Sunday, March 8, 2009

HA HA HA HA HA HA




And now he will transform, ha aahahaha oh god I am so cool.














Aww the last one came out blurry.
His name is Lockdown, he's a new character created for the recent cartoon, Transformers Animated. He was my birthday present to myself.

Here's another picture of some crap I have:

Meh, it's not a good picture. Oh well. Most of this stuff I got from 50元 vending machines, which are apparently called something like gatchapon machines in Japanese. Man they're all over the place and they're awesome. 50 NTD is a little less than a buck fifty, but that value doesn't exactly translate perfectly, since the cost of everything isn't a perfect scale representation of the cost values in the States. 50 NT here is more like...75 cents in the States, as far as product pricing actual value, as judged by the cost of living. At least for me, since native English speaking teachers get paid a pretty high wage.
I'm rambling.

UHHHHHH

Oh, this will seem exciting. I fell off the bike several weeks ago and skinned my knees and left palm. They've mostly healed, but they're still tender. Uhhhm. Oh and then, last night, well, afternoon, while we were heading down, all three of us on the bike at once (as we often do), the bike like...exploded.
It felt like we'd run over something, as the bike jolted, and we all heard "tink, tink, tink" as something metal bounced away from us across the road. We stopped and I investigated the component which turned out to be a large spring, from the right side of the rear shocks.
So the bike's in the shop 'til Monday. Which is tomorrow! Yay. Hopefully the blasted thing will have less handling problems now. It was getting finicky.
The repairs cost something like 3500元 (which is just about 100$) so thankfully not an issue.

I'm currently looking for work again, although I think I've found something. With luck by the next post I'll be employed again.
I emailed a place and then had like, a problem when they emailed me back. I get so bleak when I think about interviewing. I get so...nervous is not quite accurate, paralyzed with despair is more like. It's totally retarded and it bugs the hell out of me; I just have so much difficulty imagining anything...working...right. Like the way it's supposed to. But no matter, it always works out in the end, once I get over the jitters. Of course I hate hearing that at the time. I hate the word "jitters," actually.

The above paragraph isn't really... it's me trying to describe a fleeting feeling, something very much like creative block, only it manifests in the productive realm of my life. It's not...it's people, really. It's not universal, like how some people are afraid of success or whatever, any time they take a forward step or try to do anything...I wanna say "good," but then I remember all I'm talking about is interviewing for a job.
Interviewing for a job, getting a job isn't "good" isn't "progress," it's not inherently a forward step. It's a means to an end, and as such means very little to me (in terms of stress). It's the god damned people. Dealing with people when I know from experience that they are going to be small-minded, petty, uncreative and/or jealous drives me a little crazy in anticipation of the experience. Beating one's head against a brick wall is not fun, and gets increasingly difficult to convince myself to continue with each repeated occurrence.

But it's all fine if I have enough time to steel myself beforehand.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

An abundance of frogs.

There is an abundance of frogs (toads I think, actually) in the jungle surrounding the dojo where I live. A small bronze toad statue which we found in our room brings us fortune in return for coins. He likes to chew on them. I upgraded him to a 50 dollar piece the other day to thank him for a recent sudden accumulation of funds.

In the pond outside the kitchen, there are many goldfish (also good for money-luck) which I feed occasionally, they're quite big and very pretty. I think they mostly eat bugs and junk that's out there. But there are also many tadpoles, only a few of which are beginning to grow legs and lose their dark black coloration.

At night the croaking is sonorous. And loud.