first snow

Happy December! I'm a couple of days late here but I said it to people on December 1st, so there.

Lots of things have happened lately, I feel like, but I can't remember much of it, and for no particular reason. I resurrected my iPod from the depths of hard drive failure hell on Friday, but the second the batteries wore down and I plugged it back in to charge, it was corrupted again. :( I have no portable music player. Hell if I'm getting another freaking iPod. There's got to be a kind that isn't rendered useless within two years.

This weekend was full of excitement, mostly revolving around the JLPT (which is not really exciting though). I went to another bridal salon Saturday morning with Jenny to look at wedding dresses, and then I went with her to meet Zach and a potential candidate for their wedding photographer. We went to a café called The Globe, and it was a really nice, relaxing place. I sat at a table by myself to study while they talked at another table. The table I used was right in the window and it was oval shaped with a really old blue map peeling off the top. It was awesome. I overheard bits and pieces of other people's conversations about snow, and when it actually did snow this guy yelled "IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!" and he ran outside with about six or seven other people, and they were jumping up and down and dancing. (Snow is a rare sight here.)

Sunday I got up and tried to be as relaxed as I could, and took my test. People came from as far away as Florida and Ohio. The test itself was not as horrible as I'd imagined, but it WAS hard, especially the reading section because they don't give you a whole lot of time. I spent too much time on the reading comprehension questions and ended up getting rushed for about half of the long-passage questions and the grammar part. Kanji and vocabulary was what I had studied the most for because those are the hardest things for me to remember, and I was surprised to find things on there that I actually knew. Listening really threw me for a loop. All in all, I really can't say if I passed. I'm borderline if I did, but I'm really just not sure at all. If I failed, I guess there's nothing else to do but take it again, but I'll still be disappointed. The test took place on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, where a teacher of mine from the Japanese department spent his undergrad years. It's a really pretty campus, and it was slightly inspiring being there and knowing this is where he started studying what I am effectively finishing up here. ^^

Zach took me out to The Duchess (it reminded me a lot of State Street Brats but it wasn't as dark inside) for a beer after he picked me up and we talked for a bit, and then we went home and I helped Jenny with dinner. We rented a couple of movies too.

I'm actually kind of excited to go home. The hardest thing is probably going to be quitting my job because I don't like making people unhappy. I was not lying when I had my interview and saying that I was planning to be here until Christmas Eve because that's what my plans were at that time. My plans have changed. Other than that it shouldn't be so bad. I get to plan the Christmas gift exchange for my family and I'm starting to get lists~ it's great. And I get to meet Cooper. He seems like such a little shit, but he'll be cute anyway.