On paper mountains and bad run-ins

Sorry about the almost aggressive lack of posting, silent readers. It's been a bumpy couple of days. I celebrated my last day of work yesterday, which felt good and bad at the same time. Like, I really like my coworkers, but I hate dealing with most customers. Saying bye to people I like feels kinda sad. Of course I'll probably be by a few more times, especially seeing as I still need to turn in my hours, but I won't be working there anymore, and that feels strange. Good, but strange. Given how I've been feeling since New Years, I think I need time away from that place.

It's a list long enough to make anyone a bit messed up.

I received directions from Gaba about all the paperwork I'll need. It's a lot of paperwork. Like, mountains of it. I need even more, with my visa application being 'not a straightforward case', and it scares the hell out of me. My contact at Gaba says that they're 'optimistic', and I tell myself that they wouldn't waste time and resources on me if they didn't think this would work out, but I'm a bit too nervous to trust my gut completely. I've emailed all of my old international schools, and I'm going to try to score a meeting with the person in charge of the first three years of Architecture school to ask what I should do about the letter from them stating that some things were done in English. I'm just going to fess up and tell them that I panicked when selecting a percentage, and then beg them to help me out. I don't like putting my hopes and dreams in the hands of others, but that's pretty much what I have to do now and just trust that everything will work out for the best. I have until March 24th to sort everything out, although obviously the sooner the better, and it's what I'll be spending most of next week on trying to organize. There are just so many things I worry about, because all of these things could potentially crash and burn horribly.

I spent last night getting wasted with Inkybrother to celebrate that I'd finished work and that the Japan thing finally seems to be happening, and he stated that this was going to be an amazing experience, even if it crashes and burns. To me, as long as it crashes and burns there, and not before I've gotten over the visa hump, I can deal with anything. I keep feeling I probably shouldn't have said anything until the visa stuff got handled, just in case things don't work out (in which case I seriously don't know what I would do. Alter everything about my existence I guess, right after feeling horribly mortified), but the cat's out of the bag and it's totally my fault. Chances are this won't go to shit after all, so I guess it hardly matters in the long run if I told people now or in a month.

Despite the whole thing being fraught with anxiety and nerves and all things unpleasant, I'm beginning to feel excited about it, not to mention hopeful. These past few days, it's only really felt scary, but now it's transitioning into more of a 'ooh, let's look for a nice apartment' or 'ooh, the furniture!' or 'ooh, I wonder what kind of souvenirs I'd send home for people in little care packages' (because brace yourselves: the Japanese goodie packages will be coming), and it's a nice change. Still terrified, but it's not so much the paralyzing fear that it was on Wednesday (and Thursday and Friday too...). The Philosopher gave me a bouquet of tulips to celebrate the job the other day (like his mom had gotten him tulips when he got his new job last week, because tulips are now job-flowers), and while they, like all things job related, were a source of some anxiety in the beginning, I now stick my face in them every time I'm in the kitchen, happily breathing in and listening to the creaky noises they make.

<3

What did shake me a bit (but was kinda unrelated to Japan) was that I literally accidentally ran into Moonlight while walking to work yesterday. He grabbed me by the shoulders and was all 'Hey!' and huggy and I didn't know what to do or where to look or what to say. I was very unprepared and just kinda wanted to leave. He had another Korean friend with him, so it just turned even more awkward and weird. "Why haven't you called or texted?" he asked, and in my head I was going 'Seriously, you're asking me that?' and wondering what it is he doesn't understand about what went down between us. I love my supportive friends though. I told Pony about it, and instantly got the love I needed. "Huuugs!" I told Sand about it, and instantly got the sass I needed. "I've decided that he's a total dork. I mean, look at the pictures he posts on facebook. Hipster dork behaviour." The thing with Moonlight is that he's a very kind person, but hopelessly slow in understanding how other people feel. Prior to running into him, I was thinking if maybe I would be cool hanging out again, but I don't think I am yet. Seeing someone and feeling your face momentarily turn into an 'oh god no'-expression and your head go 'shit shit shit shit how do I get out of this?' is generally a bad sign.