I miss the rain.

Raining season here in this here part of good ol' Japan is officially over. It got hot - really hot (right now it's about 31-33 degrees outside). I wasn't ready! So I've been spending most of my time sweating and try to hid away inside.

But! Last week Dylan and I did venture out to Yokohama. Dylan's friend had to go there for a test, so we tagged along and made a day trip out of it. It's a neat little town (by little, I mean it is the second largest city in Japan). A bit off unsettling though, since there were a lot of foreigners, especially because we were in a more tourist part of the city. Seeing other foreigners reminds me how much I must stick out and then I get all self-conscious. Anyway, we got there and went to Chinatown - which is huge. It reminded me a lot of Canada and just made Dylan really want to cook. Then it was time for our friend to go write her test, so Dylan and I found a nice park and settled in to read and relax for a while. After that, we headed... somewhere... I don't know, I just followed them... and went to a few pubs/breweries and did us some shopping at this adorable market-type place. Had some pretty fantastic Mexican food for diner (the international food scene in our neck of the woods is very limited). Wondered around for a while longer. Then headed home. All in all, a fun day if you look past the fact that I was exhausted, got a moderate sunburn, got some blisters on my feet, and may or may not have gotten some really mild heatstroke because it was so very very very hot out.

Oh, side note. A couple days later, we went to a night market for a bit and grabbed a couple beers at a pub after where we ended up watching a women's doubles tennis match. Which gave me the brilliant idea that we should play tennis the next day since the school has a court, despite the mind-melting heat (have I mentioned that it's hot here?). That stroke of genius resulted in Dylan re-injuring his back, Em definitely getting heatstroke and my moderate sunburn becoming a bad sunburn. Nobody should ever take my suggestions ever.

To have a happy ending, the rainy season being over does mean that the clouds that have been hiding Mt. Fuji have lessened considerably and we have gotten a few gorgeous clear looks at it in the last few weeks.  
 

Visa!

So, the school has been a bit slower lately. It's been a nice lull before, I've been told, everything picks up like crazy in July and August. It's meant that my darling deary and friends have had a bit more free time to show me things and hang out. Even though my darling deary has decided to pick pretty much every piece of fruit on the surrounding towns and preserve them in a multitude of ways. It's a good thing the annex has a industrial kitchen, because he has well over twenty pounds of two different kinda of fruit. He's lucky he's so cute.

But the school is definitely gearing up for the busy season. My buddy got here last week (I'm ridiculously proud of myself because I drove most of the way to the train station to pick him up by myself without getting lost ... I may have brought three sets of directions with me). So many friends! And another teacher who used to work here before will be here for the month of August. But he'll be living in the annex with us while he's here, so I'm a bit nervous about that. I don't like sharing my space with people I don't really know. I've been assured he is a nice guy and I'm sure it'll be fine, I just worry too much.

Oh, I went down to immigration to have my visa changed. I now have a year-long dependents visa, so that's a relief to have everything all happy and in order.  And the immigration office is at least an hour and a half away, so we made a day trip of it and adventured our way around for a bit (partially in search of somewhere that sold a plant that Dylan needs for his preserving). Nothing terribly thrilling, but it made for a good day.

Yesh. That is all for now.

I would love to tell you all of exciting stories of adventure and wonder. But the school has been pretty busy lately, so little time for play. Dylan is on day 9 or so of work. But we've been going climbing pretty often. And yesterday we went out for fried rice, then to a bar-type place thingy because some guy that Dylan's friend knows was DJ-ing. I'm having fun, it's just a little bit more of a subdued fun than the first couple weeks. But I'm an old lady, so that's right up my alley!

I took the day off from life today. I didn't go have meals with students, I didn't see anyone other than Dylan. Heck, I didn't even go outside. It made the day easier to handle. I just need to manage to try and not go on the computer too much tomorrow, to avoid being too bummed out. Stupid internet.
Although I feel that I am not as opposed to being sad as most people are. I don't feel taking a day to be sad about sad things is necessarily a bad thing. I'm generally more inclined to avoid all those feeling type things, so I try and remind myself that it's ok (kinda of like how I have to remind myself that telling people I like/love them is good, not a sign of weakness). Because my default plan of letting everything build up and build up until I have a sobbing melt down doesn't seem like a great idea.

Anyway, happy Father's Day, Daddy. I love you and I miss you.

Oh right.

Ok, so that feelings thing didn't work out terribly well. So much so that I stopped writing here at all. I am trying to work on it on a more face-to-face, person-to-person level though. But if I'm still so bad at it that you've missed it, rest assured, if you read this blog it is almost certain that I think you are amazing. Baby steps. But it has slapped me across the face how important it is to make sure that the people you love know it. I'm working on not taking those things for granted.

Enough of that.

So, I'm in Japan.

I did my year of Criminology. It was crazy fun to be back in school. Because I'm a nerd like that. The worst part was actually having to be around hoards of 18 year olds who didn't have the same passion for school that I do. Chances are that you've heard my rants about little kiddies talking to each other through class, ignoring the lecture that was taking place in front of them, or people who go to discussion group without having done any readings or having gone to class and sit there not saying a word the whole time. But now I'm less sure than ever about what I actually want to do as a career. I want to learn more about every subject I took, so it anti-narrowed my focus.

But, Dylan being in Japan and me being in Ottawa wasn't that much fun. So, as much as I absolutely loved Ottawa, I caved. I left behind my lovely friends, new and old, and packed up my life yet again. I haven't given up on school, but I figure that it will be much easier to have a long distance relationship with my university than with my husband. We live on the school grounds of the private English immersion school where Dylan works, outside of a small-ish city. I've been told that it's 13km from the school to the top of Mt Fuji, so I have a pretty nice view from outside my front door (I'll try and get a picture for next time). Every week there are new students, meaning that there is always something going on. It's a bit of a drive into town, but it means I get to learn how to drive on the other side of the road! Japanese streets are terrifyingly narrow! I've been joining Dylan at the climbing gym. Meeting all the friends Dylan has been making. I'm happy or at least getting pretty close to it.

Oh, and my sister got married!! I made a pit stop in Victoria after leaving Ottawa, before coming here to be her maid of honour and watch her marry her other half. I'm still amazed at how good she looked. I was there the whole time she was getting ready, so I shouldn't have been that surprised. But she looked perfect. And they were both adorably happy. I'm still not sure I understand it, but marriage can be beautiful when done right.

Here goes.

Ok, so maybe we'll start off slow? Sure, why not. I hired a realtor. Well, I hired him over a week ago, but today we settled on a listing price and are going to get the paperwork started.

I still can't believe I'm selling my parents' house. Heck, I can't believe on how many levels I can't believe I'm selling their house. So many people have worked so hard over the last six months and I am eternally grateful for all the support I've gotten and my family has gotten. But it's unlikely that I will even walk into my parents' house again. It's unlikely that I will ever see firsthand all the renovations that have been done. And I'm just jumping from the world of not knowing anything about hiring and arranging people to do work on the house to the world of not knowing anything about real estate. This house has only ever belonged to our family. It was built for us. Only five people have ever lived in it. I grew up there. Everything, the good and the bad, that was my family was that house. And I'm the one who is changing that. It's what (almost) everyone wants, but it is going to be my name on that paper. I know no matter what we'd need to sell it eventually, and now makes sense if only so that we go from two overwhelmingly large stressful things in our lives to one. But it still breaks my heart.

 Got the nice new apartment. Finished registering for classes for September. Yah.

Yah.

It's been six months as of yesterday. It both feels like more and less time should have passed. I've been debating using this as somewhere to unload all those annoying feeling things. But that seems like it be a pretty big downer and a radical shift from using this to update everyone on my fun outings. I don't know. I rant and rave at people, but I don't typically talk about being sad. Maybe I should? Maybe I'll wait a week or so until I'm feeling better? I got accepted into Carleton. Talking to Paul reminded me that I'm not always the best at telling people my plans big picture. So, as of September, I'll be doing a year full time in Criminology and then hopefully switching the year after into Social Work. They're also giving me a bit of money to do all this, so that's cool. At the very least it makes me feel somewhat smart and like all the work I put into my first degree is being recognized a little bit. Yah. Rugby is ongoing. I'm slowly going from really really sucking to just really sucking. I'm getting into somewhat better shape. Having fun getting jarred around every week. I haven't been doing much else. Between work and rugby and trying to help out as much as I can with stuff back home from here, there isn't really time. Umm, I went out for brunch on Sunday. That was ok. Yah.

Hey there. Sorry it's been so long. Life has been... hard lately. (Read: spectacularly crappy.) And, for reasons that may be completely ridiculous, writing anything on here has been a really hard thing to get back into. I don't really have much to say. The whole point of this is pretty much to jump over the hurdle of getting it done. Accepting things as they are and all that jazz. Think happy thoughts in my direction.