On feeling needed and feeling happy

"If you're not working, then who is?" Shan the Sri Lankan man asked me with a smile when I asked if I was working today as well, which in part made me wonder how stretched for people they really are, in part when they'll give me a schedule, but mostly made me think of this segment from Kamikaze girls. 'Kimi jyanakute dame nan desu' - 'It has to be you'. Not that I think it was meant quite in that way, but it made me laugh a little on the inside and want to watch that movie again. I love it, it's amazing.

I think I'm being treated a little bit like some sort of rare pet by the owners. They had a wine testing evening yesterday with a large group of Japanese guests, which caused every single wine glass in like the entire establishment to be used, causing chaos for Shan and I when serving as well as a sea of wine glasses to take care of after the testing was over, and when the guests left they all beamed happily at me and said 'Good work' and 'Good evening', even though I hadn't been around them in any way all evening. "Look, we have this tall chick we can speak Japanese to, isn't it cool?" A little like if I were a parrot that could speak or whatever. I'm not complaining, I personally find it pretty endearing that they seem to have taken a liking to me like that. Even Karate Husband seems happy with me, as he left with a happy 'Ganbatte!' - 'work hard!/good luck!' directed my way.

My plans to spend some time with Sand kinda failed a little, as work kept me late and we were very busy, but she and Max came by the restaurant after we'd closed, and I shared the sushi Shan made me for dinner with them while sitting on a park bench in the square before going for a short walk before going home. It was nice that they wanted to take the time to come out and see me even though it was really late. It's so sad that she's leaving for Porto on Sunday. I wish I had more time to spend with her, but I really don't want to say no to any work shifts at all at this point. Not only to keep the owners happy and to make myself popular, but also because I'm really happy to have what feels like a sense of purpose again. I don't think I realized how much I missed working before. Being a waitress is a little like trying to figure out a complex puzzle - you have to remember things, put them in order and press the right buttons at the right time, all while smiling and looking happy. I really like being efficient, and I like when things are in their proper place (and even though I'm really bad at being organized myself, I can be amazingly organized with other peoples' things) and I can totally see myself getting really good at this job.



Whenever I've been feeling a little bit stressed out about things at work, I hum this Sakanaction song, mostly for the chorus where he sings 'yukkuri' - 'slowly/at ease'. Lyrics-wise, it doesn't really have anything to do with doing anything slowly, but it's a good reminder when I start to panic a little. 'yukkuri, sou yukkuri'. Shan keeps praising me though. "Look at you! Not nervous or anything!" to which I looked up with probably a terrified look on my face, and said "I'm super nervous." Shan told me to chill, that no-one was going to yell at me about anything, and that was all very comforting.

I feel so much happier after I started working. Last week I was a sad wreck and would cry at the thought of my generally hopeless, jobless situation, but now it's like my mood's done a 180 with this job. I still feel a little guilty for not doing that much on my TEFL, but I'll be able to plan that better when the schedule comes along. No biggie.