Valentine's Day?

Dammit, that's coming up.

My sister has a pretty good post up about what Valentine's Day was about in our family. Me, my favorite memories were from junior high school. When the hormones made us all run amok.

Every year, some group sells flowers that can be delivered during class. I don't remember getting one, but that could be my crap memory. And I don't even think we were selling roses. We sold carnations. And a boy picked up a broken one and gave it to me. A really sweet gesture, even though we had already flirted and moved on months before. I saw him again years later. He was working at Denny's and I was absolutely floored.

Another time in high school, there was a boy and we wrote on each other's lockers. I think he drew a rose on mine. That one went absolutely nowhere, but I still had fun. No clue what happened to that one, even though our colleges were pretty close to each other.

Now, I'm going shopping for a real Valentine's gift for my very real boyfriend. Shh. Don't tell.

Read more...

I want.

I want fake buttery croissants, like the ones that come out of a Pillsbury can. I want pizza, I want tomato soup, I want a grilled cheese sandwich. I came home yesterday to my cold apartment, and I could almost smell a grilled cheese sandwich.

Yep, I'm definitely getting better, but a 3am fit of coughing might mean one more day at home. I went to work yesterday to finish up a game I was going to do yesterday (cancelled out of concern from the teacher) and then took the rest of the day off. No classes? Why should I be there?

Read more...

Insight

on where I come from:

"There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California." (Edward Abbey)

Ganked from The Writer's Almanac, a new distraction of mine.

Read more...

A Comparison

Productivity is:

• buying a book that will help me focus on making career choices without intimidating the living shit out of me.
• emailing an old friend because some random guy mentioned having an eye twitch on his blog.

Productivity is NOT:

• inspecting the color of my phlegm which is pooling in my trash can.
• considering what color to paint my toenails.

Productivity can possibly be:

• flossing after a few days of eating nothing but starches and meds.
• wading through amazon.com for books that I want to donate to my schools.

Read more...

Happy Happy Happy.

Just watched Billy Elliot. For the first time. It came out in 2000, meaning that I could've watched it ages ago. I even have a copy. But I was lazy, and now I can't remember any of the hype or the criticism. The only downside is that the closing credits' songs were painfully Year 2000 and terribly jarring after the last scene. Otherwise, a really swell movie. I should get back on the mainstream entertainment wagon.

PS to the home people: I'm sure it's just me, but the actor who played Billy (Jamie Bell) looked like David T, one of those Mexican Jews. Or maybe that's because I remember what David looked like when he was 8. Hmm. Slightly. And only when Jamie Bell isn't smiling. Great comparison. I give up, I'm still sick.

Read more...

Home food.

As skeptical as I was, I must admit that tuna melts are pretty damn delicious, even with Japanese tuna on Japanese bread with "pizza mixed cheese" all gooey and melty in the middle.

Yesterday's meals: pancakes and tuna melt. My stomach didn't know what to do with all that food, so it shut my brain down.

Read more...

And my socks have butterflies and hearts on them.

Kids hijacked me again. I escaped after only 15 minutes. Take that, 11-year-olds! But then a few of them followed me to my car. Not funny kids. When I leave, I want to leave, dammit.

Rarely discussed fact o' mine: I have no standard whatsoever for meals. Being with G has made me a bit more well-balanced, but when I'm at home, I eat when I can't stand being hungry anymore. Because I'm never home, I have a ridiculous amount of instant packaged foods (microwave popcorn, easy mac, curry that I bought when I got here and still refuse to eat or throw out) to choose from. And yet what did I have for "dinner?"

A twix bar, a reese's cup, a pack of saltines, two hard-boiled eggs, and here's the clincher--cold hot chocolate. Yep, too lazy to even microwave water.

Okay, so this is a slight exaggeration. I rarely eat real dinners because school lunch is so filling (but not as much as it used to be, damn city!), and I really wanted chocolate milk.

Hooray mundane life! Hooray no school for two days (replaced by moderately helpful seminar)!

[edit: And even those they're warm and comfy, I hate these socks by the way. Thanks Mom.]

[edit #2: And then I saw a blog with this gem:

"Pickles + peanut butter = yummy dinner."

Ew. Man. I take it back. I do have standards.]

Read more...

My kids sure are neat.

Today four elementary school girls hijacked* me after school for 30 minutes so they could show me their jump roping skills, dance around, and tell me that I might be chubby, but their teacher is definitely chubby. They opened my backpack, took things out of my coat pockets, and continued to harass me even when a mom showed up. I'm tired, I have shit to do, and yet I found it all supremely entertaining.

For the record, they (accidentally) dropped my electronic dictionary (cased), and were more interested in the gum wrappers in my pocket than my nano or my brand new cell phone. Kids, I tell you.


*This was the good kind of hijack, not the kind where they smack me and actually take things from my backpack and then run away screaming honest-to-goodness jibberish, which normally only happens during school.

Read more...

Curse this Weather.

Even though I'm doing pretty good thus far (oh kotatsu, I'm so glad I finally bought you), the weather is still nasty. It's supposed to rain all week. Cold, sniveling rain. I find myself reading blogs to make sure my friends are still alive. And for a few of them, it's a legitimate concern.

Today I stayed at work late because I was writing a note for the graduation book. Not the album, but the memory book. I asked about buying an album, because it'd be a neat souvenir and this is by far, my favorite year of students. Too bad the damn thing costs about $70-80. What was worse was that I was prepared for it.

I bought a bag of Vietnamese coffee for my staff rooms, but I'm afraid it's going to be absolute shit. Hmph.

Read more...

News in Japan

All the snow dumps are filling up. Kids can't go to school. Vegetables are getting more expensive (cabbage up 54%!!!). Thanks NHK news. I'd rather see Mt. Fuji erupt, even though the Daily Mainichi is supposedly an even bigger joke than NHK.

Read more...