Through the Looking Glass

So, today I earned myself hella cool points (which is of course the only reason I do anything X3) by tattooing myself for the first time. MUCH harder than I ever expected, and I didn't end up choosing either the best of spots or designs, and therefore the finished product isn't that great. But you know what? I can live with that. Cause it was an amazing experience, and as a complete beginner, I wasn't expecting any miracles to begin with. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it. And I strategically did the hardest parts all in once color so I can go over them again and try to sharpen them up once I heal. Which is gonna take a long-ass time, because I kept going over areas multiple times, which you're not supposed to do, and ended up going way too deep and bleeding a lot, which is gonna translate into a lot of scarring. Oh well. Live and learn. So without further ado, here's the ugly tattoo I am now the proud owner of-




( Clicky here for the work in progress pics! )

And that's it! Unsurprisingly, I barely felt it while I was doing it because I was concentrating so hard. And also unsurprisingly, now it hurts like hell. -___- I only hope that my kids tomorrow don't decide to try and cling to my ankles. For now- on to more Boston Legal! I am sooooo addicted to that show right now. I am in love with Alan Shore. I need him to become real and decide that he, like Denny, has a thing for chubby women and that he's ready to give marriage another shot.

Life is so great inside my head. XD

You know, I know that life's not supposed to be fair, but does it really have to be that unfair?

Sigh.

I found four of the five seasons of Saved by the Bell, and all I have to say is, I don't care if I'm 24 year old, I will ALWAYS love Zack Morris.

And why didn't I know until now that there's a lengthened director's edition of Empire Records? I downloaded a copy like a year ago and just got around to watching it today, and there's all this new footage. I love it. It is wonderful. Maxwell Caulfield does a great job at playing a raging dickhead. And, OMG, "I hope you like the taste of blue cheese"?!? How did that line get cut?

Golden Week has been a godsend. I really needed some time off from the world. And I'm finally almost over the plague.

I think this has to be my last year here. Sometimes the unexpected happens and I love this place, and sometimes the unexpected happens and I hate it, but if I stay any longer than this, I'm never going to work up the nerve to start my real life.

Now I just have to figure out what starting my real life means.

I plant roots quickly, and I don't like the idea of having to pull them up and start over again. I knew that that's what this was going to entail, and I'm prepared for it. But while I've been thinking about doing a masters program in psych, none of the schools that offer it are in New Jersey, and I don't want to have to spend another three years in a place only to pick up and leave again.

Of course, there's no reason I have to move back to New Jersey afterwards. Most of my friends have picked up and left and there's nothing stopping me from doing the same. But it's scary to think of just picking a random place, settling in, and hoping that everything goes well and I end up wanting to spend the rest of my life there. I swear I used to be able to make friends, but I've fairly well forgotten how. It's not so difficult here, because we gaijin are our own little biosphere of the West, and it's impossible not to make friends when the English speaking population is limited. It's another story all together when you move to just another American town where everybody else already has their own friends and you're the 25 year old new girl with all the social skills of an awkward teenager.

I know everything will be fine, and I'll work something out like I always do, but I still can't help but stop and wonder sometimes just how the hell I got here.

Just when you think, "Man, this month sure did suck. I bet it can't get much worse," God kills a baby bunny.

I re-pierced my eyebrow today. It hurts. I didn't cry, but I did make Eiji hold my hand. Now, this may not be the bestest of ideas, seein' as how ECC has a no facial piercing policy, but Phil wears his eyebrow ring, and he said that personnel told him it would be fine as long as he doesn't wear it on the 8th floor of the main school, and I'm never anywhere near there, so hooray for other people setting the precedent as well. And if it starts rejecting like the last one did, now I have complete access to my very own smexy piercing expert who can help me with it. So if you're gonna shove needles through your face, this is definitely the best way to do it. Other than that, the shop was pretty boring today, cause the owner's in Shanghai again doing more work with setting up the third shop, and Eiji was at the second shop for most of the day, so it was just me, Hiroshi, and Osamu. I drew an evil jack o'lantern and looked up brain teasers on the internet. Hopefully next week I can snag Ryuji for some lesson time.

And speaking of lessons, the new school year starts, for me anyways, tomorrow. I am pretty nervous, cause I have a massively busy day tomorrow, the revamped J-level lessons start and I have one and I feel woefully under prepared, and I have to take Gabriel back to the vet yet again tomorrow morning. But, that should give me plenty of time to get to work hella early and make sure I have more than enough time to prepare. And hopefully Valor Toda has a pet shop, cause I'm just about out of bunny food.

But you mustn't toooooooouch~!

Ain't that always the way?

So, day 2 of my 3 days without sleep is almost at an end. Took Gabriel back to the vet yesterday. He's still sick, now on two different kinds of meds two times a day, and he HATES me. -____-; Every time I open the door to his cage, he cowers in the corner. I am a sad fox. And I think that Mal may have caught the parasites from him despite my best endeavors, so when I go back to the vet yet again on Tuesday, I'm gonna take some of Mal's best work and have it checked out. Please please please, oh great Gods and Goddesses, let him be okay, because if they keep passing these things back and forth I may never be rid of them. Stupid fucking lousy pet shop.

All staff meeting today. Pleasant surprise of having the highest kids resign rate. Which means that, after all of my scheduling BS this year, if I stay another year I will be informing personnel of what schools I will be working at next year. They can deal with it. I feel by then I'll have more than earned my right to be pushy.

Shabu shabu party at the shop was awesome today, I just wish I could've stayed longer. Met a new girl who's a fried of the shop owner's girlfriend, who's really sweet. Landing that gig is the best thing that's happened to me in a long time. So despite the crap I've been wading through these last two weeks, after tonight, I really can't help but feel lucky all the same. I've finished the first design I wanna try on myself, and maybe in two weeks or so I'll work up the nerve to actually do it.

I got a new phone, as Mal bit through yet another one of my chargers in the 2 seconds I had my back turned from him. Jerk. It's mint green. I need to learn how to download ring tones.

But for now, more bunny medicine and what little sleep I have time for. >

Gabriel the bunny has highly infectious parasites, and God officially hates me.

Yup, just got off the phone with personnel, and that's both my Tuesday and my Thursday shift gone. And there's not a thing he can do to change it now, because it seems not only was it changed to accommodate someone else, but there was some big to do with a bunch of mothers at one of the schools (Probably my Tuesday school, I had a minorly troublesome class there last year) saying that they wanted a different teacher this year. So now I have to trek out to a school I went to once and got terribly, terribly lost at, up on the second floor of some shopping mall, and another school at the end of the subway line I've never been to.

This went from being the best year ever to being the worst year ever.

Tommie: "I'm the dumb one in my family, I'll tell anyone. My sisters are gonna be rich. I'll be the one dancing on the corner, yelling at pigeons. 'Get off my lawn!'"

Me: *eating an ice cream bar* "I'm gonna be the crazy cat lady."

Tommie: "Oh, so you know?"

Me: "Yeah, I'm preparing myself for it now." *lick, lick, bite*

Tommie: "So are you just gonna own the cats, or are you gonna bathe in their pee?"

Me: *tries to swallow, chokes instead* *cough cough cough* "Dammit, you caught me trying to swallow!"

Tommie: *laughing* "Well it's a legitimate question!"

...I lost the rose quartz out of my pendant on Sunday, and today I had one of the shittiest days I've had in a long time.

Gabriel, as I've named my new baby bunny, is sick. And from what I've read at the House Rabbit Society website, it could be life-threatening. So I called the International Center yesterday to see about finding an English speaking vet, and they were arbitrarily closed. Called again today, and it seems that there's not a single vet in all of this "metropolitan" city that speaks a damned word. So I got the number to the closest one, and after a lot of hullabaloo about trying to find it that very nearly made me late for work, I managed to do so. Called to make an appointment, and it seems they don't do that, so I have to just go during the 2 1/2 hours they're open ass early in the morning tomorrow and hope I can get in.

Got to work, and had one of those rare days where seven free time lessons in a row didn't make me want to shoot myself.

That came later when I found out that the Tuesday schedule I was promised at that school, with all the students I love and didn't say goodbye to because I was told I would be working there again next year, with a friend whom I love and otherwise never get to see, was taken from me and given to someone else. That was the one fucking day a week that I actually looked forward to going to work. And because of the circumstances surrounding why it was given to someone else, it's highly unlikely that I'll be able to get it back. And if I somehow manage it, it will mean that someone being probably just as angry about it as I am right now. It's an unfortunate situation and it's no one's fault, I understand, but that's really the worst possible thing that could've happened to my schedule. Any other day and I wouldn't have cared. I'd haul my fat ass all the way back out to Tsu four days a week if it meant that I got to keep my Tuesdays.

Life is so very, very unfair.

You know, as much as everyone complains about Interlink and especially Freebell, I never really hated the company or this building until now. But you see, I don't care what country or hemisphere you're in, there's absolutely NO reason on the face of this God-forsaken earth, that anyone, anywhere, should have to hike up TEN FLIGHTS OF SPIRAL STAIRS at fucking FIVE O'CLOCK in the MORNING, after being awake for 20 hours, and on top of that literally BLIND and STINKING drunk! I've stumbled home at this hour on plenty of other occasions, and there's always been at least one working elevator. But no, tonight, all three had to be out. There was a note about the elevators being down for maintenance, but they said that it would be some time in the afternoon on the 6th and 25th of this month. If this post is intelligible at all, it's a credit to both my high-functioning drunkenness and my touch typing technique, because I am quite seriously so drunk to the point where I can barely see the screen in front of me, and it's a miracle I didn't fall down those stupid stairs and break my fool neck. I am reminded yet again of why, while it seems like a good idea at the time, drinking an entire bottle of whatever liquor your friend happens to smuggle into karaoke is generally a bad idea. Time for food, rehydration, and then MASSIVE amounts of sleep.

Once my stupid stomach settles.

Oh yeah, add to that thing I said before about drinking smuggled liquor that it should NOT be done on an empty stomach.

I hate my life.

The stork brought Malcolm a new baby brother today!








I was hoping that since they're still so young (Mal's four months, around two months), they would get along famously, but unfortunately that's not the case. I took them out into a neutral room and let them have some time together the way all the experts say. At first they ignored each other, then they sniffed each other a little which was good, but then Mal started getting aggressive. So I separated them, and let 'em go again, separated them, let 'em go again, on and off for a while, then I put them back in their separate cages. With any luck, they'll learn to get along. The whole reason I got this new, as of yet unnamed guy (If I keep with the Firefly theme he'll be Wash, he's a big scaredy cat), was to keep Mal company, since I know rabbits are social creatures and I thought he might be lonely. Well, we'll see how it goes. ^^

Seriously, if there's a Hell, I'm going there. And the worst part is, I never do anything wrong. It's just that fucked up inside my little head. X3

I've gotten to the point where I'm at least competent enough in my Japanese to make plays on words that I think are hilarious, even if no one else does. XD Here's a little Japanese lesson for you so I can explain my infinite cleverness. Oh, but first, the set-up. I was in Osaka today with Ayumi, Maiko, and Helga. We went to see a vocal concert for a student/friend of ours, but we walked around a bit and did some minor sight-seeing first. One of the places we were talking about going to was America Mura, which I was curious to see, being American myself. So we decided to go. Now for the Japanese lesson. "行きましょう(ikimashou)" means "Let's go." In Osaka dialect, it gets changed to　"行きまほう (ikimahyou)". So being totally clever, I said,　"大阪にいるから、行きまほう。" The double meanings being 1)- "Since we're in Osaka (as is America Mura), let's go," and 2)- "Since we're in Osaka, let's talk in Osaka dialect." See what I did there? Genius, huh? <<

I finally caved and bought me a new Wacom. It's lot smaller than my last one, but it was hella expensive and I just couldn't justify buying th 9x12, especially given the lack of space I'm working with now. It's all shiny-lookin'. Oooh.

And in other news that's completely boring for you but interesting for me, I re-organized my external hard drives so that one's just for TV shows and the other one is for movies and other extraneous things. Turns out I had waaaaay more gigs taken up with TV shows than for movies. Go figure.

And on that note, I'm late for work! *dashes*

Tommie got a chessboard today, and we just spent the last hour or so playing. As a general rule, I am very bad at chess. I lack the necessary attention span and have never been particularly good at thinking far enough ahead to actually get anywhere. But perhaps all the hours of freecell I've logged over the past few years has helped with that, because I didn't do too badly. We played bit of an open game at first, then after that it was sink or swim. He crushed me so badly the first round that I forfeited before he even finished me off. The second round I started off really strong, captured both of his bishops and a few of his pawns before he even touched me, but then he put out something for bait and I fell for it and he got me in the end. But the last game was beautiful. The longest by far, I worked him down and worked him down and we were almost at a stalemate, but I managed to finagle it so that his king was trapped between one of my bishops and my queen, and I actually beat him. Whee! It was most likely a little brilliance mixed with a lot of beginner's luck, but a thrilling victory none the less. And good practice for the next time we have people over and break out the shot glass chessboard.

In other news, my disease-ridden children gave me the plague again. I actually took a day off yesterday. Since I didn't have enough ALP days to go to Vegas for Jeff and Shannon's wedding, I figured I deserved it. I also failed at getting a new cell phone. Since Mal (renamed Bitey McBites-a-lot) bit right through my charger, I figured I could either buy a new one or just get a new phone for free. But the "English speaking" staff at the store couldn't explain to me just what getting a new phone entailed, and plus I realized that I'd left my gaijin card with my passport in my messenger bag in the apartment (good thing I didn't get stopped by any cops or security because that would've gotten me arrested), I had no photo ID on me, so no new phone. That's fine. The one I really wanted wasn't bilingual anyway.

I need to buy more art supplies tomorrow.

Oh! And I finished watching what there was of Heroes season 2.

( Cut for spoilers, but if you've seen it, I would love to hear other people's opinions. )

HOW DOES LEELA NOT LOVE FRY??? HOW, AFTER EVERYTHING HE'S DONE FOR HER??? GAH! *sob*

I've been drawing like crazy, so I figured I'd upload a few of them here. ^^

( Clicky clicky! )

So, I might be ending up with a tattooing apprenticeship.

I was waiting for the elevator a few days ago, perusing the notice board, and I noticed my dream advertisement- a body art shop looking for an English teacher interested in exchanging language lessons for a tattooing or piercing apprenticeship and/or free tattoos and piercings. So despite the fact that I don't aaaactually know how to teach, I immediately (re: two days later once I worked up the nerve) sent off an email and got a reply the next day from the girl who's leaving. Went up to talk to her today to find out about it and it seems really awesome. I was mainly interested in free tattoos, since I have at least one good-sized piece I want done, but she was so enthusiastic about the learning opportunity that, provided I get the "job", I may very well see about actually being trained. There was one other guy who got back to her, but she said he had no art background and no tattoos and she wasn't really sure why he was interested, so it's looking good for me. I'm headed over to the shop Monday, sadly the timing is poor cause I'm gaming that day and we've rescheduled so many times already that I'm just not willing to do it again.

Squee!