Paying Tuition

So I drove over to the school on Friday to pay my tuition for massage school, but found that I had missed the people who could accept my payment by twenty minutes! It annoyed me, honestly. I had asked hubby to wake me up that morning, but he didn't, so I woke at noon (as usual). I had only been told I needed to be there by 2 p.m., so to find that I couldn't do it disappointed me. I want it over with, so that I can say 'I WILL be enrolled'. So today I tried to get up early again and failed. Woke up around 1:30. :/ So I sent off an email explaining what I wanted, and could I please just call and pay that way, but she hasn't gotten back to me. So I'm still waiting to pay. I have until the end of the business day of the first of October to do it, I believe. So I'll just keep trying.

On to my sleeping problems: I'm seriously straining my leg every day. I'm pushing it past its limits, and wearing myself out. I think this accounts for a large portion of my heavy sleeping. For nearly the last week (except for two days when I woke up around seven a.m.) I've been sleeping anywhere from twelve to fourteen hours a night. It's honestly frustrating. I want to get up but I'm so heavily tired that I just fall back asleep. Hopefully tomorrow Hubby can get me up and I can drive over and pay for my tuition. He tried to get me up this morning, but I just turned over and went back to sleep.

We're gonna be meatless for the next few days! Mainly because we always shop together, and Hubby is overloaded with work until Thursday. So I'll make meals with what we have lying in the freezer/cabinets until then. It'll be interesting! I'm kinda excited.

Today hubby had a bad day. So instead of the plain salad and rolls I was gonna make for dinner, I also made steak (that had been in the freezer) and fudgy brownies. The rolls were amazing: covered and soaked in butter, garlic salt, and parmesan cheese. The salad included tomatoes, lettuce, shredded cheese, boiled snow peas, boiled spinach, lemon juice, and sea salt. It sounds a little odd, but it's actually pretty good. I also made coleslaw and cucumber salad the other day, but Hubby doesn't like those. We have a lot of leftovers/bentos made up for him to take to work, so at least I don't have to worry about that.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but Hubby and I are jogging together now. It's kind of a waste for him to go though, since he doesn't even break a sweat.... Whereas I come home with my lungs on fire and my legs burning. I know I'm taking necessary baby steps. To show how baby they are: First time was 3 minutes, second was 5, third was 6, and fourth was 9. Then I integrated sprints on my fifth trip (jog a stretch, sprint one, jog one, etc.) and only lasted 6 minutes. Next time (in a little while) I'll start with walking fast, then jogging and sprinting, to try and get my time up and let my legs go through various ranges. When I was jogging last time, I thought about how I'm even able to jog. I haven't been able to run for over three months. The fact that I can jog and run without fear of falling over because my knee gave out is AMAZING. My first few times, I was actually cautious, halfway expecting it to give out on me. Now I have to adjust my legs to their new status. What I mean is, my right leg feels comfortable jogging and running. It's familiar. But my left.... is not. It jolts and jars and feels subtly wrong. So I'm trying out my paces, trying to find the comfortable fit I know is there somewhere. And in the course of that, get my reserves back up. Cause only lasting 3 minutes is.... just humiliating.

I was going through Christmas gifts, organizing them, considering packaging, and basically taking inventory. And I realized. I have nearly nothing for my oldest nephew. I'm seriously considering just getting him a Gift Card for his Game Shop place. But that seems so heartless, so I'm wavering between that and picking out a video game for him. I don't know. I do know that I made him some Venom hand warmers. ^.^ They look pretty good, even though they're small. They also work REALLY well. If anyone wants anything, let us know. If it's not an overly difficult/expensive gift, we'll do our best. OR if you have ideas for a 13 year old nephew/little bro, lay 'em on me. ;)

hahahaha. This is funny:
http://funnymama.com/post/212306

Help Meh, Peeps.

I am applying for a scholarship to make massage school $1,000.00 cheaper. So I wrote an essay (they don't have any particulars, so I just wrote a generic one until I get more details) and would like everyone's feedback on it. Here it is, in all it's 'written five minutes ago' glory:

Why I chose Massage School 

                When I was three, I walked into my mother’s room and found my older sisters both holding one of my mother’s legs. I was confused, but I had seen it before, so I just walked over and added my hands to one leg, and started squeezing. That was the beginning of massage for me. Over the years I got a lot better, and could sense where and how hard to apply the pressure. My increase in skill also meant my mom started paying me to do it, and I could make 20 dollars a week working on her back, her legs, her arms, and sometimes even her gluts. I wanted to be a massage therapist, but when I consulted my mom, she worried me, telling me my hands would be exhausted within five years, that I wouldn’t make enough money to support myself doing it, and that I had a bright future ahead of me already so I shouldn’t jeopardize it for a hobby. I gave in, but never got the urge to massage out of my blood.

                In Japan, I massaged my upperclassmen and they taught me some neat massage tricks. My host mom told me I should charge about 5 dollars for a massage at school and I would make a killing, but it felt wrong to charge strangers for massages when I didn’t have any kind of credentials. I pulled some muscles in my back while doing Aikidou over there and a friend gave me a ‘sports massage’. It was the first time I realized massage could actually do more damage than the injury when done wrong. So I stuck to what I knew and kept my massages safe and free of charge.

                Since then, I have graduated from college with a degree in Japanese Language and Culture, gotten married and moved far away from family to be with my husband while he gets his Masters in Chemical Engineering. I have found that while my language skills have not found me any jobs, there are jobs everywhere for massage therapists. I have learned that there are ways to circumvent wearing your hands out. I have also found that I can’t imagine continuing to live without massage. I have needed massage to counteract the effects of minimum wage jobs. I have needed massage to comfort my body and decrease the tensions caused by financial worries (and isn’t that ironic) and physical ailments. I have even needed massage to help me deal with frustration and give my hand something productive to do. So I have decided that if I can’t live without massage, I may as well embrace it and become a massage therapist like I wanted to be when I was 16 and wondering what to do with my life.

                My mom may continue to worry about the financial stability of a massage therapist, but my husband understands how important it is to me, and agreed to my returning to school. After all, he’s going to school full time and working three jobs besides, just to support us. I am finding it difficult to work while I recover from my ACL reconstruction surgery, but if I can decrease the costs in any way, I will reach out and do my best. I want to make things easier for him and help push the worry away, so I am applying for a scholarship to help keep school from eating into our savings too much. If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that if you don’t try, you won’t succeed. So I will try and excel at school, and I will try and find a job that won’t interfere with schooling or take time from my studies, but a scholarship would make it easier and give us some needed breathing room. I hope you will consider me; thank you for your time. 

Generic Post

Heyla folks!

First off: April commented on my previous post! HUZZAH! She isn't dead! *cheers*

Second: Pineapples got her interview off to a great start! YAAAAAY! Awesome job on the code, since they couldn't crack it. I think that means you have an incredibly strong chance of being hired. ^.^ I hope you like the town.

Third: Maya is being unfairly cute. She was so cute, she managed to get hubby to let her lay on his lap and pet her for a long time. That's my spot....

Fourth: I think I'm fighting off a cold. I slept for nearly 14 hours last night. And had a nightmare. :/ Not fun times.

So I guess I should start my post. Hmmm. I haven't been up to very much. I'm trying to watch how much I eat, which generally ends up with me either snacking too much, or so hungry that I end up overeating anyway. Tch.

I think I should groom Maya soon, but I don't wanna sit on the floor. And I don't want her hair all over the bed or couch, so the floor is really the only option.

It's finally getting cool enough for us to open our windows at night, but I'm worried about bugs getting in, so we haven't opened them yet. Since it's getting cool though, I think I should start jogging. Last time I only lasted for three minutes. It was almost embarrassing. I want to aim for longer, but I don't think I can. *sigh* I'll never get better if I don't continue though. So after this, I will go jogging again. Hopefully this time I won't have an audience. That made it marginally more embarrassing last time.

I've restarted PT, but I think my Therapist decided to punish me for not making it in those two-three weeks. She crammed a lot of stuff, and increased the difficulty of pretty much all of it. Sprints on bicycles is killer. And I used to do it for fun.

Speaking of my knee, I think I'm getting some feeling back in the no-feels-zone. Unfortunately, it's mostly pained pokes and itching. It'll probably get better soon.

I'm gonna try some acne control recipes, and I hope Hubby will cooperate and let me do them on him too. It doesn't look likely though. He says neither of us needs it, and while I mostly agree, it's supposed to get blackheads out and decrease the size of your pores so you get fewer and fewer. That would definitely be nice, especially on my forehead (read: No digging zone). It's so difficult to get anything off my forehead I have mostly given up. I think I'll go take that jog now.

Here's a song to boost you up. It was a little more difficult than I expected to find a video to suit the lyrics.:

I put my best foot forward, but it didn't fit the shoe.

I actually got terminated today. *blinks* They said that I wasn't a good fit. I was, understandably, shocked. I was on my fifth day of training, when they normally train you for at least two weeks straight, and they didn't really seem to give me the chance to fix the 'mistakes' I was told I was making. On the other hand, I had been worried about getting to school in time with this job, and they only get the actual Christmas/Thanksgiving Day off. They work all the other days. So if I don't get another job, and just concentrate on my schooling, I'll be able to go home for the holidays with hubby.

I was shocked enough that I was numb the whole way home, and when I got home, I curled up around Rebby and wrote out a list of pros and cons to getting fired. Because while my pride and ego were hurt, I was seeing some good possibilities.

I'll be honest and say that I also wrote my comments on the sheet, because I thought I wouldn't be able to get them out if I tried to talk. I was so disappointed with myself. I always thought I just sucked at applications, but that if someone gave me a chance, I could easily wow them. Apparently not.

In a minute, I'll list the pros and cons we came up with. For now, I want to tell you a little more.

I was thinking yesterday about how I don't fit right in. And it reminded me quite vividly of school, where I never fit a neat little niche. I always had to carve out my own little space, and so I wasn't particularly worried that I didn't fit in immediately. I figured, I have time to make my friends and establish myself, so I don't have to worry about not fitting some cookie-cutter model. But I *did* be myself. I made witty comments, and joked around and worked hard to remember everything. I got pulled aside yesterday and told that I don't have the experience to wonder about the methods, and that I seemed to be unreceptive toward my training. She asked me to be more open-minded, and I tried. I hadn't realized I was being closed-minded. I just asked a lot of questions, trying to understand everything and take it all in.

I was worried about how slowly I worked, but I was so worried about the slowness because I knew I was trying to put out quality work. I didn't want to make any mistakes. Of course though, checking hundreds of sheets a day, I made mistakes. My trainer didn't seem unduly surprised or upset at the mistakes, and said they were to be expected. I only really made one big mistake, not catching a reciept/payment discrepancy and authorizing the transaction. It was a difference of 80 dollars, and the company may be out that money. I won't know, because they're going to take care of it on Monday.

I was told that my work was too inconsistent. That really bothered me, because I didn't think I was inconsistent at all. Of course, then I thought of how sluggish I got after lunch most days, compared to before lunch, and figured maybe my work suffered. I'll never know. I'm so very confused. I didn't think there was a two week limit to make friends. Maybe that's the point. But I will admit I didn't know what to do with myself during lunches when I would inevitably end up having a good thirty minutes by myself with nothing to do. I would have happily gone back to work if they had work I could do without someone having to check my work every couple of minutes.

So, we just went swimming, and I slept for 14 hours or so. Most of the dreams I had revolved around reviewing my work and trying to find what was wrong, but I also had an interesting kind of adventure-type dream that my sister starred it. It was kinda cool, and finally saved me from sleep.

So, now to list my pros and cons of being terminated.

Cons-

1. No longer the breadwinner, i.e. no more lotsa money-making

2. Embarrassed. I (as always) went in thinking it was long-term. I made my plans accordingly, and bought clothing to match. At least I got some cute outfits out of this?

3. No seeing friend R. :( It was nice being able to see her. I'm also (marginally) worried she'll be embarrassed that I didn't 'make the cut'.

4. Don't get to make matching bentos for hubby and me anymore.

5. Don't wanna tell my family I got fired. I JUST told them I got the job.

6. I'm disappointed in me. I never imagined I couldn't be everything someone needed. Egotistical? Yes. True? Yes.

Pros-

1. 6:45 a.m. = Sleep. No more bed at 10 p.m. for me!

2. Not miserable, surrounded by walls and other people that are vicious and happy to be miserable.

3. No more traffic jams! By Thursday, I was becoming that horrid person that is just mad to be delayed by traffic, when I've always been the one to turn up the music and dance in my car while I wait.

4. Can attend school without problems. I was very worried that I wouldn't be able to get to school on time every day (due to traffic), which would have meant I would be kicked out of school. Now I have no/few worries!

5. Won't get fat fast. I could almost feel myself gaining weight, sitting in that uncomfortable chair day after day, eating my face off during every break, having nothing to do for an hour every day during lunch. Now I can swim and exercise!

6. No more vicious women who seem to delight in telling stories about how stupid their husbands are. I couldn't add anything to those convos, because I'm VERY aware of how awesome my husband is. They also constantly bitch about the other branches, and how they have to clean up after them.

7. Reb has transport to work! So now he doesn't have to take the nasty smelly buses.

8. No breakfast tacos! They told me I had to have them, because it was an 'Austin Tradition' or something. They were mostly filled with scrambled eggs (I don't like eggs) and greasy meats. Even the potato one had eggs and grease. Now I don't have to try them and say how awesome they are when they aren't!

9. No more heartburn! Every day for the first week, I found myself with some awful heartburn and couldn't really figure out why. I wasn't eating anything strange, after all. Then when they terminated me, suddenly I felt the heartburn rising and realized it was stress increasing the acid in my stomach and giving me trouble. So I calmed down a bit, and it went away! No more heartburn, BANZAI!

10. PT is now something I can continue, at least until we reach the max visits allowed by insurance. Before, they were closed by the time I got off work, and not open before I left for work, so it wasn't possible.

11. I can read books again!!!

12. Can talk to Caitlec now! I had to go to bed so very early before, and so we couldn't really talk much, but now we can!

13. Can maybe go home for Christmas? We have a workable time-table for Christmas, if my school takes enough time off for the holidays. I really hope they do.

So in conclusion, the pros far out weight the cons, but I still feel like shit for failing. And failing is really the only thing holding me to this experience, because it's kinda great that I don't have to work there anymore. Reb says that maybe they could tell I was miserable, despite my attempts to make the best of things. I keep wondering what I did that was so bad they terminated me after two weeks. See, that morning they were talking about what I would do the next week, and telling me about the training I could expect. By lunch, it seemed that everyone was busy so I ate, then ran to the store for breath mints and snacks (because I have little self-restraint). By the time I got back from the store, it felt like I had been closed out, and I was puzzled, but not worried. Then when I clocked out, A said she wanted to see me in the conference room and the whole time I was going there, I wondered what I had done wrong. Then she immediately sat me down and said that I wasn't going to work out, I wasn't a good fit, here's the termination papers, please sign them. I read it over and asked if she could explain why I wasn't a good fit, and she looked startled and unhappy, like she just wanted the unpleasant chore over with. She said something about just not being what they were looking for, that my work was inconsistent, and she had a conference where they decided to terminate me. I still wonder who was in on that conference, since two of the people that supported my presence were out.

But it was also true that I didn't feel like I fit, and like there were several factions in the company. Like school, I refused to pick a side, and mayhap that was the ultimate decision. I didn't quietly fit into the mold they wanted me to choose, and that is what got me fired. Really, thinking about it now, I think it's fine. I really didn't like the vicious conversations, the rough talk they had, and the feeling that the company didn't trust their employees (because of this tally sheet that you had to account all of your time on in order to get paid). I certainly tried my best, and while I think maybe my strong personality was part of the problem, I don't think I should regret being myself.

So, I have been officially fired from a job! It's a new experience for me. ^.^; I know that my old job is looking for employees, but I don't really want to work in security anymore. I like new experiences, and while maybe this office setting didn't suit me, that doesn't mean that others wouldn't. So a part-time job is really what I want, and I don't think I'll really have to worry about that for a while.

Phew, I was right. Getting all of this out made me feel tons better. Thanks guys!

This song has been stuck in my head since I was fired: Wrecking Ball.

I am now an accountant! i.e. Office Lady, i.e. OL

:) Today was my second day at work. This essentially means: I go to bed at 10 p.m., wake up 6:45-7, get ready, leave at 7:15, get to work at 8, work til 9:45 and take a ten minute break, work til 11 and take an hour lunch break, work til 2:30, and take another ten minute break, and then get off at 5. Aaaaaaand repeat.

The good thing, is that I am getting up at 'decent' hours, sleeping at 'decent' hours, and meeting new people. The bad thing is, I'm gettin' up at a godawful hour, sleeping at little-kid level bedtime, and being intimidated by people either a. ignoring me politely, or b. talking to me so much I don't know what to say.
Example of b: I was talking to a beautiful woman who knew my name, my proficiency in Japanese, my background, and it seemed like, everything about me. Then I find she's R's sister, so it kind of makes sense. I go to take a nice long bathroom break, and SHE STARTS TALKING TO ME! While I'm IN the stall. She literally walks in (I didn't know she followed me), drops HER pants down a stall or two from me, and says "So Runa, what do you think of ______". The only thing that saved me? Someone with a very similar name to mine, lets say Ruma, was sitting in the stall between us. So she was also startled, but busted out "You mean me??" Which then devolved the conversation into "Oh, I didn't know there was someone else in the bathroom!" and some further conversation between them.

It shocked me in a ....semi-good way. I don't really like being followed around, but I DO like being able to talk to someone without feeling like I'm forcing my company on them. I kinda like being an OL because of how they're depicted in Japanese culture as well. ^.^ For reference, you could try Kimi wa Petto.

Another thing is, I think I'm allergic to something at the site. My eyes water, my head starts hurting, my throat gets clogged, it's difficult to breathe, and I KEEP heartburn. I wish all of that would go away. It would make for a much better experience overall.

Something else that sucks? I got a cold sore the day before I started. ;__; Painful, ugly, irritating, contagious thing guaranteed to make for awkward conversation. Apparently there's the occasional lunch thief when dealing with the office fridges. I'm excited! I wonder if anyone would take mine, since it's so obviously different from everyone else's.

It's a little strange to me that hubby comes home after me, most days. It means that when I start school, I won't be seeing him much at all. :( I suppose we'll work something out. We always do. It also seems to mean that I work all day and come home to cook dinner and clean the kitchen too. :/ I wouldn't mind if I were, you know, healthy and non-headache-filled. But headache + heartburn + 100 degree weather + hot stove = Very bitchy Runa. I'm hoping I can adjust to the headache and heartburn and they'll ease away.

I always have interesting dreams, but last night was super interesting. I dreamt I took a shower at my mom's place, which was once again also my place, and mom was attending school while I worked. I gave her tips on classes, and got out of the bathroom to find my little brother (they've almost got him 100% adopted) and Papa holding each other close while watching Nightmare Before Christmas 2. There is no such movie, btw, but I didn't know that. In this movie, Jack was being cradled in two real people's arms while he explained the horrors of being away from home. Meanwhile, the family's teenage daughter, abhorred by most as ugly, decides she'll be beautiful for him! So she starts putting on make-up to look like a skeleton. It was so very strange....

I think I'm done. Hubby should be home soon, and we're going out to eat, because I can't stand the idea of cooking tonight. :/

I tend to keep this song stuck in my head. You should listen. Then sing it. It's very..... therapeutic. :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMINJbxOdjI
This was pretty interesting. It's poetry, but not. He talks fast, so watch out for that. And it takes a turn for the very interesting about two minutes in. I liked it.
http://www.upworthy.com/when-this-guy-explains-why-women-wont-date-him-you-may-roll-your-eyes-but-2-minutes?g=2