A change of attitude

Ok, so yesterday I did a bit of soul searching. And I decided I need to work on being more positive about the coming year and Japan in general. Warning: this is a bit of an incoherent rant:

On Thursday night, we had a get together at Kate's new, fabulous apartment. After all the Nihonjin had left it kind of turned into a heated bitch about life in Japan session. Perhaps the 3 bottles of wine and various Chu-his and beers helped fuel this conversation but man, it lasted a long time. So, in my hungover state, I decided that I really need to work on that. I was feeling pretty tired of Japan before I went home, and I was hoping I'd refresh while away. And on the one hand, I did. I realized that this is my life now and for the coming year; and I certainly don't have a place in America right now. But I wasn't excited anymore. It became something I've taken for granted and on some level, resented.

Since I've been back, things have been ok. The license thing is still annoying. I went to the menkyo center yesterday and managed to get the first stage done. My test is set for August 24th. But, really, two weeks without a car are going to be fine, especially since at the beginning of last year, I didn't have a car for 4 months!

The whole friend thing is what's really getting to me at this point. James and Emily are still around till the end of the month. Soon after they leave, Makiko is going back to school, so it really is just me, Kate and Kayvohn. We skipped the Newbies thing in Sanjo last night because Nuria's original plan got foiled by various idiots bitching about one thing or another. Then, it turned into an annoying serious of email banter between about 6 people who replied all everytime. So I had to read through about 25 emails of this shit. So, I said, count me out. It gave me a bad feeling... BUT I haven't met any of the new people yet. For all I know, their annoying email personalities aren't what they are like in person. Kate and I talked about this last night and in any case, we just need to accept the fact that this year is going to be different from last. We aren't going to have the awesome group that we had last year. Last year was awesome - we never had to go to any of the rank ALT get togethers because we simply had better things to do. I think this year is going to be a lot different, and once we stop hoping for the great chemistry of last year, the better equipped we will be to accept the new people as they are, and have a good time with that. We're going to the Niigata Newbies thing tonight, so, yeah, ganbarimashou.

So other than that, things really are good here. I need to work on reflecting the positive rather than the negative if I want this year to be something I can live through. I need to get my thick skin back and not let little things get to me as they have been lately, and I need to stop taking the good things for granted.

For example, Kate and I went to Akahige last night. Akahige is a nearby restaurant that we go to because their miso ramen is absolutely to die for. The old woman who works there sometimes tries to chat with us in Japanese. Despite the fact that we can't always understand her, she is interested in us in a positive way. And she shows it by giving us free things lots of times when we go in. Last night was the best though - she gave us the double-sized ramen bowl (which we, of course, couldn't finish!), a bowl of grilled corn to put into the ramen. Then when Kate and I got up to go pay, the girl at the desk told us that they wanted to give us dessert too. So we sat back down and they came back with these huge bowls of ice cream with fresh fruit. It was amazing. That's the kind of thing that I need to start appreciating again. Itadakimasu!