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the cake show Saturday August 31
i purchased tickets to go see cake on the unlimited sunshine tour at the aragon, and nathan and i were supposed to go. however, nathan was busy; i took naomi went instead. the tour was (in order): kinky, modest mouse, de la soul, the flaming lips, and then cake finishing it out. naomi and i arrived as de la soul was performing, and i will say that it was quite possibly the worst hip-hop i've ever seen.
i'll be forthcoming. i'm not a big hip-hop fan. outkast is enough to make me think twice now and then, and i would probably like their live performances. naomi and i decided that de la soul lacked good, strong choruses, and talent in general. whatever, the audience's lack of interest allowed us to plow our way up towards the front of the stage.
we waited...and waited...and waited for the flaming lips. when i saw weezer there in the spring of 2001, they were very slow to change sets, and now i see that it's the venue's fault. the aragon is slow, and not that great of a place.
the lips are just weird. this is coming from a guy who likes other "weird" bands like they might be giants, and, well, cake. let's tick off a few things they had going on:
- dancing animals
on either side of the stage were four people dressed up in animal suits. with hardcore spotlight-flashlights that they were shining into the audience and at the next item in this list. the girl in the chicken outfit was gorgeous, naomi and i thought. - huge rotating disco balls
on the stage were four 3-foot-diameter disco balls, all on things that rotated. throughout their performance, at key times, they would begin their rotation and the animals would shine flashlights at them. - fake blood packets
the lead singer basically bloodied himself prior to one song with fake blood and proceeded to sing while smearing it all over his unbuttoned suit jacket. i have no clue why. - projection screen
on the screen behind the band was video. some of it was really neat, but the scene with the japanese schoolgirls massacring one another with handguns was a little..."what the hell did we just see?"-ish. on top of that, they had a camera mounted on the microphone stand, so we saw all this fake blood close-up. behind the camera was the screen, so you had that weird picture dissolving into itself phenomenon. - instruments from nowhere
naturally, they're the flaming lips, so they played their one hit, she don't use jelly. we all liked that song, so it was good of them to play it. until, that is, that i noticed that no one was playing the lead guitar riff. there was a bass player, a lead singer, and a rhythm guitarist/percussionist (he did both). there was no lead. and i was hearing lead. hrmmm. - confetti and smoke
they threw huge balloons into the audience filled with confetti, and the smoke machine saw a lot of action. the lead singer picked it up and proceeded to spray us, the stage, and his fellow band members with it during songs.
since many people were unimpressed, a gateway to the front row opened up, and that's where naomi and i stood for all of the cake show. cake was pure bliss. they opened with "love you madly" and went back from there, playing items off of motorcade and fashion nugget as well. highlights? among others, they played "nugget", "jesus wrote a blank check", "ruby sees all", "frank sinatra", "it's coming down", "comfort eagle", and "short skirt long jacket". in the middle of that, when the whole audience was singing "na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-naaa-na", and they let that continue while talking into the microphone for about three or four minutes. i had no vocal chords left at the end.
they encored with "i will survive", and i really wish they would have played "mastodon". but i don't know if the masses would have been ready for it. and nathan would have been a little too jealous.
second day of classes Thursday August 29
and the fourth class:
- ealc 315: modern japanese fiction in translation
this class is taught by a japanese woman named atsuko ueda; she travelled the world while growing up and finally ended up at michigan state university while pursuing her doctorate. then she came to uiuc to teach. and she's only about thirty, it looks like. i am jealous of the people who are born into the world-traveller lifestyle: she speaks japanese and english (with a british accent!), has time to sit around and wonder what natsume sooseki is really saying about japanese life in the novel kokoro, and gets to live at college indefinitely. what a life, academia is. anyway, the class is chock full of EALC majors, and i am glad that i officially added EALC as a minor today; if i hadn't, i would have been a complete poser in this class. there's going to be a lot of reading; there are nine required books and the course "packet" cost me $50. it's about 300 pages long itself. i can see that this class is going to take a significant amount of my free time. so yes, you read that right. i am an overachiever. i just added a minor.
in other news, we had a far more successful barbeque at the house tonight, whereat todd and i ate week-old hamburger that was in the fridge. we grilled the hell out of those things, and let's hope that all those beefy micro-organisms didn't survive that grill.
man, when i type it like that, it makes our decision to cook said burgers sound stupider than ever.
first day of classes Wednesday August 28
i had three of my four classes today, here's the rundown.
- ece 229: introduction to electromagnetic fields
i was one of the last people to show up (andrew, who was in kanazawa with me this summer, was the last person to show up, he made me proud; ece slackers represent), and it was hard to get a seat in the room of 40+ people. it went reasonably well, and then the professor pulled out a pop math quiz that would not be counted for a grade. it was all right, and i was a little cocky in being the first person done. almost last to come, first to leave. just how i enjoy class. - japan 103: intermediate japanese i
since i took japanese over the summer, i think this class might end up being the easiest japanese class to date. however, instead of taking the placeent test (which i just didn't think to do), i'll just stick to more debauchery with stephanie and charlotte. they both informed me today that they do not intend to take 104 in the spring. i'm disappointed. i have to find new japanese goons. - ece 210: analog signal processing
this class is almost identical to ece 290. not in course material, but in set-up: written and online homework, classroom full of dorky ece people (wait, ece males), and a professor that put me to sleep. today was the first day. i fell asleep.
i also inquired at the ealc office about adding japanese as a minor. it looks like it's going to happen, as i was going to get most of the credit anyway just for taking classes i want to. score. i jokingly added a new photo album, entitled "pictures of me with girls". todd inspired me, as we both like utilizing my new digital camera to take pictures of ourselves with attractive females.
random setbacks Monday August 26
last night i stayed up until 4:15am with a box of cat-5 network cable, a pair of crimpers, a box of rj-45 plugs, and a hardcore staple gun. our house is now wired for internet, but we still lack the necessary hubs to allow everyone on at the same time. whatever.
last night was also "fix up your computer for the semester" night, so i decided to upgrade my windows 2000 installation to service pack 3 (from SP1). this was a mistake, the system failed to boot afterward. i uninstalled the service pack from safe mode, and everything appeared to be working; from that point until this morning my system was on a long, downward spiral that ended in not even turning on.
obviously, due to the carefree attitude with which i detail that, it's fixed. i threatened to upgrade my computer to windows xp professional, and i'm not joking, as soon as i put the cd in the drive, i got better results from my computer. it was as if my windows 2000 installation came to life, realized it better shape up or be replaced, and did so. now that my system is working, i will not install XP -- why repeat the same mistake i made with the service pack, i.e., fixing what ain't broke?
in other news, i am driving the old phoozemobile once again. i had to remove the leopard print seat covers, steering wheel cover, and fuzzy dice, first, however. yuck.
class begins on wednesday, and this house might just come together by then. becca and guido arrived, so now it is a full house, and everyone is just about ready to start the year. i just need to start reading some of the twelve textbooks i purchased for EALC 315 and take some of them back before the return date. i'll use the money for essentials like bills, tolietries, and going to hot wok express.
the set up never ends Saturday August 24
i have been living in this house for eight days now, and there is still much work to be done. obviously, there is less and less cleaning and more and more "get your life together" stuff; lists of people to e-mail and things to drop off in strange locations.
i took a break from it all to finally re-index the minidisc i accidentally erased at the guster show in april, and i recorded it onto my hard drive for editing. the first track that i think sounds excellent is also available for download (i must spread the guster love), it's happier, off of lost and gone forever.
finally Friday August 23
after an equal battle with the cable company (who was much more on the ball than the phone company, however), i have a working internet connection. it's all downhill from here, and i'll post something of substance later today.
seven oh yeah baby five Wednesday August 21
last friday, i got off 74 and rolled up to my new residence, 705 west california avenue. i was not aware that there was an east california, but apparently that's where the phone and cable companies went for their respective installations. it was a bad omen for the road ahead. things were going to be difficult to get set up. we're still cleaning, the people who lived there last year trashed the place.
i like to maintain a higher standard of living than most college students. therefore, finding real housing is impossible, but my roommates and i have decided that we are going to try as much as possible to cosmetically fix up our house. i'm not going to talk about the cleaning process; it's just not that interesting. i will, however, talk about my five-day struggle with the phone company, sbc ameritech.
our phone was supposed to be installed last thursday, the day todd and drew moved in. i contacted todd thursday night to discover that no such installation had occurred, and called the phone company friday morning. wait, forget this. i'll just do a bulleted list.
- friday morning 9:00am: i called to ask why the installation guy didn't come. they said he did and that no one was home. i didn't buy it, but i was still in rockford, and i had no phone number to call to verify this information with todd and drew.
- friday afternoon 6:00pm: todd and drew told me they had not been out, and that all day they had been there. i call again to share this information, and the representative still informs me that the line had been dropped to the box outside the house, but interior installation could not be done because no one was home. eventually, we determine the problem: they had dropped the line to 705 east california avenue, which is miles off campus. when i initially called to set up the appointment, i just had said, "705 california". what a mistake. however, we had a phone line, because the previous renter forgot to turn his line off. i was further informed by ameritech that no changes could be made to our current line until the old one was disconnected (some stupid company policy or something). after every call they ask you to rate their service on a scale of 1-5. since i felt that there was an honest mistake made, i gave them a 4. silly me.
- saturday afternoon 2:00pm: i finally get ahold of scott, the previous renter.
me: "hi scott, this is mark calling, i live at 705 california now. we're having problems with our phone line because your line is still active here...in fact, i'm using it right now to call you."
(five second pause while his still-sleeping brain processes new information)
scott: "aww, fuck."
me: "yeah, we can't get a number until you do. call them at (their number). thanks."
(ten second pause while he mentally recites what i said, extracting the number, filling in "uhm" to let me know he was still there)
scott: "thanks man."
within five minutes, our dialtone was gone. i used katy's mom's cell phone to call back.
- saturday 2:30pm: i call ameritech, and they verify the disconnection went through. they say that my line will automatically come on in a few hours, by 5pm.
- saturday 5:01pm: no dialtone.
- sunday 12:30pm: "thank you for calling sbc ameritech. our service center is now closed. for billing information from our automated att...". dammit.
- monday 11:00am:
them: "we show that the transfer order errored out, and our computer and blah blah blah stuff you don't understand, so you need to do this impossible thing and jump four flaming hoops on a tricycle to blah blah blah so we can connect your line by wednesday."me: "look, when that guy disconnected that line, it was gone in five minutes. if you can deactivate a phone in that time span, you sure as hell can activate one. i don't care about the orders and all the garbage. yes, i know that some of the features i want on my line won't be available until wednesday because you're having computer problems. i want one single phone line, the 8131 line, and i want it to be at 705 west california yesterday. all right? that's it."
them: "just a moment, my service specialist just told me something about your line...(muffled voices for one minute)... your line should come on by 5pm today."
i didn't say it, because you don't want to screw with the phone company, but i really wanted to say, "way to use the qualifier 'should', you devious telephonic bastards."
the line was on in ten minutes. i would also like to add that every call ended the same way:
them: "we notice that you are not taking advantage of our DSL service, would you like to h--"
me: "no, thank you, i am signing up for cable internet."
them: "may i ask how much you are spendin--"
me: "i called yesterday, i know how much yours is, and i know my cable is more expensive. i understand you're just doing your job, but no thanks."
them: "we just want you to get the best value out of your service."
and they say it off that script every time, adding my title and last name for a touch of personality that just comes across as if they're patronizing me. god i hate the phone company. i thought GTE was bad, back in the day. there are pictures up, and they're new. click on "photographs".
the end of summer Thursday August 15
don henley (of eagles fame) recorded a song called the boys of summer, and then also put out an album with another single entitled the end of innocence. in an 80's-anthem sort of way, i am having difficulty remember what each one sounds like, but given my post title, they're both playing simultaneously in my head. i leave arizona tomorrow to move into the new house. naturally, i am very excited.
my summer vacation that began with a 28-hour amtrak ride with my mother is ending in a incoherent 3:26am blog post about the similarities of eighties pop songs by don henley.
note the lack of cohesive point between the start and the end, and todd, that's my metaphor for the entire summer. i'll see all you kids on friday morning.
presson brilliance Wednesday August 14
todd is sometimes one of the funniest writers i've ever read, i often put him next to nick hornby. it could be so balls-out funny solely because i am his roommate, but i would like you to determine that for yourself. read his most recent post about work and life and let me know what you think.
i'm serious, i read this kind of copy and strive to mimic it.
doing my part for my country...spending money
the problem with having a nice camera is taking good pictures. because, if you have a good camera, you can't lie about your poorly-lit pictures and blame it on the machinery. it's your fault for not lugging the tripod with you, or that extra flash filter. beyond a certain point, it's all about your composition and SLR settings. but for day-to-day, who wants to worry about that? what is the real ratio of "just need a quick picture" shots to "i care about the composition" shots i take?
it's reasonable enough that my one, large, semi-expensive SLR camera was considerably cumbersome for what i shoot: so i took this picture digitally with a new canon powershot s200. phear it. no longer do i have to lug the big camera around and be that guy; no longer do i have to spend large sums of cash and time on developing, waiting for prints, and scanning them in. followed by the upload and post.
now, instead of being broke little bits at a time, i am broke all at once. i won't even disclose how much i spent, it's none of your business for one, and if she reads this, i am sure my mom would think i am dealing drugs to come up with that kind of cash. hence, the best buy credit card. nate, you know what i am talking about, and if you don't have one of these little yellow cards, never get one.
i chose jon and his new coffee maker (indicated in red) for my subject because he was there, and i needed to test it out. it's a starbucks brand coffee maker that works via vaccuum action. and like starbucks, it succeeds in its purpose by sucking really hard. why did i take and post this picture, you ask?
anyway, so here's the point of all this. now, when i see something funny (it's a shame that i did this after leaving new york city, where funny things occur daily), i can point-shoot-upload-post. in about a minute, and you get to look at it. there's a thousand reasons to have a digital camera other than that, including pictures of my house before i move in to prove just how much of a, excuse me here, shithole it has become.
the problem with expletives is that too often people use them to replace real words, thereby decreasing their communicative efficacy. however, the proper usage of these words rings true in the hearts of all with phrases like shithole. i know that you know exactly what i mean, in only eight efficient letters.
i'm not making this stuff up Monday August 12
to extend my thanks to casey for expressing her interest and concern the other day when i had an away message up:
mark: hey, thanks for your message the other day
casey: no problem! how was japan?
right.
the beginning of a new era Sunday August 11
listening to: dashboard confessional, it makes me feel warm and squishy.
reading: making out in japanese: from lover's language to fighting words. i picked it up for $1.98 at a used bookstore; they had about ten books on japanese, and i had to buy it based on the price and title alone.
feeling: a little perturbed that i have to retype this entire post again (doh)
nicole asked me online the other day "how was japan?".
i've fielded this question a number of times from friends, and it makes me cringe every time. it is impossible for me to boil down an entire summer in a country across the world away from everyone i know into a short sound-byte length clip or AIM conversation. if i could do that, in my mind it would cheapen the entire experience to nothing more than a long vacation.
it frustrated me for awhile that i could not properly articulate everything that happened to me; i did a good job for some things (read: seventy-five hundred word essay on a bike trip), but that still fails to explain how everything affected me, and that is what is starting to happen. after returning to the states, seeing how i live here, remembering how i was living in japan, i am starting to view things a little differently.
even though i find japan intoxicatingly interesting, it could have been anywhere: nathan noted that the study abroad experience is often about getting away to something else with no one you know around more than it is about a specific country. he is correct to an extent, but i am definitely ecstatic about my choice of japan. some aspects of japan fit my desired lifestyle well.
i don't fail to notice the trend of intoxication, either. in high school, it was theatre, then choir, then newspaper. in college, it was wpgu. now it's japan and japanese language. isn't this just going to end up like everything else you do, mark: you'll get really into it, avoid everything else, and then become jaded by something and back off almost completely? well, i think this time it is different. there is no person directly associated with a language, and learning it expands the number people who walk this planet that i can communicate with. therefore, i argue that this particular obsession is one that is person-independent, it only depends on me. not people like karen wells or carly brown.
i titled this post as such because i am finally starting to put together all the revelations. not all of them happened in japan, some were from new york city, and i would not shut out of the possibility of more here in arizona. i have spent an entire 3 months away from anything that could be called "home", and that has put said "home" in a new perspective for me, one that it cognizant that i must start taking a more pro-active stance on my future.
sure, there's lots of things, but if i could lay them all out in a blog post, i would be either a great writer or someone who's overvaluing a specific experience. katy wants to see all my pictures and hear all my stories when we get back, and i'll share, but i feel that esther might be the only one to fully understand why i can never share everything from abroad. there's just too much.
webcam fun Friday August 9
jon, as well as many people, have a webcam shot on their website. i contemplated buying a cheap one for quite some time, but since i am current visiting jon in arizona, why not just use his? i would have entered these pictures as embedded images in this post, but i feel that you need to see them in order to laugh as i did.
this one is the first one; after looking at it i saw i needed to look at the camera, so i decided to take another one. note the return of the emo glasses, they are identical to the pair that heather broke last spring. i bought the hat today when i went to buy new jeans, none of my old ones will fit.
due to the camera/monitor placement, i couldn't see what it would look like until after i had taken it, i promise that this one was not posed.
last post from new york Thursday August 8
today was my last full day in the city, and it was an eventful one at that. at one i met jasmine for lunch, we drove all the way out somewhere on the island (well, only whitestone i guess, but who's looking at the map?) to go to a deli that reminds me of a jimmy johns, except that, well, there is only one of them, they are open 24/7, and the selection is far better. and they have cheese fries.
we then went to a park by her old high school to eat, and chatted about the usual stuff you chat about with people you're getting to know: jazz band, high school, and the over-population of white people in our graduating classes. the weather was nice, so i didn't need to even be saying anything to be having a decent time.
after that i went to flushing to purchase tableware for the house (yeah, that's right. it's another note on the pitchpipe...), specifically rice bowls, a tea set, serving plates, and a cup or two. it's all that cool ceramic stuff that i really like that you can't get anywhere besides either japan, china, or a large city like new york. i am sure they exist in chicago, but since i know the new york place to go, why is it worth the hassle navigating chicago's tiny chinatown?
they had two small sauce dishes that were shaped as leaves, and i bought them for two reasons. one, they might be useful, and two, if not, they will make gorgeous ashtrays for any of my smoking friends. i'm serious. they are stylin'. i feel like i should leave them out on the table when i'm not using them.
i stopped at a dinky hardware store and picked up $20 in electrical stuff to add a light in at the store where we needed one. it's safe, meets code, and even has a dimmer switch. i had a proud moment as a wannabe electrical engineer today when i turned it on and it worked the first time. circuits like that could teach the computers i build a lesson.
i am glad to be done at modus vivendi. being boss isn't that fun, especially when you wish that you could hang out with your employees when not working. the whole boss'-brother-in-law thing really puts a damper on that, and that's another problem with the non-native english speakers: they're difficult for me to read -- i am still trying to determine whether or not they care i exist as anything other than a less-strict replacement for a boss. yes, i let them get away with things they shouldn't, but only because i know it is all temporary...and fun now and then.
tonight, while closing the store, i-shan came in, back from taiwan. we solidified plans to hang out in the fall, and chen-lin as well might come out (she goes to chicago a lot, she says). maybe i am building up a new york posse and i don't even realize it. and then jasmine said i could stay anytime i needed somewhere to crash in the city (she'll be in manhattan next fall). hrmm. okay, so maybe they do like me.
also, not only did i break the jar holding the balsamic vinegarette (thereby making a huge mess), i also spilled italian dressing all over my shirt when i neglected to notice the top on the container was not firmly sealed. it was a clumsy night like that, and the only neato-bandito part of the evening was driving down to brooklyn to pick up my new, used minidisc player. it's identical to schaffer's one, and it will be able to revive the guster bootleg i lost in april (hopefully). if and when that works, you know you'll be able to download it here.
good-bye new york, you were a crucial part of this summer's experiment on being alone. moreover, you helped me develop the relationship with michael that i was denied as a child.
this is a joke, right? Monday August 5
this is a portion of a copy of my collegiate transcript that was mailed to me, showing the classes i am registered for for the fall. the annotations in black are the handwriting of professor brunet, the cool, crazy french woman i had for ECE 110. the purple line points to ECE 340, a class that i intended on dropping sometime ago, but that i just forgot about while i was in japan. i would have done it by the beginning of the year, but since i was feeling productive today (and i had received this letter), i decided to log on to drop.
when i pressed "a" and "1" (for those of you who know u of i direct), the screen before me was blank. i thought the connection was lagging. then, in bold highlight, at the bottom i saw it:
You are not registered for classes.
the first thing i said was, "uhhhh, what?". and then the realizations came. followed by expletives. bewilderment. a general desire to cause harm to small animals and children under 5. brunet canned my schedule because she was worried i was going to try the impossible.
i am getting on that phone tomorrow, and if i don't get back into everything i had before, heads are going to roll.
risk Sunday August 4
nathan, michael, and i sat in the basement of modus vivendi tonight playing risk from seven-thirty until just after two-thirty in the morning. nathan put a big, flat piece of cardboard on top of another cardboard box and yielded a table. since the lights in the basement are fluorescent, we opted for the single incandescent bulb michael works by at his desk. the fluorescents, you see, would be visible from above; it would totally kill the mood the store attempts to create.
i got some shady dealings for initial territories; nathan was gifted with north america yet again (this is no surprise, he is gifted in the ways of card-cheating, and i am sure this is no exception), and i was stuck in the middle of europe and africa. i quickly took europe and africa, but was not able to successfully hold either due to the huge front line on the eastern side of both continents. occasionally i slipped by with africa, but michael and nathan would not let a five-army mistake like europe slip by.
we played for a duration of seven hours, but there was a one-hour break when the store got busy and i had to work upstairs. after all the customers left, we moved the game upstairs, said goodnight to the employees, and sat in the store until conclusion. if you've never played, this is what risk will do to you. only play if you have a significant amount of time to devote to it.
nathan ended up getting one more set of cards than michael and i, and it gave him the necessary push to permanently secure the two-army bank that south america generates. from there, it was just a matter of time, and we threw in the towel at two-thirty declaring nathan the winner. bastard. how is he always so cold and calculating?!
todd tells me there's a game called diplomacy that is similar to risk, except that it requires more backstabbing and evil thoughts. he said it caused people he knew in high school to stop talking for a few weeks, and then he insisted that we play it in the house in the fall. i laughed, but seriously, do we want to even take the chance?
nathan leaves tomorrow, and so we are waking up a little early to catch a nice lunch before we take him to the airport. it will be just michael and i for next week, but i made plans with chen-lin to go to flushing next wednesday; i need to pretend like i have friends here or i'll go nuts.
dvorak Saturday August 3
listening to: dave matthews band - under the table and dreaming
reading: an amazingly coherent e-mail
feeling: great, how else would you feel after eating mexican food?
we got michael's new computer all set up, and i am now experiencing the flat-screen loving. i know my mom as well just purchased one, i'm sure i can pick one up cheap on ebay in a year or so.
i told my mother years ago that i was interested in switching to a dvorak keyboard layout (try that idea out here), and she told me that was a terrible idea because i would confuse myself. possibly, but after reading the accounts of various people online, i can do it. why do i consider it now again? recently i have fallen in to the japanese keyboard habit (whose punctuation marks are all in different places), and the qwerty layout is proving more difficult than usual at this point. moreover, i fear carpal tunnel someday, so i think this could be a switch for the better right now. my fingers are already slightly confused.
okay, i just played around with the one i linked to a minute ago, this might be more difficult than it seems.
it is hot in new york city now, and nathan and i went running this morning anyway; i really need to get in shape again. i can't even run 2.3 miles with a break in between, so i know there is a problem. time to take a nap before going back to close the store for the evening.
bummed: take two Thursday August 1
nathan's here now, and the three brothers are having a good time together. today we hit up manhattan to purchase a new computer for michael, and he picked up a nice flat-screen 15" for $350. personally, i would not buy one because i still have a perfectly-functioning 19" crt monitor in nate's apartment in champaign (with wicked flames painted on it, thanks to todd), but these things are just mad cool. in the future, it would not surprise me if everyone went flat-screen lcd panel for their display choice (except for gamers, i am sure, who will claim that the response rate is too slow).
we haven't set it up yet, i am still typing from the laptop with the disconnected screen. the screen of this thing is precariously balancing against the bookcase and the base of the computer -- but it has been lasting like this for months.
on the way home in the car tonight, i admitted to michael and nathan that i have been bummed, angry, annoyed, disturbed, preturbed, and just about any other word that indicates that itchy "something's-wrong-and-i-don't-know-what" feeling i have been having. we postulated that i have one, or possibly more of the following issues taking place:
japan in of itself is a cool place, but my experience there was amazing. new york i have done before, nothing is new and amazing here. this feeling is my body and mind reacting to that?
some have said "a day for every hour". at that rate, we're looking at two weeks, and i still do get sleepy during the day now and then. also, i have about a week of no sleep (my last week in japan) to make up for.
i lost a bit of weight in japan (about six kilograms), and i want to keep it off. this stresses me out, because i am stuck in a living situation where i cannot cook for myself. moreover, before juan (aya) left, we were eating out daily.
in japan, i was doing whatever i wanted with my time, answering to absolutely no one. i went to class, but that was the only guideline i followed. here, i have to wake up daily and manage the store, among other things. this is partially related to the first item.
i think my mood is a general combination of these factors and more, which is why on the left i listed "vexed".
