Hello!! in usual danielle fashion i put off updating long enuff that it blew up into this monster task in my mynd and then that made me avoid it even more until FINALLY i decided to just suck it up and do it! this month has been obscenely busy! i don:t know where to begin. i:ll start from the end and work back and see how far i get in 40 minutes.
i:ve been on an emotional rollervoaster living here. one minute i:m on a huge jaapn high, the next minute i want to scream if i see any more japanese people or eat one more piece of rice. and this week the intensity of my emotions reached an apex, culminating in two days of cry at least 3 times at work, and a full day yesterday of crying every five minutes. but it:s basically boiled down to this here formula
piles of extra work at work this month + missing canada + dreaming of canada + not letting myself cry for 5 months + being wretchedly sick and not being able to eat for two days yet again + hormones + being away from my sister and new baby + being so cold my olive oil froze + not running = crying breakdown. so tht:s that and i had a huge cry yesterday and now i feel better. this experience is stretching the limits of my mental health, but it:s a good exercise in getting to know how strong and weak i really am. there sure were right when they said in initial training that we:re a special breed, and not everyone can do this. hoesntly if it wasn:t for my wonderful friends and support system here, i would just be a leaf blowing in the wind. having my girls to listen to my cry and vent sure helps me feel attached to that tree firmly planted in the soils of sanity.
today i had my first japanese lesson with my friend Mizuko and i totally enjoyed it! i learned how to tell time and to count money. the japanese counting system is just whack. the numbers differe depending if you are counting time, money, people, inanimate things, flat things, round things, floors of a building... eeey eyy eey! afterwards i showed her my pictures of winter vacation and we agreed to meet again next monday, though i:ll see her tomorrow cuz we work together. the rest of the day i spent in my lil tropical paradise of a living room which i revamped and rearranged last night. it now features a constant stream of tropical ukelele music (mock me if you will fools but there is notihng as soothing as Dos Palomitos played on the ukelele), warmer indirect lighting, little plants straight from Kyoto, and a new arrangement of crystals. i:ve also draped a multicoloured indian print throw over my television, turning it into a tall table, atop which is perched a paper lamp, plants, crystals, and a pack of Yoga and Meditation cards. my cells feel calmer already, being spared electromagnetic interference from the boob tube. it:s all about expanding my mind through books and learning japanese. my goal is to be somewhat fluent by the time the rents come in august. oh i realize that:s a really shady goal... ;) anyways, where am i_ ya so i spent the day eating chocolate chip melon pan and drinking 2L of green tea as i wrote a 5 page letter to my lil Natasha in thunder bay. she writes me these beautiful journals and sends them to me and they make me feel like a closer part of her life.
yesterday, after running and suffering repeated breakdowns i decided to pull it together and go detox at an onsen. michelle and i took the local trian two stops south to Yumoto, which is still part of Iwaki. Iwaki is really big, but really spread out. so the area of iwaki in which i live and work is called Taira. anyways, there was a gorgeous onsen there and we spent a few hours completely relaxing. an onsen is a public bath/spa. and it:s quite the experience!!! first you strip down in the changeroom and then you carry in your towel and lil buscket of whatever toiletries you want to use. i toted along an asst of loofahs, peppermint scrubs, pumice stones, and sponges. then you sit on these lil stools (like one of those steps you use for you kid to stand on so they can brush their teeth in the sink and not gob it all over the floor) facing a lil mirrot and a hella hot water tap with a shower head and get down to it, scrubbing and cleaning thoroughly. then you rinse off and go chill in the hottest water ever! at this onsen there was a hot bath, like a bubblefree whirlpool filled to teh brim, a whirlpool, a sauna playing tropical island music, and these wild showers. these showers ...oh my.. ok you press a button and then you open the door and step inside this coilde chamber, as soon as you close the door the jets turn on and spray water at you in every direction, covering every inch of your body in places you didn:t even know you had. it:s really cool cuz if you look down at the water the streams look like the red lasers of a really intricate alarm system. anyways, michelle and i were not prepared for that so when the water started there stood the two tall gaijin girls absolutely shrieking their heads off and laughing!
outside there is another hot bath that you cna lie in and smooth stones taht you can walk over to relax your feet. there:s also a couple waterfalls under which i sat in the water and let the cascades shiatsu my shoulders and back. two hours of pampering we emerged, pruned and swollen- my fingers looked like sausages!! but completely chilled out and relaxed. i oculd have curled up in teh corner and slept! afterwards we were going to try to walk home to the train station but then this kind japanese complete stranger offered us a ride. how nice is that? we got back and went for UDon noodles and then back home. dinner was delightful, i had a really good time with michelle. she makes me piss my pants laughing all the time. she:s really happy go lucky and it was honestly just what i needed. she has been so great this whole week, listening to me cry all the time at work.
on saturday night, after drinking the previous night and dan and phils: as we all watched ocean:s 11, i once again imbibed. i met kylie and louise after work and we headed to the Black Ship, an izakaiya (pub) which i:ve been calling the Black Sheep for the past 5 months (jan 23rd was my 5 month anniversary)! i wasn:t even in the mood to drink but of course, that lasted all of five minutes and soon i was swaying with the best of them. we had two hours of nomihodai (all oyu can drink 2500 yen plus ordering one food dish per person) and by the end i was completely and utterly wrecked. strangely this allowed me to have a full on conversation IN JAPANESE with two japanese dudes outside the bathroom. we headed to SUnny Side UP afterwards for a game of darts. do you remember how i stated many months ago it was my personal mission in iwaki to win my own set of darts? well! the gods smiled on methis night, and as part of some big cosmic joke of not being able to have the ability to stand up but having the arm/hand coordination of an olympic hopeful, i scored a 451 in one game, a score which netted me my OWN PERSONAL SET OF GOLD DART COMPLETE WITH GREEN LIGHTENING BOLT TIPS!!!! now, at this point something strange happened. looking back, i:m going to deduce that by some weird and unexplainable occurence, my body was temporarily taken over by a wild banshee, causing it to twirl and dance and jump around screaming THIS IS THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE!! geez, what DO they put in these peach fizzies??
this week at work, and actually this whole month have been hectic. as we just moved new locations, across from a 7-11 which is now reaping more of my paycheck than is really necessaary (i have GOT to stop eating those bloody ham and cheese burritos. that:s the epitome of gross but damn! they are so tasty!!! mmm... food heated up in plastic. nothing like a healthy dose of killer estrogens to make me feel great!) anwys, i:ll spare you the details but suffice it to say 1. i hate paperwork 2. my kids all now know how to disco dance and point 3. i will never work a full time job again. from here on in, i mean, after my work is done in japanland, i:m goign to have two part time jobs. i just can:t handle hte monotony of working day in and day out on the same thing. this week was nice in that i got to break up my day by going to hand out flyers for work. sweet, i got to speak japanese for an hour! *yoroshiku onegaishimasu.. arigatoo* well, not much, but it:s sometihng. then on firday mizuko and i drove toa bedroom town and deposited flyers in mailboxes. wow, those houses were large and gorgeous. it was so quiet out there. and to me i found it really eerie, especially after just finishing Sue Grafton:s Q is for Quarry... spoooooky!
something else happened this month in which my mynd completely lost one week. it only came to my attention after a whole week of running last week rendered me completely sore. i foudn this strange since i thought i hadn:t ran for one week, but ti turned out to be two. time man, time is just a plaything for children and fools i reckon.
so this brings me to winter vacation, a subject sorely avoided purely out fo guilt since i have not even written about it in my journal. but maybe i:ll just write about it on here and then i dont: know... then nto feel so much guilt. HOWEVA! my time is up. BUT i JUSDT ofund out, again, after five months, that on wednesdays i actually get 1.5 hr lunch instead of 1 hours so i may be able to zip over here and update again. the new work is a bit farther from the internet place. well i:m off to pick up some green tea, and then meet my friends for a quick game of darts. and you better believe those gold babies and patiently waiting in my purse. hee heee hee!!
note- still going strong on the nonsmoking! havne:t bought a pack this month! i:ve had a couple of drags of Louise:s during drinking nights, but they kinda just gross me out. and i think the biggest incentive to keep on quitting is that my skin has cleared up soooo much and has gotten so much smoother and my eyes whiter. so yay! go me!! now i just have to get the old binge eating when bored under control... ahhh... but that:s not so easy. there:s no one to impress here and quite frankly i:m pretty content with the way i look so i lack complete incentive to try and look thin. ok ok i:m getting booted.. until next time where i promise to write about winter vacation!
LOVE!
i:ve been on an emotional rollervoaster living here. one minute i:m on a huge jaapn high, the next minute i want to scream if i see any more japanese people or eat one more piece of rice. and this week the intensity of my emotions reached an apex, culminating in two days of cry at least 3 times at work, and a full day yesterday of crying every five minutes. but it:s basically boiled down to this here formula
piles of extra work at work this month + missing canada + dreaming of canada + not letting myself cry for 5 months + being wretchedly sick and not being able to eat for two days yet again + hormones + being away from my sister and new baby + being so cold my olive oil froze + not running = crying breakdown. so tht:s that and i had a huge cry yesterday and now i feel better. this experience is stretching the limits of my mental health, but it:s a good exercise in getting to know how strong and weak i really am. there sure were right when they said in initial training that we:re a special breed, and not everyone can do this. hoesntly if it wasn:t for my wonderful friends and support system here, i would just be a leaf blowing in the wind. having my girls to listen to my cry and vent sure helps me feel attached to that tree firmly planted in the soils of sanity.
today i had my first japanese lesson with my friend Mizuko and i totally enjoyed it! i learned how to tell time and to count money. the japanese counting system is just whack. the numbers differe depending if you are counting time, money, people, inanimate things, flat things, round things, floors of a building... eeey eyy eey! afterwards i showed her my pictures of winter vacation and we agreed to meet again next monday, though i:ll see her tomorrow cuz we work together. the rest of the day i spent in my lil tropical paradise of a living room which i revamped and rearranged last night. it now features a constant stream of tropical ukelele music (mock me if you will fools but there is notihng as soothing as Dos Palomitos played on the ukelele), warmer indirect lighting, little plants straight from Kyoto, and a new arrangement of crystals. i:ve also draped a multicoloured indian print throw over my television, turning it into a tall table, atop which is perched a paper lamp, plants, crystals, and a pack of Yoga and Meditation cards. my cells feel calmer already, being spared electromagnetic interference from the boob tube. it:s all about expanding my mind through books and learning japanese. my goal is to be somewhat fluent by the time the rents come in august. oh i realize that:s a really shady goal... ;) anyways, where am i_ ya so i spent the day eating chocolate chip melon pan and drinking 2L of green tea as i wrote a 5 page letter to my lil Natasha in thunder bay. she writes me these beautiful journals and sends them to me and they make me feel like a closer part of her life.
yesterday, after running and suffering repeated breakdowns i decided to pull it together and go detox at an onsen. michelle and i took the local trian two stops south to Yumoto, which is still part of Iwaki. Iwaki is really big, but really spread out. so the area of iwaki in which i live and work is called Taira. anyways, there was a gorgeous onsen there and we spent a few hours completely relaxing. an onsen is a public bath/spa. and it:s quite the experience!!! first you strip down in the changeroom and then you carry in your towel and lil buscket of whatever toiletries you want to use. i toted along an asst of loofahs, peppermint scrubs, pumice stones, and sponges. then you sit on these lil stools (like one of those steps you use for you kid to stand on so they can brush their teeth in the sink and not gob it all over the floor) facing a lil mirrot and a hella hot water tap with a shower head and get down to it, scrubbing and cleaning thoroughly. then you rinse off and go chill in the hottest water ever! at this onsen there was a hot bath, like a bubblefree whirlpool filled to teh brim, a whirlpool, a sauna playing tropical island music, and these wild showers. these showers ...oh my.. ok you press a button and then you open the door and step inside this coilde chamber, as soon as you close the door the jets turn on and spray water at you in every direction, covering every inch of your body in places you didn:t even know you had. it:s really cool cuz if you look down at the water the streams look like the red lasers of a really intricate alarm system. anyways, michelle and i were not prepared for that so when the water started there stood the two tall gaijin girls absolutely shrieking their heads off and laughing!
outside there is another hot bath that you cna lie in and smooth stones taht you can walk over to relax your feet. there:s also a couple waterfalls under which i sat in the water and let the cascades shiatsu my shoulders and back. two hours of pampering we emerged, pruned and swollen- my fingers looked like sausages!! but completely chilled out and relaxed. i oculd have curled up in teh corner and slept! afterwards we were going to try to walk home to the train station but then this kind japanese complete stranger offered us a ride. how nice is that? we got back and went for UDon noodles and then back home. dinner was delightful, i had a really good time with michelle. she makes me piss my pants laughing all the time. she:s really happy go lucky and it was honestly just what i needed. she has been so great this whole week, listening to me cry all the time at work.
on saturday night, after drinking the previous night and dan and phils: as we all watched ocean:s 11, i once again imbibed. i met kylie and louise after work and we headed to the Black Ship, an izakaiya (pub) which i:ve been calling the Black Sheep for the past 5 months (jan 23rd was my 5 month anniversary)! i wasn:t even in the mood to drink but of course, that lasted all of five minutes and soon i was swaying with the best of them. we had two hours of nomihodai (all oyu can drink 2500 yen plus ordering one food dish per person) and by the end i was completely and utterly wrecked. strangely this allowed me to have a full on conversation IN JAPANESE with two japanese dudes outside the bathroom. we headed to SUnny Side UP afterwards for a game of darts. do you remember how i stated many months ago it was my personal mission in iwaki to win my own set of darts? well! the gods smiled on methis night, and as part of some big cosmic joke of not being able to have the ability to stand up but having the arm/hand coordination of an olympic hopeful, i scored a 451 in one game, a score which netted me my OWN PERSONAL SET OF GOLD DART COMPLETE WITH GREEN LIGHTENING BOLT TIPS!!!! now, at this point something strange happened. looking back, i:m going to deduce that by some weird and unexplainable occurence, my body was temporarily taken over by a wild banshee, causing it to twirl and dance and jump around screaming THIS IS THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE!! geez, what DO they put in these peach fizzies??
this week at work, and actually this whole month have been hectic. as we just moved new locations, across from a 7-11 which is now reaping more of my paycheck than is really necessaary (i have GOT to stop eating those bloody ham and cheese burritos. that:s the epitome of gross but damn! they are so tasty!!! mmm... food heated up in plastic. nothing like a healthy dose of killer estrogens to make me feel great!) anwys, i:ll spare you the details but suffice it to say 1. i hate paperwork 2. my kids all now know how to disco dance and point 3. i will never work a full time job again. from here on in, i mean, after my work is done in japanland, i:m goign to have two part time jobs. i just can:t handle hte monotony of working day in and day out on the same thing. this week was nice in that i got to break up my day by going to hand out flyers for work. sweet, i got to speak japanese for an hour! *yoroshiku onegaishimasu.. arigatoo* well, not much, but it:s sometihng. then on firday mizuko and i drove toa bedroom town and deposited flyers in mailboxes. wow, those houses were large and gorgeous. it was so quiet out there. and to me i found it really eerie, especially after just finishing Sue Grafton:s Q is for Quarry... spoooooky!
something else happened this month in which my mynd completely lost one week. it only came to my attention after a whole week of running last week rendered me completely sore. i foudn this strange since i thought i hadn:t ran for one week, but ti turned out to be two. time man, time is just a plaything for children and fools i reckon.
so this brings me to winter vacation, a subject sorely avoided purely out fo guilt since i have not even written about it in my journal. but maybe i:ll just write about it on here and then i dont: know... then nto feel so much guilt. HOWEVA! my time is up. BUT i JUSDT ofund out, again, after five months, that on wednesdays i actually get 1.5 hr lunch instead of 1 hours so i may be able to zip over here and update again. the new work is a bit farther from the internet place. well i:m off to pick up some green tea, and then meet my friends for a quick game of darts. and you better believe those gold babies and patiently waiting in my purse. hee heee hee!!
note- still going strong on the nonsmoking! havne:t bought a pack this month! i:ve had a couple of drags of Louise:s during drinking nights, but they kinda just gross me out. and i think the biggest incentive to keep on quitting is that my skin has cleared up soooo much and has gotten so much smoother and my eyes whiter. so yay! go me!! now i just have to get the old binge eating when bored under control... ahhh... but that:s not so easy. there:s no one to impress here and quite frankly i:m pretty content with the way i look so i lack complete incentive to try and look thin. ok ok i:m getting booted.. until next time where i promise to write about winter vacation!
LOVE!
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