All I want for Christmas...

Mist rising from a stream like the dust of dancing faeries

A towering thicket of bamboo waving in the wind

A deep tub full of warm water and a mixture of oatmeal and honey

An early morning walk in the cold with a steaming cup of tea

Ancient ruins awaiting my discovery

A fog-shrouded castle perched atop rolling hills

A colorful, bustling marketplace with haggling in many different languages

Curry and カツ丼 and döner kebaps and kinder überraschung

...snapshots from my life thus far; things that I love and miss.

3 months later

3 months later and a lot has happened, but nothing much has changed. I've had a birthday since the last time I updated. I also have an apartment, and I've gone to New England and back. But I still have no job, no idea how to get one, and less than $300 remaining to my name. I still feel awkward around large groups of Americans, still occasionally forget which side the steering wheel is on, and still, as always, feel like a stranger in a strange land. And I am so, so blessed. Eventually I'll get back to writing semi-good posts, but for now I'm too busy trying to stay afloat.

iherb

Well, I'm about as broke as broke can be, and there's no light at the end of the tunnel...it was just the train. So I'm now going to make a sad attempt to tell you about iherb so that I can perhaps afford my supplements for one more month.

You should visit this website: www.iherb.com. You can get just about anything your healthy heart desires. If you use my customer code, which is ORE678, you'll get a whole $5.00 off your first order! That's a pretty good deal I think. It also gives me something like 5% off my next purchase as well; so it's a better deal for you than for me. Just to give you a sample of things you can get at iherb, I'll list some of the things I buy there.

1. A whole food supplement. I buy one by Nature's Plus called Nature's Plus Source of Life Rainbow Lightning Whole Food. It's a great way to make sure you're getting all around good nutrition every day. I notice a big difference in my skin when I don't take it.
2. A women's multi-vitamin. I buy one by Now Foods called Eve, a superior woman's multiple. The bottle says to take 6 a day, but after talking to my natural doctor I take 2 a day because of my age. Younger women should take less, older women more.
3. Face wash and face lotions. My face wash is Now Foods brand Green Tea Pomegranate Facial Cream Cleanser, and my face lotions are Now Foods brand Green Tea Pomegranate Day Cream and Moisturizing Night Cream. They're moisturizing without being too much for my skin, affordable, and best of all they have natural ingredients! The only questionable ingredient I found was in the lotions (ceteareth-20).
4. Jojoba oil. I buy it from (you guessed it) the Now Foods brand. It gives you instantly glowing, radiant skin and hair.

Okay, that's my sales pitch. I do hope you actually go to the website and look around because I'm sure you'll find things to make you feel healthier. Well...I guess it's time for me to get back to fruitlessly job hunting...I have barely enough money for this month's bills...next month I'll be joining the ranks of the homeless. Cardboard boxes, here I come.

chameleon

Sometimes just being alive is difficult. When every sight, smell, sound, and taste drowns you in memories of all the yesterdays, all the other worlds, it can be almost impossible to keep your head above water. As a TCK, I think of myself as a chameleon of sorts...a broken chameleon. An un-broken chameleon sits on a green leaf and turns green. But I sit on a green leaf and turn just green enough to semi-blend but unmistakably stand out. Here I am again in the states, as out of place as ever. Cultural adjustment is extra interesting this time. I'm overwhelmed by all the English everywhere. Suddenly I'm expected to actually talk, so I'm tripping over my tongue half the time. I'm self-conscious when eating in public because table manners are quite different. I have to really concentrate when driving so that I stay on the American side of the road; I didn't drive much in the states and I got my first car in Japan, so Japanese-style driving is the default mode in my head. I miss my kids. A lot. I'm exhausted at the end of every day just from the effort of adjusting. I wish that somewhere outside myself my worlds would collide.

remembering

I'm leaving in a week, so naturally I'm in a very reflective mood. What a couple of years its been. I feel like I've grown quite a bit, and at the same time, failed in many ways. One thing I regret is expecting. I expected the AET group to be like military dependents; I expected the group to be diverse, welcoming, and world-savvy in the same way as military dependents are. And because that wasn't the case things were a bit difficult. For the first six months or so, I tried to be part of the group, tried to fit in, to be involved. It was a difficult six months. It seemed like everyone pretty much knew everyone else and I didn't know anyone. Everyone was making plans with everyone else and I wasn't a part of it. Eventually I got the feeling that I was more of a bother to the group than anything else, so I stopped trying and kept to myself. The most blatantly obvious example of my bothersome-ness to the group was at this past year's welcome party for the new AETs. I told people that I would be a few minutes late; when I got there, everyone acted like they were surprised I was there (even though I had pre-paid and talked to people about it) and so hadn't saved me a seat. So they put me at a table by myself in the corner with my back to everyone. And when I speak it tends to be taken the wrong way or I get that glazed-over eyes look. It's been a silent two years. I don't have any bad feelings toward anyone here; that's just the way it is. My life experience is rather drastically different from theirs so I suppose such things should have been expected. Some of the really rewarding relationships were with people that don't speak my language- my kids. My 6th grade girls and I have inside jokes despite the language barrier. I'll really miss all my "monkeys," as they call themselves. So many good times, so many learning experiences. I look back at these two years and smile, refusing to forget the bad or the good and learning from both. Japan...goodbye, my friend. さいよなら。

stuff and things

One month is all I have left here. I'm torn about moving of course, like I always am. I'm convinced it's the right thing though, so that makes it a little easier.

In my perspective, Japan will always be a little bit bizarre. It's interesting the things I've gotten used to that I once thought were really odd. Like:

• sweeping the dirt/grass. I still think it's odd, but I really like doing it, it's quite relaxing actually.
• the nearly constant soundtrack that plays throughout the day at work. It'll feel weird not having music to eat, clean, and walk down the hallway to.
• masks. I hate wearing them myself but I often have the urge to give them to anyone who happens to cough or sneeze near me.

And then there are the things that I will never get used to. Like:

• phone noises. Just the other day I was in the teacher's room working on stuff, and I heard strange noises in the back of the room. I looked, thinking that we had a new handicapped student that I hadn't met. But nope. It was a co-worker on the phone.
• certain clothing choices. I was in the teacher's room really absorbed by the work I was doing, when a flash of pink distracted me. I looked up, and one of my co-workers was running around with a bright pink apron on and a bright yellow bandana on her head. No idea what that was about.
• men and very feminine pink. I saw an old man riding a pink bike a few days ago. Yesterday there was guy running past the school in a bright pink (like 80's bright) jogging suit. I've seen a man wearing a rather masculine hardcore biker outfit walking a chiuaua that was wearing a bright pink sweater.

I'm sure there are other things and I'll post them if I think of them. That's all for now folks!

scattered

I can't seem to keep my mind focused these days; there's so much that I should be doing that I can't seem to do anything at all. Christmas was great, of course, and full of many "random" events that weren't actually random at all. January was good. This past Friday was kind of the best day ever because I got to cross another thing off my list: after 14 years of being a fan, on Friday night I was finally able to go to a Backstreet Boys concert, and it was...well I don't really know how to describe how much fun I had; I'll always love BSB. And now the first week of February is gone, leaving me with less than 2 months here. It's as official as it can get at this point. I've got the plane ticket and I've started packing. Why does it always feel so weird...

And why do people settle for lives they don't want? Why do people have dreams but trade them in for the standardized life the world sells us? Why do people look at me like I'm insane when I tell them I'd like to go learn about the gypsies in Romania, and be a sailor on a tall ship for at least a few months, that I'd like to fly a hot air balloon and go on a completely un-planned-out journey? Is it because of my gypsy-like childhood that I see the

world in vivid color, that I know there's too much out there to waste my life in a cubicle? Not that everyone in a cubicle is wasting their lives; I know that's not true. But it would be true for me. There's just....so much more out there....if I could just figure it out....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wwXfAFQoh8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn0lhsXHEhc