so i’ve started work, i’ve started class and i’ve started not sleeping again. i’m not sure why my body seems to have a vendetta against circadian rythms, i only know that it does and my tear ducts suffer for it-not due to crying, mind you. as anyone with sleep problems will tell you, it’s difficult to keep your corneas moist when you haven’t had a full nights sleep in at least a week. i would love to go to the doctor for it, but every time i schedule an appointment, i end up staring at the ceiling or the inside of my eyelids all night and falling asleep around 6 or 7am, and sleeping through the appointment as a result. curse you, over-active mind!!
i started work at the e-club as a bingo cashier. tons of fun, I guess. I like the job, it’s just mildly irritating how my black cloud seems to follow me into the most annoying places! It’s my black cloud that causes me to end up with at least a medium, if not a large shirt at every job I start because “I’m sorry we’re all out of smalls.”
I’m sorry, I thought you were a manager? I thought you were supposed to be a model of responsibility, organization, and decent giving-a-crap to be bothered with ordering a few t-shirts when you know you’re going to be hiring someone soon. you don’t want them walking around your floor looking like an unprofessional twig-in-a-tent, every Sunday, wednesday and Friday for the next three months because LORD KNOWS you won’t be bothered with ordering them any time soon either!!! Why, black cloud? Why me?
So now, I love my job, I just have to force myself out of the car every day, knowing I will look completely ridiculous, with at least 50-75 people staring at me fo the next 5 hrs. Ugh.

so, I think I will be picking up our new kitten on Monday or tuesday. They have been waiting on test results for feline leukemia for the last three weeks. I was completely convinced the kittens were gone and the lady had lied to me about posting the ad on YOKOTA ads but I was able to convince arron to go to the pet care center today and see, just see, if they were still there and they were!!! they are all so cute, I don’t know how we’ll ever pick! Their tails are all crooked in the most adorable and awkward ways lol! one of them completely spins around like a little piggies tail! aw and two of them are colored in the moat peculiar ways, it’s like a mixture of black and orange and brown and grey. Very pretty! They are all so precious though, sigh!! I just can’t wait for poor kiko to have someone play with! It’s so sad watching her chase invisibles, you just know she wants a little friend to run around the house with! I can’t wait to see them play!
and I started my new class on Monday and BOY is it tough. We learned 20 kanji and we had a test today. I got one wrong, I was so mad! But I made an 85 and I think that’s pretty darn good for so little sleep and time to study. I immediately got with mizu and jensen about study group, and we’ll meet tomorrow at 11 at the yujo! That’s great news for me! I need it! Mizu is an angel and a REALLY good teacher, she saved my butt last semester lol! I’m glad she’s doing this.
Well, if I have even a small prayer of sleeping tonight, I must hit the hay tonight so I can hit the books tomorrow. 御休みなさい 家!! Oyasuminasai uchi!

so i had a very eventful day yesterday. i woke up at 530am and went to the natatorium to go for a swim with a friend of mine (not sure if i’m supposed to name names in blogs, so i’ll name everyone anonymous till i specifically get permission i guess).  the only time i’d ever been to an indoor pool was with my grandma, so i was assuming it was just a big pool, only inside. come to find out, it was actually a massive “pool” with about six “lanes” in which a bunch of old men were swimming laps in speedos. ugh. i was feeling extremely uncomfortable in my blue leopard-print, 2 piece, string bikini. no wonder she asked me whether i was wearing a 2 piece or a 1 piece before we walked in. as it turns out, anonymous is quite an experienced swimmer and just picked up a lifeguarding position here at the natatorium. she comes here to swim laps so she can stay in shape. that’s all jolly but i feel like a fat idiot now as this old guy stares me down from four lanes over, wondering what the crap i’m doing here. >.<

this is how i felt at the pool and the guy in the background is how i felt everyone was looking at me

of course i’m not fat, i’m exactly the right weight for my height (5’7″, 130 lbs) but the atmosphere at the natatorium somehow makes me feel like a fatty. maybe it’s all in my head. it probably is. still, that old guy was staring, and not one of those “ooh hot young chick in a bikini, yum” kind of stares. more like “dern hoodlums runnin’ around in bikinis, taking up lanes serious swimmers are sposed to be using. where’s your mum!” kind of stares. well i’m not one to lie down and take it. i’m going out and getting a 1 piece, and i’m going right back to the natatorium with anonymous and using that lane, and i’m gonna swim my fat little butt off. yes i said fat little butt.

******WARNING: the following 2 paragraphs are a mildly graphic, yet somewhat entertaining tale of my experience during a pap smear. nothing new for women, but men may find it a little…well…ew. if you don’t want to read, skip down 2 paragraphs. otherwise, be my guest. but you know that curiosity is just gonna get ya ******

so after swimming, i went home and got changed because i had a 130 doctors appointment for a screening for *deep movie preview voice* CERVICAL CANCER. DUH DUH DUUUUH. yes, that’s right. we’ve all seen the irritating commercials where that girl with the voice that makes you want to sniff and clear your throat, gets HPV which turns into cervical cancer, and for some reason decides that she got it from “an old boyfriend from college”? do WHAT? i guess, in college she slept with every living thing on 2 legs, but after college she remained celibate until marriage, and for some reason her husband couldn’t possibly have given her HPV… i know i’m a little critical of this retarded commercial, but come on–if they want us to take cervical cancer seriously, at least put a little thought into your story line.

so i’m thinking this is just going to be a regular pap smear, right? well, actually i’m thinking, why didn’t they test for this during my pap smear? and, “regular” and “pap smear” aren’t two things that go together in my brain. no pap smear is ever a normal experience for me. i mean, every woman knows that is just a terrible experience. i mean, really? it’s 2010 and there are still cold metal specula out there? i wonder why no one has thought of using, i dunno a rubber coated speculum or something so it’s a little less, um, PAINFUL!? yeah, they lubricate the thing, but it’s still at best hard plastic. and i’m always a trip with those poor doctors. during my first pap smear, the doctor tried to insert the speculum, kind of tilted her head, made a weird face and said, “um. you’re shaped weird.” thanks, mean lady. she then asked me to “grasp your hands together under your back, maybe that’ll even things out a bit”…still with a weird face. sigh. that’s a regular pap smear for me. this was not anything like a regular pap smear. this wasn’t just checking things out, making sure it looks and feels normal. well, normal for me. this was a “take that speculum and JAM it in there and scuh-raaaaaaape a big chunk of flesh out of there!” pap smear. it’s been over 24 hours and my cervix is still pissed and my uterus is having sympathy pains. good GRIEF. we can perform surgery on infants in the womb and we can’t put a numbing cream in before we scrape a cervix? fortunately i have a very supportive husband who allowed his hand to be crushed for like the fifth time at the doctors office this year. the poor thing knows he may not make it out alive but he still bravely goes on that suicide mission every time. i love you so much, boo. <3

yeah. that's how it feels.

so that was the second part of my day. we went straight from there to get me some food (lol) and then to the pet care center to get a kitten. I’ve been wanting a kitten so kiko can have a friend. she follows me all over the house and it’s kind of sad to see her playing all alone. i think she needs a friend, especially to keep her company when we’re not here. i know cats sleep a lot but she’ll be passed out somewhere when we leave and in the exact same spot when we come home six hours later. i really think that at least sometimes she just sleeps out of boredom. so we went to the pet care center to look at kittens. i’d heard two days earlier that they had a “crapload of kittens”. well a “crapload” turned out to be one litter and they were awaiting “test results” which wouldn’t be back for 2-3 weeks and we couldn’t even claim one. sigh. they were SO cute and those stupid ladies didn’t even let us take one out and hold it. gah. so i’m gonna keep checking back–like every day–until the results come in and then we’re taking one home with us. i’ve heard bad things about those ladies too. i don’t like em, no not one bit. arron says it’s cause i’m super critical, and maybe it is, but i don’t like people that keep poking sticks on hand to shove in at helpless kitties in cages. i’d like to shove a poking stick in her face and see if she doesn’t get mean.

well, as a p.s., go check out the Anna Ternheim video, i don’t know how, but i fixed it, and after a rather frustrating day, i think i’ll end on a relevant and positive note

William Fitzsimmons (amazing bio)

Anna Ternheim 

Greg Laswell

Rosi Golan

and since i hate word press because it seems like i can’t do anything, i’m just going to put this video in a separate post.

i found a REALLY cool website!!! if i were rich, i would totally support this site!

http://www.sheetmusicfox.com/forum/

hooray for the fight against intellectual property rights!!! woohoo!!!!

so what is it about the guitar? why are there soooo many beginner guitar players out there? I for one am SICK to death of beginner guitar players and their stupid tabs taking over the internet. you try to look up music for the piano and you will find A MILLION “tabs” for the guitar for a song JUST ON ONE WEBSITE but absolutely NO music for the piano. since when did the piano become a thing of the past? why does EVERYONE want to play the guitar???? and it wouldn’t bother me so much if people who *play the guitar* ACTUALLY played the guitar!! but they don’t! they just dilly dally around with two or three songs for THIRTY years, and throw their tabs around all over the internet and tell everyone they *play* the guitar!!! i’m sick of it! if your gonna play guitar, learn to play it, get good at it and QUIT with your STUPID tabs! GAH!

Of course, I say this, and yet i’ve been a beginner piano player for nearly 20 years. well you know what, starting now, i’m getting serious with this piano if nothing else than for the sole reason of making my previous statement a credible one. ok, i’m done.

so, i know i’m having a hard time keeping up with this thing. i’m sure many people would disagree with me, but wordpress is just complicated to me! if i had an iphone i’d probably be on several times a day, haha.
oh, so much has happened. let’s see, arron randomly went to Thailand. he came home one day and just blurted out “i’m in a hurry, babe, i’m going to Thailand.”
“what?! when!?” i says.
“in an hour,” he yells behind him as he runs all over the house, throwing things together.
ugh, he was gone for two days and came back with horror stories! apparently, he was tossed about from creepy van to creepy van (on the side of the ROAD mind you), had to use a FAKE VISA or something, had some lady who spoke no english escort him into the country, basically illegally, so he could drop off a tool and fly straight back. he got paid 120 something dollars for that. i was livid. ugh, they got out of paying him because THEY made the whole thing ILLEGAL, because they were in a rush!! since it’s not on paper that it happened, they don’t have to pay!!
ugh.
He’s going to Hawaii on Sunday. They better do it right this time, or i’m gonna be down there myself and if i get down there, boy they’re gonna get an earful.

anyway, i’m gonna talk about more cheerful things, it’s thanksgiving, i hear! hehe, we’ve had a turkey brining all night long, and it’s gonna go in the smoker in about thirty minutes here. we’re making all kinds of gramma’s recipe’s. if i can’t be with my family on thanksgiving, at least i can eat the same food, right? i figure, if the house smells like i’m there, and the food tastes like i’m there, maybe i can close my eyes and pretend like i’m there.
but then i realize, this house could never get noisy enough to be convincing. just ain’t the same without my pops XD
sigh, i gotta stop talking about that, it makes me sad. gosh, the next four years without that loud howl when he laughs and claps his hands and leans forward with his eyes closed. that’s what i see when i think of dad. or the “okay the foods awesome, but i gotta stop eating” plate push and belly rub. i miss my daddy.
i remember when i was little and i would sit on the couch and beg my mom to scratch my head every five minutes. i did the same thing every sunday morning at church too. she used to get so annoyed with that lol. now arron does. i used to hide behind her skirts all the time. i wish i still could.
and me and jeremy would fight the whole ride to gramma’s and the whole ride back. we gave my parents such hell, lol. and then he moved out and went off to college, and i knew things would never be the same between us, and sure enough they weren’t. i missed him so much when he left, i basically moved into his room. i slept in his bed every night. i missed my brother.
that’s how i feel now about my family. i’m so thankful for my family. and i’m so mad at myself for choosing to go to japan. but i gotta make the best of it. if i make the best of it, it will go by a LOT faster, and then i can come home and make up for all that lost time! I can’t wait to see my parents again. They’re gonna get so sick of me when i move back home, lol. i’m gonna be around ALL THE TIME.
I love you guys SO MUCH!!! And I MISS YOU!!!!

me & arron and natalie & victor