Busy Busy

I'll admit it: the month of November has been tough on this blog. If anything I posted seemed rushed (perhaps not very well-rounded or with an occasional grammatical error), chances are it was; probably being written on little sleep and in between more pressing obligations that I actually felt I should've been tending to rather than managing my blog. It's been a long month, but I'm happy to say that things are starting to looking up now that I'm nearing the elimination of three major tasks that have effectively dominated my life.

The first of which are applications for the JET Program, a teaching exchange program that hires English speaking foreigners to assist in teaching the language in Japanese schools. The application process is extensive and nerve-wracking. But after weeks of preparation and planning that still lead to last minute panic, I mailed out the application in one piece this weekend, a mere three days before it's due date. From here it's a waiting game, but I'd much rather deal with the stress of waiting for a response than the stress of compiling everything to send out on time. I mean, damn.

The second task has actually been going on for some time. For the last year, I've held a part-time night job at a bookstore that I worked on top of a full-time day job. As you can imagine, the two jobs thing isn't the most awesome experience in the world, especially when that second job is in retail and it's nearing the peak of the holiday season. I've had to sacrifice sleep, time with my fiancèe, and possible nights out with friends. But I knew the hard work would be worth it if I could accelerate the process of eliminating my debt. I'm happy to say that I reached a major milestone in that regard on Friday, when I payed off my car. It's still sort of a surreal feeling and hasn't quite sunk in yet, but I'm sure it will next month when I realize that I have a couple hundred extra dollars sitting in my checking account. Because of this achievement, I should be able to phase out of the two job stage in the next couple of months and dedicate more time to this blog, my hobbies, and of course my fiancèe.

And speaking of my fiancèe, we've got this whole wedding thing coming up, and we gotta...you know...let people know about it and shit. We decided to go the creative route and make our own invitations. Given her job as a designer and mine as a printer, it just sort of made sense. And of course we came up with this elaborate ass idea, but unfortunately, with everything else going on in our lives, not to mention a bit of indecisiveness, we sort of slacked on it. But with less than 90 days until the big day, and with the confusing hustle of the holiday season coming up, we knew we had to get these babies out by December. Many headaches later, we're getting ready to print and package everything this week, and will hopefully be ready to mail them out by the weekend.

So what I'm basically saying is that things around here are set to improve now that I'll have more time on my hands. I'm glad, and even somewhat amazed, that I've kept it updated for a mere two months considering everything that's going on. I'm satisfied with some of what I've done so far, and I'm optimistic that with time, it'll only become more worth someone's time to read.

This'll be a short week because of the Thanksgiving holiday, but things will be back to normal starting in December. To celebrate the holiday, tomorrow and Wednesday I'm going to give thanks to some classic albums that I've discovered this year.

Stay classy, folks. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to enjoy a song of celebration.



"I'm In Love With My Car" by Queen