Meme'd!

I was "tagged" over three months ago by Himene, and it's high time I stepped up.

Eight weird/interesting things about myself:

1. I'm really obsessive compulsive about anything that grows on the surface of my body, namely my hair, my skin, and my nails. Especially my nails. The hair on my head is fine, but once in a while I get a hair in my chin, and I can't stop picking at it. Once it's out, I feel much more relaxed. My skin, when I get a sunburn, I love it when it peels; the bigger the sheet of skin I can peel off at once, the better. I also pick at my lips all the time. My nails, I'm always trimming them and trimming the skin around them. Or picking at the skin around them till I grow hangnails. I can't stand any growth on my toenails, and I will pick at them compulsively until I can trim them. I have a higher tolerance for fingernail length, but nothing that allows me to have a manicure. I'll pick at my hangnails and try to tear them out with my teeth, and sometimes they bleed.

That... should count for three things right there. That was a lot. Yeah, sorry to anyone who was eating while they read that.

Okay,
4. If I step on a sidewalk crack with my right foot, I have to step on another one with my left foot. Have to even things out, you know? Not just sidewalk cracks, but anything I can feel through my shoes.

5. My eyes, my irises, they're like a circle within another circle. It's like I have an outer iris and an inner iris; the inner one is darker, and this has caused people to think my eyes were far more dilated than they really were.

Mmm... I'm running out of stuff....
6. I was a National Merit Scholarship Finalist. And I never got a scholarship out of it. :(

7. I'm right-handed, and my right-hand ring finger is longer than my right-hand index finger. This is normal. But... my left-hand ring finger is also slightly longer than my left-hand index finger, and this is unusual. Or supposed to be.

8. I love brussel sprouts.

As for choosing new meme victims... the violence has to stop somewhere.

The Turning Over

This is a difficult time of year, because the new JETs are coming in soon, which means the old ones have to leave. You know what I've discovered about myself? I don't much like people when I first meet them. At best they're just all right, but usually I find them somewhat annoying. Very rarely do I like someone immediately. It's worse when I feel I'm forced to interact and be friendly with new people, and especially in the case of first-year JETs, who are like college freshmen. While their enthusiasm is refreshing, it's also draining. So I'm forced by circumstance (the need to communicate in my native language with people who don't find American women intrinsically strange... and sometimes with American men, too) into these friendships with people I might not otherwise have been friends with, for better or for worse. And then when I really get to like someone... they leave.

Believe in Olive Fingers

When these commercials came out at the end of the last decade, I tried to find them online, but couldn't. This site seems to be a new creation.

The Orphanage nearly moved me to tears when I first saw it.

Yokatta! I'm so glad I found them!

Hide and Seek

I just found out from New Cheeky Supervisor (have I given him a nickname yet? He's my new supervisor, effective this last April, and he's cheekier than Cheeky Supervisor, but doesn't steal my candy)... anyway, he just told me that Okuizumo has found an ALT for the new elementary position. I don't know how I feel about that. I was a little relieved when Trevor wasn't able to take the position, cos I know he wants to recontract again next year, and that would mean I wouldn't be able to switch to an elementary position in Okuizumo (if I wanted to) when I finish my third year here. (But that's the only reason I was relieved, Trev, I swear!) Also, my current schedule has me visiting elementary schools around town every Monday—pending invitation from those schools, of course, which is why I have nothing to do today—and while they're exhausting, I really like seeing the kids.

So for at least one year I won't be visiting the elementary schools. And if New Girl (I'm sorry, New Girl, if the temporary nickname sounds cold and informal; I just didn't know if you'd want me posting your real name on my blog just yet)... if New Girl wants to recontract, then I'd have to find an open elementary position in another town, if I decide to stay a fourth year.

New Girl is from Auckland, and I've seen her photo, so I know I won't be the only white chick in town anymore. Don't know how I feel about that, either, but it's probably a good thing.
She'll be a first-year. This is unusual, because elementary-only positions, as a rule, are open only to ALTs who have already completed two or three years in junior or senior high school positions. Maybe she already speaks Japanese? I wasn't able to get a thorough look at her information, though I caught a glance at her e-mail addresses. Pointing to one of them, I asked NCS if it was okay for me to contact her. No! No, no, not yet. Not yet. Why on earth not? I don't know, but maybe later this week I'll be able to. Weird.

But he didn't say anything about posting almost everything I know on my blog. :)
So New Girl, find me! Google "Okuizumo" and follow the seventh link!
'Course the sixth link is interesting, too. Ooo...