Dictated, not read

After my computer died I had to reload all my music, which is a pain and something I've been putting off. iTunes thinks it's smarter than me and decided to load everything music-y that it could find... which meant that since I had my music in two places at once I had doubles of EVERY SINGLE SONG I OWNED DIGITALLY. That's close to 10 days worth of music total... and I was not so happy about having to delete the extras by hand. So I wiped the whole thing and did it manually, which was less of a pain, but not utterly painless.

The upside is that I discovered a bunch of music I forgot I had, including a song that I adore but has just made me incredibly homesick for Japan. I first got this song in the summer after I'd been there for a year, and it just makes me think of all the people and things I miss. It also reminds me of Naruto, since I read ALL of Naruto that summer in about 2 weeks. Oh music, is there anything you can't do?

My ability to fall off of the internet for short periods persists, but I have a good reason for once.

It seems like I'm about to get a promotion at work! I've been told it's going to happen, but that I can't tell anyone else in the store, which is fine, I can keep a secret. But I'm really looking forward to having more to do, more hours and best of all, a raise. I have no sure idea on any of it, I talked to my manager yesterday and the end of the conversation was "I will start you and Kristen (the other girl who is being promoted into the position that matches mine) on manager training next Wednesday." I TOOK THAT AS A PRETTY SURE SIGN THAT I GOT IT. But nothing has been signed, changed or done officially. Still, I'm super excited.

In other here news, it's snowing like a mother outside. They keep calling it a blizzard on the news, but it's really not a BLIZZARD by Colorado standards. They just like to blow things out of proportion. The streets kind of sucked this morning at 5:45 when I was going to work, but sucked far worse at 10am after 4 hours of snow were dumped on it. My grandmother, despite how many schools were closing down INSISTED that she had to have her hair done TODAY. My car is fine in the snow but I really didn't want to slog all the way to her house just to take her to a hair appointment that her stylist told her she could reschedule. So she got a ride with someone who lives near by and has 4 wheel drive. Sorry, Grandma, I love you but I don't want to take a 90 year old woman out in a bad snow storm so she can GET HER HAIR DONE. orz

I'm so tired. I've been working at 6am every day, and I work at 6am tomorrow. The job is going okay, it's nothing I haven't done before. But I don't know if I really want to get used to opening boxes with a pair of scissors for 4 straight hours. So far I've gotten a lot of praise for what I've done, I think their standards are a bit low... but hey, it works for me.

I just have been getting up at 5am and I'm still... I'm so sleepy.

I have a job interview tomorrow. It's at Old Navy, where I worked for a while in college. I only left when they closed down the store I worked at... so it's not like I got fired. I think I have a reasonably good chance at it, even if it is only a part time job. As long as I get SOME hours it's still better than no hours at all.

So today I finally got my last filling taken care of. I'd been putting it off because I'm broke and jobless. I'm still broke and jobless, but my parents agreed to help me pay for the filling before it turned into a root canal. I'm really happy to have it done, but too sore to eat anything right now. Strangely, I'm not hungry either.

My grandmother is still blind in one eye and I've been driving her here and there because there is no way she can drive herself, no matter how much she threatens to. Seriously, a 90 year old woman who is blind in one eye should under no circumstances be driving.

Still looking for a job. Still not having luck. I need to start lowering my standards.

Saturday was insane. My grandmother woke up blind in one eye and called us about 4 minutes after my mother left to meet a friend for lunch and shopping. So my father was freaking out, and I was trying to get him to calm down and deal with it while I tried to get ready for the dinner party we were supposed to be having that night. My father and I were supposed to go shopping for all the things we needed to finish the party preparations, but he ended up taking my grandmother to the emergency room and I did everything else myself.

None of this would have been so bad except that out of 6 family members that live in Colorado, my dad and I were the only ones who knew about my grandmother. We called everyone else, no one was around or had their phones on. Including my mother, who, like my father, has a cell phone that she just never turns on. I've had the "what's the point of having it if you never turn it on?" conversation with them before, but I think this time I finally got through. At least I hope I did.

Still haven't found a job, I'm putting in more applications every day. I really need to get some kind of income because I'm looking at a lot of dental work soon, and I have no insurance to cover it. My parents told me they will pay for it, or rather lend me the money to pay for it and I can pay them back whenever I get a job.

I think as far as moving to Seattle goes, I will be making plans to move around January so I have time to get things together... considering the rest of my boxes haven't come yet. the one that did come I have to make a claim on, and the woman I talked to sounded less than optimistic that they would let my claim go through. In fact she all but said I was screwed. Fan-tastic.

I've been back in America for a few days now, 5 days I guess, it's sort of hard to count when I have this total mental disconnect. I don't WANT to be here... as much as I wanted to be out of Japan I'm starting to realize that home was not the place I wanted to end up. Getting my brain to register that I don't live in Japan anymore is harder than it sounds. I'm having really horrible reverse culture shock.

I don't want to leave my house, because I don't want to interact with people. I barely want to interact with people online anymore. There are a few people that I really WANT to talk to because they make me feel better, but their own lives and what have you are keeping them busier now and it's making my feeling of disconnect worse. I don't blame them, it's not like they were put here just to make me feel better. But I can't stop the feeling of vague hurt when I find myself sitting and staring at nothing because one of the 5 or so people I actually feel close to are nowhere to be found.

Of course, all this will pass. Eventually I have to get a job and a real life. But for now I can't even turn on the TV without feeling like too much has changed in the last 2 years for me to catch up.

The long and short is that I just want to curl up into a ball and cry endlessly, but I'm forcing myself to do a little more. God I hope this feeling goes away soon... because it's increasingly difficult to live this way.

I really wish people would actually come to me when they have issues with me. Am I really so unapproachable?

Holy crap I have 4 days left of work! Three of those days are with kids, one will be just me sitting around and cleaning up my desk and generally not having much to do. All of a sudden this just isn't enough time at all. Before Friday I have:

• 4 last classes to give


• bills that need to be paid


• a 5 min speech I need to finish writing and memorizing in Japanese


• gifts to either buy or make and wrap for 50 teachers


• 7 huge boxes to mail


• a second, shorter speech to write and memorize in Japanese


• 3 doctors appointments to make before my health insurance runs out

I'm suddenly feeling the burn and by burn I mean MY GOD I SUDDENLY HAVE SO MUCH TO DO AND NO TIME TO DO IT IN. DX