Head, mind you; no body!

Aaah man. That ruined dinner.

First and foremost would be work. It seems like every month gets busier and busier for me, and much to my disappointment, I’m getting assigned Sunday work more and more often as well (with nothing I can do about it). Add to that mandatory drinking parties, and chores like cleaning, paying bills, and grocery shopping, it’s hard to actually get a single day of rest here, never mind a weekend. December looks to be no different, either, with 2 Christmas parties and Sunday classes. Chores are piling up as well; today I managed to get a lot done to prepare for my (painfully short and expensive) visit to the US — wiring money from Japan to my US bank account (which I had to completely empty to pay for my plane tickets) and getting my re-entry permit for my work visa (which is also ridiculously expensive). Luckily the yen is strong against the dollar now, so I was able to transfer a couple hundred dollars more than I would have been able to a few months ago.

Today, being the first day of December, I officially began my job search for next year. Unfortunately, today was sucky day to begin, seeing as the place I went to start my search is closed on Mondays. (What wonderful luck, then, that I have to work on Sundays a lot more now!) I have mixed feelings about the job search. On the one hand, I really do not want another job in the English conversation school industry. In fact, I had promised myself last year that my next job would be art related. On the other hand, especially in Fukui, there may be no jobs available to me other than English conversation. I’m not really getting much encouragement either, which sucks; but I can’t let that deter me from trying. English conversation is easy, tiring work that has a lot of fun times, but low job satisfaction and no upward potential at all. The pay is good, but the hours are terrible. My coworkers and students are all wonderful, but I have to wear a suit and deal with corporate bullshit, so it’s ultimately hard to feel positive about the prospect of continuing this kind of work. I’m also not tired of Japan yet, so I don’t want to go back to the US. The thought of moving back to the US to look for work isn’t all that great anyway — yeah it will be easier to communicate in order to find a job, but the availability of art jobs is virtually just as low, and I’d be giving up the things that I love about living here and returning to a very boring life. I guess I’m saying I’ve put a lot of thought into this over the past couple months, and I keep coming to the same conclusion — I’m going to need to a lot of effort and a lot of luck if I’m going to get a job that’s better than what I have now.

So that’s it for the depressing future. Here’s what’s happened recently:

Like I said, November was really busy and went by so fast that it was all a blur. We had Counseling Week and Open House, Check Tests, and just general all-around insanity and business. I finally got to see the (supposedly) famous night view of Echizen from the top of nearby Murakuni Mountain. It was pretty nice, actually, and I even saw a live tanuki on the way back down the mountain! I also went to a small festival (”The Chrysanthemum Earth Expo”) in Echizen no Sato that Hitomi’s brother helped manage. It was a nice little fair meant to promote green habits. It didn’t really have much pro-green stuff, and they served food in styrofoam containers… but it was still nice. I also went to a houji, which is a kind of Buddhist funeral service held at specific intervals after someone’s death, at Hitomi’s aunt’s house.

So that’s the news from this side of Lake Woebegone. Hitomi and I are going to return to Fukui next weekend to look for work, and hopefully the International Center won’t be closed this time, so I can at least make a few baby steps of progress.

This pleases me.

The video is pretty self explanatory. I remember doing stuff like this in high school before it was all over the internet… and now that you can see stuff like this every day I feel like I’m not the only crazy person out there.

I know this is a little late, being post-election and all… but holy awesome! These guys did a great job.

I’m sure you’ve heard of Obama city, Japan in the news lately. It’s a small hamlet near where I live that has recently become quite famous. They revamped their town after Obama launched his candidacy, making Obama t-shirts and chopsticks and weird papier mache statues they prop up all over the town, next to stinky hanging fish carcasses. We’ll the town has been all over the news again now that Obama has won… here is the “official” Obama city theme song. With authentic clips of historic downtown Obama.

However, the little talking I’ve done has been as passionate as ever, and I still get butterflies in my stomach from thinking about the risks this time around — and, particularly, from the ignorance I see in such a large percentage of Americans. (And before you go off on me for being flametastic there, try to understand what I mean — it will be explained in the link below.)

I feel a little guilty for not taking the time to put my political beliefs (as well as many other things) into writing on my blog this year, but my friend Dave sent me a link that pretty much covers my hopes and fears from this election. I hope you’ll take the time to read it:

http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/10/why-i-support-barack-obama.html

If you haven’t thought about those issues yet, please do. As I’ve said many times (though not on this blog yet), this election isn’t about Obama vs McCain, or Democrats vs Republicans, it’s about changing the culture of the United States, and what kind of people do we want to be, and what kind of world do we want to live in? Obama and McCain would both be competant leaders — and infinitely better than Bush — but they represent two very different cultures; two different futures. The future that is better for the US should be obvious.

Since getting out of the hospital life has been slowly returning to a normal pace and a normal feeling. This past weekend was Aeon’s Halloween Party weekend, adults on Saturday and kids on Sunday… so it was a busy weekend. (I’m starting to get sick of being told to work on weekends rather than asked… Parties are one thing, but lessons are another. No sir, I don’t like it.)

Last weekend, after coming home from Fukui, Hitomi and I went to the Takefu Chrysanthemum Dolls. It was the same as last year, but it was still kind of cool — and kind of creepy. I ate ramen, my first real meal since getting out of the hospital, and even though it was shitty mass-produced festival ramen, it was soooooo good!!! Hitomi made fun of me for enjoying it so much.

Chrysanthemum pagoda

Making the dolls

Murasaki Shikibu -- Takefu's favorite turncoat

A bird boat?

That week we had to get Halloween costumes, which if you remember from last year, are a pain the arse to find in Japan (and Amazon.com rarely ships clothing to Japan). I was supposed to be Captain Hook upon request from work, but I couldn’t find a decent pirate costume, let alone Hook that was available in Japan and under 15,000 yen. So I settled for Mario, who is cooler than Captain Hook any day. Hitomi dressed as a Japanese ghost after many hours of insiting and begging and pleading on my part for her to wear a costume.

Both parties were very fun, and everyone was really nice to me upon my return to work. It had been a long time since I was able to enjoy work so this week was refreshing in that aspect. I’ve got to remember to keep a more positive mind and not focusing only on the bad side of things or else I’ll end up in a depression.

Happy Halloween!

This week’s weather has been cool to cold and dark and rainy, which I absolutely love. The smells and feeling of the air is making me nostalgic of the good memories I had last year, as well as spending time with Hitomi before we were dating. Today there was a great rainstorm which cheered me up a lot. As I was writing and working on my page today, I looked out the window and saw an amazing double rainbow *right outside my window*. The most amazing part of it was how close it was. I could actually see where both ends hit the ground! (No pots of gold though. ) Moving back and forth I could see the rainbow arch and slide around as if it were a real object… really cool!

Awesome rainbow!