On unicorns and casual nationalism

 I had the weirdest dream last night, that Pony and I were still living together in the house I lived in when I first moved to Sweden. She'd for some reason brought Junsu over with some other girl she knew, when I was swamped with work and unable to even talk to him, and then adamantly wouldn't understand why I was upset when I could hear them through the walls; talking, laughing and, for some strange reason, playing board games. I ran away and later confronted her with screaming and ugly-crying. The whole thing felt really bizarre.

Things became even more bizarre when I was having lunch with my parents, and suddenly the spitting image of Jaejoong walks in and sits down next to us. I tried not to stare, but, well... come on, it's Jaejoong. It's kinda like spotting a unicorn, if unicorns hung around cheap fast food places in Shibuya. If anything I had to stare for Pony's sake. I even veered from my usual rules of being discrete and snuck a picture of him on my phone. I know, I know, it was rude, but whatever. Some things just need to be done. There was no way I wasn't going to show her. We may be thousands of miles away, but this is pretty much the dance of our people. Stalking.

I got myself a phone today, which has by far been the most nerve wracking and difficult thing since I've come here. So many things to answer! So many cards to show! My Resident Card makes me feel a bit like Leeloo from The Fifth Element. It gets me everything I need around here. Anywho, I ended up with an iPhone 5, which felt totally decadent and pretty unnecessary until I actually tried surfing with it. Holy shit, my old phone was terrible. This is a miracle of speed and wonder in comparison. I'm in love already. Oh, not-terrible-internet-connection, how I've missed thee.

Things weren't terribly odd today. An old Japanese man tried to educate me in the ways of right-wing Japanese nationalism, saying that the Japanese people can be traced to the same age as the founding of Mesopothamia some eight thousand years ago, and the reason no-body believes this is because of western foreigners, pretty much. As always with old people I can't not talk to them, because they're old and tiny and somehow that means that I can't ever disappoint them, but I was still standing there inserting 'oh's and 'really's and other random interjections whenever I figured it to be appropriate, wondering why he was telling me (in not so direct a way) that foreigners suck, when I'm very clearly foreign. He piled some papers on me with lots of kanji and instructed me to read them at my leisure. Maybe I got 'good foreigner' points by speaking Japanese. That does tend to help.

So far I've taken care of all the things needed for signing my work contract on Monday. Tomorrow I'm meeting with the real estate agent to find an apartment. I feel exhausted, but I need to keep pushing. I can be pretty damn lazy, but when something needs to actually get done, I'm getting it done. Pow. I just wish there could be time to rest, but I don't know if I have any before work training starts next week. I kinda look like I've been through hell, but it's only 72 hours of Tokyo on jetlag, emotional turmoil and massive stress. I call bullshit on Scarlett Johansson for being so pretty in Lost in Translation.

Real expats look like zombies.