Well, I have been in the land of the rising sun for almost two months now and I've been up to the usual stuff. Playing video games and watching anime or rather, catching Aaron up on anime. Other than these basic everyday things, we've found a place to live, got a bumblebee car that died on us in its first week, bought furniture, and made new friends. Hit the jump to see the rest.
Since I've had so much time to myself lately, I've undertaken the enormous task of organizing everything. Normally I only put my organizational skills to use at work, but seeing that I can't find that right now, I have decided to make the house a workplace. I have applied for several different writing gigs at places I'm sure many of you read *cough*KOTAKUJAPANATOR* and am awaiting some replies. I also have some connections for an unpaid gig (gets me published) and a paid gig. Not bad. Hopefully I can boost my resume a bit and get more writing jobs.
Over the holidays we had some fun experiences including a trippy reggae, dubstep, Japanese, I Saw My Mommy Kissing Santa Clause laser light show. What made it complete was the fog and smoke machine while snow machines blew simulated snow around our heads. On New Year's Day we went to a Shinto Shrine and pulled our fortunes. Mine was pretty amazing, but Aaron's told him I was cheating on him. We couldn't have that, so he tied his fortune to a tree (what the locals do) and pulled a new one.
Since Aaron's schedule changes daily, its sometimes hard to make plans, but that doesn't stop us from going out and having a good time. We've made some friends with the same interests through internet groups and a local Warhammer group and have been having a blast with them. My new friend Sam is from Ohio and its nice to have someone else from the Midwest to talk to. Both her and I just received sewing machines and we plan on helping each other make our cosplays for an anime convention called Mag-con at the end of February in the northern part of the island. We're both really excited.
In addition to having fun, I recently joined Sam's Japanese study group. I plan on taking the first level of the JLPT next year. My goal is to become fluent by the time I leave this island. Having Japanese as a second language not only looks good on my resume, but boosts my chances of obtaining a job in the career field I want. Eventually I want to go go graduate school, but I still struggle with deciding which field to choose. While I'm over here I plan on learning more about myself and my interests and hopefully this will steer me in the right direction. Lately I've been thinking about perhaps a possible career in law (perhaps for the UCLA) in light of the Cranston case. I'm passionate about peoples' rights and I want to help, but I don't think my grades would grant me access to law school. I still fiddle with the idea of pursuing medieval studies further, but I fear that my passion would leave sooner rather than later if I turned my hobby into a job. Right now I'm focusing on what I can do from Japan and that's write, so I will continue to search for writing jobs that allow me the freedom to make my own schedule.
In the meantime, I've become obsessed with Pinterest and have rekindled my love for arts and crafts. I used to enjoy making things with my hands when I was younger, most of the time not finishing any of my projects. I had many ideas when I was little and not enough time. Since I have the time now, I've decided to pick up sewing so I don't have to bug my other friend Sam back in West Lafayette to help me with my cosplays. I've also decided to attempt to cook a little, although I still leave the more complicated tasks to Aaron still. I accidentally thought celery was parsley and chopped a whole stalk and put it in some lemon chicken soup. I didn't find out my mistake until today when the pasta recipe called for parsley and I pulled on the celery. Aaron looked at me with a look that said, "WTF?"
I have found out that I'm better at baking than Aaron though. Since Nana wasn't around to give me some of her famous cookies, I decided to take it upon myself to make my own (plus it was something to take to our gracious hosts for Christmas day) . Before I left for Japan, Mom bought me a cookie cookbook so I decided to choose three of the easiest recipes and attempt to bake. Little did I know that molasses is something of a rarity here in Japan and can only be found at the commisary. Since I decided to make cookies late in the game, all of the molasses at the comisary and shoppettes were completely gone. I made due with a mixture of Japan's equivalent and some maple syrup. They turned out pretty decent if I do say so myself.
Since we couldn't bring Pickles over immediately, Aaron and I both decided to adopt a puppy. We originally planned on a Welsh Corgi, but after shopping around for pure bred dogs on the island we quickly learned pure bred dogs were not an option. The pure bred dogs on the island are so inbred due to the small amount on the island and expensive! A pug cost well over $1000USD. I did some poking around on Bookoo and found a woman acting as a go between for Americans and a high kill shelter. Ozato was the name of the shelter and they gassed dogs after seven days, so we wanted to help these poor animals out (
plus they were free!). We came across a 2 month old puppy and brought her home. We named her Yuki (ゆうき) which means snow since she has a white coat and I miss snow terribly. Since we've had her, she's outsmarted us many times including make the peeing position in order to obtain treats and digging holes everywhere.
Well, I think that's enough about the misadventures in Japan for now. I probably post next about politics or video games considering I've had several things on my mind. Night or Morning guys!
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