October 25, 2009

i do things sometimes

One week until my first evar for-srs-you-gaiz art exhibit aaaaaaaaahhhhhh @.@

Should I wear the necktie-skirt what I made? I am thinking yes. OH HEY here it is.

It only took me....I don't even know how long, between collecting just the right vintage / novelty / amazing ties and I was a little lazy with piecing it together. Nevertheless, I have a skirt made of ties now c: huzzah

The other thing I am doing is kind of a zen-thing, in that I am doing by not doing. The thing I'm not doing is spending lots of monies, because the thing I'm trying to do is save a bunch of monies for a service trip in March. When the cost estimate came, I kind of stopped breathing for a minute, but it is still totally doable since I got half a year's notice. (Good gods, when did "half a year" become such a small and trifling thing? That ain't right.)

I've stashed away (i.e. left in my bank account in Japants) a good 72,000 yens thus far, and if I keep aiming for 40,000 yens per month --- that's in addition to my monthly minimum savings goal so that I can have a life after I leave here --- it should cover the service trip with a little bit left over. Which would mean I could stay a little longer to travel around after the official build-a-house, hug-a-kid business is done.

This is definitely doable, I have saved 180,000 yens in a single month before. Maybe not during the winter, because heating bills add up, but if I limit my splurges at foreign food stores, take short showers (HA. No really.), stop the snackyfoods from adding up, and don't buy that emerald green PSP I have been wanting so badly, I should be able to pull it off and probably drop a few pounds in the process. Since I won't be munching on fancy Swiss chocolates or making Betty Crocker fudge brownies anymore. And exercising to keep warm in my drafty apartment.

There is no way I am skimping on the whole foods, though, because I have tried that once before and it just isn't worth the paltry amount of cash I save to feed myself ramen and insta-dinners until I am literally sick from the lack of proper nutrition. Also I just like cooking too much. Japan is no different from other "developed" nations, where the stuff that is worst for you is the cheapest stuff on the grocery store shelves, but there are ways to save money AND eat healthily here as well, if you only pay attention to restocking schedules and keep an eye on the reject-vegetable-bins (I LOVE those ♥ absolutely nothing wrong with most of them other than they are not pretty enough to warrant full price)

October 14, 2009

Teeveeeeeeeee \o\

MY TV WORKS AGAIN. A week after Typhoon Melor plowed through the country's power grid like Godzilla without his morning coffee, I can watch my local stations static-free and see the Friday night Engrish movies again!

Obviously this is the post-storm recovery item of chief importance in my town. Which is kind of remarkable, considering that THIS is the view of typhoon #18
as it made landfall directly above my peninsula:
See that faint white outline underneath all the angry sky? That is Japan. See the wee-tiny dot in the middle of the red-zone? That's me hiding out in my front entrance because it's the only spot without the potential for susploding glass flying everywhere. Fun times and great sound effects.

Actually there was a point of damage that matters a lot more to me than the little picture box I use maybe 4 hours a week at most - the shortcut from behind my apartment building to school that winds through a little forested hillside.This is what it used to look like ( ; _ ; )


The before and after shots here don't even begin to convey the swath of destruction back there. It's very sad that I no longer have a plan-B for when I sleep in past 7:30 or forget a bunch of stuff and don't make it out the door until 8:15, but I'm thankful it all went down into the ravine and not onto any of the houses surrounding this hill on three sides. Who knows, with pretty much no property damage, maybe the city or whoever oversees the land back there will get somebody to clear off the old road. It'd be a shame if whoever gets my job next year won't be able to enjoy the sights and smells of the woods and 10 minutes shaved off their walk to work.

October 7, 2009

Typhoooooooon /o/

Despite the season's 18th typhoon having been downgraded from a Category 1 (of the sort that blew directly through my city last year) to a Tropical Storm, it looks like it's gonna pack quite a punch.

This "storm" has a diameter well over half the length of the Japanese archipelago. It is literally covering a good 60 - 70% of the islands right now.

From the warnings scrolling across the top of my wee-tiny TV screen, I have gathered that my prefecture will have the special privilege of receiving 60 cm of rain (that's a good two feet, Americans). The second-highest number I saw throughout the entirety of the warnings was 20 cm, so we are clearly #1. Go us! On top of that, our coastline (and technically I am in a coastal town, even though I am surrounded on all sides by mountains; there is an ocean inlet that runs almost up to the train tracks a mere mile or so from my apartment) can expect 9-meter waves.

Last year my biggest concern was wind blowing out my big glass patio sliding doors. This year the hubbub around here is obviously the water levels, but given that I'm on the second floor I'm not TOO too worried. Talk about the office has it that we're definitely-maybe showing up for work tomorrow (please see Japanese Work Ethic), the only question is whether or not the students get sent home early.