October Second - over breakfast ramen

Up awful early for not having to be anywhere, especially after a "last train" night. On Friday morning i could barely force myself out of bed at 7:15; today i was up at 6:30 without even realizing it. I bet if i didn't have an alarm to rebel against, i'd get up easier on work mornings too. I can't bear to risk it though.





My October Second List:


wash the dishes


sweep


tidy up


do a load of laundry.





I intend to relax today but these are a few things that simply must get done.





Ok let's move on to my plans for the month:













writing: 31 poems as mentioned in my previous entry.


finish my keitai shousetsu.





cooking: make Shiori's "eco-bento" recipes in last months steady. I thought making 5 new recipes would be a good cooking goal, and there i have five ready for me. Plus i love these kind of "connected" recipes, where the mealplan for the week is designed dto use ingredients and leftovers from previous meals. I don't know if it's really "eco" but it certainly is economical. I don't take a bento to school so i'll make them for dinner. Before i can start cooking, i have to translate and then get to a supermarket.





my wardrobe: nothing so specific here yet; my main goal for now is still just to examine what i have and decide the direction i want to take. This is such serious business.





happy handmade: i'm being pretty ambitious with writing, so i'll go easy on myself in the craft category. One project: a case for my bank passbook. I lost the original plastic sleeve. (I'd also like to knit myself some mittens, but i don't trust myself to get them done. Maybe in November.)





photos: when i got here i was taking pictures on a daily basis, but in september i mostly quit. i'm not a photographer, even by hobby, but it's a good way to document life. especially for the folks back home. also i think i should take more pictures of myself... i haven't been, because i haven't been happy with how i look, but that needs to change. I didn't think about this yesterday (10/1) but i did happen to take one picture -- of my school lunch. Oh well, it's a start anyway.





financial: i have a pretty serious financial plan for the year, but there's nothing really to plan for the month. I don't get paid till the end, and my previous paycheck is mostly spoken for. I have a bit to get me through; i just have to be careful with it so i can pay for all these office parties!!





work life: also vague. i'm still new, and an assistant, so i can't really say "i'm going to accomplish such and such." I do think it would be positive for me to make a note of something i learn each day -- something about my coworkers, school, culture, life itself, or even language. Also, at one of my schools, i think i'd better make it a point to "put myself out there" in new ways every time i'm there. It makes a huge difference in how my day goes. And sometimes it doesn't work at all and i get frustrated, but i still need to try. So that's Tuesdays and Thursdays.


I also want to revise my bulletin board as Halloween gets closer, and gather/print materials for the next one.





fitness: besides biking to school a few days a week, i don't get much exercize. I like yoga but i'm not sure about saying "ok! i'm going to do yoga every day!" because i know i won't without any external motivation. What about once a week? Maybe that's not often enough to be effective, but it's something at least. I'd also like to start jogging again. I didn't think i did, but yesterday there was a brochure for entering a race on my desk and i got really excited. Then i realized the race was past and they were just recycling -- something else (something current) was printed on the other side. But, i'm embarrased. If i could go really early in the morning it might be okay. That's asking a lot of myself though.





adventures: this category is here for the sake of keeping my long term goals in mind when i make my short term goals. But the long term goal, if you can call it that, is weird: "go into 'those little shops.' don't be afraid." Basically i was recalling my study abroad experiences and how shyness and fear of getting on the wrong train/being kidnapped kept me from some experiences i could have had. Of course i had plenty of great experiences anyway, but i also slept an awful lot. Something my predacessor said inspired me to learn from those past times.


Let's start with this: i'll go to one new town on my own this month (like i should have done in Shiga). And, i'll spend one weekday evening in the city, reading or writing in a cafe (like i should have done in Saratov).


Although i didn't leave myself much travel money this month, there might not be much good travel weather afterwards! Oops.





japanese: I didn't come here with any particular intentions to become fluent in Japanese, but now i think it'd be lame to leave here and not be fluent. My grand study plan in August lasted about three days, so i'll have to try something else. I should learn a new kanji every day. Other than that, how about i look at the recommended websites from orientation? Ok, my goal is to look at all of them this week -- by 10/9. And to revise this plan afterwards.





cleaning: one of my goals for the year was to have a clean house every day -- to get in the habit of tidying up. It's not too bad because i don't have much stuff, but recently i have been lazy. Plus i need to sweep or swiffer or vaccuum every day to keep that fuzz or dust, or whatever it is, under control. This doesn't have to be time consuming -- 10 or 15 minutes a day would make a huge difference. It's just a matter of doing it. I think i'll start making my bed again, at least.





hobbies: my year goals included "gain interesting hobbies" and "learn the ukulele." I'm going to put off buying a ukulele for this month. The interesting hobbies i had in mind were cultural things like tea ceremony club and ikebana. But my school doesn't have any cultural clubs and i'm unaware of anything offered to the community. There is one thing, but i'm shy about going.....oops there's that "adventures" goal.... Well, let me think about it.





the health of my soul: i think i'd better read the gospels again this month, and go where that takes me.

October First - do you like smokers?

Hello October~

Today was an enkai
I ate raw horse meat ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Sorry horse.

It's pretty sneaky to call it "sashimi." Like it's a fish or something. One of my coworkers even tried to tell me "it's fish!" Mm hmm.

I wasn't going to eat it but after a "Japanese people are very happy when you eat and drink a lot, and when you can eat many local specialties" speech, i had to try some.
I've eaten cooked horse, and i've eaten raw beef, so... why not raw horse? The main issue was that i was sooo full. So i had a piece. It tasted..... frozen. Yep. It just tasted frozen.
But the other fish we ordered at that bar (bar #2) was pretty amazing. Really, really good. It's too bad i was so full. The chicken was really good too.

Too bad we couldn't stay there longer. It was just starting to get pretty fun. But two of us had to catch the last train, so we had to run. Literally.

School lunch today included natto. It's been quite a day for food. I was a good girl and tried it again, but i am not a fan of natto. I can't bear the stringiness. It's like cobwebs. Rotten cobwebs. Rotten cobwebs with mustard.

Tomorrow is Saturday. Yasumi. Yay!! I will sleep forever.

And, i might write about my October things. But today i can share one October goal. This is an ambitious one: to write a poem every day. That's 31 poems. My goal for the year was to write one poem every week. I should have eight by now, and i don't. But if i actually write one a day, i'll certainly be caught up!

I did write one today, or at least a lousy attempt at one. I'm not going to put them on my blog, but i am going to start a special notebook for these 31 poems. I'll try and get that done this weekend.

a new blog for October

I like when people read my blog but i don't like the feeling of all of my entries popping up immediately on my friends' homepages. I don't want to annoy them by posting too often or by writing long entries, and then i'm really writing for the people "following" my blog and not for myself.

I want to write heart-wrenching laments without worrying people who care about me or annoying mere acquaintances with my whining. I want to be free to feel happy once in a while over tiny things like lattes, without leading people to believe i really am happy and cheerful and great. I want to write without thinking how it might be interpreted by each and every potential reader.

Every time i start a new blog, i spend the first entry going into far too much detail about why i'm starting a new blog. It's usually the same.

However, this blog is focused. This blog is for one month. I'm settled into my new house and my new job -- though each day still brings ups and downs and crazies and a lot of "wakaranai." A week into September, i was still saying "I can't believe it's September already." The rest of the month flew by, but i'm settled enough now that i could at least see October coming before it arrived. So, i took the opportunity to start something, along with the start of the month.

The blog is focused, but my plans aren't very focused, yet. I have a few inspirations:
Yesterday at work i was looking for pictures of coffee cups for my bulletin board, and i ended up looking over some girl's blog. In one entry, she had a picture of her notebook where she'd written a "6 month plan." I guess i like pictures of notebook pages, and i like making plans. Sometimes they go awry and sometimes they don't go awry but aren't at all as i imagined. At the moment i can't think of a plan that has gone as great or better than imagined but it may have happened. HOWEVER New Year's Resolution style "plans" are safe enough. They're just glorified to-do lists. And it's fun to find a really old list and see that i've accomplished things... i.e. i wanted cute boots and now i have them. I think this stems from a sense of not wanting to let my "past self" down. Sometimes i think of my younger self as a separate character, although i mostly feel just like my younger self. Maybe that's why it's so easy to imagine what she would think.

I also want to live deliberately. I don't really like the idea of being "goal oriented' -- isn't it okay just to LIVE? Do you have to live for one goal, and then the next one, etc etc? I'm not sure that's good. Still, i also don't want to live without noticing. I don't want years to pass and then to realize that i haven't gotten around to things i wanted to do. I don't want to go days and days and weeks and months not liking my reflection. I want to be what i hoped i'd be....... i just want to LIVE, but not without noticing.

My other inspiration for doing this is my shopping dilemma. I shop a lot because i have more money than i've ever had in my life i don't really have any friends or much else to do i had to leave most of my clothes back home and lack certain wardrobe "essentials" (like a hoodie). But i really don't buy very much because i feel like... i don't know what style is mine! And i think i wouldn't have this problem back home. Here, i don't have a well developed sense of what kind of person wears what. The image of a girl who wears furry boots back home might not be the same image as the girl in Japan who wears furry boots. So I can just buy whatever i want and wear whatever i want with no knowledge of connotations! That could be freeing, but actually it's overwhelming. And maybe it'd be easier if i were shopping here for clothes to wear in the US. But i'll be wearing them here, at least for a while. So i want to think through my wardrobe and how i want to look, and decide what i should get. If i should get anything at all.

So i have concerns both deep and frivolous. I want to think about many things. I also have some specific plans in mind, which i'll write later, and i want to make some more specific plans after i've thought thoroughly. Hopefully this blog will help me to think thoroughly.