Cozy in our every day lives

Funfact: the title was stolen from a small child's T-shirt. I smile every time I see 'Japenglish' and I am so sad that I will not see it anywhere near as often in the coming school year. From middle school onwards, and even in some elementary schools, the students wear uniforms, and that makes me sad. The hope is that the students can make me smile as much, but I have my doubts. Of the classes I will miss, which are about half of them, my 3-2 class from my third school I will miss the most. They are my favorites, they love me, and I only wish that other kids would play with me like they always want to. Still, they aren't my kids, so I'm just going to have to get over it and move on.

How about a song?

So, for this week, I finally got the location of my new apartment, and probably where I'll be working for the next year. Honestly, I'm pretty excited about it. I'm right next to a huge park, it seems like a relatively flat area so roller skates might not be as dangerous as they are here, and I may end up skating to school which is always something I've thought about trying, but then remembered how steep some of the roads here are and how I might die doing that. Also, being sweaty in my work clothes before school due to a 20 minute skate? Not ideal.

That said, without my car, I will be bound to my skates for the most part, and I think I'm actually going to buy a bike once June rolls around. For as fun as skating is, It's a lot of effort and doesn't get me as far or fast as a bike does, and bikes generally have breaks which makes going down hills a lot safer. I've had two too many accidents while skating in Matsue, and that tends to turn me off skating for a while. However, my new area does have a bouldering gym about ten minutes from another station, so depending on how the route works out, I'll be joining that and doing that again. This gym even has lead climbing, so I won't be limited to just whatever boulders they have up for the month.

Originally, I thought the boulding gym I went to was too expensive, but I was not exactly living frugally at the time. Due to necessity, these days, I'm a bit more conscious of how much I'm spending. This one is more expensive than the last one, but man, I miss bouldering so much. I seem to have this cycle where I join a climbing gym, join a regular gym, stop all together, and then restart the cycle every four or so months. I did this in the US during lockdowns becuase I fucking despise masks and generally went wherever the 'masks do literally anything' narrative hadn't set in. I would not wear one, I never got that totally bogus, untested vaccine, and time has vindicated all my decisions. Still, once restrictions were lifted after a year or so, I did go back to climbing, and I loved every minute of it.

The other thing I miss is my motorcycle, and depending on how money shakes out this year, I'll be trying to get one of those. I've found out over the course of February that I can actually write for money provided I can build an audience or land a gig, and I'm working on writing some portfolio pieces to apply to these places. My biggest problem, of course, is that 90% of my work is fanfiction, and that which isn't is just fanfiction twisted enough to be passed as original. The plan is to take the 'I live in Japan' niche and try to sell that to various blog sites, along with using another site that pays per click but caters to fiction writers specifically. Once the chaos settles and I figure out my new routine, I'll be devoting myself to that much more than now.

However, now, we're in chaos mode. I move in two weeks. I have to prepare everything I need to move, sell what I don't need, pack what I do, throw away a bunch of crap I've collected over the year, and seriously cut everything down to what is absolutely necessary. Getting an apartment is expensive in the US of course, but it's like prohibitively expensive here. I don't get paid till the 20th, and I think I owe the move in fee on the 15th or so, and its like, 1.5K USD. My monthly income is like 700USD. There were a lot of lucky things that happened at the same time that are allowing me to move at all, and I'm still going to have to borrow some from my parents just to get into this apartment. Add on to the fact that I don't know if I'm getting any money back after moving out of my old one, and I'm going to be totally broke for at least a few days.

If I hadn't grown to hate where I currently live, it wouldn't even be worth it. But I do not like Matsue, or Shimane generally, and I don't want to be here anymore, so we gamble it all on making some extra money in the future. On a related note, its not that I hate the area, the people, my job, or anything like that either. It's the weather I despise. I don't like cloudy, I don't like rainy, I don't like snowy, and I don't like the cold. November to April, this place is most of those things, and even in the other months, it's still cloudy every other day. It actually drives me crazy.

I've also learned a lot about the company I work for and the options I have moving forward. One way or another, I'm going to increase my income either by lowering my living expenses or finding another job, and with the lighter schedule I'll be afforded in my new school, It shouldn't be all that hard. I've been living like I took a gap year after college for the last six years, really, and now it's time to get off the couch and go make a living. What burns me the most a bout all this is that I had a decently paying job back in the US right after college that I definitely could've done all these things, had I been smart enough to look.

But, I'm not about to let myself be regretful over what was; it's done. What matters now is that I can see the moves I need to make going forward, and I'll be making those moves as their time comes.

Unrelated to all that, I have started drawing again, so here are my pieces for the week.

If you're wondering, these characters are from the Songbook Universe (Where Star Overhead takes place) and part of a series set about fifteen years after the events of Star Overhead. More on these stories later. I wanted to have the second one done by now, but it isn't and it's growing in scale, so who knows when I'll actually finish that. I'll see if I can't post the first one somewhere next week to share.

Anyways, that's all from me.
Until Next Time~
-KCZ