Junebug

It’s Rainy Season now and has been since just before last weekend. It’d be more correctly called Gray Sky Season, or to be frank, Chicago Most Days Season. Swollen clouds. Moisture. We had a bit of luck this afternoon though with some summer-appropriate sunlight, which then breached the way to a crisp, clear sky filled with stars in the evening as I was leaving my ikebana teacher, and friend,’s house.

My mood got a much needed lift. Sparkling things up above, flowers in arm. Four more weeks of school left and then it’s not-school season, and even if that means office time for the bulk of the summer, I get to look forward to a friendly visit, Mt. Fuji, a bigger apartment, and maybe some sporatic road trips. I can’t wait to finally relax and not always have to think in timeslots and schedules.

Then again, having just typed that and thinking it over, maybe that’s not really meant to end either. Sigh. Well, I’ll slack off what I can.

Hooray…

Turning 28 turned out to be quite nice though. Thanks out there for making me feel not so far away.

Nihongo o Shabby-ru

I’ve been harboring this thought for some time, but now I’ll say it straight: my Japanese sucks balls. It’s been almost a year now, and as much as some foreign people will make the same complaints about their own abilities with a level of modesty veiling their, in actuality, limber tongues in a fashion that only proves just how Japanese-proper they are (bleh, yeah whatever to propriety), I am most certainly not one of those people. However, I am quite content to struggle with my non-language ability with certain Japanese people that I’ve come to befriend, and I think it’s proving to be a huge boost in self-esteem as the inability to communicate can be one of my biggest insecurities. As I keep trying to insist with the students in class about English, you gotta struggle with the suck if you’re ever gonna get any better… hehe, i’ll leave that visual right there for you… but it only works if you keep forcing noises out of your mouth. I’m glad though that there are those who can make the process of attempted conversation easier. And it actually turns out rather enjoyable. So, gambate! Keep trying… hai, hai, hai. Yeah, yeah, yeah…

Buzzkill

I recently discovered this plug-in bulbous device for releasing some sort of liquid repellent in the air to kill all those damn mosquitoes that have been harassing me with their awful whiny buzzing all this past month. The plug-in’s been working pretty well so far. Yes! Victory is finally mine again. God, I’ve missed uninterrupted sleep at night…

Happiness comes in electric pods.