On tea and slumps

 

Total exhaustion led me to sleep until 1 p.m. today and wake up with a sore throat and a bit of a cold. This is day one of nine consecutive days of work, since the other two Swedish girls' grandma is sick and they can't work this weekend. I figured it was easier to just charge right through and then get my time off at the end of next week for a three day weekend, but maybe I'm one step behind my body and it really would've needed the rest now. Anyways, it's not a terrible cold, and as long as I have my voice and not a fever, I can do my job just fine. It's Monday anyways. Mondays are pushovers.

On things that hurt

“It won’t be easy, when the tears that
the leaving heart had to shed
and the ones shed by the heart staying behind were so uneven.
Nothing’s gonna be alright, but
There were the moments; 
where every minute and second was precious,
where I missed even when I was there with you.
Only remember those.”

On good weekends and tough decisions

It's been a pretty neat weekend, all things considered. Friday night I met my adopted little brother after work for beer. He came by the restaurant, and as there was only another half-hour until closing time, Mafune let me leave early so that we could sit and talk shit before meeting a biologist friend of mine, having a greasy burger and then going home. Is this how working adults spend their Fridays? Two beers tops and then they're all done? I remember being 19-20-ish, where everyone would start drinking at like 8 p.m., go on until 3 a.m. and then hit an after-party. I have no idea where all that energy came from. I'd probably die if I tried pulling that shit now. Give me a nice night in with comedy shows and tea. I can handle that.

On unreasonable demands and finishing up the TEFL

Because self-restraint is overrated.

I can get so ridiculously provoked by some things my sister K does, but mostly I can't stand her all-or-nothing kind of attitude that she shares with her husband, or rather, I would be able to stand it if they would stick to anything longer than after the initial thrill wears off. They decided one day that they didn't like IKEA anymore. Instead of doing the reasonable thing of going "Hey, IKEA is probably good for some stuff, but let's not buy any more IKEA furniture", they went full-on purge-it-with-fire mode. "We're never shopping from IKEA ever again!" which of course only lasted a few months, and then they got mad when I called them on it. Same thing with every time they try to go on a diet. Instead of changing their lifestyle gradually, they go crazy with fad diets or unreasonable demands. "We're never having candy again!" And then a month later, there they are having broken their promise to themselves because they set themselves up for failure by just not being realistic. It's incredibly frustrating. K's new idea is that their family should no longer buy bread, but instead rely on K baking fresh bread whenever it's needed. "We're never buying bread from the store again!" Is this sounding familiar to anyone but me? I'm just waiting to see how long it'll take before that crashes and burns due to K's absolute inability to handle stressful situations. One day, in what I predict to be a not too far off future, they'll be out of bread, she'll throw a tantrum, and they'll never bake bread again.

On fridge hang-ups and tip dilemmas

I try to tell myself that it doesn't bother me that much when our new roomie puts his food on my shelf in the fridge. I don't keep all that much there myself since I don't really eat at home all that often because of work, so it's not like there's no space for him to borrow, but just in terms of my general OCD, it's extremely annoying. I don't like being petty, and going "Hey dude, you can't have your stuff on my obviously very empty shelf" does seem to be one of those enormously petty things, but it irks me. I like our new roomie, but between this fridge dilemma and frying bacon almost every morning... man, I don't know. I can't wait until I have my own place in Japan with my own fridge that I can be anal about.

Cue the unrealistic expectations.

On exhaustion and k-pop related disappointment

Today Pony dropped the bomb on me - possibly no more K-pop Nonstop parties after their season finale on November 29th, that Pony won't even be able to attend, and man, the depression that followed! There are other k-pop venues in Stockholm, sometimes, but the K-pop Nonstop parties were the ones Pony and I really liked going to. We're going to have to find new outlets for k-pop, and finding parties that only play it might be hard. There's always Fried Rice and Kpop+, but Fried Rice doesn't do just k-pop, and Kpop+ is mostly based in Gothenburg and don't really do that many parties in Stockholm. Sigh. Wednesdays really do suck. Luckily Pony redeemed the situation a bit by sending me an upbeat k-pop playlist on youtube, but I'm left wondering what to do now with my pent-up need to dance to awesome music.

On new encounters, good music and becoming one with the Snorlax

Last night, while studying late, I felt really cold. I crawled into my Snorlax suit and kept going for another hour or two, before falling asleep. I now never ever want to take it off, as it was the most comfortable thing I've ever slept in (or walked around in, or lounged around in, or done anything in). It's like this suit is channeling the spirit of Snorlax, and if I keep wearing it as constantly as I've been since finishing it Saturday, sooner or later we'll fuse together and I'll become Snorlax for real.