Yeah, so…..I’m totally addicted to those Stephenie Meyer “Twilight” books.  Yes, I know they’re not that good.  Yes, I know that blah blah blah.

Seriously, I needed something to take my mind off of work and applying to school.  What could be better than these angst-ridden vampire teenagers in love?  I mean, there are no sub-plots, no lengthy descriptions, no frills.  It’s just one linear scene after another.  It’s like watching an action movie.  You know the script isn’t that great, but the car chases are just so cool.  Ah, what can I say.  I make no excuse.  I’m enjoying myself too much.

 

So much too much, in fact, that I can’t get anything done.  I’m not allowed to read the third book until I send off my pension forms and I can’t read the last book until my grad application is submitted.  Yikes.  I need goals like this more often!  On that note, I’m not allowing myself to drink beer until I’ve studied my GRE words.  Those who have been near me lately (of which there are about two or three people) will know that my sanity depends very much upon a cold beer when I get home from work.  

And speaking of work, I received a call from the nanny agency I applied for.  Hmm, I wonder how that’s going to turn out.

Oh man, you know it’s been a long day when you have a bottle of beer in one hand and the phone in the other and you put the beer up to your ear to talk.

 

I need a new job.

“If you say, “This is a rock from the moon,” you will be very much interested in it.  Actually I don’t think there is a great difference between rocks we have on the earth and those on the moon.  Even if you go to Mars, I think you will find the same rocks.  I am quite sure about it.  So if you wan to find something interesting, instead of hopping around the universe like this, enjoy your life in every moment, observe what you have now, and truly live in your surroundings.”

- Shunryu Suzuki

 

We had a dinner party last night (it was really a wine and snacks party) and it went off without a hitch so I have to share our spread.  Mmm.

Today I actually got out before it was too late and took some photos of the beautiful leaves around our apartment.  It’s a very peaceful day outside.  I wish I didn’t have a tiny hangover.  Maybe time for a little hair of the dog.

 

This is where I live.  The no-man’s land of the U-district.  You wouldn’t know that just a couple of blocks in the other direction is the hub of the whole area.

 

I’ll post the rest of the pics later.  After a bit of lunch.

In the second week of September, I went to Marrowstone Island.

I’m posting this picture more of a reminder to myself.  I’ve spent hours over the last year pouring over my pictures from Japan, of which I have hundreds (I mean, I carried my camera everywhere with me) and since I’ve come home, I’ve had almost no urge to take pictures of anything.  Not in Seattle, anyway.  I took my camera to Marrowstone because there was something there I wanted to bring back with me.  It’s strange that I haven’t been inspired to take any pictures of where I live, or what I’m looking at.

Just now, the leaves are turning.  They are turning more quickly than I ever remember them turning before.  I should try and get a couple of shots, mainly for myself.  It’s part of my long process of coming out of reverse culture shock, hehe.  

To the photographers out there, do you ever look outside and think: yup, just the street I live on, and not particularly an image I want to look at when I go through my photos later.  

I should start taking day trips on the weekends.  The price of gas is going down anyway, so I no longer have an excuse.

So…

I didn’t really think I’d ever have a second journal to my LJ, which for all effects and purposes is for me to read others and never to write in my own.  I don’t know why I’m looking for a more “private” feeling journal.  I mean, this is the internet, after all.  I remember, though, when I first got my LiveJournal four or five years ago, I used to write in it quite often, and writing in it was useful to me.  

I’ve been writing in paper journals, which has been good for me.  I never have been much of a journal sort of person, but that’s changed in the last couple of years, especially since I went to Japan.  I feel a little embarrassed, somehow, to post how I feel about my life and about Japan in my old journal, so I’m going to try it here.  Thus, here is my pretentious first post on wordpress.  May it serve me well.