In what will probably be my last blog post here, I just have one thing to say.

Today, one of my respected teachers told me that I should apply for a fulbright scholarship, since I want to learn German and I am smart.

That's pretty great.

It's 8:14 am and I am ready to go back to bed. Which is awful, but uh.. I've been up technically since 5:45 and my cats decided they wanted to be up an hour before that, so I spent half an hour fighting with them before finally shutting them out of the bedroom. Jerks.

Gotta call my dentists office to schedule a crown, gotta call my mom to get my remote start fixed (they said it was the car battery; the battery is fine), gotta call Saturn to see if I need them to reset my keyless entry cause the battery died and what kind of battery need for it, etc.

This is on top of, theoretically, 5 hours of class, a one hour meeting, and me teaching/presenting for an hour of class. Thankfully the presentation is our contraceptives presentation that at this point, I could probably give without the powerpoint for backup. I'd really rather not, though.

Baby sister has the flu (like, 103 fever, aches, coughing type flu, not the stomach flu) which makes me sad cause she was supposed to come up this weekend. Boyfriend was supposed to play a show back home in the Fork but they accidentally overbooked so they didn't get to play after all. He was also supposed to go to Colorado for snowboarding this weekend but half the guys had to back out, so it turns out he's just going to Kansas City instead. He's sorta bummed about it but in reality, it's way closer and more importantly, way cheaper. (In terms of gas, and he'll be staying with his friend who lives there, rather than renting a ~$200/night hotel room. Personally, I can't blame him - it'd be hard to justify renting a room for 3 days, even split between 3 people, that would cost almost as much as his month's rent of a house.)

Root canal was finished. Whee. It's fine. Did my taxes last night. I'll get about $550 back, which is awesome cause I could sure use it. That's about it.

Subscription expires Thursday. I will be enjoying my day by working, working, tutoring, and then drinking some alkiehol and celebrating in the traditional way. Woot.

Kind of hating life right now. It is stupid and dumb and I feel stupid and insignificant and awful.

I suppose everyone has these days. I fought with my boyfriend this weekend (first time since sometime while I was in Japan, maybe Novemberish?) and that was no fun. I hate hate hate fighting with him. I hate it.

So whatever. At least methods class was fun. Wish I had any sort of ambition to go to any of my other classes, but I don't.

Now I will leave you with this video we watched last week. If you took any Spanish in high school or college you can probably understand most of it (it's called the One Semester of Spanish Love Song for a reason) and it is hilarity.

10:30 on a Friday night, I don't have to work til tomorrow evening, and I am.. printing off a paper for class and cleaning my apartment. Wtf?? Actually, the boy called and he invited me to come over and watch him jam with some new friends on bluesy stuff, but I declined. He sounded almost surprised. I really appreciate the fact that he called to let me know he was going to jam and what time (he thinks) they'll be done, and invited me to come over and hang out regardless. I'm busy gettin stuff done here, like sweeping my unholy mess of a kitchen/cat area and dealing with all the stuff that has seemingly exploded everywhere since school started.

During my cleaning, I found my entire set of cds! This makes me so happy, as I've had approximately 3 to listen to - an old compilation album that had been in my glove box, a burned copy of The Downward Spiral, and a new cd from People Noise, a non-local local band that was in town touring last week. I'm superhappy! Cause now I don't have to reburn MY ENTIRE SET OF EVERYTHING. And a lot of my cds I didn't even rip to my computer because 1) they're on my other, dead computer and 2) I, for whatever reason, only listen to them in my car.

I'm also going to take a moment in this post to inform you all that as of Valentine's Day, I won't be a member on SG any longer. There's a myriad of factors going into my decision, the biggest one being that I have other things the $50 subscription can go toward that are more important to me. I originally joined cause of a special, and the fact that I had always wanted to be an SG. However, noting slow trends and those sorts of things have made me reconsider my decision. Besides the fact that I want to work with youth and in America, you can't have the slightest blip on your record if you're doing that, I feel that Suicidegirls is looking for a more mainstream audience and therefore more mainstream models than they have in the past. This doesn't bother me - after all, it is a business - but I do think that I have more of a 'girl next door with a few mods' image while they're looking for a less playful, more sex kitten type sexy. I also feel that with the current standards seemingly constantly skyrocketing, plus fabulous set after fabulous set being rejected, it isn't worth my time attempting to send in a set at this point in time. I'm also not big on building community so it's not like I have any superclose friends to keep in contact with, I used to read the news a lot but with the new front page format it kind of got shoved to the side and I no longer remember 'oh yeah, let's read the news', and honestly, I don't even look at the sets much anymore because they do not appeal to me. And I'm busy anyhow. So it's in my best interests that I let my subscription lapse. Maybe I'll be back, who knows.

Until then, though, I'll still keep reading and updating as normal on here. You can always find me through my livejournal or through myspace.

So I thought that once I came home I'd have time to think and read and update.

Yeah right. I've got 15 credit hours of classes (though granted, 6 of those are for entertainment only - so I like learning) and ~20 hours of work, plus my sex ed meetings on Mondays with office hours on Wednesdays, and I'm now working the test site for the next month for a few hours on Thursday. That doesn't include the other outreach I'll be doing, or if I decide to pick up training at my regular job cause it's about time I start processing. (I get another raise if I do, sweet.) Yeesh. Great time for me to decide to be superactive, isn't it?

I really like all my classes so far. Except they're all reading-intensive which kinda sucks but I'll deal.

I lost my gloves a few days ago and in Nebraska's lovely 15-20 degree weather with the wind chill hovering around 0, that really sucks. I have to buy a new pair before tomorrow night when I have to go to class. I tried to drive to work the other morning, which is about 5 minutes away, and by the time I got there my hands were so cold I could barely grip the pen to sign in. Ouch.

That's really about it. Scored a copy of Oblivion game of the year edition for $20, so I'll be playing that in the spare time I have which isn't being spent precariously hanging out with my boyfriend. It's hard to adjust from more-or-less living together to working around our ridiculous schedules again. It'll be even harder in the fall when he goes back to school, or in the spring when he's in his last semester (hopefully) and I'll be student teaching. So I guess I better buck up and stop whining now, cause it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

I also am creating a budget cause I need to find some way to be saving money for more dental/car emergencies than I have right now, while feasibly eating away at my CC debt that was supposed to be killed by my scholarship monies but we all saw how THAT worked out. I think I can get all my current school bills paid off by mid-February (I would honestly be okay but damn, that sudden hit of tuition/fees/books/parking permit all at once from the school fucking hurts, even with financial aid) and then I'm going to really start throwing money at my credit card cause I hate hate hate hate hate debt.

Thinking about money makes me nauseous. Instead, I'm going to go read on modern theories of foreign language teaching, learning and motivation among adolescents, and feministic philosophical theories. And make food; being active seems to mean that I am constantly starving as well. yuck.

I have been in school for 3 days. I have been back to work for 2.

First day: good. Extremely tired because I am in class (with a few hour breaks here and there for food, thankfully) from 9:30 am to 8 pm.

Second day: work in the afternoon. What I thought was going to be a relaxing afternoon of watching movies and studying kanji turned out to be anything but. I thought, how much can 8 women use the bathroom in 4 hours? Apparently, a lot. Some of them went more in those 4 hours than I go in a day. And I feel like I pee a lot. In any case, pretty sure I fucked up some details which may be major or minor, I don't know, I'm going to call the kid in charge of the study and he'll get it straightened out. Afterwards I went to class (it's weird working in the afternoon then going to class at night) and headed off to a show for my boyfriend's band except half the band was sick so they didn't play. So the poor guys from People Noise, who played an extremely great and fun show for 7 people (half of whom were employees of the bar, not counting the 3 people working that night) had at least a handful of people show up, but honestly, you can't expect a huge draw for an alt-rock band in Lincoln, Nebraska in the middle of fucking freezing January, on the Tuesday the week school starts in a college town. Most of us at least make some sort of effort the first week.

Third day: Today I am not making an effort. Actually, I did. I had no problems finding a parking spot on Monday so imagine my surprise and irritation when I return to the same lot today and spend 20 minutes driving around and not being able to find ANYWHERE to park. By the time I could've found somewhere else a bit farther away (in other words, on the other side of campus) I would've been too late for my class for my comfort - I don't like even being a few minutes late so 10 is out of the question and 20 is just silly cause that's almost half the class! Instead, I decide to be useful and go buy books. They are expensive even though I scored a bunch of used ones. (I used to have a book scholarship but the honors program was very uncooperative so I said, fuck them I don't need this stress.) It didn't take very long at all, so I decide to run home real fast (I live about 5 minutes away by car) and put on another shirt cause it's gonna be cold today, and to drop off the books I don't need. I return in plenty of time to find a spot. I drive around. And around. And around. And around. No dice. It seems that unless you can vulture a spot in the 10 minute between-class window of whatever:20 and class starting at whatever:30 you're out of luck. Not to mention, my campus is extremely spread out (compared to Senshu or even the Tec) and even if I could find a spot in that 10 minutes, I'd probably still be late to class cause my closest building is a block or two (5 minute walk minimum) away. Laaame.

So now my next class is in an hour. It's snowing heavily and honestly, I just want to sleep, even though I'm taking this class for fun cause I'm a dork. I hope my night class gets cancelled cause of the snow. We're supposed to get 2-5 inches and the way it's already coming down, I can believe it. I might just stay in and read cause all my classes are reading-heavy and my non-teaching classes are very much 'read the book and come to class for the notes and you'll be fine'. Plus, one of my teachers (who teaches 2 of my classes, even) puts all her notes and whatnot up on blackboard so that's even better. Yay.

No class tomorrow but work from something like 5 or 5:30 to 10. I hope it's not as stupid as yesterday or I'm going to be pissed. It's so frustrating cause it's like.. I know what I'm doing 90% of the time and I'm expected to know what I'm doing 100% of the time, and I forget little things like signing logs or what information goes where on the sheet, or where we put tubes now. aaarrgh. It's like being freshly new again. At least I'm in the training class for February, assuming my brain doesn't kill me first.

And yay new Flux set! She's so damn cute and smart. I like Flux.

I slept horribly last night. This sounds so incredibly lame but it's the first night I've slept in my apartment since I got back to the States. There have only been 2 other nights that I didn't sleep with my boyfriend, and those were because I was in Norfolk for stuff and he wasn't. I didn't have a problem sleeping alone in Japan but then again, I was also exhausted for a good chunk of my day. Here, I guess it doesn't help that I also have two cats who decide that 4:30 am is a good time to play 'kill the mousey' on my chest.

I put the mouse under my pillow.

So yeah, it's shortly after 8:40 and uh, yeah. Got really nothing to do today except fret about things. So I went to the dentist, right, and got a checkup. Well I went back in on Tuesday to get one of the fillings taken care of (thankfully it was just one, the tooth next to it just needed to be looked at and it's not a problem - yet) and so on. No big deal. And they fixed up some front teeth that could use a touch of cosmetic polishing, so they look much better now, I think. ANYWAY what I found out is that they had taken an x-ray of my new Problem Tooth to see what was going on with it, so we could do a root canal before the crown if necessary.

Now, I can't draw you a diagram so I want you to do it for yourself. Draw a molar. Draw the gumline. Now shade in pretty much all of the tooth that is outside of the gum. That is what my filling looks like. I said, 'holy crap. That sucks.' Better yet, my dentist tells me 'We think it's already starting to abcess and die, so you're going to need another root canal. We're going to forward your stuff to the endodontrist (root canal specialist) in Lincoln and he can tell you 100% for sure, but you wanna get that taken care of.' I said 'I've had one abcessed tooth in my life so far and that is one more tooth than I ever needed.' So, fuck. Root canals are not cheap. Crowns are not cheap. I am poor and my family will help out as needed but man, it sucks. But I'm poor not in the 'I can't eat properly' way (I went to the grocery store and stocked up on yums like pita bread and hummus, yogurt, and cashews) but more in the 'even though I am not starving I constantly worry about my health, car, and education and paying for them'. Typical lower middle class stuff, I guess, but I'm on the cusp of being On My Own and it's a pretty scary place to be when I'm like 'yes! I can finally pay off when I had to get my car fixed last year!' and then it's like 'Except now I have to pay for dental bills again! No!'. It's a never-ending battle. And it's all the little things. My car needs new windshield wiper blades for sure, and could use a few new tires, and needs an oil change like crazy. It could also use an alignment, new air filters, and fixing the oil leak. If I wanted to get really fancy I'd fix the sticky lifter, but that's a couple grand right there that I don't have. Stuff like that.

So wow, this didn't mean to end up as a rant about being semi-poor but that's what happened, I guess. That's life. On the upside though, I've already got nearly my max of 20 hours of work next week (as well as starting classes, whee) and the weekend wasn't even finished yet, so it doesn't look like my paychecks will be hurting too much. I also got a 'manual completion raise' (I can do a lot of job functions now so I get rewarded) and my yearly raise so I'm making almost a dollar more than I was when I left. So that's good. I'm hoping to become a trainer soon (another 50 cents) and finish my next manual which is easy cause I'm already 1/3 done (I just need blood and urine processing, snap flash freezing, and.. some other one that I don't remember cause we hardly ever do it) and we are always in need of processors, especially since I would estimate half the clinic left or got fired since I've been gone. So most of the people who used to process are now people who draw blood, and the people who did bitchwork (like me) gotta be moving up to be processors. I gotta admit, I'm a little nervous cause I'm not exactly physically graceful and we're working with chemicals and measurements and whatnot. Yuck.

I've wasted about a good 15 minutes writing this, I hope you enjoyed wasting part of your life reading it.

I'd like to update you on my life. Really, I would. However, there's absolutely nothing to update on. I get up. Sometimes I bum around my boyfriend's house (I don't have internet access at my place again until next Thursday) or play my ds. Other times I go back to my apartment and hang out with my recently re-acquired kittenloves. Today I went to target and picked up stuff like toilet paper, paper towels, and a cutting board. Totally exciting, isn't it.

Well, I guess I am a bit excited cause my Christmas present arrived in the mail today. About $80 worth of various sexyfuntoytype items which are even better cause they were part of a 50% off sale. Yay! Everyone wins! I'm really excited for the massage oil we got - it's super yummy (edible and actually tastes good) and warming and when you blow on it, you can actually feel it get superhot for a few seconds. The lady who was selling the stuff (I got it from a sex toy party so NO BOYS ALLOWED ) joked that you should never use the massage oil near a fan that's on unless you want to feel like you're on fire. I can see why.

Other than that, um.. I really miss Japan. I mean, a lot. I don't miss my living situation (dorms suck) but I miss the... I dunno, the Japaneseness of Japan. The trains. Walking to the grocery store and not buying a carload of groceries at a time. Actually being physically able to walk to the grocery store because it's not 2 miles away. Vending machines with a variety of teas, juices, and coffee (sometimes alcohol or hot soup too) for my consumption as I wander around town. My friends. I really, really, really, really, really, really, did I mention REALLY miss my friends. Ironically, one of my best friends that I plan on hanging out with is the local president of Gamma Phi Beta - yes, a sorority. When we were bawling at our farewell party, she goes, 'Who would ever think that a girl like me and a girl like you would ever be such good friends?' I just laughed and said, 'I was wondering the same thing, Annie.' She has a heart of gold. But school and work start up soon (work technically this week but it's mostly just paperwork and meetings and playing catchup, so I get to make my own hours yaaay) so that'll keep me busy. Although the sweet thing is I'm taking two classes for shits and giggles, East Asian History and Philosophy of Feminism. So if they suck or seem like they'd be too much work, I can drop one or both and not have any problems. But I like keeping a full schedule, so...

I also went to the dentist the other day. I have to get 3 fillings (2 will be done next week, as well as getting some 'resurfacing' on some fillings I've had for a long time that are a bit rough but it's mostly a cosmetic thing so I never said anything about it - the kicker is, I drive back to my hometown for this, so I'm making a 250 mile round trip every week for 3 weeks, yeesh) and one that I had filled slightly before Japan is pretty hefty and on a back tooth so it's hell to reach.. so it was recommended that I get a crown. That sucks cause crowns are fucking expensive. However, if it comes down to having a crown, or running the (fairly likely) possibility of having another abcessed tooth and needing another root canal and THEN another crown.. well, let's just skip the extremely painful (and even more expensive) parts and just go straight to the crown. I'm on my parent's insurance for another year so I'm going to get everything done now while I can cause.. well, once I turn 23, I'm not going to have affordable insurance for a questionable amount of time. So. Gotta get that done while I still can.

I guess I had an update in me after all.

Home safe and sound. Expect more regular updates from now on, and more regular commenting too. I miss you guys.

It was my birthday on Friday. It was pretty much the greatest thing ever, so that was awesome.

Today was my nihongo no happyo.. in English, Japanese presentation. I did pretty well, I think. One guy in our class was totally useless - after we had extensive help writing these things for the past 2 weeks - and if looks could kill, Sasaki-sensei and Shirai-sensei would have kiled him dead on the spot. Who the fuck spends this much money and this much time only to do NOTHING?

I hope they fail him, with negative points. Can they give out negative points? I don't think so, but if someone deserves it, it's this kid.

Now we just begin the countdown to go home. Tomorrow is review, Wednesday is final and Xmas party, Thursday is test feedback, Friday is farewell party (I get to wear kimono!) and THE FINAL NOMIHODAI, then Saturday is hauling my ass out of bed and getting to the airport cause my plane leaves at 3:10 pm Japan time. I'll arrive in Chicago around 11:30 am and hopefully we'll leave on time (fuckin weather) to get to Lincoln by 5:30 pm, cause I got a birthday/yay I'm back dinner at 8.

Yay for going home. I usually try to think of cuddling with my boyfriend to help me sleep but at this point, I just get so excited I get to see him soon that if anything, it just makes it worse. Go figure, eh? Also, I have the most irritating cold of all time. It's not actually debilitating so I can't get out of doing stuff or sleep all the time, but it's just kinda hangin around and making my nose runny to be irritating. Laaaame.

Hope all you sexy ladies and sexy lady lovers are doin okay at home. It'll be nice to be able to browse the site without wondering how many people I'm offending with naked women with, omg, piercings and tattoos!!