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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.]

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Cutting Back.

I am trying (again) to spend less time on the internet. I am addicted to the internet in the same way some people reach for a cigarette--blindly, as a sedating answer to every single question out there.

I remember in some class that I bullshitted my way through that a good way to help fulfill your goals is by making them public. I can't remember why it matters, but to me, it makes it more real, and it makes me less likely to stick in loopholes. So here I am.

I've also been reviewing my surfing habits, ignoring fark and leaving boingboing until last. I usually hit the BBC news third (after my sister's blog and another blog) to see if anything's blown up while I was asleep. And that's not even the cynical answer.

I will not surf in the mornings. My computer will remain off unless I need to research something specific, like Cambodia or colleges for my teacher's friend's daughter. So far I'm 4 for 4, 2 of 4 for not even turning on my computer at all.

I will not turn on my computer after school for one hour. Instead I will putter or throw away more crap in my apartment (like today, where I think I found my car tax sheet, which was due in May...).

If I can do this for a month, starting in January, I think I can be okay. That's how I kicked my solitaire habit.

Mock me all you want, but I've never been an exciting person. Hangnails are catastrophic. I agonize over light bulbs. I just want to be a bit more normal in my internetting habits.

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Let Me Whine.

I don't like the music on my computer, because it's all newish stuff I've downloaded in the past two years. Three Chicane albums? Bluegrass Green Day covers? What was I thinking? Oh bittorrent, you're such an irresistible siren.

To be fair, I have found some really great stuff, like a lovely cover of Prince's Kiss. Snagged it from some music blog, and although the description was witty and clever, all I can think of when I hear that song is a bunch of gyrating leather daddies, like our good friend Hard Gay. It's a fantastic song.

Also, it sometimes bothers me that I don't know all the words to the songs on my computer. At times, I find myself getting really bored listening to music I can't sing along to. My solution? Burn an mp3 CD and play it in my car (on my ghetto ghetto speakers) until I learn at least a few of them. Right now, unfortunately, I'm at that point where I spend more time scanning for the songs I like (muttering "Asshole music, asshole music...more asshole music..." as I search) rather than singing along. Meh. I wonder how much this will change once I get a damn iPod. I'll do it soon, I swear.

Oh yeah, and they caught the guy who killed that other guy. He's "crazy" and bought the murder weapon (a kitchen knife) at the 100yen store. Apparently it was random. Gee, now I can sleep easy again.

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Kaela 4You

So this student wanted to borrow my Nightmare Before Christmas DVD, and I said sure. But why don't you bring me one in exchange? Ingenious. So he brought me a concert of one of his favorite singers, Kaela Kimura.

Check me out, I'm gonna do a DVD review. Blow by blow.

Somewhere around the 4 minute mark, the show actually started. And she's terrible. My ear isn't the best, but she pushes her top range and dips flat for the low notes. At the 8 minute mark, not much has changed, except you can hear the strain in her voice.

She's wearing a tie dye-ish shirt. There's shirtless guy with a mohawk on guitar, and I just saw a guy go crowdsurfing. So that makes her...punk? Well she's wearing sneakers, so probably.

Hmm, it seems this isn't a concert as much as highlights from her 2005 tour. Gee, track 2 equally meh. The chorus seems to be mostly la la la la la. I think I'm glad I don't understand the lyrics, I might be more disappointed.

21:37 Hmm, I think she's singing in English. She's cute enough, but not a strong enough singer. Damn the greedy assholes that signed her even though she's kind of lame. I wonder what she sounds like after a studio session.

In other news, my $10 pants say that I can dry clean them, if I feel so inclined. Hmm, dry cleaning will cost about half as much as the pants did. NOPE.

I'm considering st....

[12.12 update: After falling asleep on two separate evenings with the lights on and the DVD blaring, I finally finished the damn thing. And no, it's not worth reviewing. The End.]

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Dammit, this is not LA.

Today the elementary school principal called a staff meeting between 5th and 6th period. I tried my hardest to catch every word I could. It didn't seem like they were going to send the students home early due to weather--it wasn't raining by then. I caught something about my grocery store and this really awesome tonkatsu restaurant. They're about 10 minutes away from my house by bike, and that's being generous. Unlike most staff meetings, everyone was looking at the principal, opposed to grading papers or nodding off.

Turns out a man was murdered there, perhaps during 5th period--in the 1:45-2:45 range. He was 28, from Kochi, and worked at the parking lot near the airport. The guy who did it wasn't caught. The kids weren't being sent home early, but all after school activities were cancelled. I even think the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders were driven home.

It's a bit eerie, that someone was murdered so close to my town. On the news, there was a chalk outline on the asphalt, and a faint spatter of blood on a car fender.

Back home-home, the biggest thing that happened in the neighborhood was a dead guy found in a trunk, or a really big drug bust. And this is semi-inaka Japan! The worst thing that happens here concerns kids breaking bones and forgetting aprons at home. Mendable things. After the announcement, I finally got around to laminating some old teaching materials, because I felt like I had to do something productive instead of thinking about this guy I don't even know. Interesting that I thought more about the murderer and how he used to be a kid in a school like mine. I guess it's because I worry about the random kids that don't fit in here, too.

I am rather irritated that I don't really want to go near the area. The guy should be long gone by now, or at least laying low. I want vegetables, I want to drop off my dry cleaning. But I think finding out in the elementary school staff room made me a lot more sensitive to the potential dangers.

I guess today will be laundry day.

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Stir it up.

Oh so stagnant. It's time to try this "blog" thing for reals. Again. (If you can name all of the blogs I've had, I'll write a post in your honor.) I remember lifetimes ago vowing to be interesting, and to never talk about what color my socks are, but to hell with the old rules.

Right now I am wearing thick blue socks. These are not sexy socks. In fact, they're snowboarding socks, that I just might've used all of twice for snowboarding. They're great staffroom socks though, I tell ya.

Moving on before I start up the banal weather chitchat. Though it will come up later, I assure you.

I have memories of overgrown sweatpea plants in my backyard. We brought them home one Mother's Day in styrofoam cups, and let them multiply. I marveled at the smooth round brown seeds at the end of the season, but for some reason didn't try to eat the green pods until many years later. Occasionally there would be a big, almost Japan-worthy spider suspended in between, and I would feed it ants, picking them up one by one, trying to get them to stick in the right places. Yep, I was one of those kids.

Those were some good memories. Thanks ants.

Thants.

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