slowly chugging on

Life is moving slowly, and today that's just really getting to me. Thankfully I have some extra free time to do something about it. I say that and then I don't make any headway. But I like to think that I do. If you call job hunting for a couple hours and not applying headway, then I've made some.

I'm excited for margaritas with good friends on Thursday evening after work.
I'm excited to see the Yoshida Brothers on Friday night in Chicago...if Ty's car can get us down there and back. (please, belt on motor, do not snap...) I wonder if Ken'ichi is as ridiculously good looking in person? :)
I'm rather anxious to move on Saturday because of all the new space we'll have, but not so excited about having to spend tons more time getting to work (a job I'm only OK with; I don't particularly like or hate it right now)

I'm not excited that it's going to get much hotter outside for the summer and we don't have an air conditioner. It's been in the mid-50's during the day mostly and I love it.

I have this song stuck in my head right now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL2od1AF_Cs
So catchy. Every time I listen to it I think about it for a few days. yay Genki Rockets.

I want to translate something else today because I feel like I'm making breakthroughs in understanding things I wasn't quite getting in certain stories or songs before. Some days the ideas just make sense to you, and you think of good ways to put them in your own language. I think this is one of those days. Novala Takemoto, here I come :)

Someday I'm going to send him my translations of his work when I get enough of them. His afterword in Kamikaze Girls made him seem really excited for his work to be available in English. I think he'll be happy that someone likes them that much. In any case, it'll give him something to do when he's in jail. It's too bad he was the one that had to get caught with cannabis. I agree, he's probably a rather weird person, but writing while on drugs is practically an institution. How else would Japan produce such crazy shit? How do kids' shows get written? (Seriously. No person in their right mind would come up with the majority of things children watch and read.)

I feel like I'm in a trap as far as my professional life is concerned. I'm working a dead-end job right now, and for what I REALLY want to do, I need more training in Japanese, and I feel that the best way to get it at this point in my abilities is to live (and work?) in Japan for a while to get practical experience and further my practical knowledge because there's only so much you can learn from books and controlled situations. But I have someone who doesn't want me to leave, and he will come with me, but I need to wait a few years before he will want to. So find some other work that will feed into translation in the meantime, right? That's hard here. Hard because there are few avenues for translation work here, and the few companies that ARE here are very small and it seems unlikely that they will need to hire someone for something other than translation. Of course, I guess I need to contact them and figure that out for sure. Even just a day of job shadowing might be enough to inspire me to try again. I also thought of other jobs, like proofreading and editing, for something that may not have anything to do with foreign languages at all but is important to the translation process. I have yet to figure out if people generally like you to have an English degree or something to hire you for that, though. Maybe a job at a newspaper or magazine. What other places need lots of editing done?

I don't think I've gone through that thought process with anyone else, to be honest. I don't know why I'm afraid to, or otherwise just don't want to. I guess I'm scared of not getting what I want. But through that I'll get a better idea of what I DO want, at least, if it ends up not being the right thing. It's too bad that it's so much work. Man, I sound like a whiner. If you really want something, you will make yourself do what it takes to get it.

what i gathered from a breakdown

Don't be afraid of who you are.
Don't be afraid of what you want.

You will end up like me if you do.

wanderlust

I think it's all the friends I have in other places than here, but I really want to go on a trip somewhere soon. Thankfully it will be summer soon and my boyfriend won't have school to worry about anymore. I guess I feel inferior for staying around the old college town, but I think as long as I'm not simply hanging onto what I used to have, as long as I'm trying to make a new way of living here, then it's not a problem.

If there's one thing I want to do today, it's translate another essay or short story. I haven't translated anything for a while and that's kind of sad. There isn't much in the way of professional gigs here, but I suppose I need to just keep on looking. Eventually I'll figure out something, and until then, I'll translate things I'm really interested in. ^^ My work schedule is not really allowing me to go to Kaiwa no Kai anymore, which is also sad. I was walking down the street yesterday and Alex tapped on my shoulder after I'd already passed him, and I turned around and waved. I wonder where he'll be for the summer. He's in the next batch of Nanzan students, so I'm really REALLY excited for him.

My anemone bulbs are not growing and I'm sad about that. I even soaked five more that had roots growing out of them by the time I potted them, and they still aren't giving me anything. (I've actually dug the original ones back up to check on them...I don't know if you're supposed to do that.) Maybe they aren't getting enough light...the windowsill doesn't get much direct sunlight and that's what they love.

The property management company deposited the security deposit we sent in with our application, so I guess this means we're approved to live there, which is going to be niiiiiiice. They said they'd call by Thursday if they wanted to have us sign a lease, so maybe they've called Ty already. That would be cool.

Tomorrow is the first day of May! We're going to have a little party. Dave is especially excited. Apparently he quit his job yesterday because he can make just as much money in one weekend going up to help his dad out with surveying in his hometown as he can working here five or six days a week. I need to find something like that. I want to go home sometime soon. I left a whole lot of my stuff there. I've been contemplating waiting until we move because then there will be a lot more room for stuff (and enough for Ty's, too...I hope).

I also miss Cooper. He got a bunch of new little brown spots in his fur, and I'm sure he's gotten smarter, and maybe a little more well behaved. I also wonder how he plays without snow. :)

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 :)

tea time and reconnection

March has almost completely left us behind, but a lot has happened, and I feel like I'm getting back into my groove. I was pretty down for the first half of the month or so, and it was hard to look for jobs. People don't want to hire people that don't believe in themselves. I had a few interviews but nothing really worked out.

Ty's giant surprise for our third anniversary was pretty awesome. I didn't like being blindfolded for an hour while we were driving (Harry Potter audio books kept me entertained), but after I found out we were spending a day at an indoor water park I felt much better. XD I mean, who doesn't like to stand under a giant bucket that drops 700 gallons of water on you, and ride on giant water slides? Even the ones that weren't so giant were fun. It was a much-needed escape from reality, and made me remember who I was.

Although I ended up falling into my old mood right when I got back, I was able to snap out of it. For some reason Ty was able to get through to me. I'm not going to get a job with a depressing attitude, sitting on the couch, and he came with me to drop off applications that I would have waited on. I think that was what did it, and made me realize that you can't wait on things forever either, or nothing will get done.

Since last week was spring break for the college students, I was able to meet up with two friends that would have otherwise been insanely busy, and we had tea. Kiyomi is one of those rare Japanese people that actually means what she says, so you can actually talk seriously with her. I completely agree with her that it's really sad that we have such a good Japanese program here, but graduates have such a difficult time finding jobs where they can use Japanese, especially when they decide to stay in the United States - even if they have second majors to support it. It made me feel better knowing that I wasn't the only one struggling with that situation. I know the East Asian Studies chair holds an annual information session where people discuss career paths after graduation, but I went to it, and it didn't help that much. Basically, all they said was that if you want to get a job in the country of your choice, get an English teaching job. It's pretty much the only freaking job you can get in Japan if you're foreign and straight out of college, unless you're lucky.

I really want to help the current Japanese majors understand the main roads, actually. True, after college it's up to you what you want to do with your life, and I feel like the Japanese department doesn't want to get involved in people's personal choices, but I felt SO LOST when I graduated. If they just had an information session about jobs or something, I think it would help them out a lot. It's not forcing them into anything; it's just letting people know possible options.

In any case, talking with her made me feel much better, and I felt like I have my own life, what with going to see a friend and not tagging along with my boyfriend. Coffee or tea was about the one luxury I could afford with what money I had left.

I also went to meet Mariko for tea on Easter Sunday, and although we originally planned to go to a café, I thought it would probably be closed (being a holiday and all), so we went to the 5th floor of the Biochemistry building instead. Mariko was really busy with research there, and there's a kitchen! I hadn't seen her for an entire year. She sounds on track with what she wants to do after she graduates in December, but she's a bit disappointed. She wants to go back to Japan for grad school, but there are no programs in Japan for what she wants to study because it's so new, so she has to stay in the United States, and she'll be so busy that she won't get to go back to Japan 4 times a year like she does now. However, her last semester won't be very busy, so she says once summer starts, she'll be able to hang out more. We're still going to get together for tea again soon because the biochemistry building is convenient for her, and it's free :)

Lastly, I landed a part-time job earlier this week! All the people there seem awesome. Training and orientation is today ^^ Luckily the man I interviewed with was the same cheerful man I talked to on the phone when I scheduled the interview, and the format was the best kind for me: just having a conversation and trying to get a feel for what the other person is like, not asking all those cold, impersonal questions. They were asked, yes, but it was in a much more friendly, congenial way. I'm excited.

Lastly, I woke up this morning and I saw that a friend of mine from studying abroad was on, and I talked to her for the first time in about two years. She's Thai and just got a job at Bridgestone (the tire company) as a Thai<->Japanese interpreter at a factory. She says it's really hard. Interpreting is not easy, after all. I know she'll do well ^^

OK, work starts soon. I'm out.

shiori + hori-kun + me

This morning I went on a search for Base Ball Bear stuff, trying to find interesting tidbits. I found a lot of cool pictures, and some CD reviews from 4-5 years ago that have a more detailed biography of their earlier history (most of the newer ones shorten it up a lot, I guess because recent happenings are more important). The best thing was an interview from a few months ago, with a "top three things you're into right now" for each of the members. Normally I'm most interested in Shiori's stuff, but after watching a few Richard Dawkins documentaries, it seems kind of dumb, like she's just caught up in alternative healing scams at the moment. I hope aromatherapy and Yomeishu aren't eating up all of the money she makes playing her guitar. (Yomeishu is an alcoholic herbal drink made with Chinese medicinal herbs. Part of me thinks it would just taste awful, but I'm also curious to try it just to see what it's like. It costs about $22 per liter, so a little on the expensive side. At least it's not homeopathic and actually has viable amounts of herbs though...)

I think it's good that Hori-kun is on a diet...and he uses Billy Blanks tapes to exercise! hee. I remember doing those in gym in middle school. Oh, good times.

Job hunting is going all right. If I accept the job that randomly came up yesterday, I may be doing some interpreting at a hospital later this month. However, I'm not confident, especially with the last time I tried to interpret at a hospital, and that was really informal. Lots more pressure this time.

I finished the first story in Novala Takemoto's book Emily recently, and I'm about 33% done translating it. The story is only about 12 pages long, but hey, you have to start small with literature because the author is not always blunt, like in a newspaper. I need to get myself a denshi jisho, badly. I'm borrowing one from a friend right now and I never realized just how useful and convenient they are.

one big circle

Guess where I am now? That's right! Right back where I started ten months ago! Well, a few blocks away, but in the same city. Yes, Madison. and this time I'm not sitting on my butt waiting for something to happen. I don't know if I said that before, but the people here will not let me do that.

I got here Saturday and had my first interview today at the gelato store! Not bad if I do say so myself. :) But I'm not stopping there. There are lots of applications to fill out yet. If I don't get a job bad things are going to happen to me, so I really, REALLY need one. I applied to Jamba Juice and the bead store too. Ty wants me to work at Jamba Juice because he says I'll smell REALLY good when I come home.

My tax returns are very nice this year, but I won't get that for a while, and I'm saving it when I do, along with that economic relief money if I'm supposed to get it. That's not what they want me to do, but I'm sure for every person that saves it, there will be two more that spend it and then some because they think they have more than they do.

Me? I just want to be able to go to my brother's wedding in October...even if I get bitter just thinking about him. He's my brother, and I need to get over it. Once I start making my own way I think it'll be fine. That and when he isn't so damn stressed out.

So what else is going on lately, you say...
- Apparently Evan is teaching Steve's class for a week or so because Steve's wife is going to have a baby very, very soon. びっくり.
- I want to go to the St. Patrick's Day parade again! Last year was so fun ^^ March 16, guys. I'm getting together all the people I can.
- Every time I get to the intersection of Gorham and Wisconsin I look up to Gilman St. and wish Sarah was still around. Apparently Brian does too, from what he told me yesterday...ehe.
- I made a nice purse out of black wool, and finished it last night while the guys recorded a new song. I WOULD have had it done sooner if I hadn't spaced out and sewed the outside of the bag on inside out. Since the fabric is the same on both sides, it was easy to confuse. That and I got really angry at Cooper because he pulled one of the straps off the basement table and chewed a hole in the side of it the night before I moved.

And that's all. Time to make some dinner. :D